Abandon Shipping

Some Shippers are diehard. They'll go through everything, Fire, Ice, Lightning, nuclear explosions, you name it, but they're still sticking by their One True Pairing no matter what.

Then there are the other types, who, when something unexpected is revealed, drop a Ship faster than a hot potato. Maybe it's because a character had a deep dark secret that severely makes people question their ability to even be in a relationship, maybe they're really siblings, or maybe there's some sort of other aspect to their relationship that suddenly Squicks people. When that happens and it suddenly seems like the former Shippers have dropped off the face of the Earth, they have Abandoned Ship.

There are also notable subversions, when what would seem like a cause to Abandon Shipping not only doesn't work, but makes the Shippers fight harder for it, especially in cases where theories about who will end up with who are Jossed or declared invalid by Word of God.

Some will drop a pairing because the fans are rabid, but let's not talk about that.

See also Ship Sinking for when the creators intentionally introduce something to try and make this happen, though it's not at all guaranteed to work on the more radical shippers.

Not to Be Confused With Abandon Ship, which was this trope's previous name.

Examples of Abandon Shipping include:

Anime & Manga

• GetBackers, manga only. Ship abandoned for Ban & Himiko because Not only is she his little sister, but she's not even a real person. To make things worse, she dies.
• Blood+: The fandom's small group of Saya/Diva shippers died off after Diva raped Saya's adoptive brother Riku to become pregnant and then killed him. Apparently this was enough to kill off the "Evil Twincest" Fandom that had sprung up.
• Fruits Basket: In a similar situation, after Yuki Sohma realized that he thought of Tohru as more of a mother figure than a love interest the overall support for Yuki/Tohru appeared to die down considerably, though not everyone agreed...
  • Interesting enough, a lot of people abandoned shipping Akito with any of the guys once it was revealed that he was actually a girl, making it a rather interesting case of Het Is Ew.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Unbelievably this happened to a dozen of Roy/Riza doujin circles during the Briggs Arc, when their OTP went Out of Focus after the Ishval memories chapters; while said chapters also had their own effect in driving away some of the fans who were more for the standard office romance. Recently, the series finale didn't help, either.
• Gundam Seed: Additionally, during the initial run, a small but devoted group of loyal Kira/Cagalli shippers existed for a time... until it was revealed that Kira and Cagalli were twins a la Luke and Leia. There are still some shippers out there, though, especially after Kira rescued Cagalli from marrying the wrong guy and carried her away in a wedding dress in Gundam Seed Destiny.
  • Word of God says that Kira and Cagalli's circumstances were meant to be a direct allusion to Star Wars.
• Mahou Sensei Negima: Negi/Asuna. Between the fact that their relationship works fine non-romantically, rival ships (like Nodoka, Kuu Fei, Yue, Ako, Makie, Luna aka Shiori, Fate, etc.), and the false revelation that Asuna is Negi's aunt, though debunked by the fact that she is way too old, somewhat reviving this ship with minor Tenchi-style family confusion.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: In a subversion the previous examples, after it was revealed that Rei is a genetic construct formed by mixing the DNA of Shinji's mother and Lilith, effectively making her his half-sister, the Shinji/Rei shippers appeared, if anything, to get stronger, in what is either a very strong case of Fan-Preferred Couple or simple desperation.
  • Or, you know, because Eva isn't a very happy setting, and that fact only puts a cherry on top of a tragic fic.
  • On the other hand reading through various Fan Fiction archives do suggest a trend away from Shinji/Rei and toward Shinji/Asuka.
  • Romantic Comedy 'official spinoffs' such as the video games Girlfriend of Steel 2 (adapted into the Angelic Days Manga) and Ikari Shinji Raising Project actually encourage this at a certain level. But then, most of Hideaki Anno's characters seem to have a massive mother or father complex.
  • And then, of course, there's the Rebuild of Evangelion films, which brings along a nuclear-powered bilge pump to the ship. At this point it's hard to tell if the films are a result of Shinji/Rei shippers Running the Asylum or if Anno is just screwing with us.
• Paradise Kiss: During the first volumes, Arashi Nagase and Miwako Sakurada attracted massive amounts of Shipping. However, as the series progressed, readers tended to gradually back away from the (Canon) ship, as Arashi's attitude towards Miwako started to become aggressive and sometimes violent, and then came The Reveal that he raped her during their first time. Even though Miwako doesn't hold it against him, Arashi feels very guilty about his behaviour, and tries to correct what he has done. Despite this, the fact that they end up together and even have a child has proven too squicky for many fans to overcome.
• Shoujo Kakumei Utena: Many fans dropped Mikage/Mamiya (the show's first canonically gay couple) when it turned out that Mamiya was an illusion acted out by Anthy, a girl. Even without the Het Is Ew aspect, the fact that it was all an elaborate ploy by Anthy and her brother Akio to make Mikage an Unwitting Pawn was also more than enough for the ship to be abandoned.
• Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle: What had been a very vocal group of Fay/Chii Shippers (in contrast to the majority of Kurogane/Fay shippers) mysteriously disappeared after it was revealed that Fay had based the design of Chii off of his late mother. Apparently this was enough to turn most, if not all, of the Shippers away from the pairing (and the former Trope Namer comes from the reaction of a poster on an internet forum.) There was also the small fact that Chii disintegrated after the Feather used to create her was removed, and that probably put a major damper on the idea of them being involved in the future.
  • And then cue the revelation that Syaoran is really actually the son of his own clone and his Sakura's clone, not the CCS pair. Fans are abandoning ship left and right, although there is a fair bit of confusion about which ship to abandon.
• Zero no Tsukaima: More than one Louise/Saitou fan abandoned the ship when, in the second light novel, Louise's beatings of Saitou went from Running Gag to downright Domestic Abuse. Seriously, Louise, using a real whip on Saitou and making him pass out from the pain? After you beat him last night? That's not being a Tsundere, that's just being a bitch.
• Love Live!:
  • This official artwork of Eli and Nozomi donning traditional Japanese wedding dresses (likely to be photoshooting purposes) may have killed some rarepair shippers' hopes of wanting other girls to end up with Eli. Bonus points if said girl is Umi Sonoda.
  • Voice Actress example: Some fans already lost hope on their fantasies of Mimori Suzuko (Umi's VA) being paired with Uchida Aya (Kotori Minami's VA) (or Pile, Maki Nishikino's VA) ever since the former dated (and later married) with Kazuchika Okada.
• We Never Learn: The Anime-only's ending implication of Takemoto winning causes many supporters to lost hope on whether Nariyuki will end up with Fumino or Mafuyu. This was later averted though.

