With love triangles and super couples being a major point of focus, soaps are the source of some of the most heated shipping wars in existence. The most notorious examples of this are:
Passions: The shipping war between Sheridan/Luis and Fancy/Luis can get very heated.
If you suggest that Angel is Buffy's one true love and their relationship is tragic and believable compared to the Masochism Tango of Spike and Buffy, the Spuffy shippers will hit you. If you suggest that Spike is Buffy's true love and their relationship was gritty and realistic compared to the hopeless and boring idealism of Buffy/Angel, the Bangel shippers will hit you. Joss Whedon may have reignited the war in 2016 by telling an interviewer that while Buffy/Angel would always be the Official Couple, he personally preferred her with Spike.
If you suggest that Angel and Spike had no interest in Buffy at all, except for fighting over her because Angel and Spike are really in love with each other, the Buffy/Angel and Buffy/Spike shippers will hit you. If you suggest that neither Spike nor Angel had interest in each other and they both love Buffy more than anything else in the universe, the Angel/Spike shippers will hit you.
If you admit to shipping anyone with Riley Finn, everyone will hit you, with the obvious exception of Riley/Xander, which is just common sense — in the comics Xander even admits to being a Team Riley shipper, which makes sense for his character.
Funnily enough, averted with Willow/Tara vs Willow/Oz shippers who generally tend to get along just fine — thanks to their mutual hate of the Willow/Kennedy shippers, that is (yes, all 14 of them). There's also the fact that Oz and Tara are possibly the two characters in the fandom who are the least hated. Granted, both received their fair share of vitriol in the early days (especially Tara), but nowadays, they are almost universally-adored by all fans.
It's probably not wise to bring up Buffy's name when there are Angel/Cordelia shippers about. Nina doesn't fare much better — not since Cordelia was effectively Put on a Bus.
In The Vampire Diaries fandom, there was always an intense rivalry between Stefan/Elena (Stelena) shippers and Damon/Elena (Delena) shippers. It seems that when Damon/Elena became the Official Couple of the series in season 4, it became even more intense. Sometimes the shipper wars between Stelena and Delena fans often turn into Salvatore brother wars, with Stefan fans sparring with Damon fans. As the series draws closer to the end, this particular shipping war predominately mellowed with the introduction of Damon/Elena and Stefan/Caroline as likely endgame.
Another shipper war taking place in the fandom is Tyler/Caroline (Forwood) shippers vs. Klaus/Caroline (Klaroline) shippers. Forwood shippers seem to be the less vocal fan base while the Klaroline fan base seems to be the more vocal fan base.
In season 4, there was a minor shipper war between Stefan/Elena fans and Stefan/Rebekah fans. Throw in Stefan/Klaus and Stefan/Caroline fans as well into the war.
As of season six, there's a very intense and heated rivalry between Stefan/Caroline fans and Stefan/Elena fans. Although, there are still those pesky and disgruntled Stefan/Katherine and even Stefan/Rebekah fans who don't want Stefan to be with either Elena or Caroline. Adding onto the Stelena vs. Steroline shipper war, there's also a division between those who ship Steroline platonically and those who ship Steroline romantically as well as people who want Caroline to end up with Enzo, Klaus, or Tyler instead of Stefan.
There's also a shipper war brewing between Damon/Elena fans and Damon/Bonnie fans (not as intense as the SE and SC ship war though).
A shipper war is beginning to brew between those who ship Damon/Bonnie (Bamon) and those who ship Kai/Bonnie (BonKai).
Not to the extent of its parent series, but the fandom still gets in a few shipping wars. These mainly happen between Hope/Landon shippers and Hope/Josie shippers. The two sides will often come to blows when the question of whom Hope should end up with comes up. Hope/Landon shippers will often point out that the show is built around the pair's bond, while Josie and Hope's crushes on each other are very much in the past, and in the present, they have a more sister-like bond. Hope/Josie shippers will often point to their actresses' approval as the reason that their ship should be endgame, while portraying Landon as a toxic influence on Hope, who constantly gives up on her.
Hope/Josie and Hope/Lizzie shippers tend to get into huge debates over which of the twins deserve Hope more, often ignoring Hope already having a canon love interest, Landon. Hope/Josie shippers like to point out that there is no evidence that Lizzie is even into girls, while painting Lizzie as a Jerkass who is needlessly cruel to Hope and often minimizing or outright ignoring Lizzie's legit mental issues to paint her as worse than she is. Meanwhile, Hope/Lizzie shippers will try to paint Josie as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, taking every wrong thing she does as painting her as abusive to both Hope and Lizzie, ignoring the times she has put both of them above her wellbeing and happiness. Hope/Lizzie shippers will also often feud with Hope/Landon shippers, portraying him as a toxic influence for Lizzie to save Hope from.
Things get real ugly between Bellarke shippers and Clexa shippers. Bellamy/Clarke is the canon ship in the novel, but Clarke/Lexa is the canon ship in the television show. To add even more to this mess, Clarke and Lexa are both women which means that their shipping opponents (usually "Bellarkers") get accused of homophobia. And yet, the two camps appear to ignore that the producers of the television show and the writer of the novel have had gone on record, multiple times, that the show and book are two totally different matters. What is canon in one isn't in the other. The war temporarily died down when Lexa was killed off and it looked like Bellarke shippers had won... until Bellamy died at the hands of Clarke and the series finale stated that Lexa was Clarke's greatest love after all. As you can imagine, Bellarkers did not take these newer developments well. At all.
It wasn't just Clexa shippers that the Bellarkers feuded with, either; Bellarkers also went to war against the "Braven" (Bellamy/Raven) and "Becho" (Bellamy/Echo) camps.
9-1-1: Buck and Eddie-related ships become an ugly warzone because both of them are the only two main characters who haven't had a conclusive love interest for five (four for Eddie) seasons. note Bobby and Athena get married in Season 2 finale, Chimney and Maddie starts dating each other in the same episode and have a child in Season 3 finale, Hen is already married to Karen for years from the first episode, and the show makes a good distiction on why the "rivals" of these established couples are not good relationships leaving no doubt that the three pairings are meant to be together so no ship wars for them. However, a lot of these combats mostly involve those who ship Buck and Eddie with each other (Buddie). Non Buddie shippers usually accuse shippers of fetishizing two attractive men, exaggerating close bonds between two men as something romantic, and saying Buck and Eddie are better off as friendship which is something rare. Meanwhile, Buddie shippers usually retaliate by saying that male friendhip is the most common trope in media that saying it's rare is a flimsy excuse for homophobia and both of them receive too much scenes that are usually given to slowburn couples for the two to be platonic. note For reference, Buck clawing through mud when Eddie gets buried in a well is a reminicense of Chenford and Booth x Brennan, Eddie's shooting is a reminiscense of Caskett and Booth x Brennan again etc etc.
The most infamous example of this is fights between Buddie and BuckTaylor. BuckTaylor use the fetishizing argument and accusing Buddie shippers for hating on female characters who get close to Buck or Eddie for no reason other than shipping, while Buddie shippers usually use Taylor's lack of redeeming moment after trying to publish recording of Boddy almost jumping from the roof because of spiked brownies, an excessive focus in later seasons, different morality with Buck, and eventual poorly written cheating drama that ends up nowhere as arguments why they shouldn't be together. This is pretty "normal," but Megan West liking a couple of Buddie-related tweets until the episode where Buck and Taylor got together and interacting with loud BuckTaylor minorities who made fun of Christopher just because he's Eddie's son make Buddie fans hate Megan for indirectly tricking the fandom and not stopping her fans' terrible attitude while outsiders see it as an unnecessary act on hating the actress because of a ship war. It's safe to say that BuckTaylor fans did NOT take it well when Buck and Taylor broke up at Season 5 finale, claiming a retcon, the show succumbing to agressive shippers, and terrible writing for female characters.
