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Many television programs have romance subplots, Ship Tease, and UST. It isn't surprising that some of their fans want some characters to get out of the way of their Fan-Preferred Couple.


  • Battlestar Galactica:
    • Anastasia Dualla took serious heat from the fans after she was suddenly married to one half of the fandom's Fan-Preferred Couple. The sloppy handling of the storyline didn't help.
    • Strangely, Sam Anders, who was married to the other half of the Fan-Preferred Couple, hasn't garnered much reaction at all. This may be because he's white, male and pretty; or it might be because the fanbase figures that being married to Starbuck is punishment enough. Or that Kara/Anders was handled much better and has a strong fanbase of its own. Lee/Dee fans are a minority.
    • Just as suddenly as Lee/Dee came, it went. By the power of one scene, they broke up for good.
    • Anders has been turned into an adulterer in Fanfic before. The fact that he's the faithful one while Starbuck is the cheater in Canon makes it hilarious that people don't notice the Double Standard.
    • Sam has also been made to tamper with birth control, rape Kara, and physically abuse Kara in fanfiction. The last is particularly ironic because Lee Adama beats her to a bloody pulp in canon (granted, it was a boxing match); Starpollo fans maintain that when Lee does it, it's an expression of the pair's equality. In canon, Sam has never laid a hand on Kara (though the reverse isn't true).
    • There's been a bit of backlash from Kara/Lee fans because Kara and Sam Anders ended the series Together in Death (at least that's what Katee Sackhoff believes) and, in Ron Moore's own words, Kara and Lee never got past that moment where they nearly cheated on Zak (her fiance, his brother). Some of them even take umbrage at the suggestion that Sam, who is a Cylon, has a soul. To quote, "Real boys go to Heaven, Toasters need not apply." To which the standard rebuttal is, "It's canon, bitches!"
  • Hina of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, even though she let Mamoru go willingly.
  • Doctor Who can only be explained by pointing out one key fact of the franchise — for much of the first 30 years of its existence, the Doctor was never depicted with an on-screen love interest. Romances as a whole were generally ignored. Some of this was done out of sensitivities of the times — as the show was geared toward a child audience, it was seen as creepy for a much older man to be flying around in space with young women on his arms. Over time, this led to a large portion of the fandom and even people involved with the franchise declaring the character was essentially celibate, to the point where they even attempted to Retcon why he had a granddaughter in his first incarnation. So for all time, there is always a large portion of the Doctor Who fandom that ships "Doctor/NOBODY!" and violently despises the franchise post 1996 when the series finally started going against the trend and showing him engaging in intimate relationships (and acknowledging that said granddaughter was definitely by blood and not adopted).
    • So woman #1 in the line of fire was Grace Holloway, who appeared only in the TV Movie, kissed the Doctor twice, and earned eternal hatred. Though some of this was also due to other issues with the film's treatment of the franchise. She hasn't gotten too much extreme hate due to her lack of subsequent appearances.
    • Woman #2 is Rose Tyler, who appeared in the new series for two series and received a few more guest appearances since then. She has the distinction of being the first woman explicitly shown to have a relationship with the Doctor. And talking to those that hate her, she's also Russell T Davies' personal Mary Sue that he created so he could live out his fantasies of being in love with the Doctor. This was not helped by how the Doctor's relationship with his next companion often led to on-screen comparisons with Rose in which Martha found herself lacking, but we'll get back to that...
    • Martha Jones, the companion of Series 3 and a guest character afterwards, had a one-sided relationship with the Doctor in which she eventually left due to her tiring of the situation (though a later episode suggested the senseless deaths that happened in all their stories didn't help matters). She would be the source of hate from Doctor/Rose shippers and of course Doctor/NOBODY! shippers.
    • Donna Noble, the companion of Series 4, took innumerable amounts of shipping flack despite not even being presented as a love interest. Some of these was related to feelings towards the actress, Catherine Tate.
    • Series 5 and 6 brought another complication with Amy Pond, who spent Series 5 trying to work out her feelings for both the Doctor and for her fiancé Rory, which ended when she married Rory and they remained a close couple in Series 6. This naturally drew out a great deal of people who either A) Hated Amy for interfering with the Doctor/NOBODY! ship B) Hated Rory for interfering with the Amy/Eleven ship or C) Hated Amy for interfering with the Rory/Eleven ship. People in the A group got particularly upset and lodged complaints with the BBC over Amy trying to get the Doctor to sleep with her at the conclusion of Flesh and Stone. Ironically, the Doctor ships Amy/Rory and works on this throughout the series.
