Dry Docking

That is, un-Shipping.

When fans are absolutely opposed to any canonical hookups by a certain character, because they harbor so much Perverse Sexual Lust that they insist on that character being "available" in their fantasies.

May lead to Die for Our Ship attitudes if there's a perceived chance that the character might hook up.

There is also a trend of pretend killing the Love Interest regardless of whether it's a Canon character or Original Character. Here is a good example (look in the reviews of the artwork, not the artwork itself or its summary).

Probably lies behind at least some instances of Self-Insert Fic. May lead to Fanon Discontinuity. Not really related to Dry Docked Ship, which is about fans believing that two characters were together, but only in the past rather than the present.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• More than one Hetalia: Axis Powers fan has admitted to shipping England with other characters so that they can have America all to themselves. Or wanting to be the one to make Russia feel better. Or pretending that Greece and/or Turkey aren't interested in Japan. And since virtually every APH character is the target of Perverse Sexual Lust for a number of fans, these cases are almost certainly not the only ones out there in the fandom.
• Pokémon: The Series: Some Team Rocket fangirls have developed crushes on James to the point where they'd sic their Mary Sues on Jessie in fanfic, either killing her or driving her into the arms of another man to get her out of the way so they could have James.
• Happens a lot in Soul Eater fanfic, usually with Kid and Dr. Stein fangirls.
• The reveal of Kayo getting married and having a kid with Hiromi near the end of ERASED was a major sore spot for fans, resulting in them often ignoring this part of the ending and keeping the pair single in rewrites.

Comic Books

• Wonder Woman is the poster child for this trope. Every attempt by writers to introduce a Love Interest for her - from traditional love interest Steve Trevor all the way up to Superman himself - results in backlash from the fanbase.

Film

• Note that the YKTTW was originally called "Stay Away From Jack Sparrow".
• Marvel Cinematic Universe: Loki. Once, Tom Hiddleston commented that he'd like to see comic character Amora added to the movie cast. He didn't particularly put a romantic angle on it (though some articles quoting him tried to add one), but there was still fan outrage.
• Frozen (2013): Elsa, and to a lesser extent, her younger sister Anna. You don't need to go far into the fandom to find fans proclaiming "Elsa/me OTP" and doing more disturbing things that...will not be discussed further here. Part of the reason for her adoration is the movie's long Development Hell and production leaks making her a long-awaited waifu of sorts for many fans. As she's also an icon for the LGBT Fanbase (especially the aromantic community) due to her story arcs resonating with those fans and the fact that she has no canonical love interest, any interactions she has with guys tend to be looked down upon.
• With An American Tail, those who can't stand the Tanya/Waul ship tend to rather keep Tanya single, possibly because she is never given a real love interest in any of the movies.
• Dark Shadows: One look at AO3 and Tumblr will show that a lot of the film's fandom refuse to pair Angelique with any character and instead prefer to write fanfics where she ends up with their Author Avatar. This is mainly due to the charisma Eva Green brings to the role.