While it's not as big, Buddie shippers and Tarlos shippers from the spinoff 9-1-1: Lone Star sometimes do not get along with each other. Buddie shippers are angry at Tim Minear, the executive producer, because making Tarlos a white x latino couple looks like a not-so-subtle way for him to confirm that Buck and Eddie won't end up together so he created a white x latino couple as a compromise but lacks what makes Buck and Eddie special for them. Meanwhile, Tarlos shippers hate that Buddie shippers make a gay couple with different personalities and background about Buddie and the lack of support they give to an actual gay couple on the show aside from the fetishizing argument. Both of them getting several directorial decision similarities when Lone Star enters its third season only fuels the flames.
Ahsoka may as well be called Everybody Wants the Mandalorian in shipping: Wolfwren (Shin+Sabine) fans have a rivalry with Sabezra, Ahsbine and Ketbine fans. In canon, Sabine has not yet shown romantic-level feelings for anyone — which gives rise to a third side of fans who are against shipping Sabine with anyone at all, seeing her as asexual and/or aromantic. Basically, who the Deuteragonist ends up with is Serious Business.
The A-Team has had near-constant conflict between two primary ships - Hannibal/Face and Murdock/Face. While all out ship wars aren’t the norm for this fandom, fans are still extremely defensive about their OTPs, with a simmering Cold War of sorts stretching back to the mid-80s. The argument, however, usually seems to be mostly concerned with who Face happens to be sleeping with on the team. Both camps tend to cite a plethora of examples from episodes as to which ship is better supported by canon, despite the fact that the show contains roughly equal amounts of unintentional innuendo from Hannibal, and inappropriate touching by Murdock. Murdock/Face, however, typically wins out as most popular.
This problem has been further compounded by the 2010 movie, which most new fans claim more heavily supports Hannibal/Face, or even B.A./Face or Sosa/Face (gasp!), over Murdock/Face, leading to tensions with the old fans of the show.
Some fans choose to bypass this conversation altogether, and go for a Hannibal/B.A./Murdock/Face ship instead, although this, again, is more common in the movie fandom.
Even a relatively obscure fandom like The Addams Family isn't safe. A ship war that began with the advent of the Broadway musical pits Wednesday's adolescent crush Joel (from the second movie) against her fiance Lucas (from the musical). The factions might as well be re-named "Those Who Haven't Seen The Musical" and "Those Who Have" respectively.
The shipping scene started out fairly peaceful with with Oliver/Felicity and Oliver/Sara shippers generally cool with each other and united in their dislike of the Oliver/Laurel pairing. That being said, smaller segments of all groups (with the pro-Felicity and anti-Laurel contingent in the lead) could still get rather nasty at times.
Eventually, the Felicity/Oliver pairing got so popular that it was made canon in Season 3. By Season 4, however, "Olicity" had largely fallen out of favour because of how poorly it was handled: Because of all the relationship drama, Felicity had lost the cute and charming nature that made her so popular in the first place while Oliver became increasingly more of a Designated Hero. Laurel, by contrast, got Rescued from the Scrappy Heap for a large part of the fanbase, meaning their ship gained a small following again, that only kept growing as Laurel became the Cool Big Sis of the group while Felicity and Oliver only went through more relationship drama. After Laurel was killed off to fulfill the "who's in the grave"-arc, a large part of the fanbase vocally wished that it had been Felicity instead.
The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica had some serious Anders/Starbuck vs. Lee/Starbuck wars. Apparently there were a lot of fanfics that depicted Anders being unfaithful to Starbuck whereas in the show, it was the other way. Thankfully most people abandoned it after the obnoxious love square of Season 3 in favor of the more solid and certainly more pleasant Roslin/Adama relationship.
The Big Bang Theory fans argue whether Penny should be dating Leonard or Sheldon. A third faction insists that both pairings detract from the quality of the show. However, since the (majority of) the fans try to maintain a level of civility, it's more of a Cold War than an all-out firefight. Ultimately, Leonard/Penny fans won out in canon over Sheldon/Penny fans.
Black Sails: While shippers usually have a preference for Flint/Thomas or Flint/Silver, most can either tolerate the other pairing or simply ship both, made easier by the fact that Flint knew them at different times in his life. (Some fans have even jumped on Flint/Thomas/Silver as a One True Threesome despite Thomas and Silver never meeting.) A small number of shippers are still combative about which pairing is better, however, with Flint/Thomas shippers eager to point out that their ship is canon with a bittersweet Happily Ever After. Flint/Silver fans, on the other hand, argue that their ship was far more fleshed out because Silver wasn't presumed dead for most of the series, and that a large part of the show's plot was dedicated to their developing relationship (romantic or otherwise.) The ambiguous nature of Flint's relationship with Miranda and the third-season introduction of Madi as a love interest for Silver only complicates matters further.
Do not try to argue in favor of Brennan/Sully to a Booth/Brennan shipper. Ditto Booth/Cam, as she got a lot of hate during the brief period they dated onscreen. And Booth/Hannah as well.
Aubrey has a little bit of conflict between Aubrey/Jessica and Aubrey/Karen shippers. Aubrey was set up with Karen at the series’ end after dating Jessica previously.
An in-universe example occurs in Community episode Pascal's Triangle Revisited between "Team Britta" and "Team Slater". Out of universe, Jeff/Slater had almost no support, while Jeff/Britta didn't really have much more. The most popular ship by miles was Jeff/Annie, with the (distant) second place being Annie/Abed.
Usually averted in Criminal Minds fandom, largely due to the fact that since Haley Hotchner was killed there are precisely no canon ships to get invested in. The conflict is, instead, between those who want ships in canon and those who don't. However, a scene or two that appeared to hint about something shippy possibly developing between Reid and Ashley Seaver at some point in the future galvanised a certain Anti-Ship Combat from those who specifically didn't want that ship happening.
CSI had conflict over Grissom/Sara, mainly from Grissom/Catherine, Sara/Nick and Sara/Greg at the beginning, but Grissom/Catherine sort of tapered off afterwards. Following this, the shipping scene never narrowed down into one ship against another, it was more another 'many ships against one' thing.
It was more of a case of "many ships against one ship" with the Danny/Lindsay ship (Danny/Flack, Danny/Angel, Danny/Rikki, and Danny/anyone-but-Lindsay vs. Danny/Lindsay). Claims of no chemistry, lack of believability, excessive screentime, were among the arguments flung against Danny/Lindsay by the anti-D/L faction, compounded by their general dislike for Lindsay as a character.
Mac is also in the middle of this, with Mac/Jo vs. Mac/Stella vs. Mac/Christine vs. Mac remaining single, eternally mourning Claire. Mac/Peyton is the exception because Peyton is generally regarded as The Scrappy. There is a Mac/Lindsay faction, plus the inevitable slash ships, but the four originally mentioned groups are the primary combatants.
Degrassi: The Next Generation Season 9 movie seemed to spark this, as the canon pairing became Spinner/Emma which annoyed all Sean/Emma and Spinner/Jane fans. Before that, there was Sean/Emma vs. Sean/Ellie, Sean/Ellie vs. Craig/Ellie, Craig/'female character' vs. Craig/'female character' vs. Craig/'Male character', Declan/Holly J vs. Spinner/Holly J, Declan/Holly J vs. Declan/Clare, Eli/Clare vs. K.C./Clare vs. Declan/Clare vs. Jenna/Clare...
And let's not forget how much ship-to-ship combat Sean/Emma went through before that. Chick Magnet boyfriend + Creator's Pet girlfriend = lots of people shipping Sean/anyone but Emma. To wit, Sean has been paired with Emma, Ashley, Ellie, and Amy in canon; in fanfic, this includes Paige, Manny, Craig, Tracker, and Jay.
Rose vs. Martha vs. River debates get very heated, with unfavorable comparisons made to almost every party involved — some fans are actually capable of arguing that other than the Doctor's true love, all other companions are disposable to him. At large, whenever finding any post at all that discusses the Doctor's love life, be prepared to endure some heavy fire.
