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And then the fanwriters hit him with a semi. Just wait till they kiss.
"Shipping leads people to be very mean at totally awesome characters."
Akito: Uh, what's wrong with Yurika?
Megumi: Oh, it's nothing big, she's just been dumbed down into a vegetable barely capable of breathing on her own to facilitate us hooking up. Pretty standard fanfiction procedure, actually.
Amelia, Relena, Naru and Ayeka: Tell us about it!

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. The list goes on. More often, though, when Shipping comes into play, the character is hated for existing at all.

Hate shrines. Death Fics. 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. People who know nothing about the show or even the genre have heard just how much of the fandom hates the rival love interest.

The writer often claims some other justification for treating the character this way. But it's for a 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.

A subtrope of both Shipping and Alternate Character Interpretation, with a heaping helping of Fan Dumb thrown into the mix.

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

Examples

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  • Jimmy/Cindy shippers in Jimmy Neutron do not approve of the existence of Betty, or in some cases April.

    Real Life