Live-Action TV

• People of both sexes did not want Ross and Rachel on Friends to be together, so they could have that couple for themselves.
• The X-Files: Why do you think people were so happy that Mulder and Scully held out for so long?
• The Doctor Who fandom has "Stay away from the Doctor!", with a vocal contingent of fans who hate the idea of the Doctor being with anyone. Some make them available in a romantic sense but usually make them available in a distant, idol sense. For much of the series run, there was no romance or love interest for the Doctor, as it was a family show in a chaste era. This eventually meant people felt the Doctor was above love and sex and even got to the point where one writer introduced a non-sexual way for Time Lords to reproduce—by "spinning" a fully grown adult into existence by the use of "looms". When the show was revived, this—or at least parts of it—were disregarded when it was clear there were Time Lord children and infants.
• In MacGyver (1985), Nikki Carpenter (Shoo Out the New Guy of the series) was introduced as a possible love interest for Mac. However, the producers soon discovered that female fans did not want Mac to be permanently attached and Nikki was quietly Put on a Bus.
• Quantum Leap: Sam did not have a wife waiting for him in the event that he ever returned home. No, he didn't!
  • It doesn't help that in the last season he meets a female leaper that started as evil but has a heel face turn because of him and he even has a daughter with a woman when he leapt into her fiance's body while they were making love.
• Each of the trio from iCarly get this treatment. Nathan Kress especially, although Miranda Cosgrove and Jennette McCurdy get their fair share.
• For the first few seasons of Supernatural, a good number of fans were extremely against the idea of any female character displaying romantic interest in Sam or Dean or vice versa. Part of this was because some of these fans shipped the two brothers with each other, but part of this was this trope from fans who thought any form of romance would negatively affect the show's focus on the brothers' relationship or wanted Sam and/or Dean all to themselves. This attitude lessened over time after the show gained other recurring characters like the angels who became popular shipping options for the brothers, but to this day there still exists a vocal portion of Supernatural fans who remain staunchly against shipping Sam and Dean with anyone at all.
• Many Star Trek fans cannot abide by any sort of canonical shipping between characters. Some of the more controversial ones (often controversial because they weren't the ships some fans wanted) include:
  • Odo and Kira on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (fans expected Kira and Sisko)
  • Trip and T'Pol on Star Trek: Enterprise (fans expected Archer and T'Pol)
  • Chakotay and Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager (fans expected Janeway and Chakotay and the series itself spent a lot of time establishing Seven and The Doctor before pulling Abandon Ship).
  • Star Trek (2009): Definitely Spock and Uhura (some fans had been pushing for Kirk and Spock for decades)
• Victorious: Jade West has a legion of fangirls who refuse to ship her with anyone, canon or fanon, mainly so they can imagine/write fanfiction that pairs her with themselves. This happens with a lot of the other characters (mainly Cat, Tori, or Beck) as well, but Jade is the main target of this non-shipping.
• Wednesday: There exists a very large part of the fandom that refuses to ship Weems with any character, mainly a very large queer female fanbase that prefer to write fanfics where Weems ends up with them or some insert character.
• Abbott Elementary: One look at AO3 or Tumblr will show that a large part of the fandom refuses to ship Melissa with anyone, canon or fanon, mainly so they can imagine or write fics where they or a reader insert ends up with her.
• Fate: The Winx Saga: On sites like Tumblr and AO3, the headmistress of Alfea, Farah Dowling, has a large group of fans (both male and female) who refuse to ship her with anyone mainly so that they write fanfics where she ends up with their Author Avatar instead.
• Fallout (2024): A lot of fans online refuse to ship The Ghoul/Cooper Howard with anyone regardless of canon, so that they can imagine/write fanfics pairing them with themselves or their Author Avatars.