Comic Books

• Elf Quest: Ember hooked up with Mender once she reached puberty. The Fandom generally liked him until he went off to fight in the war and was replaced by Ember's second love interest, Teir - who came literally out of nowhere. Now, the original authors and the guest artists/writers alike all collectively prefer Teir over Mender now... the fandom, predictably, is much more split on the subject, evenly between forgetting Mender even existed, and seeing Teir as an abhorrent Creator's Pet.

Films

• The Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Steve/Tony was once the Fan-Preferred Couple but it lost a lot of fire in Phase 2 given the two lessened interactions and Character Development taking them in different places. It reached its climax in Captain America: Civil War where it was revealed that Steve had withheld from Tony that Bucky had killed Howard and Maria Stark, firmly establishing that Bucky is the most important person in Steve's life. Steve/Tony still has some followers but nowhere near as much as Steve/Bucky. By consequence, Steve/Bucky also comprehensively killed Steve/Sharon, Steve/Sam, and to a lesser degree Steve/Natasha.
  • Revealing Clint to be married in Avengers: Age of Ultron killed all his ships pretty much overnight. Either out of support for Clint/Laura or because Clint was suddenly not worth the energy anymore.
  • Thor's ships had a similar treatment after Thor: The Dark World and the Love Triangle between him, Jane, and Sif and Thor: Ragnarok's lack of overt romance.
• Star Wars: Despite it coming out of nowhere and being obvious in its intentions, the revelation that Luke and Leia were siblings did kill off the Fandom (and there was a Fandom after the first two movies)...for a while. Since then they've grown up and are letting their freak flags fly on the innerblagospherat00bs.

