History Main / AbandonShipping

* In the original ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}}'' series shipping the two leads, Ben and Gwen, was the main ship [[KissingCousins even if they were cousins]]. This could mainly be chalked up to them being the only children characters in the show.[[note]]Okay, there are other named kid characters, but the kid character with the most appearances after our leads (the villain Kevin 11) only appeared in five episodes in the original series, while others were lucky to get more than one.[[/note]] As more series were made, and characters introduced and given more regular screentime, many Bwen fans abandoned ship for other pairings. Oddly, ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10 Omniverse}}'' hurt the ship additionally because many fans [[ItChangedNowItSucks hated Gwen's new redesign]]. Nowadays, while still common, Ben/Gwen material makes up a significantly smaller amount of fanworks than it did in the late 2000s.

* ''Series/{{Friends}}'': In early seasons, Richard/Monica and Chandler/Kathy were pretty popular, but vanished almost the minute Monica popped up from under Chandler's covers and the entire fandom jumped on the Chandler/Monica ship which sailed strongly to the end of the series.

** Ana/Soldier: 76 was a pretty strong pairing due to Ana being second in command to Jack while he lead Overwatch and even in the present, they have one of the strongest friendships out of the entire cast. While there were a couple of revelations that caused the ship to crack, most notably the reveal that Pharah’s father was a Canadian First Nation and not Soldier: 76, the short story ''Bastat'' reveals that not only is Solder: 76 gay but still has feelings for his ex-boyfriend Vincent caused plenty of people to stop pairing the two.

* In the original ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}}'' series shipping the two leads, Ben and Gwen, was the main ship [[KissingCousins even if they were cousins]]. As more series were made, many Bwen fans abandoned ship for other ships. Oddly ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10 Omniverse}}'' killed the ship as well simply because many fans [[ItChangedNowItSucks hated Gwen's new redesign]]. Nowadays Ben/Gwen material makes a significantly smaller amount of fanworks than it did in the late 2000's,.

** Fans started shipping Harrow/Viren as soon as they were shown to have a very close relationship. Their introductory scene was Viren waking up Harrow who playfully said that he'd kill him if he continued to do so, and they continue behaving LikeAnOldMarriedCouple, helped by Viren's children's mother never been mentioned and Harrow being a widower. Many jumped ship quickly when Viren stepped up as the show's villain and described Harrow as a brother to him killed the ship to many.

** A lot of [[IncestYayShipping Dipper/Mabel]] fans abandoned Pinecest not because of anything defined in the series, but because they preferred other ships. Season 2 has more emphasis on characters like Wendy, Pacifica, Bill Cipher, and others to ship the twins with besides each other.

** During season 1 Rose/Pearl was an exceedingly popular pairing due to fans loving their relationship and how Pearl views Rose Quartz as TheLostLenore. It however lost a lot of shippers in season 2 when more was shown of their relationship, and it was revealed to be more unhealthy than originally perceived and possibly even unrequited on Pearl's part, which led to her being a ClingyJealousGirl and generally nasty towards Greg. It still has its fans but many moved onto other ships, especially Pearl and Mystery Girl. [[spoiler: It didn't help when it was revealed that Pearl originally spent several thousand years as Rose/Pink's ''servant''.]]

** An interesting variation is the effects that ''Korra'' has had on [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender the parent show]]'s [[FanPreferredCouple Tokka]] ship. When Toph's daughter Lin showed up, with no father mentioned, a lot of people wanted it to be Sokka; however, when it came out that Lin used to date Tenzin ([[KissingCousins Sokka's nephew]]), most fans abandoned the idea. However, when it turned out that Toph had ''another'' daughter with a ''different'' unknown father, the idea picked up again, though others reject the implication that Sokka would become a DisappearedDad (since he's known to have lived into Korra's lifetime).

** The Katara/Aang ship became the victim of bad writing in [[ComicBook/AvatarTheLastAirbenderThePromise The Promise]] but many believe things got ''even worse'' in WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra. WordOfGod states that the audience was "exaggerating" Aang's neglect and that Katara/Aang were indeed HappilyMarried but there is [[ShowDontTell nothing in the series itself to show this]]. Kya and Bumi were still angry after decades that [[ParentalFavoritism Aang took only his youngest child around the world]] while [[DisappearedDad leaving Katara all alone to rear the two elder ones]]; Katara underwent massive BadassDecay as she was now [[{{Chickification}} a passive housewife]] who [[NeutralFemale never protested against Aang's abandonment of them]] (and this is coming from a girl with serious [[ParentalAbandonment abandonment issues]]) as though she was somehow fine with her children being miserable. It felt as though Katara was forced to StayInTheKitchen despite spending her whole life fighting against this patriarchal system. Needless to say, [[InternetBackdraft fans were not pleased]].