    • Then there is River Song, the current Shipping Wars Omega of the fandom. River Song appeared once in Series 4, where her introduction was that of a future lover of the Doctor. She came back in series 5 and 6 and this connection was, to put it simply, made far more explicit. This naturally draws her hate from anyone that ever shipped the Doctor with anyone or no one. Because she's also got a complicated history similar to the Doctor's, this has also led to people in those groups frequently accusing her of being Steven Moffat's personal Mary Sue that lets him live out his fantasies with the Doctor. Wait...deja vu...
    • Finally, there's Reinette, Madame de Pompadour, who showed up for the episode "The Girl in the Fireplace" and explored a deep and intimate relationship with the Doctor. An episode that won multiple awards for its writing quality. You'd never know that from the number of people who wanted her die in that very fireplace. They've even gone as far as to suggest that the episode was only written so David Tennant could have an on-screen fling with his girlfriend Sophia Myles, ignoring that the episode was written before Tennant's casting and Myles and Tennant only met on the set of the episode in the first place.
    • And while the classic series never actually ran with it, Romana II and the Fourth Doctor carried on like lovers in many of their stories anyway, as both Lalla Ward and Tom Baker were lovers in real life at the time. Thus Romana drew heat for interfering with the Doctor/NOBODY! pairing well before the internet proper was running.
    • Clara Oswald makes things a bit complicated. Per Word of God, she's the Doctor's Distaff Counterpart and his soulmate. There a group of passionate anti-Danny Pink (Clara's boyfriend in Series 8) and anti-River Song fans who are adamant about Doctor/Clara and were outraged that River returned in the episode right after Clara's departure and that the she's framed as his Second Love. Further confusing the issue is that both Clara and River are creations of Steven Moffat making it very unclear which of the two he favours. Alternative Character Interpretation then comes into play regarding which woman Twelve loved more and who he's mourning over in Series 10. Twelve/River justifies their ship by River's photo on the Doctor's desk. Twelve/Clara claims that the Doctor is over River and his picture of her is a memento as he refused to erase Bill's memories after being asked how he'd feel if someone did that to him.[1] "Twice Upon a Time", Twelve's last outing, keeps the debate going. The novelization had a lot of Twelve/River vibes (it identifed his ring as his and River's wedding ring and finally answered that she was the topic of his browser history) but the Doctor also considers getting his memories of Clara back as the best Christmas gift ever (even Amy Pond and Bill Potts seem to be Doctor/Clara shippers).
  • Gwen from Torchwood is hated by fans for what they see as getting in the way of Ianto and Jack, despite the fact that Gwen wound up marrying someone else and Jack wound up with Ianto.
  • Due to the fact that Wizards of Waverly Place's most popular couple is Justin/Alex, every possible Love Interest for any of the two gets immediately bashed and hated within the fandom. Harper, Alex's best friend, was a case of this at the beginning of the series, since she was the Stalker with a Crush on Justin, but she became much more liked when she stopped being that, and fell in love with Justin's best friend, Zeke. The same could be applied for Mason, Alex's most recent boyfriend, whom many view as a jerkass lunatic, especially since he is... a werewolf.
    • Mason is also despised by Alex/Stevie shippers (even though the two never existed at the same time and Alex/Juliet shippers...well fans of Juliet in general.
  • On the Daytime Soap Opera General Hospital, Liz Webber and Sam McCall have been reviled by each other's fans ever since they became involved in a Love Triangle over Jason Morgan. Fans of the Sam/Jason pairing hate Liz for having given birth to Jason's firstborn child and will often bring up that Liz is a married woman who is lying to her husband Lucky about the paternity of the child. Fans of the Liz/Jason pairing counter by bringing up Sam's con-woman past and that Sam slept with her stepfather (a one-night stand which Jason found out about, which led to Jason sleeping with Liz and getting her pregnant). Then again, the couple of Liz and Lucky has a strong fanbase too, leading to much rabid Jason hate. Since Sam and Lucky (inevitably) hooked up, this led to many Sam/Jason fans becoming Ship Mates with Liz/Lucky fans and Liz/Jason fans becoming Ship Mates with Sam/Lucky fans. This had the effect of calming the respective hatreds towards the characters involved for a while.
    • Spinelli was already a divisive character with a vocal segment of the fandom hating on him for his relationship with Maxie, so it probably wasn't a smart move for the show producers to create a female version of him in the form of Winnifred who's even more loathed for breaking up Spinelli and Maxie.
    • Many years ago, Lily Rivera was so universally reviled for coming between Sonny Corinthos and Brenda Barrett that the writers responded by blowing Lily (and her unborn child) up in a car bomb planted by her own father. But, before Sonny and Brenda fans could rejoice, Brenda married Jasper "Jax" Jacks, who quickly became as popular as Sonny and Brenda. Cue one of the earliest shipping wars over the Internet.