Literature

• The Harry Potter fandom has several examples:
  • Order of the Phoenix:
    • After the events of the book, previously vocal Harry/Cho Shippers appeared to Evanesco.
    • It also saw the once-popular Percy/Penelope ship (it had the advantage in the early days of being the only canonical ship whose characters weren't old, dead or both. For a time, it was probably the largest ship not involving some permutation of Harry, Hermione, Ron and Draco.) dwindle away to virtually nothing, for a different reason. J.K. Rowling later stated in an interview that Percy went on to marry a woman who was not seen in the books, which killed off a lot of the remaining shippers.
  • Half-Blood Prince:
    • Ron/Lavender Brown used to be a popular Beta Couple among supporters of Harry/Hermione (that is, when he didn't fall victim to Die for Our Ship), which changed when it became Canon in the sixth book and turned Lavender into the Stalker with a Crush. They broke up on very bad terms and from then on, Ron was more commonly shipped with Luna Lovegood among those who don't support the Canon Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny.
  • Believe it or not, Sirius/Narcissa was actually a moderately popular ship during the "Three-Year Summer" between the releases of Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix. (The ship's popularity probably had much to do with it being a significant part of the ridiculously influential The Draco Trilogy Fanfic.) When it was revealed in Order that Narcissa was actually a Black and Sirius's cousin (and then Sirius went ahead and died, to top it all off), the ship vanished from Fandom seemingly overnight. Ironic, really, since incest and death haven't stopped plenty of other Harry Potter ships.
    • Or the Blacks, for that matter.
• After Nico was revealed as gay in The Heroes of Olympus, all heterosexual ships about him vanished.
• Tortall Universe's Song of the Lioness series. An example of an Abandon Shipping that took place within the story itself occurred when Pierce realized that her planned ending of Alanna marrying Prince Jonathan wasn't really what Alanna wanted and wrote them breaking up after Jonathan proposed to her. Instead Pierce paired Alanna off with her Gentleman Thief friend George Cooper and introduced Rebellious Princess Thayet for Jonathan.
• Warrior Cats: Many shippers abandoned Whitestorm/Bluestar when it was revealed that he was her nephew. The ship was even dubbed 'Denialshipping'.