Of course, there are all of the people who think that the Doctor is asexual, never mind that there was a one shot Love Interest as early as in the episode "The Aztecs" in first season ever back in 1963 and the Third Doctor showed undisguised (if unrequited) interest in Jo Grant in the early 1970s. The base-obliterating decision to Gender Swap the Doctor in 2017 could also be an example, depending on who you talk to. Some fans ignore both sides of the conflict, and proclaim that the Doctor is simply bisexual.
There have also been a few arguments between fans of Nine/Rose and Ten/Rose (even Eleven/Rose).
Many fans ship Doctor/Companion no matter what, with anyone suggesting otherwise getting huge flak. Mickey Smith, Joan Redfern (to a small degree), River Song, and Rory Williams are often victims of this, along with any companion who is not Rose.
As of Series Nine there are already some rumblings between Twelve/Missy and Twelve/Clara shippers. The actual on-screen content suggests that Moffat is following Davies in viewing Doctor/Master as the show's actual eternal OTP.
There are often fights between shippers of Whouffle or Whouffaldi (Doctor/Clara) and Yowzah (Doctor/River), over the Doctor's 11th and 12th incarnations. This was cranked up when River Song, despite having been Back for the DeadandPut on a BusandKilled Off for Real in Series 7, suddenly returned in the 2015 Christmas Special, "The Husbands of River Song", which resulted in a romantic interlude with her husband, the Twelfth Doctor. Which was all fine if not for the fact said episode aired three weeks after the conclusion of an epic and tragic romance - that had played out since River's apparent fadeout - between the Doctor (Eleventh and Twelfth) and Clara Oswald. Coupled with ageism from those who felt that it was more appropriate for 50-something Peter Capaldi to romance 50-something Alex Kingston on screen than late-20s Jenna Coleman, and a bit of speciesism given that River is said to be half Time-Lord and long-lived, whereas Clara was merely human, with a regular life span (well, until the Doctor made her immortal, at least). Not only did the two rival ships' fans go to full-scale war over who the Doctor loved more, this carried over for a full year and beyond when the 2016 Christmas special invoked River, not Clara. (Despite this being due to the fact the show established that the Doctor had undergone a voluntary Mind Rape and lost all memory of having been in love with Clara, and both the 2015 and 2016 specials containing subtle hints that Clara's influence carried over into the Doctor's interactions with and regarding River.) The announcement that the series was going to Gender Swap the Thirteenth Doctor appears to have little impact, given that both River and Clara (as Oswin) were established as having attractions to women in the very first episodes they appeared in. Twelve's swansong only fanned the flames when River was omitted totally and the last person the Doctor saw before he underwent his Gender Swap was Clara, his memories fully restored of her at the end.
All one has to say is 'The Ray Wars' and Due South fans wince: in the show's heyday there was vicious debate on which Ray lead character Fraser should be paired up with: his first partner Ray Vecchio, or Ray Kowalski, who posed as Vecchio while the real Vecchio was undercover. The divide got so bad some fansites and mailing lists would only let people join if they shipped their pairing of choice, leaving those that swung both Rays, didn't care about shipping, Ray/Ray shippers and One True Threesome shippers out in the cold. Not helping matters was the finale, which saw Vecchio run off with Kowalski's ex-wife, and Kowalski sled off into the sunset with Fraser, nor that there was an alternate unfilmed ending that saw Fraser return to Canada alone and the two Rays working together, which fans have argued would not have escalated the Ray Wars as much as the canon ending did. These days, the wars have mostly reached a stalemate and the two sides maintain at least cordial relations.
Faking It, which - ignoring Liam - is determinedly pitting the Karmy Army against the Reamy Navy.
Firefly shippers of River/Mal and River/Jayne are locked solidly at each others' throats, if only because both of them have about the exact same amount of canon support for their respective ships, and it's probably a good idea to keep both sides isolated from the River/Simon shippers.
For that matter, the Simon/Kaylee and Jayne/Kaylee shippers don't really see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. Can't imagine why.
Suggesting that Nandi might have been better for Mal than Inara tends to really annoy the Mal/Inara shippers.
And once you add Ship Mates into the mix, the whole thing escalates into a full scale war between the Mal/Inara-Simon/Kaylee-Jayne/River alliance and the Mal/River-Jayne/Kaylee-Simon/Inara faction. And that's without even getting into the rivalries between popular slash pairings like Mal/Simon and Jayne/Simon or River/Kaylee and Inara/Kaylee.
If you ship Simon/Inara, Jayne/Kaylee and Mal/Zoe, the Jayne and Wash fangirls will hunt you down.
Strangely enough, if you ship Wash/Zoe you're safe from all sides. Probably because they were the only canon ship prior to the Simon/Kaylee Relationship Upgrade in the movie,and Joss gave them very lovely scenes together which left a lot of viewers pleased with that ship. That said, it might be a good idea not to bring up shipping Zoe after the movie, where you get Mal/Zoe and Jayne/Zoe from time to time. Plus a contingent that sees her as staying solo after the loss.
Forever Knight has had 15 Ship Wars as of 2020 and each take place as a virtual convention in Fan Fiction format on the fandom's main list, http://forkni-l.psu.edu. There are several "factions", grouped by favorite character or ships of said characters, and each factions name refers to those groups. "Knighties", for example, are fans of Nick Knight, the main character, "Cousins" are fans of "Uncle" Lucien La Croix, the Nick&Nat Pack are those that ship Nick and Natalie, and so on. The authors write for themselves and each faction writes for its character of focus. Each of these wars are meant to be fun, there is very little serious Die for Our Ship.
Friends' final seasons had Ross/Rachel versus Joey/Rachel with Ross and Rachel fans citing the nine years of history between them, and Joey and Rachel fans arguing their personalities were more compatible. Most fans just rolled their eyes, tired of Rachel's romantic entanglements. There are still arguments today but they're pretty mild considering Ross/Rachel were end game (as most fans expected) and the Joey/Rachel relationship faded into non-existence. There's also a (pretty civil) debate about whether Phoebe should have chosen Mike, David, or Joey.
One of the oddest ship wars took place between Ross/Rachel and Monica/Chandler. From Season 5 onward, fans argued over not who belonged together (both pairings worked separately) but which couple was "better". Ross/Rachel fans again armed themselves with history, their super couple status, Will They or Won't They? plotlines, their illegitimate baby, marriage (...and divorce) and endless pining. Monica/Chandler fans pointed out their couple actually made each other happy and stayed together.
In an interesting case of Incest Yay Shipping by both sides, there was a clash between shippers of Jonerys (Jon/Daenerys), which became canon, and shippers of Jonsa (Jon/Sansa). This Ship to Ship Combat was realized during the later seasons of the show when storylines started merging: Jon and Sansa’s storylines converged in Season 6 upon them being the first of their family to reunite in years, whereupon supporters of Jonsa hoped they'd develop into something more, and then, in Season 7, Jon and Daenerys met and eventually fell in love, with supporters of Jonerys hoping for marriage and kids. Jonerys and Jonsa shippers argued over a variety of points, including which of their ships is more incestuous but when it came down to it, both involved biological blood ties. Of course, either way, incest isn't new in noble houses of the Seven Kingdoms. Jon and Daenerys were initially unaware he was the son of Daenerys’s older brother Rhaegar Targaryen when they acted on their feelings for each other. Meanwhile, Jon and Sansa had a familial relationship, viewing one other as half-siblings, though they are cousins through Jon’s mother and Sansa’s aunt Lyanna Stark.