    • Many "fans" celebrated the death of minor character Leyla Mir. Her crime? Getting in the way of Scrubs (Patrick/Robin). The kicker? That storyline happened in a spinoff.
  • One might wonder if the Ryan/Annie/Greenlee triangle on All My Children was a parody of or Take That at Shipping, given how much Kendall acted like a fanfic shipper pushing Greenlee toward Ryan and how Annie quickly turned into a murderous psychopath.
  • Grey's Anatomy: Upon the break-up of Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd, the character of Rose appeared to meddle. Fans' reactions were particularly vicious; Rose soon became known as 'The Plant' on the fan boards, and several fan fictions set out to murder her or turn her into a stalker.
    • Rose's canon reaction to Derek breaking up with her seemed to cater to these fans. She transformed into a petty bitch who stabs Derek with a scalpel, albeit accidentally. They even hung a lampshade on this by saying that she was known as the Fatal Attraction girl in the hospital, which is justification for her being Put on a Bus. The Rose haters must have loved this.
  • Star Trek: Voyager's Seven of Nine took a lot of heat from Janeway/Chakotay shippers when, out of nowhere, she was set up with Chakotay in the last season. Chakotay took similar degrees of heat from the Seven/Kim and Seven/Doctor shippers over this, while the Seven/Torres diehards, well... The Seven/Janeway fans were left going, "Well. That's rather arbitrary and lame."
    • J/C shippers went the furthest, with one webring running a "Die Seven Die" contest in which the ex-Borg (and sometimes Chakotay too) were killed off in various graphic, disgusting, and humiliating ways.
  • Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Curiously, the Suspiciously Similar Substitute Dani Beck came under the most merciless fire and outrage from Elliot/Olivia shippers during her short stint while Mariska Hargitay was pregnant. Elliot's wife, Kathy, does not get that so much outside of Television Without Pity (but they hate everything) or Fanfiction.net — though Fanfiction.net is a large enough base for unfair attacks.
    • And then there were the Alex/Olivia shippers. A common plot involves killing off Elliot for the sake of the ensuing hurt/comfort (which smacks of Did Not Do the Research, considering how edgy Olivia is about her feelings), effectively removing the only other large ship. Another popular scenario kills off Casey Novak in a spectacular fashion for having the effrontery to do Alex's job once she's dead. Dead-ish. They're just as loopy as the Elliot/Olivia shippers.
      • It makes you wonder if Judith Mccreary was one of said shippers, since she did the next best thing in writing the episode "Cold" — she killed Novak's career. Sort of.
  • Some fans of the original Law & Order exemplify a less common variation of this trope that does not involve killing off an alternate love interest. Many, many fanfictions kill Connie Rubirosa's mother, so she will no longer have a reason to stay in Los Angeles and can move back to New York to live happily ever after with Mike Cutter.
  • Jericho Has Jake/Heather fans harming Emily Sullivan left and right because she got the guy in Canon. Emily also tends to get Flanderized into a complete bitch while Purity Sue Heather become a 26 year old virgin and a paragon of midwestern values.
  • On Ugly Betty, Henry's girlfriend Charlie came under fire for getting in the way of Henry/Betty. The show decided to follow through, gradually changing Charlie's personality from "basically nice person" to "evil, deceitful bitch".
  • Riley in Buffy the Vampire Slayer was notoriously treated this way by fans. It was made worse by him not being a bad boy. Though really, every single character in the series has received flak from part of the fandom for getting in the way of their preferred ship. Yes, even Oz, who was hated by many Xander/Willow shippers.
    • A mix of this and Replacement Scrappy can be traced as the source for a good deal of hate for Kennedy, Willow's last-season love interest following the death of Tara. Granted, the character seemed to be a less successful attempt to recreate a morally neutral "Faith" type (who was also a lesbian), but mostly there were cries of Too Soon.
      • Kennedy's level of Shallow Love Interest was almost lampshaded by Willow asking why Kennedy liked her — Kennedy isn't able to come up with any real reasons besides Willow's cuteness and gender preferences. Yet, by the next episode, they're in a committed relationship.
        • It could have been not buying a chemistry thing. A lot of fans point out that Fred\Willow had more chemistry together in one episode then Kennedy\Willow in the whole of season seven.
    • Oddly enough, while I'm not sure if I just have looked hard enough or if I'm right, it seems that Fuffy shippers seem to not really hate on any of Buffy's canon love interests (except for the occasional Riley hate and even that's rare). Then again, a fairly large number seem to take place in Seasons 3, 4 or 6.