Live-Action TV

• 24: The potential Jack/Nina ship came apart at the end of Season 1 for very obvious reasons.
• Battlestar Galactica: had this happen to Kara/Lee mostly after the fans found the pairs actions during the Quad of Doom despicable. Attrition though took place throughout the whole series with fans jumping ship as early as the first season finale, by the series finale Roslin/Adama overtook them as the largest ship in the Fandom.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Many abandoned the Spike/Buffy ship after the infamous attempted rape in season six.
• Doctor Who:
  • The peak of Rose/Doctor shipping was in Series 4. Once Rose was paired off with the Doctor's half-human clone, most of the fire died out.
  • Mickey/Jackie, formerly a popular Ship Mate to Tenth Doctor/Rose, has pretty much died off since the pairings of Jackie/alternate Pete and Mickey/Martha became canon.
  • After Amy and Rory got married, Doctor/Amy vanished pretty quickly from the internet.
    • It did a fairly good job of killing Doctor/Amy/Rory too, which, as you can probably guess from the way it's that trope's page picture, was previously pretty popular.
  • There was also a marked drop-off in the number of fics where River was paired with Amy and/or Rory after the reveal that she's their daughter.
  • Doctor/River took a serious hit after "The Name of the Doctor" after it showed, what was believed to be, the two's last meeting with the Doctor seemingly ready to move on with Clara. It got its popularity back after "The Husbands of River Song" but wasn't anywhere near as popular as it was during its peak from 2010 to 2012.
  • Subverted in the case of Doctor/Clara. Though the casting of Silver Fox Peter Capaldi initially seemed to herald a new age of "No Hugging, No Kissing", this was proven to be nonsense very quickly with Doctor/Clara actually gaining more support over the course of Twelve's run. The Series 9 finale all but canonized it, showing how far the Doctor is willing to go and is prepared to do for Clara.
  • The Gender Swapped Thirteenth Doctor has seen a lot less shipping than her predecessors despite the establishment that her last two major love interests (River and Clara) were bisexual.
• Dollhouse: More than half of Topher and Claire's Fandom abandoned shipping when it was revealed that Claire was actually a Doll and claimed she hated Topher's guts. Those who left began to ship Topher with Adelle, until Bennett came into the picture and killed whatever was left of both pairings. (Before, you know, getting killed off by Claire...)
• Friends:
  • The Ross/Rachel ship was popular when the show started, but much of the fandom tired of the pairing somewhere around the end of season 3. The writers annoyingly remained hooked on the ship, keeping the Unresolved Sexual Tension drawn out for the rest of the show's run, with Word of God even later admitting that whenever there weren't any major relationship-related plots going on they could always bring out another airing of "Ross and Rachel", believing this to be what the fandom wanted.
  • Chandler/Kathy and Richard/Monica were both popular ships in their own right but they, and all the other Chandler and Monica pairings, died out when Chandler/Monica became canon.
• A lot of people (thought not all) backed away from the once golden couple Chuck/Blair on Gossip Girl after the start of season 3, thanks to Chuck whoring Blair out to his uncle Jack in "Inglourious Bassterds".
• Heroes: The Reveal that Peter and Claire are related did scare off most of the more casual 'shippers. However, many stuck to it, either pretending that the reveal didn't happen or just accepting it regardless. Considering that the fandom's most popular Ho Yay pairing is Peter and his brother, this isn't too surprising.
  • Ironically enough, the implication of incest didn't stop Claire and Peter's actors from hooking up... so why should it stop the shippers? Of course, their subsequent break up (and rumors of Hayden Panettiere trying to get Milo Ventimiglia thrown off the show) might spike those particular wheels.
  • There seems to have been a significant drop in Mohinder being paired with anyone ever since his experiments with Super Serum kicked off a mutation into... whatever the heck it is he's turning into.
• ICarly:
  • The Seddie (Sam/Freddie) ship seems to lose shippers every time Sam ups the Comedic Sociopathy against Freddie or she bumps her Moral Event Horizon. Examples include throwing Freddie out of a treehouse after delivering to him a harsh beating with a tennis racquet in "iMeet Fred" and running a child labor sweatshop during "iSell Penny Tee's."
    • As with many pairings that get together and then break up later, there are fans who abandoned Seddie after their break up in iLove You. Either through having seen the relationship and not be satisfied with it or because they were satisfied by what they saw and wanted the show to go back to being about comedy.
    • After the Grand Finale saw Creddie (Carly/Freddie) seemingly triumph, a lot of Seddiers jumped, some even seeing it as Freddie being a player and not good enough for Sam. Helped by the fact that Jennette McCurdy, the actress who played Sam, tweeted that Seddie made absolutely no sense to her and that she was a proud Creddie shipper.
  • As part of Values Dissonance, Creddie itself has also received some of this as fans who once supported it now take a more critical view of Carly's treatment of Freddie.
• Kamen Rider Den-O appeared to have quite a bit of ship tease between Ryotaro and Hana, until Hana's actress left the show and the character reverted to her ten-year-old self, "Kohana." However, Ryotaro/Hana remained popular in fandom until the reveal that Hana was Ryotaro's niece; fans jumped ship abruptly.
• Lost: A decent amount of shippers in the Fandom jumped ship when it was revealed that Jacob and the Man in Black are twin brothers. Others have continued to ship it.
• Although there was Ship Tease between Arthur and Morgana in the first series of Merlin, many shippers soon lost interest simply because they barely interacted in series two, and were then revealed to be half-siblings in series three (and still didn't interact in any meaningful way). Despite the potential for Foe Yay, they only had one brief scene together throughout the entirety of series four.
• Robin Hood: The Sheriff/Guy ship seems to have died out in series three after Guy attempted to kill the Sheriff and later had a Heel Face Turn ... then the Sheriff killed him in the final episode. He joins the outlaws around the same time that his sister Isabella does a Face Heel Turn, which put off a lot of people who were beginning to ship Robin/Isabella.
  • However, the fact that Guy of Gisborne deliberately murdered Marian by impaling her on a giant sword didn't deter the shippers in the way that the writers apparently wanted it to.
• Stargate Atlantis, once it was revealed that Teyla was pregnant with the baby of her fellow Athosian, Canaan, and after the child was born, many dropped all ships between her and anyone else.
  • Though the idea that a relationship could've taken place before her relationship with Canaan allows many ships to stay afloat, including but not limited to Sheyla (Teyla/Sheppard, the most popular pairing involving Teyla), Teyla/Ronon, and even McKeyla (Teyla/McKay, due to McKay, oddly enough, being the series' Launcher of a Thousand Ships).
• Stargate Universe: the Eli/Chloe ship was already on life support by Season Two, but the arrival of Ginn put the nail in the coffin.
• Star Trek: Enterprise: During the first couple of seasons all signs pointed towards a ship between Captain Archer and T'Pol, until the third season when all of a sudden the ship turned into one between T'Pol and Trip Tucker.
  • With the series finale bringing back the idea of a T'Pol/Archer pairing.
• Super Sentai:
  • In Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, Genta/Kaoru became very popular after episode 47, causing pretty much all other ships involving Genta to be abandoned.
  • Masumi/Natsuki was a popular pairing during the run of Go Go Sentai Boukenger, but saw a drop in shippers when it failed to become canon and then when Masumi's actor sank the ship in an interview.
• Victorious: All three of the big heterosexual ships fell victim to this.
  • Tori/André was once a beloved Fan-Preferred Couple due to its interesting chemistry, that it meant that no one had to Die for Our Ship, and that it completed the set quite nicely. But over time, it became clear that the show had no interest in doing Ship Tease between the two and Tandré quickly died out. Any support for it is largely platonic.
  • As divisive as Beck/Jade was when the show started out, it was a genuinely popular pairing only for it to lose a lot of steam in Season 2 as the two became Out of Focus and it only got worse after their vicious breakup in "The Worst Couple." Though they eventually got back together, the ship's heyday had passed. After the series was released on US Netflix in late 2019, the now adult fanbase took a rather more critical view of it and once loyal fans couldn't separate themselves from such a toxic couple fast enough.
    • A lesser jumping off point occurred in "Tori Goes Platinum" when the Bade fans learnt that Beck was the one pushing for Beck/Tori, not Tori herself.
  • Cat/Robbie was once universally beloved before Values Dissonance set in and some fans began viewing Cat as entitled invoker of The Unfair Sex, saying that Robbie should move on.

