Ship Sinking / Webcomics

• Boy Meets Boy:
  • The first half heavily implies at a future romance between Cyanide and Skids. Then the author took a closer look at them, decided that they actually weren't compatible, and hooked Cyanide up with the female Ronnie. To clear away any doubt, Skids says outright that Cyanide isn't his type, is revealed to have a long-time crush on Harley (which is ultimately futile, as Harley is happily with Mikhael), and is paired up with Tybalt at the end. Many fans did not take this well, as lampshaded in this comic.
  • Fuhr did this again in later comics, with the added gut punch that a canon couple (Fox and Collin), formerly seen as unshakeable due to their best-friends-as-well-as-lovers status, were split up in the gap between Friendly Hostility and Other People's Business - with one of them marrying someone else in the time between. This time, however, she told readers that they were free to label the later comic as an Alternate Universe and pretend everyone in Friendly Hostility got a happy ending - Cy and Skids, on the other hand, were lampooned The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-style: in the creator's mind, they would never be together. A small mercy for F.H. 'shippers, but a mercy nonetheless.
• Check, Please!: Tater/Kent quickly developed a large following despite the two never interacting, since it solved any tension between Jack/Bitty and Jack/Kent shippers and gave the fandom's One True Pairing Jack/Bitty a rare Ship Mate that also gave Kent a happy ending. By the time they finally interact, Tater makes it painfully clear that he dislikes if not outright hates Kent. Shippers who saw that as Belligerent Sexual Tension quickly faced a different problem when the chapter notes showed that Tater's only feeling for Kent is disdain, to the point he and Bitty bond over their mutual dislike for Kent. It didn't stopped the ship, but it did made almost all works of them go into Fanon Discontinuity.
• Eerie Cuties sank both fandom ships regarding Layla, whom the readership hoped was in denial about not being a lesbian, or at least bi, because they wanted her to hook up with Tiffany or Brooke.
  • In the former case, the comic's editor plainly said the following:
  T Campbell: "Her friendship with Tiff was always meant to be just that: friendship, the thrill of two largely isolated people finding each other."
  • Which was later confirmed in the comic itself when Layla tried setting Tiffany up on a date with Dio. While in its Spin-Off series, Magick Chicks, Tiffany found herself coming to terms with the possibility of being attracted to Faith.
  • Those who shipped Layla with Brooke didn't care that Layla's persona was being overwritten by Queen Quintessa's. But once she regained control, any hope of it happening died when she called Brooke out for going along with Quintessa's intentions.
• In El Goonish Shive, Elliot getting together with Ashley sinks both Elliot/Susan and Elliot/Diane.
• General Protection Fault sunk any chance of Nick/Trudy not only by having Nick get together with Ki, but by having him permanently reject her after learning of her plans in Surreptitious Machinations ("I can't love someone I can't trust.") Todd gets this twice, with a grown-up Sidney in the Bad Future (who stays behind to let him go back in time, getting captured and executed), and an amnesiac Mischief, (who regains her memories while forgetting her feelings for him, much to his dismay).
• Heroes of Thantopolis The author preemptively sinks ships right off the bat by making Cyrus and the other ghosts asexual.
  • Here's the page for proof.
• Homestuck:
  • Two of the (at the time) most popular pairings were destroyed by revealing that both of the pairings involve ectobiological siblings. In the words of the author: "Also I think I ruined a solid year's worth of perfectly good shipping with recent revelations. WHOOPSEE DAISEE"
  • And another ship or two (John/Dave and John/Karkat) have been sunk by John's admission to Karkat: EB: i am not a homosexual.
  • Any hopes that Eridan and Feferi would get together were cruelly crushed on the 01/22/11 update.
  • In a less dramatic fashion, Nepeta/Karkat was simultaneously confirmed as canon and then sunk when it was brought up as being a one-way crush of Nepeta's.
  • Apparently, Hussie has done enough of this that he feels a need to parody it in a pesterlog between Jade and John.
  • Hussie's proven himself such a master of the art of ship sinking that he manages to confirm a ship having been canon via its sinking, in the case of Jade/Davesprite.
  • Kanaya's hatred of Gamzee was speculated by some to be a Blackrom (in-spite of the Incompatible Orientation). When asked Kanaya confirms her hatred is not romantically linked, and in an interactive Gamzee tells Rose "[he wouldn't] even give that dayglow chainsaw bitch - [his] time of day in any quadrant."
• Gunnerkrigg Court:
  • Author Tom Siddell is well aware of the flimsy premises a lot of shippers use, and jokingly sinks Zimmy/Jack in a comment at the end of their first meeting ("ZimmyXJack? More like shutXup"). Tom being Tom, years later he revealed that Jack actually does have a crush on her, even after being freed of his astral parasite.
  • The brutally blunt ending of Alistair and Kat's relationship. Ali leaves, and the narrator states "And [Kat] never saw him again."
  • Chapter 34 has the bastard do it again with Jack x Annie.
  • Chapter 45 deals a major blow to Annie x Kat, with the latter in a relationship with someone else and the former very much in support of it. While also delivering piles of Ship Tease for them. Oh Tom...
• I Will Survive and its two sequels Born To Be Alive and Never Say Goodbye are this for Zootopia's Judy and Nick couple. Although at the beginning of the story both characters were promoted to Love Interest, at the end of the first story they separate, and by the third story they have already had separate lives.
• Kevin & Kell
  • The Toy Ship of Nigel Aura and Coney Dewclaw was first sunk when he and Catherine Aura went back in time at the end of the Y2K storyline, raised when they returned to deal with Rudy's webcomic, and sunk again when the two of them left for the human world to maintain the balance. While Nigel still harbors feelings for Coney, his mother does not allow him to contact her and hopes he will forget about her.