  • On Angel, Kate got a lot of hate, just for being a possible romantic interest for Angel. It never became actual.
    • Also, there was hate on all sides of the Fred/Gunn vs Fred/Wes pairings, hate for Cordelia from the Angel/Buffy shippers, and hate for Buffy from the Angel/Cordelia shippers.
  • Olive Snook in Pushing Daisies is an odd, inverted meta-instance of the trope. She considers Ned and herself the One True Pairing and plots and connives against Chuck, whose arrival (and whose place in Ned's heart) intrudes on her romantic fantasy of ending up happy with Ned. However, early on, she comes to realise that her conniving would cause pain to others and drops her plans. She then becomes a good friend to Chuck while still having feelings for Ned; everyone knows about this, and the three of them act in a mature and rational way throughout the series, which is an uncommon occurrence... not that it stops the Nolive shippers who seem to be somewhat upset that Lee Pace isn't having hot, steamy sex with Galinda.
  • The Heroes fandom tends to have a negative reaction towards canonical love interests, particularly when it comes to Peter Petrelli. His season-one love interest, Simone, was widely seen as being a high-and-mighty bitch; when she died — partly because of Peter — you could practically hear the cheering. Caitlin, his second-season girlfriend, is less hated and does carry a small but loyal contingent of shippers; but most people didn't complain much when she was conveniently pushed out of the way.
    • Nathan's wife Heidi isn't really hated, but fanfic writers tend to marginalize her since her existence interferes with the One True Bro Yay.
    • Oddly enough, Noah's wife Sandra is generally well-liked even though she logically gets in the way of any pairings featuring her husband. Matt's wife Janice, however, is hated by everyone, even though she didn't interfere with any major ships while she was around. Then again, she canonically messed him up romantically, so there's some justification.
    • Well Janice is hated because Matt's new girlfriend, Daphne was an Ensemble Darkhorse and people did not respond well to Matt taking Janice back, especially so soon after Daphne died.
    • Claire's second-season boyfriend West is just as loathed, but this may be because he was horribly written, especially compared to Zach, her friend in the previous season (who was originally written as gay, but since his actor thought he was in love with her...). Too bad Zach's actor went to another series.
    • Hiro's second-season love interest, Yaeko, is also disliked partly because Hiro's supposed to be walking The Hero's Path and above things like lusting after your best friend's girl and partly because of how poignant and sweet the Hiro/Charlie romance was. It seemed that he forgot her too quickly: she was his first love in more ways than one, canonically, and yet Hiro seemed to have no memory of her during the feudal Japan arc. Yaeko has been also bashed by Hiro/Ando and Hiro/Kensei shippers, and some fans believe she's a historically inaccurate Mary Sue.
  • People appear to hate Stacy Warner purely because she "came between" House and Cameron. Never mind that that particular Ship had been sunk in the episode before Stacy showed up.
    • Other people have a hate-on for Cameron because she gets in the way of House/Cuddy.
    • There's all the hate leveled at anyone who dares ship House/Wilson. Never mind that it's Ho Yay—he's coming between House/Cameron or House/Cuddy. Stacy (his canon love interest) and Wilson (and Cameron, but that was only a trick) are the only people Greg House has said "I love you" to, all intonation/intent discussions aside.
    • And to round out the set, there are the folks who make Stacy and Cuddy shrilling harridans and Cameron a weepy infant so House and Wilson can get it on — they are the most popular pairing by a slim but definite margin. Particularly egregious examples have been known to kill off the women — and this in a Medical Drama, with normally no violence.
    • Sometimes, Wilson gets this treatment because he's being shipped with House. It's a kink. Wilson also gets darkened for some Wilson/Chase ships.
    • Anyone who wants to ship either Chase or Cameron with someone else between season 3's "Friends with Benefits" arc and early season 6 has to get around Chase's trying to ship Chase/Cameron. Methods of derailing Cameron have been noted above; to facilitate pairing Chase with someone else, she may also be turned into a single-target harridan. Methods of derailing Chase to get Cameron together with House or Thirteen include making him more clueless than in canon, turning his Yandere streak up to eleven—there are several House/Cameron fics where Chase attempts to Murder the Hypotenuse after Cameron's broken up with him, and Cameron isn't always safe either—going alcoholic a few seasons early, denigrating his manhood (yes, even in Cameron/Thirteen fics), or showing him to have nothing in common with Cameron (when they had been friends in the first half of season 1).
    • House had sex with a woman named Lydia, played by Franka Potente. The House/Cuddy fans RAGE.
    • Some fans started to hate Lucas only after his relationship with Cuddy interfered with House/Cuddy. And that started before Lucas vandalized Wilson's apartment.