In Season 8, neither Jonerys or Jonsa wonnote Jon's parentage complicated the romance between himself and Daenerys when they eventually learned the truth of his hidden identity. While they loved one another, Jon was uneasy with their incest and Dany feared others would press Jon's unwanted claim to the Iron Throne over her own. In addition to a series of losses and grief, this led into Dany's Sanity Slippage — she undergoes a Face–Heel Turn and became Westeros's greatest threat, forcing Jon to reluctantly kill her and she died in his arms as he grieved. Meanwhile, Sansa did survive the series and become Queen in the North — but rules alone as her family members go in different directions (Bran becomes King of the Six Kingdoms, Arya sails west of Westeros, and Jon is exiled). — Jonerys ends in tragedy while Jonsa doesn't develop into romance. Jonerys fans clash with Jonsa fans, arguing Sansa had a hand in driving Dany nuts by telling Tyrion of Jon's parentage — despite Jon having sworn Sansa to secrecy about his true identity. Jonsa fans argue that even without Sansa's interference, Daenerys always had tyrannical tendencies and this is why much of Westeros wouldn't have followed her, opting they would have preferred Jon in any case. Fans of each ship continue to clash: arguing over which character is to blame, reasons why, and speculate what might happen after the end with each ship, and think up alternative-universe scenarios in which things had gone a different way.
In the Gilligan's Island fandom, as mentioned in the main page's quote, there's severe rivalry over who Mary Ann belongs with—Gilligan or the Professor. With Ginger, there isn't as much—Mary Ann/Gilligan shippers often favor Professor/Ginger, while Mary Ann/Professor ones may opt for Ginger/Skipper or Ginger/Gilligan.
Riley/Lucas was fairly popular, but the second season had them realize they're Better as Friends, dividing fans between those who hoped they would still get together in the end and those who thought them becoming endgame was unlikely and that Lucas/Maya would triumph instead. Even though the ships were finally decided in-show as of "Girl Meets the Ski Lodge Part 2" with Rucas (Riley and Lucas) and Joshaya (Josh and Maya).
Maya is at the heart of a lot of shipping-related Fan Wank due to being shipped with Lucas, Joshua, Farkle andRiley.
Farkle/Riley has quite a bit of support, but some Lucas/Maya fans only ship it to Pair the Spares, especially where Farkle is concerned.
The Ho Yay fans just want Riley/Maya to be canon both out of love for the ship and for wanting Disney to send a positive, pro-gay message via the ship.
Gilmore Girls: Despite the majority of the fandom preferring Jess/Rory, the fandom still bickers over who is the right boyfriend for Rory Gilmore. And when Buzzfeed weighed in with their support for Rory/Logan, the comments predictably started fighting over which of the three boyfriends were the best for Rory.
Good Lord, where to begin? Thanks to the Love Dodecahedron nature of the show, any given character will have a fair number of onscreen relationships (both actual romances and subtext). ALL of which have their diehard supporters who will raise hell if their favorite pairing is broken up (or never started at all in the case of subtext). A particularly nasty ship war that comes to mind was in the second season between Brittany/Santana and Brittany/Artie, complete with accusations of But Not Too Gay for making Brittany date a boy, But Not Too Bi for making her stay with Santana in the end, and Unfortunate Implications for how Santana convinced Brittany to cheat on Artie with her, and whether or not Artie was justified in lashing out at Brittany which caused her to break up with him. This is but one example of the bitchfights between shippers. The forum battles get epic.
Finn/Rachel shippers and Quinn/Rachel shippers would often into fights with each other over who Rachel should have ended up with while the earlier seasons were airing, and some still do to this day. Finn/Rachel shippers would often use the facts that their actors were dating at the time and that the early seasons were built around their dynamic, while also pointing out that Quinn was nothing but rude to Rachel for much of the first two seasons as reasons they should stay together. Meanwhile, Quinn/Rachel shippers like to point to the chemistry between their actors and their growing relationship in season 3 as reasons they make more sense than the former, while also portraying Finn as far more selfish than he actually was. Both sides have also been known to get into fights with Jesse/Rachel shippers as well, due to those two getting married.
Gossip Girl fandom is split between Chuck/Blair fans versus Dan/Blair fans. This ship war largely centers over perception of Chuck and whether he is a Jerkass or a Woobie after he (among other things) traded Blair for a hotel (yes this was a plot) and had a few Crazy Jealous Guy moments but also a possible redemption arc, depending who you ask. Another key issue is that Chuck and Blair are considered by fans Birds of a Feather and High-School Sweethearts in a Duel of Seduction. Dan and Blair, by contrast, are considered by fans as a Slap-Slap-Kiss and Uptown Girl storyline with Witty Banter.
Less vocal are other smaller shipwars like Nate/Serena vs. Dan/Serena (both couples are High-School Sweethearts) and Nate/Serena vs. Nate/Jenny. The Blair pairings, however, seem to be the most popular in the fandom.
As of the finale, Blair and Chuck and Dan and Serena each got married with Nate and Jenny single (leading writers to Pair the Spares).
Hannibal: The initial shipping conflict was Hannigram vs. Hannibal/Clarice, but it quickly became a one-sided battle since most of the Hannibal/Will faction had never even heard of the earlier ship, much less felt any need to fight over it, while the NMSL crowd could get, um, zealous. There was also some friction between Hannigram and Hannibloom shippers, but the shipping wars are pretty much dead now with Word of God confirming that Hannibal and Will were in love (in a very twisted way) and the vast majority of Hannibal fandom supporting that ship nowadays.
While not as severe as many examples, there is tension in the Heroes fandom between Mohinder/Sylar shippers and Mohinder/Matt shippers, Peter/Claire and Sylar/Claire shippers, and Sylar/Claire and Sylar/Elle shippers.
Not extremely intense in Highlander but Duncan/Amanda vs the portion of the fans that like Duncan/Methos paired and some who liked Tessa and think no one can compare. Anne is an exception, many didn’t like her at all, and the less said about Duncan/Kate in Highlander: Endgame the better.
In the Hollyoaks fandom, there is the Stendan vs. Stug war which raged on to disturbing levels, where even side ships that didn't take place (Bruglas shippers) got attacked. Now that Stendan has won, but Brendan has gone off to prison for the foreseeable and Stug has been pronounced dead (regardless of being married still), the Stendan shippers have turned their hate to anything Doug related, which is his new pairing with John Paul, which sees the end of McDean and who knows when this will end.
Horatio Hornblower: There are two very popular slash pairings in the fandom: Horatio Hornblower/Archie Kennedy (Heterosexual Life-Partners in the first two installments) and Horatio Hornblower/ William Bush (Hornblower's only friend and first mate from the third series). The former pairing is sometimes called "Indy Husbands",note they served together aboard Indifatigable while the latter pairing is called "Hotspur Husbands.note after Hornblower's ship Hotspur Hornblower/Bush tends to be more popular with fans of the original book series, since Archie is a Composite Character and an Ascended Extra, but other than that, Hornblower/Kennedy is winning. One True Threesome Hornblower/Kennedy/Bush is also very strong. Generally, though, fans are pleased with either, especially if characterization is good and the fic in question is well-written. It doesn't hurt matters either that technically both are feasible if Bush is considered Hornblower's Second Love after Archie's Heroic Sacrifice to save Hornblower's career.
The House fanbase is a fairly even split between Huddy (House/Cuddy), Hameron (House/Cameron) and Hilson (House/Wilson), all of whom spend a lot of time at each other's throats and at any character who dared disrupt their preferred pairing. It doesn't help that House/Cuddy did become canon for a while, sparking fights between Huddy fans ecstatic at their ship becoming official and Hilson fans and non-shippers who claimed that the Huddy relationship was badly written and focused on way too much and all of these groups would loudly claim to be the majority and the only sane faction among them. Ultimately, House/Wilson may have emerged as the unlikely victor in this shipping war, since House faked his own death and literally rode off into the sunset with Wilson at the end of the series finale.
Chase and Foreman receive lots of hate from Cameron/Thirteen shippers for their respective involvement in Chameron and Foreteen. Surprisingly, it goes both ways, with Cameron and Thirteen receiving hate from Chase/Foreman shippers, for their involvement in Chameron and Foreteen.
