Die For Our Ship - Television Tropes & Idioms

And then the fanwriters hit him with a semi-trailer. Just wait till they actually kiss.

She's with the main character. People hate her just because she's with the main character.
— Dwayne McDuffie

Shipping leads people to be very mean at totally awesome characters.
— I Don't Like Your Girlfriend

Sometimes, a character is hated because he's annoying. Or because he came in after the show Jumped The Shark. Or because she's a raging Mary Sue and gets too much attention. Or because he's the replacement of a fan favorite. The list goes on. More often, though, when Shipping comes into play, the character is hated simply for existing at all.

Hate shrines. Death Fics, frequently with a side order of Revenge Fic. Fics where the formerly sweet and loyal character cheats on the heroine with her two best friends and proceeds to murder her teammates, just so she can be with the Jerk With A Heart Of Gold, or the Stalker With A Crush, her cousin, or even her brother, or whomever else the fan prefers. They're all over the place. Sometimes it gets so bad that even people who know nothing about the show or even the genre have heard about just how much of the fandom hates the rival love interest.

The fans (and the fanfic writers) in question often claim some other justification for treating the character this way, but it all boils down to one very clear reason: He or she dared to get in the way of their OTP.

Can we get a little MST3K Mantra here, please?

This is especially virulent when the 'ship the fans want is on the wrong side of Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends. Paradoxically, this character is as likely to actually be part of an Official Couple as not. Beware if you're a girl and people ship your male best friends as Yaoi Guys, or conversely, if you're a boy and you hang around girls while yuri fanboys are watching. Not all yaoi fangirls/yuri fanboys do this, but it's quite common; fans of heterosexual pairings, for whatever reason, only seem to strike when characters actually fall in love. Perhaps they get sick of Bait And Switch Lesbians.

All of the main characters in Unwanted Harem series run the risk of suffering this in order to rationalize an author's 'ship. The Unlucky Everydude will take the brunt of the hatred, with fans preferring alternatives like a Bad Ass Marty Stu or another member of the harem. The Cheryl Blossom is especially prone to eliciting Die For Our Ship responses from shippers, as shippers on both sides of a Love Triangle will often put aside their differences and unite against him or her.

The Clingy Jealous Girl is an odd example, as she usually loses but is given the same amount of hate from the fandom. Yamato Nadeshiko aren't free of bashing either, which increases a thousandfold if her love rival is deemed "cooler" or "less girly, therefore stronger" by female fans. Tsundere are vulnerable either way: if she's too tsuntsun she'll be called "Jerkass, man hater, wife/husband beater", and if she's too deredere she'll be seen as a victim of Chickification regardless of it truly happening or not.

One of the most unusual victim magnets is the Chaste Hero, whose simple non-information makes figuring things out mostly guesswork. Any bishonen, especially tough guys and the Ensemble Darkhorse, will also incite Ship To Ship Combat over whom he should be with, whether it be a Betty And Veronica in-series or a Mary Sue in a Self Insert Fic.

It isn't even restricted to fictional characters either: real-life celebrities' love interests have become targets of hate too!

This trope is the opposite of Draco In Leather Pants; here, a character's faults are exaggerated or created from whole cloth, while their virtues are either ignored or rationalized away. Revenge Fic is very common in this mindset. Ron The Death Eater is often a result of this. This isn't limited to the fanbase either; when the writer wants to get rid of a threat to the Official Couple in a similar way, they're Derailing Love Interests.

A subtrope of both Shipping and Alternate Character Interpretation, with a heaping helping of Fan Dumb thrown into the mix. Note: although many fans actually believe these types of theories, other fanfic writers may simply use this trope dispassionately as a plot device to enable an alternate pairing in a story.

Beware before you proceed, as the examples are sure to contain spoilers for whoever wins, or be prime Wallbanger material.

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