  • After the actress who played Kimberly, the first Pink Ranger on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, left the show, she was replaced by the recently Heel Face Turned Katherine, alias "Kat", who later was shown to have married series lead Tommy in the future. The fans bashed her like rabid wolves. Never mind that, in canon, Kimberly and Kat became friends, and Kimberly picked Kat to be her successor.
    • It's not just that fans hate Kat: the hatred warps all other characters around it. There are fics in which Tommy beats Kat to death with a baseball bat, and theories about how Kat faked 'the letter' and everyone around them just went along with it.
    • As Linkara points out, it doesn't help that a well-written couple broke up off-screen due to an Ass Pull of a letter. If only it had been handled a little better...
    • Similarly, fans of Power Rangers SPD and its Super Sentai counterpart Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger will shoot down Kat/Swan (and, for SPD, wife Aisynia) for disrupting the delicate balance that is Doggie Kruger's Ho Yay sex life.
    • Back to Dino Thunder... Trent. Oh, the horrors done to Trent. You like Cute Bruiser Kira with someone else? Fine, no problem. But derailing Trent, whom she had a crush on (and later was Brainwashed and Crazy, before he joined the Power Rangers for real), just to make your pairing of choice work? Um, no.
  • In the first season of Roswell, fans hated Kyle for going out with Liz (and keeping her from Max) even though she was the one who treated him badly and even though she could have broken up with him as soon as she realized she had feelings for someone else. Tess was even more hated in Season Two because she came between Max and Liz as well.
    • And then they basically did it in canon to Tess, when she wound up killing another series regular, having been working with the enemy all along, possibly (mind?)raping the hero, and then running off with his baby and their only spaceship.
  • Dr. Jennifer Keller in Stargate Atlantis. Replacing the highly popular Dr. Carson Beckett, she's become a rather controversial character in the fandom, inspiring love and hate in about a 45/55 portion if the Gateworld threads are anything to go by (although that sounds most like the gender ratio of that particular forum). The hate is particularly passionate considering that the mods have had to limit the anti-thread to misgivings and complaints only. The McKeller ship (Rodney and her), now canon, seems to have plenty of supporters though, but a few opponents as well, mostly Ronon/Keller shippers.
    • Now the part of the fandom hates Rodney for choosing Keller and not John Sheppard, his traditional fanon love interest. Amount of fic where Мс Kay portrayed as an evil bastard who left Sheppard for a girl/having sex with him while dating Keller at the same time and being total jerk about it is getting bigger and bigger.
    • Interestingly, Elizabeth Weir, who had quite a bit of UST with the other half of the main slash pairing, John Sheppard, doesn't seem to get this nearly as much — although she does get it. Instead she is usually paired off with another male cast member — Radek Zelenka and Evan Lorne are popular — and is frequently portrayed as a Shipper on Deck for John/Rodney, or at the very least quietly, unobtrusively supportive of them.
  • Stargate Universe had the opposite effect. People wanted Chloe not to die for a ship.. but instead just to die. Instead of fighting between themselves, the shippers of the two major pairings involving Chloe, Chloe/Eli and Chloe/Scott pairings fought together against the group that wanted Chloe dead.
  • In Firefly, it's Kaylee's canon beau Simon who gets the guns because he gets in the way of Kaylee/Jayne, or occasionally Kaylee/Mal.
    • Inara gets the Die for Our Ship treatment quite handily from Mal/River fans...and sometimes from Mal/Jayne or Mal/Simon.
Cquote1

 Mal: What? No, I ain't sly.

Cquote2
    • Those who prefer Simon/River have been known to axe Kaylee, as have the truly preposterous Simon/Jayne contingent.
  • In the BBC Robin Hood series, there appeared to be plenty of subtext for Robin/Much — until Much had a female love interest (Eve) in a series one episode. Cue the bashing. Djaq and Allan are also prone to this treatment, depending on which one you ship with Will Scarlett. Marian is generally liked, but sometimes takes a hammering from slash fans who paint her as a Canon Sue and a traitor for her relationship with Guy of Gisborne.
    • There are also a large contingent of fans who hate Robin for "interfering with" Guy/Marian, despite the fact that Guy is basically a Stalker with a Crush and ended up killing Marian for rejecting him at the end of Season Two. Instead of killing the ship, fans just started railing against Marian for "breaking Guy's heart".
    • There is a large group of fans (okay, okay, there's five of us) who would have been quite happy for Will to head back to Scarborough so that Allan and Djaq could work out the raging UST between them.
    • Series three introduced new female character Kate. Before a single episode featuring her had even aired, she was facing cries of Mary Sue from the fandom (which actually turned out to be correct for once) because publicity material showed her standing with Robin in photos and kissing him in the series trailer. When she did arrive, it became clear that both Much and Allan had crushes on her, leading to bashing from fans of other ships.