Video Games

• Advanced Variable Geo: You'd think an all-girl fighting game series about single hot waitresses would be a shipper's dream come true. Yet, aside from the Tamao/Yuka fan pairing, which is popular in Japan, shipping is virtually nonexistent among the fandom.
• This is somewhat inevitable in BioWare fandoms, considering the huge role Romance Sidequests play in their games, and players' often deep attachments to their created characters. Any suggestion that one of the canonical love interests hooks up with someone other than their own PC tends to drive certain people insane.
  • Dragon Age fandom is especially rife with this. Just a mere throwaway mention in a non-canonical Alternate Universe Dragon Age: Origins DLC that suggested Alistair and Leliana were rumored to be lovers in that timeline caused backlash from the rabid portion of Alistair fangirls, and to this day also sparks ire from Leliana fans who prefer her to be in a WLW relationship no matter what.
  • Similarly in Dragon Age II, Fenris and Isabela can develop a friends-with-benefits relationship in Act 3, provided that Hawke has shut down both their romances by that point (either by picking the broken heart option or by romancing Merrill/Anders/Sebastian instead). Needless to say, this led to a lot of hate for Isabela from certain crazed Fenris fans.
  • While it's only prevalent within the hardcore shippers of these Mass Effect pairings, there are people out there who are vehemently opposed to pairing Garrus, Tali, Thane, and Liara with anyone else besides Shepard (fitting the trope, as Shepard—male and female—is a vehicle for the player). Garrus and Tali actually do pair up in the Mass Effect 3 if both are still available; unsurprisingly, this gained both characters hate from certain fans of the other ship.
• The author of My Inner Life strongly opposed Link's hookups with any other girl in the series, relegating the girls to her personal servants and cheerleaders instead.
• It cannot be happenstance that Lara Croft has never had a notable love interest. The creators are probably well aware of fans wanting her for themselves.
• Given that the game allows players to pair their own Avatar with any one character (thus effectively making self-insert romance canon), the Fire Emblem: Awakening fandom is full of this. Chrom gets it the most out of any character, resulting in his various love interests (especially Sumia) being the biggest Die for Our Ship magnets in the fandom.
• Mortal Kombat character Kung Lao (especially his Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11 iterations) have recently been receiving this. Due to him in those two games being more attractive than his last iterations, Jade (his most popular female pairing) being paired with Kotal and also the excessive dog-piling he gets in MK11, his fangirl/boys have taken it upon themselves to ship themselves (or their OCs) with him. Heck, some take it a step forward and have themselves (or their character) have a kid with him, so that child can be put into the Kombat Kids.
• The Furry Fandom normally assumes that Fox McCloud is not taken and Krystal is definitely available. On the other hand, it isn't uncommon for the fandom to want Krystal out of the way so that Fox is available. There are a number of artists and authors who take the Star Fox Command route and put Krystal and Panther Caroso together so that Fox is single once again and on the rebound to boot.
• Team Fortress 2 misfired this. After Expiration Date hinted at a budding relationship between the Scout and Miss Pauling (though with Scout being much more interested in her than her in him), a fan yelled out to one of the writers on Twitter: "better not make Scout x Miss Pauling canon bc she's MINE". Said writer then completely flipped Scout's (and the fans') chances by revealing Pauling is actually a lesbian.
  • Unfortunately for the writer, though, Valve doesn't agree and has her shifting between Ship Tease with Scout and being asexual.
• A not-insignificant portion of Undertale fandom wants Sans shipped with only themselves. The most popular relationship tag for Undertale fics on AO3 is Sans/Reader, which says it all.

Web Animation

• RWBY: Many fans don't ship Ruby's parents Taiyang and Summer together, preferring Summer with Qrow. In such fics, Ruby is often depicted as being Qrow's daughter, with Taiyang acting as either her step-father or adopted father. This was actually a popular fan theory early in the show's run due to how little Ruby resembles her father Taiyang while having a stronger bond and taking more cues in fighting style and dress from Qrow, though it would be explicitly jossed on several instances. At the bare minimum, even fics that have nothing to do with the pairing will often imply that Qrow at least had an unrequited love for Summer, if they weren't exes.

Webcomics

• Lora Innes, the creator of The Dreamer, probably left Nathan Hale single precisely because of this.

Western Animation

• Daria: Back in the day there were a lot of fans opposed to Daria getting into a relationship, feeling that it would undermine her status as a strong, unique female character. It doesn't help that her main love interest Tom is kind of The Scrappy for most fans, and that their relationship really was developed kind of awkwardly.
• An In-Universe example occurs in Steven Universe: Peridot is obsessed with Show Within a Show Camp Pining Hearts, and opposes the relationship between Pierre and Paulette. And Paulette's existence in general.
• This is part the reason Flash Sentry gets a lot of flak in My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, as his role of being Twilight Sparkle's love interest set some fans on fire, going as far as calling Flash the "Waifu Stealer."
• The series finale of The Lion Guard showed that Rani became Kion's queen when he stepped up to be with her in the Night Pride. Fans who shipped him with other characters up to that point were not pleased.

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