If you are a fan of House of Anubis who believed that, in the second season, Joy and Fabian were a better pairing than Nina and Fabian were, you would not last long before getting flamed. This ship-war started at the end of the first season, when Joy wasn't even a main character and had not even done anything yet, which Nina/Fabian shippers would often ignore and paint her as a bad guy anyways. The Nina/Fabian shippers had Canon on their side, and argued that Nina and Fabian had always liked each other, that the pairing was too popular to be sunk (season 3 events notwithstanding) and pointed out that everything Joy was doing ruined her chances. On the other side, Joy/Fabian shippers claimed that Nina was abusive and Joy would have been nicer to Fabian in the long run, that Joy and Fabian were best friends before the events of Season One, and that they had better chemistry. Things seemed to have calmed down in the third season, however, just to make way for a new (but less vicious) war between the Patricia/Eddie shippers and the KT/Eddie shippers, which lost some steam on the KT/Eddie side when it became obvious that Eddie still liked Patricia and KT was not going to try and do anything that would hurt Patricia.
This sprang up in How I Met Your Mother with the finale. If you were a fan who believed that, in the series finale, that Ted deserved to get back together with Robin after the death of the mother, you would not last long before getting flamed by both Ted/Tracy(AKA the Mother) and Robin/Barney shippers, both of which were sunk in the finale. The latter argue that their pairings had better chemistry, had more canon support, and were genuinely much more developed, and that the show itself railed against a relationship between Ted and Robin for 9 STRAIGHT YEARS, and as such undos the Character Development and key themes for the entire series, and ended up inferring that Ted never loved Tracy at allnote this has actually gotten to the point where diehard Robin/Barney shippers have accused one of the creators of the show of misogyny and inability to move on from his own childhood men's fantasies, through there isn't any evidence to either of this. The former argues that Ted needed to move on after mourning Tracy's death for 6 years, that the final scene never inferred he didn’t love Tracy, and that that the Ted/Tracy and Robin/Barney shippers wanted a naive and happy sugar-coated unambiguous Disney Ending that goes against the Show's Themes. Given the reaction to the finale, take a guess which side is the most predominant in the fandomnote and the predominant side actually ended up winning in the long run considering the nature of the official alternate ending.
iCarly has "Creddie" Carly/Freddie vs. "Seddie" Sam/Freddie. A huge war began in Season 2 when the Sam/Freddie pairing shared their First Kiss, after Freddie had openly pined for Carly prior to that point. Both sides declared that Word of God secretly shipped their OTP, that Word of God was pandering to one side before making the other canon, what color each ship 'owns', timing to the second how long various kisses lasted, thinking too much into freeze-frames. The height of the conflict extended over a dozen websites and was notable for the entire fandom shifting from LiveJournal over to tumblr and restarting the war there. Carly/Sam also has a significant following that is hated on by those who ship either with Freddie. It was such an integral part of the fandom that it was turned into an actual war, by the writers, in the episode iStart A Fan War, featuring groups of supporters for the named ships fighting each other In-Universe.
Back in the early ages of fandoms and fighting, there were the JAG Shipping wars. All pairings were argued but beware and prepare if you favoured anyone currently going out with either Harmon Rabb or Sarah Macenzie.
Jericho (2006): The fans of Jake/Heather would argue pretty frequently with the also ship teased Jake/Emily fans. Jake/Emily is canon, Emily is a regular to Heather's guest star, and got far more screentime in Season One. Jake/Heather is more popular, Heather is rather well-liked in the fandom as a whole compared to Emily being at least a moderate case of The Scrappy, and Heather got far more screentime in Season Two. Jake/Emily fans say that they have a history together and have fittingly similar personalities, while Jake and Heather are nothing alike and she's naive and annoyingly perky. Jake/Heather fans say that Jake needs someone who's less trigger-happy, impulsive and angsty than he is, while Jake and Emily have a bad history together, and she's useless, self-entitled and a bit of a Faux Action Girl. There was even conflict amongst The Powers That Be; John Turteltaub supported Jake/Heather while Carol Barbee supported Jake/Emily. Barbee won.
Kamen Rider OOO: Eiji/Hina vs Ankh/Hina vs Ankh/Eijinote Adding a potentially uncomfortable aspect to this, Ankh's human form comes from Hina's brother Shingo. There's also some conflict between those who think Mezool/Gamel would be adorable, and those who find it creepy since Mezool is a pre-teen girl in her human form.
In Kamen Rider Fourze, Ryusei's most constant love interest is Tomoko (who is ostensibly his girlfriend by the time of Movie Wars Ultimatum, set five years after the events of the show) but two other women (Inga Blink and Shirakawa) had romantic interest in him, leading to arguments over which one he should have ended up with.
The problem with Law & Order in any of its incarnations is that no-one ever gets together, ever, so the fans have to run with the subtext. And how. Arguably the best example is the approximate 50/50 split in the SVU fandom between Alex/Olivia and Elliot/Olivia, which, fuelled by the fact that both ships have had a lot of Ship Tease over the years, can get fairly heated.
But while the producers have sunk the Elliot/Olivia ship repeatedly, Stephanie March has made the Alex/Olivia fans very happy. In an interview with After Ellen, not only is she not freaked the hell out by the Les Yay implications, but admitted that she thinks it's possible that Alex and Olivia are in love, and that they may have been having a Grissom/Sara-eque quiet, offscreen relationship. We now have yet another reason to love you, Stephanie March.
An odd example has occurred in SVU fandom now that a couple actually has gotten together: Detectives Amaro and Rollins have been established as having an affair. Some shippers of Elliot and Olivia are pissed off, not because it's a threat to their ship (because it isn't), but simply because it's not fair that Amaro and Rollins get a hookup when E/O never did. What's funny is that a lot of fans whose ships have actually been sunk by this hookup (Benson/Amaro and Fin/Rollins) have so far been a lot more calm about it.
For some reason, fans of the Rafael Barba/Olivia Benson pairing seem to focus nearly all of their shipping ire on the Elliot/Olivia pairing while mostly shrugging off other ship-breaking pairings (such as Alex/Olivia or Barba/Carisi).
Lost: Jate (Jack/Kate) vs. Skate (Sawyer/Kate) shippers, with Suliet (Sawyer/Juliet) added into the mix in season 5. Not to mention the Desmond/Claire vs. Charlie/Claire shipwars that happened in the earlier seasons, and the Michael/Sun vs. Jin/Sun shipwars...in fact, why don't you just go look at the season 1 Lost promo for the UK on YouTube; it's a minute and a half of beautiful ship war dancing.
When discussing TheMandalorian, it's important to know if the person you're talking to favors Din with Bo-Katan or Bo-Katan with the Armorer, and then don't bring up the other one. Interestingly, those who prefer Din with Omera from season 1 are usually far more civil with either faction than they are with each other. Other, more niche pairings are also usually fairly polite, but the Din/Bo/Armorer triangle is extremely vitriolic.
For a show that ended in the eighties, the Hawkeye/Trapper vs Hawkeye/BJ wars are still going. It doesn't help that the show itself had Trapper leave without a note and the trauma of that lasted until the finale, with BJ jealous any time Trapper is mentioned and Hawkeye feeling like he's worthless when it feels like BJ left without a note, too.
To a lesser extent, there's the question for Hawkeye/BJ shippers about what to do with BJ's canon wife Peg, with some saying she 'gets in the way' of Hawkeye/BJ and having her react rather homophobically to their relationship (which, to be fair, it WAS the fifties), and others thinking that she'd be compassionate enough to share BJ with Hawkeye, if not join in herself.
The fandom was divided in slash and het camps — those who thought Merlin and Arthur were fated to be, and those who didn't. The het camp was mainly comprised (in the beginning) by Arthur/Morgana, Merlin/Morgana, and a smaller faction of Lancelot/Gwen shippers, and all these factions were relatively civil to each other. However, the writers did not help matters any by giving the characters' relationships a drastic turn-around in series two and declaring most of these ships Doomed by Canon via the inclusion of the (mostly non-existent in series 1) Arthur/Gwen ship, complete with True Love's Kiss and everything. This resulted in most of the other shipping camps putting down not only this ship but the show as a whole for reasons varying from "bad writing," to "feels forced," to TPTB not being bold enough to deviate from the original Arthurian myth. Arthur/Gwen shippers, not to be deterred, armed themselves with canon to defend their ship, making the ship debates hark back to times Older Than Print.