      • As far as shipping Kate went, the most popular choice (that is to say, less hated than other ships) was Allan/Kate, though they only really had one major scene together, and it soon became clear that Allan looked on her as a little sister. Ironically, Kate ended up with Robin, the one pairing that absolutely NOBODY wanted and when Allan died, Kate seemed the least affected by it, reacting with nothing more than a blank stare and then being the first to walk away from his funeral pyre.
    • Gisborne's sister, Isabella, also got this treatment before she had appeared on screen, as an episode trailer had romantic music playing after Robin rescued her from bandits. When the episode actually aired, Robin/Isabella went on to become tolerated, if not entirely accepted by the majority of the fandom, thanks to the actors' undeniable chemistry. And then the relationship only lasted three episodes anyway.
  • Bones has fans yelling "Kill Cam". (Though to be fair, Booth/Brennan seems to be where the writers are going anyway.)
    • Also Sully, an early love interest of Brennan's. He's been totally out of the picture for a couple seasons now and people are STILL writing "kill Sully" fic. Possibly because he was written as some kind of superman, good at absolutely every skill you'd care to name, but even so, enough is enough.
    • And now Hannah, Booth's new girlfriend, has reviewers claiming that the only good Bones episodes is one with no Hannah and people praying that Hannah dies a sudden and violent death, like 2 episodes ago. Really?
  • The American version of The Office had this with Karen in the third season, which led to incidents like this.
    • This happened again when a Season 7 deleted scene indicated that new executive assistant and regular cast member Jordan was a little flirtatious with Jim. The fandom came down very hard on her. Before she even had 10 spoken lines.
  • The Supernatural fandom is notorious for its negative reaction to recurring young female characters for interfering with the Bro Yay. In Season 2, the introduction of Jo caused an uproar among the fans. The fans got their way and her character went through an humiliating experience before getting dropped in Born Under A Bad Sign. But this was not the end of the slashers' woes. Before Season 3 even began, fandom was already wanking about the introduction of two new female characters, Bela and Ruby. However, things calmed down for the character of Ruby, maybe because it isn't likely that demon hunters arent likely to fall for a demon. The same cannot be said for Bela who was killed off in the season finale.
    • Although Sam/Jess (his now-flamed ex-girlfriend), Sam/Sarah (the Girl of the Week in Provenance) and Dean/Ellen (Jo's mother) are pretty popular, even among the slash fans, but this appears to be only because they have zero chance of hooking up with the boys in canon. If any of them were actually possible ship material, fans would turn on them like rabid dogs, which the flaming of Jess after she made another appearance proved all too well.
      • As did Abandon All Hope. If you read the reaction thread on the Livejournal community, you can see the fangirls instantly start liking Jo all of a sudden after she says she's not interested in Dean. The Character Development she had gone through since her last appearance didn't do anything for them. Then she does die, and there's weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
    • Houston, we have Anna hate in this fandom. Yet Dean/Castiel seems a kind of popular idea, except among some Samfen who think Castiel is going to push out the brothers' relationship. Of course, the latter group was later complemented by the group of Dean/Castiel shippers who wished that Sam had stayed dead. Honestly, Broken Base Up to Eleven.
    • Ladies and gentlemen, we have another entry in for this fandom: in the space of just one episode, Meg (the only female to have evaded the usual female fate in this show through all six seasons) is getting some massive backlash from both Dean/Castiel and Sam/Castiel fans when she takes Castiel's first kiss. It didn't help that Castiel kissed back.
  • Pete from Stargate SG-1 was universally reviled by Samantha Carter/Jack O'Neill shippers everywhere for having a relationship with and getting engaged to Sam. Once she broke it off, Fanon Discontinuity set in.
    • Sam is hated by the more rabid Jack/Daniel fans as a possible threat to their love. And Daniel is hated by the crazier Jack/Sam fans, for the same. Curiously, Jack seldom ends up with the sticky side of the love triangle.
  • Commander Brumby on JAG. He's universally hated by Mac/Harm shippers and any Mac shipper in general. Hell, he's hated by most of the fandom in general. The subsequent revelations about the actor who played him being English and not Australian and his death of an overdose of drugs that was possibly suicide as he was going through a divorce have softened reactions in the years since the show ended.
  • On a weird note, Farscape suffered from this trope in regards of Gilina Renaez (PK Tech Girl) breaking between John and Aeryn, any peacekeeper hitting on Aeryn, and even Crichton himself when he was split and and Aeryn had a relationship with the one on Talyn.