Video Games

• Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Trucy and Apollo tend to gather shippers early on in the game due to their quirky antics and how they team up to solve cases. However, at the very end of the game it is revealed that Trucy and Apollo are in fact SIBLINGS, thus causing many fans to reject the pairing. To add insult to injury, there's also the fact that Trucy and Apollo are never seen learning the truth of their heritage, leading some to worry that they NEVER find out, and maybe DO attempt a relationship anyways!
• Heavy Rain: Scott Shelby and Lauren Winter. All gone to hell when it is revealed that Scott was the person who killed Lauren's son. She whacks him in the most epic way though.
• Shadow Hearts Covenant: Aw, Yuri and Karin make such a cute couple. Oh, wait. She's his mother!? Icky! Wait, how does that work? Stupid time paradox!
• Tales of Symphonia: Kratos/Lloyd was looking good for most of the game. From Lloyd's jealousy of Kratos's strength, and Kratos's efforts at training and defending him, the strengthening of their bond while they traveled together, and Kratos's obvious desire to protect Lloyd (and Lloyd's equally obvious desire to trust him) after Kratos's Face Heel Turn, the connection was obvious and easily made. ...Then near the end of the game, it turns out that Kratos is Lloyd's father.
• The World Ends With You: Some people began to ship Beat and Rhyme due to their close interactions at the beginning. This was quickly dropped by most when we found out that they are siblings. And that Rhyme is SUBSTANTIALLY younger than Beat. But...
• Love Live! School Idol Festival: Averted with one of the Aqours chapters where Hanamaru wants a little sister like Ruby. While this was meant to be one of Hanamaru's imaginations, some (jokingly) see this as her "sister-zoning" Ruby while instantly ending the HanaRuby pairing.