Ultimately, Arthur/Gwen was cemented as the endgame couple with them marrying and Gwen becoming queen. Naturally, Arthur/Merlin fans (many of whom had been hoping that Gwen would get together with the belatedly-introduced Lancelot instead and free the way for their ship) were very unhappy about this.
In the NCIS fandom, Gibbs/Tony slashers and Tony/Ziva shippers hate each other. Violently. G/T fans also like to make Ziva Die For Their Ship. Kate doesn't get nearly as much flak.
The Once Upon a Time fandom rocks this trope with the love life of poor Emma Swan. Though Emma herself is most concerned with her son, the fandom battles bloodily over whether she'll end up with Hook, Neal, or Regina, particularly for the first two. Shippers will go as far as to try and boycott an episode heavily featuring a rival ship or harassing the writer's twitter if the show doesn't go in the direction they'd like, which has gotten even worse now that the Hook/Emma romance has gotten more media attention than the Neal/Emma romance ever did. It grew so bad that for a while, practically every third post on any given ship's tag on Tumblr was just telling everyone to calm the fuck down.
The war between Hook/Emma and Neal/Emma has calmed down somewhat, since Season 3 resolved in favor of Hook/Emma as the Official Couple. Neal being dead also likely has something to do with it, since it's now impossible to pair him with Emma. On the other hand, Season 4 incited a truly bloody war between Emma/Regina and Robin/Regina, with Hook/Emma fans naturally allying with the latter.
One Tree Hill fandom has the ongoing Brucas (Brooke/Lucas) versus Leyton (Peyton/Lucas) ship war. This is despite the Brucas relationship being officially killed in Season 4; Lucas & Peyton getting married & having a baby in the final episodes of Season 6, with Brooke as the godmother & maid of honor; Lucas & Peyton outright leaving the show in Season 6; and Brooke officially becoming a Shipper on Deck for the duo in Season 5 and also meeting herself the love of her life, Julian, and then getting married to him and having twin sons with him in Season 8. The war was still going on when the show ended in Season 9, three seasons after Lucas & Peyton left, and hasn't really ended even though the show has been off the air since 2012.
For Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, there is the ever-infamous war between those shipping Tommy/Kimberly and those shipping Tommy/Katherine, mostly driven by fans of the former who hated having their ship sunk. This has, in turn, caused angry retaliation from the latter faction. Then oddly enough, you occasionally get Jason/Kimberly shippers that consider Tommy to have been a Marty Stu that "stole" Kimberly from Jason. Tommy's reappearance for Power Rangers: Dino Thunder introduced Tommy/Kira shippers as a third faction in the combat. It's a bit funny how one of the more peaceful ships, Tommy/Hayley, is the one that the writers definitively sunk by Word of Gay.
Back before it became the cool thing to hate, Power Rangers Operation Overdrive had the Rose/Mack and Ronny/Will shippers vs the Ronny/Mack and Rose/Will shippers. And to make things more frustrating, both of their couple names were "Rock & Roll". Then the Sixth Ranger added more ships to the battle with Tyzonn/Rose vs Tyzonn/Ronny, which were both sunk with the appearance of Tyzonn/Vella.
Power Rangers Jungle Fury has Casey/Lily vs Theo/Lily and, despite the former being sunk early on, fans refused to quit because of the actors' real life relationship outside of the show. Power Rangers Megaforce later added Casey/Emma and Casey/Gia to the mix, but because of the Fleeting Demographic they didn't make as much of an impact. R.J./Fran vs Dominic/Fran and R.J./Casey are a bit more friendly among the Jungle Fury ship wars.
Power Rangers Megaforce fandom has major battles between Jake/Gia and Gia/Emma. The former is the Official Couple of the series, but fans of the latter will use the show's bad writing to loudly throw Jake under the bus and accuse him of being a stalker while taking both actresses' approval of Gia/Emma as validation.
Dillon/Ziggy vs Scott/Dillon from Power Rangers RPM gets a special mention for the fact that it got the actors involved. While the latter had a few fans prior, the former was a juggernaut when Dan Ewing (who played Dillon) proclaimed how much Dillon/Ziggy just would not work and that he and Eka Darville threw in a bunch of little hints for Scott/Dillon. However, Milo Cawthorne apparently still ships Dillon/Ziggy so this is a ship war where the actors are just as invested as the fans.
Pretty Little Liars has two. Aria/Ezra vs Aria/Jason and Emily/Paige vs Emily/Alison (there used to be a third faction of Emily/Maya, but that died off when Maya did). The latter can get really heated. It's gotten so extreme that the cast and writers have received death threats. You can't even mention Paige on Twitter without getting a barrage of hate and the abuse was so bad that Lindsey Shaw, the actress that portrays Paige has quit social media all-together, attempted suicide and retired from acting.
Try to have any discussion about any character in Robin Hood and you'll probably end up in a shipping War about whether Marian should have married Guy or Robin. Guy fans argue that Guy/Marian had more chemistry, highlight Robin's faults (arrogance, impatience, immaturity) and downplay Guy'sindiscretions (burning Marian's house down, threatening her with execution, dumping his infant son in the woods, killing innocent peasants, among many more). Robin fans cite hundreds of years worth of legend, the fact that Marian chose Robin of her own free will, that Guy stabbed her to death with a giant sword, that Robin and Marian get a Together in Death scene, and that Guy himself eventually admits to Robin that "she was always yours." And the debate still rages...
The first signs of Ship-To-Ship Combat for Super Sentai appear to have begun with Hikari Sentai Maskman, where more than twenty years on debates are still raging over whether Red Mask (also named Takeru!) should end up with Iyal, Momoko or Haruka, which neither have much interaction with Takeru.
Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger has an ongoing debate over Hoji/Jasmine vs Tetsu/Jasmine; the former group of shippers trying to push Hoji and Jasmine's positions as the most "pro" and "senior" of the team, the latter group arguing that Hoji is still hung up on his ex, Teresa, whose brother he killed.
Riverdale, like its source material, is rife with shipping combat, and things can get pretty ugly:
There’s the classic Betty and VeronicaLove Triangle with Archie at the centre, so of course Archie/Betty and Archie/Veronica fans are still prevalent – but Valerie also has chemistry with Archie and the pair have kissed. Both Betty and Veronica are extremely likable in this adaptation of Archie, though some of the original comic characters' traits seem to be tacked on to the Riverdale girls from the Ship-to-Ship Combat in the comic fandom - like Veronica being a Rich Bitch or Betty being an obsessive Yandere. Archie is also shipped with his best friend, Jughead, though that fandom seems relatively quiet in comparison. And, luckily, every single ship is positioned against Miss Grundy/Archie.
Betty/Veronica is more popular than ever, encouraged by the pair kissing in the pilot, having a very close, supportive relationship, and Veronica spending a good chunk of the first two episodes trying to get Betty to like and trust her.note Though their actresses have stated that they will not be a couple. However, some more zealous shippers will accuse those who don't ship Betty/Veronica of homophobia, despite both girls showing interest in/dating boys.
Most controversial is Jughead/Betty, which seems to be the generally Fan-Preferred Couple with both the fandom and the creators/actors. However, it's also the subject of debate because it is “in the way” of other ships, that it is too pushy on the audience or because the 2015 reboot explicitly made Jughead asexual (whether or not he is aromantic is hotly debated in fandom, with Chip Zdarsky giving a Shrug of God) – leading to fans arguing about whether he is ace-spectrum in every continuity, if he should be, with many supporters of the ship arguing that he can remain ace and have romantic relationships, or that his relationships may lead him to discover he is ace note Many asexual-spectrum people do date and seek romantic or affectionate companionship, enjoying kissing and cuddling or other forms of romantic affection – they just generally don’t feel sexual attraction, which is different from romantic attraction - asexual With Jughead and Betty's Ship Tease ramping up and their becoming a couple midway into the season, things have gotten more heated, with some particularly venomous anti-fans calling those who enjoy the ship "scum", and taking to sending aggressive messages to the cast and crew to delete their accounts or "just die" on Twitter.note To make things more complicated, the comic that explicitly confirmed Jughead was ace came out after the CW had ordered the pilot in January 2016, and the show had been in production since 2013-2014, which makes it very probable that they already had all the major story beats written well before and would have had to go back into Development Hell in order to rewrite much of Jughead's plot.