  • When Miranda Hutch became engaged with Edgar Carnassial, her uncle's partner mused that he had hoped she would end up with Carl. Her uncle, however, notes she'd always had an attraction to carnivores.^note She had previously been in a relationship with a fox. It's implied by her uncle that it didn't end well, as it's noted they hired Carl as her bodyguard when that relationship ended.
• Monsterkind: The plot put a heavy focus on Kip and Wallace and their relation to each other, while also focusing on Kip's really close friendship with Roy and Molly, as a result, Kip/Wallace and Kip/Roy had huge followings, with the former believed to be the comic's Official Couple. Later chapters however, introduce Pascal, who turns out to be Kip's actual Love Interest (he is an Old Flame of his who moves to the town and both show interest in rekindling the relationship), the same chapter also implied Roy has a crush on Molly and Chapter 4 started heavily teasing Wallace/Ben with their Almost Kiss in the stairs. To further sink Wallace/Kip, it's been made clear their relationship is meant as purely platonic.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • Lampshaded (like so many tropes) after Therkla (a potential alternative love interest for Elan) was killed by Kubota:
  Elan: You were her captain... now you're going down with her ship.
  • Played straight (Humiliation Conga flavor) in this strip and its successor, where the Roy/Miko ship is brutally and decisively sunk, followed by a "The Reason You Suck" Speech. (The facial expressions are priceless, followed by Belkar's Pass the Popcorn in the next strip.)
    Miko: Perhaps in the future, if you approached the prospect of a romantic relationship from this more mature perspective, I would not be so dismissive of the possibility.
    Roy: Oh. Oh, no. I wouldn't touch your skinny uptight ass with a standard-issue 10-ft pole, you overbearing self-righteous bitch.
  • Some shipped Lien and Hinjo together because of their interactions. In a print-only subplot, Elan tries to set them both up only to be shot down. Not only were neither interested in each other, Hinjo objected on the basis that superiors should not be fraternizing with their employees, whilst Lien states she already has a boyfriend and looks at working class men over nobles like Hinjo.
• Out There: Martha, echoing a large part of the audience, thought that Sherry and Miriam had been sleeping together in their younger years; Sherry shoots the idea down flat, apparently genuinely surprised Martha thought so—although Martha herself still isn't convinced.
• Ow, my sanity is a young webcomic. The David/Collette ship was a young ship. It died young.
• In Penny and Aggie, Sara broke up with Daphne for reasons including, though not limited to, wanting to get with Lucy, her Reality Show costar. However, Lucy eventually made it clear she wanted to be Just Friends.
• Questionable Content:
  • The surprisingly popular Marigold/Hannelore pairing was deliberately sunk, in a strip that's even titled "Suck it, Shippers." In his comments, the creator candidly admits it probably won't work.
  • Poor Marigold. She gets Angus (shot down here) and later Tai (similarly destroyed here), neither of which work out too well.
  • Marten/Faye one, officially sunk with just one question:
    Faye: What's your favorite Toto song?
• In Savestate, after Rick was introduced as a friend of Kade and Nicole, fans began to ship Rick with Nicole. Comic author Nick Weeks pre-emptively nuked the ship with a Tumblr AMA where Nicole expressly put Rick in the friend zone.
• Schlock Mercenary introduced 19-year-old Lieutenant Ventura at the beginning of the previous arc. She started to get along a bit too well with commander Andreyasn until his girlfriend showed up to sink that ship in a very clear and precise manner. At the end of the arc, she pretty much singlehandedly promoted a Red Shirt to Mauve when he saved her life, and the subsequent affection she showed him because of it. That ship was sunk early next arc when said Mauve Shirt assured his fellow crewmates he doesn't like little girls.
  • An older one is Tagon and Elf, with the latter constantly seeking to flirt with an utterly oblivious former that ignored and/or misinterpreted her attempts in various ways. This one was sunk by Tagon himself, who partnered Kevyn and Elf during a project and (perhaps knowingly) lead them to get together and eventually marry.
• Readers have lost track of all the times that the Something*Positive Davan/PeeJee has been sunk, refloated and then resunk. Word of God says the person PeeJee's is based on has only one request regarding the comic: The Davan/PeeJee ship NEVER sails. In the immortal words of that famed philosopher James Storm: Sorry bout your damn luck, shippers.
• Stand Still, Stay Silent: As all main characters tend to be shipped with at least one other one, this inevitably happened when Tuuri died.
• In Tower of God Twenty-Fifth Bam spends a great time chasing after Rachel, who left for the eponymous tower. He finally finds her and since she can't go on without him, he tries to take her along with him. This had a reasonable amount of ship tease. Then she pushes him into an abyss, it is revealed that she has been psychotically obsessed with getting away from the world she and Bam had lived and is shown to be scared of Bam himself, who is getting stronger by the minute. We discover how she has been leading him on all along and how both were used as pawns in Headon's and Yu Han Sung's plan. Shipping between the two stopped immediately after that.
• Two Guys and Guy has acknowledged on a few different occasions that fans would like Guy and Wayne to end up together. Most of these are scenarios that jokingly tease at the possibility, but there are two strips that directly sink the ship: one where the creator himself appears and tells fans off for constantly pitching how they should hook-up, and another where Guy and Wayne glare at a mutual friend who tried to trick them into dating.
  Author's Note: Okay guys I tried to hook them up but it didn't work. Now stop emailing me!