Web Comics

• The Girl Genius fandom had a variant, in that shippers didn't ditch a pairing due to one of the characters doing something unconsciousable, but simply because a better one showed up. When Tarvek and Bangladesh interacted, Bang's schoolgirl glee at seeing Tarvek again earned the pairing a lot of fans. Two days later, Bang met Vole, and everyone immediately jumped to that ship. To quote one of the posters on our own forums: "I support this ship. I support this ship so much it will not displace water. I support this ship so much it will be a skyship."

Web Original

• Gaia Online has a Shipping scene. As a result, this has happened about three times in recent memory. The first was with Love Triangle between Ian, Sasha, and Gino. There used to be debate between Sasha X Ian, and Sasha X Gino supporters as to who she should go with. However, when she took yet a third person who was already in a love triangle of his own to a Halloween ball, everyone decided Sasha was Too Dumb to Live and abandoned ship. Since then, Ian has showed only passing interest in Sasha, and Gino has become hilariously inept at dating.
  • In 2007, Friendly Neighborhood Vampire Louie was introduced, and promo art showed Perky Goth Moira as his love interest. Naturally all of the fangirls leapt on Louie/Moira... until the animated plot updates came out. The relationship was so convoluted that even Gaia abandoned ship.
  • Around this same time, it was revealed that Louie, Ian, and Gino were all related (Louie and Ian are brothers, and they are both Gino's half-brothers). Upon this revelation, those that shipped these three in some form or way eventually abandoned ship.
• Homestuck did this when it revealed John is Jade's brother genetically while Dave is Rose's brother genetically.

Western Animation

• Batman Beyond: Terry/Bruce was a big favorite for fans. The way they were presented you'd think they were perfect....until JLU Epilogue came out and well, turns out Bruce is Terry's biological father and.... Well the pairing is now very rare. Actual incest is something that makes even Batslashers uncomfortable sometimes.
• Seasons 3 and 4 of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power saw most of the fanbase abandon any Catra ship as she began Jumping Off the Slippery Slope to the point that everyone felt she was too toxic for every relationship. Her Heel Face Turn in Season 5 brought her ships back in force.
• Steven Universe:
  • When the Season 1 finale Garnet was revealed to be a fusion between two very devoted lovers, ships about her died out.
  • The proper introductions of Pink and White Diamond and the clarification of the Diamonds' relationship as familial (White as the mother, Yellow, Blue, and Pink as the daughters) caused all the Diamond ships to die out.
  • Pearl/Rose was very popular in the fandom's early days but began to lose steam as more and more of the characters' backstories were revealed usually on the basis that the two being romantically involved wasn't healthy for them.
• Steve/Eli was once very popular in Tales of Arcadia, peaking in the second season of Trollhunters, before Steve/Aja became canon in 3Below and every Steve ship died.
• The Legend of Korra might set a record for turnaround time for a ship being created, then abandoned:
  • A promotional poster for the show distributed at ComicCon 2011 featured Korra with an Earthbender boy and a Firebender boy. Naturally, some fans started Ho Yay Shipping them right away. Later, during the panel for the show, it was revealed that the boys were siblings, and everyone not into Incest Yay Shipping jumped ship.
  • When all that was known about Meelo was that there was a character with his name, people thought he might be Korra's Love Interest. Needless to say, when he turned out to be a toddler, that thought died out completely.
  • Tenzin and Korra. They were the first two named characters and were paired up almost immediately in a Mentor Ship... until it was found out that Tenzin was a married man in his fifties with three kids.

• Total Drama World Tour provides an in-universe example: Loony Fan Sierra seems to have been a Shipper on Deck for Fan-Preferred Couple Duncan/Gwen, at least in part because Cody has a crush on Gwen and Sierra has a crush on him. (You following this?) However, Duncan was already with Courtney, and when he and Gwen hooked up behind her back, Sierra turned on Gwen out of principle. (Though the fact that Cody didn't abandon the himself/Gwen ship probably helped.)
  • Out-of-universe, many Duncan/Courtney fans abandoned ship after Courtney became a Jerk/Villain/GodModeSue in TDA, most switching to Duncan/Gwen. Her personality improved in season three, but it didn't stop the D/G Relationship Upgrade.
• When it was revealed that Shiro from Voltron: Legendary Defender was gay, the Shiro/Allura fandom split violently between those who abandoned the ship and those who refused to. Many of the latter category became hostile towards those in the former, even towards the writers.