The Secret Life of the American Teenager has Ben/Amy vs. Amy/Ricky vs. Ricky/Adrian and even Adrian/Ricky vs. Ricky/Grace vs. Grace/Jack before Ricky and Grace broke up in Season 2 and Grace got back together with Jack. And yes, the writers play with all of these shippings and more. In fact, it's essentially the premise of the entire series. However, the biggest factions seem to be Amy/Ricky vs. Amy/Anyone else and Ricky/Anyone else.
After the introduction of Mary Morstan, the Sherlock fandom largely splintered into John/Mary shippers, Johnlock shippers who liked Mary and tried to calm the more rabid shippers down, and Sherlock/John/Mary shippers vs. rabid Johnlock shippers who insisted that Mary had come between their precious OTP and ruined their friendship and loudly declared their hope that she be killed off, preferably painfully. The latter faction actually got their wish when Mary was revealed to be a double agent (albeit one who did genuinely care for John) and was killed soon after.
Skins fans have a bizarre war going on between two completely canon and perfectly compatible ships; Freddie/Effy and Naomi/Emily. The war turns out to be rooted in the amount of screen time and importance the show gives to each (Naomily were the Beta Couple in S3, but Freffy became more Beta-like in S4). Freddie being murdered by Effy's psychiatrist with a baseball bat in Effy's S4 episode has resulted in somewhat of a cease fire, though, as the two camps united against the common enemy.
Things got really ugly really quickly on the shipper front when it came to Sleepy Hollow, with Ichabod/Abbie shippers railing against anyone who dared to describe their relationship as 'platonic' or bring up Katrina or any other woman in Ichabod's life (past or present). The third season's decision to kill off Abbie abruptly ended the shipping wars with most fans venting their wrath toward the showrunners instead or leaving the fandom entirely in protest.
Smallville: The Clanaphiles, the Cloisers, and the Chlarkers have all been at each others' throats. More recently, since Clois and Chlollie gradually became the more dominant ships in and out of universe, many of the remaining Chlarkers have been at the Chlolliers' throats as well. The Clexers, on the other hand, are split between enjoying their Ho Yay while engaging in Pass the Popcorn on the other shippers' Flame War, and rabidly dedicated to the mission to depict all females and non-supervillains within ten miles of Clark Kent as vicious shrieking Yanderes or total morons. The Cloisers have also largely engaged in Pass the Popcorn with one another while the non-canonical ships duke it out.
The various shipper groups in the Smallville fandom have also been known to fight in proxy wars on behalf of ships that serve as Ship Mates to their own One True Pairing. For instance, Clois shippers were often allies with the Chimmy shippers from Seasons 6 through 8 because it kept Chloe away from Clark, so it felt right to support Chimmy (the Chimmy shippers didn't always reciprocate the good will though. Some Chloe supporters shipped Chimmy merely because they felt that Clark—the future Superman—didn't "deserve" the supposedly-saintly Chloe). Similarly, some Chlark shippers supported Lollie because it got Lois away from Clark.
The Ship-to-Ship Combat in the Smallville fandom even extended to arguments over the amount of screentime each potential love interest received. If Lois was getting a lot of screentime, the Chloe/Clark shippers would scream that the writers were somehow destroying Chloe to make way for Lois. If Chloe was getting a lot of screentime, the Lois/Clark shippers would complain that Chloe was a "waste of time" because she wasn't in the Superman comics (she is now though). And if Lana was getting a lot of screentime, EVERYONE outside of Lana's small-but-devoted fandom would complain. Ironically, a lot of these shippers didn't seem to even care that much about Clark; they simply viewed him as some kind of trophy to be awarded to the "best" girl.
Not quite Ship to Ship, but Star Trek: The Original Series fandom has been arguing for decades about whether Kirk and Spock are lovers or just very close friends. Shippers accuse non shippers of ignoring the "glaring" subtext, non shippers accuse the shippers of "ruining" a great platonic friendship. You'd think people on both sides would've agreed to live and let live by now. (Mind you, the fact several of the earliest original Star Trek novels contained moments of Ho Yay didn't help.)
On the other hand, Kirk/Spock versus Spock/McCoy tends to be a pretty laid-back argument (which, it must be said, frequently culminates in the agreeable solution of having a threesome).
Star Trek: Enterprise had Archer/T'Pol shippers and Trip/T'Pol shippers in a pretty brutal feud, exacerbated by the fact that the writers themselves were apparently bitterly divided over who T'Pol's love interest should be and the Ship Tease varied from episode to episode, until Trip/T'Pol finally became canon in Season 3. Weirdly, Trip/T'Pol shippers were very friendly with Tucker/Reed (also a Trip ship, only with his last name) because of their mutual hatred for the character of Jonathan Archer.
Stargate Atlantis tended to split between John/Elizabeth and John/Teyla in Season 1. Come Season 2 John/Teyla supporters also faced Ronon/Teyla. (Either Ship Mates of John/Elizabeth or Abandon Shipping John/Teyla fans). Oddly enough, there wasn't much of a war between John/Elizabeth and John/Rodney — the slashers tended to pair her off with Radek Zelenka or Steven Caldwell and portray her as John's BFF Shipper on Deck instead. Come Season 4, it became more like McKeller (McKay/Keller) vs The Internet.
In the Stargate SG-1 fandom, the two major ship factions were the Sam/Jack faction, and the Daniel/Jack slash faction with Sam/Daniel and Janet/Daniel shippers getting railroaded by both sides.
The Stranger Things fandom has always seen some tension between Mileven (Mike x Eleven) and Byler (Mike x Will) shippers, but things hit a fever pitch following the premiere of Season 4, which not only focuses on both relationships being strained in light of Eleven and the Byers moving away, but also all but confirms that Will is gay and has feelings for Mike. Both sides fervently argue about which relationship is healthier, has more chemistry, and/or makes more narrative sense. That Mileven has been an Official Couple since the first season is only further fuel to the fire.
A fanwar was attempted on Fanfiction.net for The Suite Life on Deck between Cody/Bailey (Cailey) and Zailey (Zack/Bailey). It managed to be avoided when initiator was revealed to be a Cailey shipper posing as a Zailey shipper.
For the first three seasons, the main ship war was between Sam/Dean shippers who loved the actors' chemistry enough that they were willing to overlook it being an incestuous ship and anti-Sam/Dean shippers who found the ship too squicky to support but didn't really have a rival ship to latch onto due to pretty much every other recurring character being either a femalewidely hated by fans or Bobby.
When Castiel was introduced in the fourth season as the angel who rescued Dean from Hell, fans finally had a viable alternative m/m ship and the ship war morphed into a Sam/Dean vs. Dean/Castiel one (plus a smaller Sam/Castiel contingent who mostly kept quiet and stayed out of the Wincest vs. Destiel fights) with Sam/Dean fans resenting Dean/Castiel usurping their ship's Fan-Preferred Couple status and arguing that Sam will and should always be the most important person in Dean's life and Dean/Castiel fans arguing back that Sam and Dean's relationship is unhealthily codependent and Dean would be much better off with Castiel.