** "Alone At Sea" caused Jasper/Lapis fans to jump off the ship in droves. The episode shows that the relationship is unhealthy for both Gems and that a relationship for them can't work at the current time. It doesn't help that the scene has them on a ''[[VisualPun literal]]'' sinking ship.

See ShipSinking for when the creators of a work introduce something into the canon of a work that is intended to stop the development of a pairing, to break up a pairing or to destroy any likelihood of that pairing becoming canon. ShipSinking is not at all guaranteed to cause Abandon Shipping though.

* Before the release of ''VideoGame/TalesOfBerseria'', Velvet Crowe and Laphicet had a strong shipping base due to being the female and male leads of the story respectively. Quite a few people jumped ship when it was revealed that Laphicet looks eerily like Velvet's younger brother, who had the same name, bringing up uncomfortable incest vibes. The few who stuck around for the ship after that revelation largely jumped when it was discovered that [[spoiler:the reason Laphicet looks so much like Velvet's brother is because [[StrongFamilyResemblance he's their nephew]].]]

** Mikan/Junko was a ship since the previous installment of the franchise, but [[spoiler:the fact that their relationship is portrayed as DomesticAbuse and Mikan was brainwashed at the time]] made it all go straight into FanDisservice and NightmareFuel territory and everybody dropped the ship.

** Out-of-universe, many Duncan/Courtney fans abandoned ship after Courtney became a [[JerkSue Jerk]]/[[VillainSue Villain]]/GodModeSue in ''[[SeasonalRot TDA]],'' most switching to Duncan/Gwen. Her personality improved in season three, but it didn't stop the D/G RelationshipUpgrade.

* In the original ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}}'' series shipping the two leads, Ben and Gwen, was the main ship [[KissingCousins even if they were cousins]]. As more series were made, many Bwen fans abandoned ship for other ships. Oddly ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10 Omniverse}}'' killed the ship as well simply because many fans [[ItChangedNowItSucks hated Gwen's new redesign]]. Nowadays Ben/Gwen material makes a significantly smaller amount of fanworks than it did in the late 2000's,

* While many fans of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' saw Urbosa and Zelda as having a platonic/familial bond right from the start, there was a somewhat sizeable fanbase who saw their overt closeness as LesYay. That fanbase shrunk considerably when ''The Champion's Ballad'' DLC was released and revealed that Urbosa was longtime friends with Zelda's late mother, confirming a quite large age-gap between her and the seventeen-year-old Zelda and heavily emphasizing her as a surrogate mother-figure. On the bright side, the DLC invented a new LesYay ship between Urbosa and Zelda's mother instead.

** Interestingly, a lot of people abandoned shipping Akito [[HoYayShipping with any of the guys]] once it was revealed that [[spoiler:he was actually a girl]], making it a rather interesting case of [[spoiler:HetIsEw]].

** In [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist 2003]] a lot of fans jumped off [[FoeYayShipping Envy/Ed]] when we learned [[spoiler:he and Edward are half-siblings.]] Though considering the fan bases love of [[spoiler:[[IncestYayShipping brotherly incest]]]] a lot of fans stood firm.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'': there were many who shipped [=Noctis/Iris=], thanks to their chemistry and Iris's crush on Noctis. Then it was revealed that Noctis is 20 and Iris was only 15, at which point the ship was largely sunk.
* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'':

* ''VideoGame/SpyroTheDragon'': Spyro and Elora were a pretty popular couple in the early days however, despite Elora being a ImpliedLoveInterest, with time it's become a rare ship (though the ''Reignited Trilogy'' helped boost support for it again). This occurred because Elora [[WhateverHappenedToTheMouse disappeared]] post-original trilogy. The series introduced more dragons afterwards, so people prefer to ship Spyro with Ember, Cynder, or Flame instead of going for the InterspeciesRomance route. There's also the fact Spyro is implied to be twelve while Elora seems a few years older.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' had the potential pairing between Blake Belladonna and her former White Fang partner (and leader of the group) Adam Taurus. Even though Adam hadn't been in the series outside of the "Black" trailer, people still held a candle for this pairing. That ship sank ''quickly'' come Vol. 3, Episode 11 "Heroes and Monsters", when [[spoiler:Adam, upon showing up, goes full {{Yandere}} on Blake, vowing to destroy everything she holds dear and starts by stabbing Blake in the stomach, [[AnArmAndALeg lopping off Yang Xiao Long's arm]], and then tries to decapitate Blake as she shields Yang.]] This holds further importance come Volume 4. Despite not having ''a single appearance outside hallucinations,'' Adam is further vilified as characters discover that he gave Yang PTSD, physically abused Blake off-camera prior to her abandoning him, is attempting to get the current Supreme Leader of the White Fang to join the villain cabal, and when that looked to fail, planned her death and usurpation... so he could launch a ''terrorist campaign.'' In the eyes of the FNDM, Adam has gone from BrokenBird {{Woobie}} to evil in the span of a year despite not ''being in the show.'' It's telling that Blake/Adam shipping changed its name, from [[PortmanteauCoupleName Tauradonna]] to [[spoiler:Animal Abuse]].