  • Riley of The Sarah Connor Chronicles catches an inordinate amount of hate from the fandom, and she's only been around for a few episodes. Her crime? Being a possible future love interest for John who may get in the way of the popular Cameron/John ship.
    • Though, to be fair, Riley is actually an agent of a faction of the human resistance that believes Cameron is corrupting John, and is on a mission to break the two up. And then she really does Die For The Ship. Not to mention that her having been manipulated in the first place seems to have made her into a more sympathetic character in some people's opinions....
  • Kevin Kinkirk from 7th Heaven is bashed in a similar vein to Anthony from For Better or For Worse. Fanfiction portrayed him as an abusive manipulative bastard who raped and beat Lucy on a daily basis for daring to get in the way of Lucy/anyone else. Or Lucy/happy single woman realizing she didn't need true love. Or they didn't care about Lucy and simply wanted Kevin to die.
  • ICarly: All 3 members of the Power Trio have been subject to this as well as a handful of other characters:
    • Carly is by far the biggest 'target', as she stands in the way of the Sam/Freddie ship which was briefly made canon.
    • Spencer is generally immune as his major ship in the fandom is with Sam. With Freddie liking Carly, there's no need to have Freddie even care that much, and with Carly, it's simple to just have her be straight and not romantically interested in Sam.
    • Freddie can be written like this in Carly/Sam stories. But it's rare because it's simple to write him as accepting the girls as lesbians. However, when he does get the treatment, it's usually a very brutal change in his character brought on by Carly rejecting him, and Sam 'stealing' Carly away from him.
    • Sam gets cast in a Die for Our Ship role in a few Carly/Freddie Hurt Comfort Fics, which portray Sam as an abusive girlfriend.
    • Sam's mom Pam gets put into this role quite often, as a deadbeat parent, she's often shown throwing Sam out of her house (or Sam moving out). Reasons vary, but can include because Sam comes out of the closet as Lesbian or Bisexual and in love with Carly, because she got pregnant to Freddie, or Sam's mom dies and Spencer/Carly/Freddie take her in to live with them.
    • Parodied in the episode "iStart A Fan War." When Carly points out the guy she currently has a crush on, the in-universe Carly/Freddie shippers scream that he's the one who "stole Carly from Freddie!" and attack him.
  • NCIS: Apparently, 90% of all Gibbs/Tony shippers want Jenny Shepard dead, evil, or both. Though that could actually be more accurately phrased as "90% of all people who watch the show". And they did get one of these done to her in-series.
    • Tony/Ziva shippers were just waiting each episode for something to happen to Jeanne.
      • There's an ongoing war between Tony/Ziva shippers and Tony/Gibbs shippers, and another one between particularly rabid Tony/Ziva shippers and everybody else.
      • Oddly (or perhaps not, given the characters in question), the McGee/Abby shippers don't get a great deal of serious argument from other factions. Presumably this is because the characters were a canonical couple at one time and it's periodically implied that they will be again.
  • Noah's Arc: Dre at the end of season 2, freeing up Wade to be with Noah again.
  • The Kate hate. Omigawd, the Kate Hate. Usually from Jack/Sawyer shippers but more recently from the Sawyer/Juliet shippers. And let's not forget the Jack hate coming from the Sawyer/Kate fans, either.
  • Christine Chapel from Star Trek: The Original Series got some of this for her infatuation with Spock. Though more often, she just got written into fanfics where she helped facilitate Kirk/Spock after realizing her love was doomed.
  • The X-Files: Where to even start?
    • There was hate for anyone who even might have gotten in the way of Mulder/Scully (notably Diana Fowley and Agent Doggett).
    • But at the same time, there was a huge amount of hating on the Mulder/Scully pairing itself. Usually Scully was the target of most of the anger because she interfered with Mulder/Krycek Mulder/Skinner or just about any other pairing imaginable.
      • Mulder/Krycek shippers that didn't want to hate on Scully often paired her with Skinner, which got her out of the way in a nicer way. Scully/Skinner and Scully/Krycek shippers, though, could turn Mulder into Ron the Death Eater in order to justify estrangement from Scully. Diana Fowley was a common scapegoat for that.
    • Agent Reyes was pretty much loathed by everyone for interfering with Mulder/Scully or Doggett/Scully. (Though to be fair, she was just loathed in general).
    • Marita Covarrubias got some of this too, though to a lesser extent.
  • Numb3rs Amita comes in for a huge amount of hate from practically all variety of slashers in the fandom, being characterized as a homophobic, jealous, possessive, shrewish slut.
  • True Blood: Most Eric/Sookie fans hate Bill Compton, accusing him of being a violent, lying, manipulative rapist... even though Eric is guilty of all these things.