Over time, the most contentious shipping question in the fandom shifted from "Which person is better for/more important to Dean?" to "Does Dean/Castiel stand a chance of becoming canon, or is it just queerbaiting, or are Destiel fans just delusional and trying to force their ship on other people?" when the Ship Tease for Dean/Castiel seemed to increase significantly in later seasons along with several writers for the show openly expressing their support for the ship, but some comments by others working on the show seemed to indicate that they had no plans to make it canon. This caused such a massive outcry from Destiel fans that it caught the attention of several media outlets and sparked a wider discussion about queerbaiting in general, but also some backlash from people who didn't ship Dean/Castiel or care about its canonicity growing weary of the ship and accusing Destiel fans of obsessing too much about it over everything else in the series. It didn't help that the actors themselves were divided on this issue, with Dean's actor being dismissive of any questions related to shipping or his character possibly being bisexual but Castiel's actor being an openly enthusiastic advocate of Destiel and it being all but canon. It really didn't help that the show's final season had Destiel actually become half-canon with Castiel confessing his love for Dean, only for Castiel to be killed right after and be omitted almost entirely from the last two episodes with the finale focusing heavily on Sam and Dean's bond, only for Dean's actor to go from being fairly subdued about the matter to openly criticizing the ending and praising the confession scene, meaning the arguments aren't going to end any time soon.
Averted for a lot of straight pairings. For a show that on its surface is about two straight brothers and provides plenty of female romantic and sexual interests for them, straight pairings have never made a huge impact in the fandom and those who ship them are often just free to do what they want in their own little corner. This wasn't necessarily true in the early days, when slash shippers tended to gang up on anyone who dared ship Dean/Jo or Sam/Ruby, but that dynamic faded. The most popular het ship is probably Castiel/Meg, followed by Sam/Eileen, and these have crept into the many slash fictions as background or secondary ships. Sam/Jess also has not-insignificant presence in Dean/Cas fic particularly, but mostly in AU fics.
Things got a bit hairy within the fandom of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles once the John/Cameron ship's popularity became more prevalent. Some fans found the idea of John Connor, the man who smashed Skynet being a Robosexual to be inherently squicky. Detractors would latch on to whatever alternatives they could find, as long as they weren't metal. First it was John/Cheri, then it was John/Riley, finally John/Allison before the series was abruptly canceled. You even had some who clung to the idea that Kate Brewster would eventually show up and re-establish Terminator 3's Official Couple, despite the fact that in TSCC's contnuity John would be a bit young for her (due to Time Travel).
Tinsel: Team Kwame vs. Team Soji over Telema Duke. The fandom can get quite vicious at times with Team Soji fans labelling Team Kwame fans liars and Team Kwame fans calling their rivals wimps.
Torchwood has this for Jack/Ianto fans who can get quite vicious toward the Gwen/Jack fans. The Owen/Tosh contingent is much saner and calmer. After Ianto was Killed Off for Real in Series 3 ("Children of Earth"), many who felt he and Jack were the OTP of the series didn't take kindly to Jack romancing other men in Series 4 (complete with sex scenes, something not shown between Jack and Ianto during their romance).
Veronica Mars is the centre of some vitriolic flame wars. The two dominant camps are the Logan/Veronica and Duncan/Veronica ones — in spite of Duncan absconding to Australia at the end of season 2 — followed up by the progressively-smaller Piz/Veronica, Wallace/Veronica,Lamb/Veronica, Mac/Veronica and Keith/Veronica. You'd think the latter two didn't exist, but they're out there. Oh yes, they're out there. The longer the show went on, though, the more it seemed to be the Logan/Veronica shippers vs the Veronica/Anyone But Logan shippers.
Many fans of Victoria fall into either Camp Vicbourne - the May–December Romance / Intergenerational Friendship bordering on romance between Queen Victoria and Lord Melbourne - or Camp Vicbert, the romance/marriage of Victoria and Prince Albert. What makes this one unusual is the fact it's connected to a biographical TV series based on real events, so Vicbourne has always been doomed by history but that didn't stop some fans from actually circulating an online petition begging the makers of the show to change history and give Vicbourne a happy ending.
Victorious: Early on in the fandom, Beck/Tori shippers and Beck/Jade shippers were known to get to arguments over which ship was better. This did settle down after most of the Ship Tease between Beck and Tori was mostly dropped from the show, and Beck/Jade apparently won. However when Jade/Tori exploded in popularity during season 2, and became just as, if not more, popular than Bade, Bade shippers started to feud with them. Jade/Tori shippers often painting Beck as a horrible boyfriend, while pointing out that Tori is usually the one to help Jade when she's upset. Meanwhile Beck/Jade shippers like to portray Tori as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, who is not talented enough for Jade, and using arguments of how Nickelodeon would never allow it to become canon. Though mellowing out a bit since the show ended, it was somewhat reignited after the show was put on Netflix.
Shipping conflicts plague The Walking Dead fandom, mainly between shippers of Daryl/Carol and Daryl/Beth (neither of which has gotten beyond Ship Tease canon-wise) - and if anything, after Beth's death turning Daryl/Beth into a Ghost Ship it got worse. The small handfuls of Daryl/Michonne and Daryl/Rick shippers are largely ignored, as are Glenn/Daryl shippers (and anyone with a ship that doesn't include a certain cranky redneck). A growing fan base of Daryl/Rosita has been thrown into the mix in recent seasons.
Wednesday: A bloody three way war has started in the fandom over who Wednesday should be with between Enid, Tyler, or Xavier. On the one hand, you have those who say that Wednesday has far better chemistry with Enid, who actually allows Wednesday to be herself, and the loads of Les Yay, in comparison to Tyler, who they claim is creepy and point out tries to kill Wednesday and her friends, with many also pointing out that Enid is a far more interesting and fleshed out character then either Tyler or Xavier. On the other, you have those who find that Tyler being a killer would be a perfect fit for Wednesday in comparison to the completely different in personality Enid and the dull Xavier. Then you have those who believe that Xavier is a more sane option compared to Tyler, while Enid and Wednesday are simply friends. Needless to say, the battlefield gets very bloody as all three of the sides absolutely loathe each other, with them starting flame wars over any little thing.
Westworld: While the shipping war is not as rampant in discussion boards, you still got Dolores/Teddy shippers and Dolores/William shippers. Conflict on this is based on the chemistry between the couple and the men's treatment of Dolores. Despite that their relationship is scripted, many supporters find the Teddy/Dolores relationship to be real though some contend that Dolores' treatment of him (such as forcibly reprogramming him into a killing machine) put a dent in it. Many Dolores/William shippers believe that they have better chemistry despite the truth about William being the Man in Black who torments Dolores and the hosts for many years because he wants to be free except that it made Dolores furious at humanity. Though this depends on the viewers whether he should deserve to have sympathy or should be held accountable for his actions.
The X-Files: The early years of the show's run coincided with the Ur days of wider-spread internet use, and whole message boards and mailing lists could be devoted to ship wars. Pick any conceivable pairing and somebody shipped it, so the battles could get entertaining and really, really confusing. Disparate ships would sometimes unite against a pairing they considered a common foe, and even message boards supporting the same ship could wind up at war over some minor disagreement. Shipping could be some Serious Business in the fandom. Then there were the noromos (short for 'no romance') who objected to shipping in general, especially as the series went on and it became more blatant between Mulder and Scully. Their chief complaint was that they felt it got to the point where it detracted from the plot. They went to war with absolutely everybody.
Xena: Warrior Princess had some incredibly intense shipping wars between Xena/Gabrielle and Xena/Ares due to its spillover into real-world issues of LGBT rights and representation. In a time when there was virtually no positive LGBT representation on television, the implied relationship between Xena and Gabrielle was all that viewers had. Picking up on this, the writers and actors played up the subtext. Xena/Ares and other shippers denounced this as Pandering to the Base. Xena/Gabrielle shippers, or "Subbers" often interpreted this as homophobia. And it was even worse with Gabrielle/Joxer shippers, as subbers not only hated the ship but hated comedic characters like Joxer.
, but they were wanking even pre-Martha
Unfortunate Implications for how Santana convinced Brittany to cheat on Artie with her, and whether or not Artie was justified in lashing out at Brittany which caused her to break up with him. This is but one example of the bitchfights between shippers. The forum battles get epic.