** During season 1 Rose/Pearl was an exceedingly popular pairing due to fans loving their relationship and how Pearl views Rose Quartz as TheLostLenore. It however lost a lot of shippers in season 2 when more was shown of their relationship, and it was revealed to be more unhealthy than originally perceived and possibly even unrequited on Pearl's part, which led to her being a ClingyJealousGirl and generally nasty towards Greg. It still has its fans but many moved onto other ships, especially Pearl and Mystery Girl.

** "Alone At Sea" caused Jasper/Lapis fans to jump off the ship in droves. The episode shows that the relationship is unhealthy for both gems and that a relationship for them can't work at the current time. It doesn't help that the scene has them on a ''[[VisualPun literal]]'' sinking ship.

** Many fans jumped the Keith/Shiro ship when it turned out that Shiro practically raised Keith when the latter was very young and for several years was his sole parental figure, having a relationship more akin to a father and son.

** The announcement that the character would undergo a GenderSwap for the Thirteenth Doctor resulted in some fans dropping their shipping aspirations as they couldn't reconcile having previously male, handsome incarnations of the Doctor, who since 2005 have been shown romantically pursuing female characters (either canonically or through ShippingGoggles), now a woman who may or may not now pursue romances with male characters. Writers of Male Doctor/Female Companion fan fiction and makers of related merchandise have noticed a marked decline in interest since the female incarnation of the Doctor was announced in July 2017. This is impacting all previous incarnations of the Doctor. The fact at least two of the Doctor's romances, River Song and Clara Oswald, each underwent a {{Retcon}} establishing them as bisexual as potential future-proofing against such an eventuality appears to have had little impact.

*** This also applies to Time Lord characters introduced as female and shipped with the Doctor and other male (and female) who now, it is implied, may become male at any point, most notably Romana.

** For those not into IncestYayShipping, the revelation that [[spoiler:Satsuki Kiryuin and Ryuko Matoi]] are (unknown to them for most of the series) siblings, combined with the revelation in an earlier episode that [[spoiler: their mother is an incestuous child molester]] effectively killed off the ship. On the other hand, others have actually ''embraced'' the ship even more after said revelation.

** For those not into IncestYayShipping, the revelation that [[spoiler:Satsuki Kiryuin and Ryuko Matoi]] are (unknown to them for most of the series) siblings effectively killed off the ship. On the other hand, others have actually ''embraced'' the ship even more after said revelation.

* ''VideoGame/SpyroTheDragon'': Spyro and Elora were a pretty popular couple in the early days however, despite Elora being a ImpliedLoveInterest, with time it's become a rare ship. Thi occurred because Elora [[WhateverHappenedToTheMouse disappeared]] post original trilogy. The series introduced more dragons afterwards, so people prefer to ship Spyro with Ember, Cynder, or Flame instead of going for the InterspeciesRomance route. There's also the fact Spyro is implied to be twelve while Elora seems a few years older.

* While many fans of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' saw Urbosa and Zelda as having a platonic/familial bond right from the start, there was a somewhat sizeable fanbase who saw their overt closeness as LesYay. That fanbase shrunk considerably when The Champion's Ballad DLC was released and revealed that Urbosa was longtime friends with Zelda's late mother, confirming a quite large age-gap between her and the seventeen-year-old Zelda and heavily emphasizing her as a surrogate mother-figure. On the bright side, the DLC invented a new LesYay ship between Urbosa and Zelda's mother instead.

** Based off the epilogue of the seventh book Scorpius Malfoy/Rose Granger-Weasley was the most popular "Next Generation" pairing. However following the release of ''Theatre/HarryPotterAndTheCursedChild'' - with four straight hours of a Scorpius/Albus Severus Potter bromance - a lot of fans have jumped ship. [[spoiler: Ironically, the last few minutes of the play did shoehorn in Scorpius liking Rose but fans have almost unanimously ignored it.]]

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