    • Some of this is a result of the crossover between book fans and show fans. In the books, Bill turns out to fit at least two of these as he started the relationship on orders from higher up and lied about his motivations. Whether or not this will hold true for the show remains to be seen (so far it looks like it probably won't), but a lot of fans of both the book and the show have trouble making distinctions between them.
  • Smallville has the infamous "Chlois" theory. It basically states that Chloe (Lois Lane's cousin, Clark's high school best friend, and original character with no comic book counterpart) is really the iconic Lois Lane, who takes Lois' name after she dies to honor her memory, then hooks up with Clark. How the "fake" Lois ends up dying varies from person to person, but she's generally portrayed as a dumb bimbo who couldn't possibly live up to the real Lois' reputation.
    • The Chlark (Chloe/Clark) shippers who started the Chlois Theory could be so militantly overzealous in their hero-worship of Chloe and their complete and utter hatred of Lois, Lana, and any other character they saw as a threat to their preferred ship, that many of them could easily be described as the "Harmonians" of Smallville fandom.
    • There are also the Lana/Clark shippers (yes, they do exist) who portray Lois as a Smug Snake trying to move in on Lana's man and Clark as hopelessly in love with Lana and completely apathetic to Lois. (Which is just what the show ended up doing for a few episodes.)
    • Then there's the faction eagerly waiting for Lana to disappear in order to clear the way for Clark's destined relationship with Lois. Having him cling to Lana past high school felt like an unacceptable violation of canon. Of course, the series violates canon in so many other ways, such as killing off Jimmy Olsen (after making him Clark's senior at the Daily Planet!). The implication that Jimmy's little brother will assume the role of "Jimmy" in the future glosses over the implausibility of having two brothers bear the same name, even as a nickname. Lana's death would have served the purpose (although that is another violation of canon), but having her permanently leave town works, too.
    • Let's not forget Alicia Baker, who tried to get Lana to Die for Our Ship, but ended up dying for Clana instead. And she wasn't the only one. Almost every LanaStalker, most notably Tina, tried to kill Clark.
    • The "Chlollie" ship (Chloe/Oliver) probably has the least Hatedom of any Smallville couple, but it does have it's Die for Our Ship-ers. Not from Chlark fans, oddly enough, but from Chimmy (Chloe/Jimmy) fans. These fans are especially bitter about a letter Chloe left Oliver when she was Put on a Bus for much of Season 10, telling him she had never loved anyone as much as him. However, saying that Chloe didn't love Jimmy as much as Oliver could be a harsh, but fair assesment based on how stormy the Chimmy ship actually was in-universe (keep in mind Jimmy was actually Chloe's ex-husband when he died, having left Chloe just a few weeks after their wedding). To hear the Chimmy shippers tell it, you'd think Chloe and Oliver spend their dates tap-dancing on Jimmy's grave.
  • Degrassi, dear God, Degrassi. Just about every single Craig/Manny fanfic sets out to portray Ashley as a selfish bitch who hates Manny for no reason other than sheer jealousy that Manny's the one Craig really loves...even though it was really Manny who was behaving badly in the storyline; at one point she declared "If Craig really cared about Ashley, why would he keep coming bac\k to me?"
    • This was a problem going back to old school Degrassi. Fans hated anything that got in the way of Degrassi's first Super Couple Joey Jeremiah and Caitlyn. When Caitlyn broke up with Joey and started dating a creepy guy named Claude, fans wanted him to go away and die. And he actually did.
  • Fans of the Mac/Stella pairing on CSI: New York dislike Peyton for getting in the way of their ship during the third season. She is almost always portrayed as either a cold, heartless bitch or whiny and self-centered.
    • They also have a dislike for Brandon Walsh, the fireman who appeared to be dating Stella for a couple episodes in season 5.
    • Lindsay and Angell get plenty of heat from the Danny/Flack shippers, most likely because Danny/Lindsay and Flack/Angell are canon. Haters of the characters call them one-dimensional Mary Sues (or something along those lines) who get between the twu wuv of Danny and Flack.
    • Jo Danville, Stella's replacement, is seen being very friendly and practically an equal with Mac and is very often paired up with him in fandom. She is utterly hated.
  • Dollhouse: Topher/Whiskey shippers were very unhappy when Bennett showed up. Then in one of a few literal examples, Joss had Whiskey put a bullet in Bennett's brainpan, And the Fandom Rejoiced. (Except for the legions of Topher/Bennett fans, of course.) These same Topher/Whiskey shippers also weren't that fond of Adelle, either.
  • The Ray Wars in Due South fandom count as this to an extent. The arguments between Fraser/Ray V shippers and Fraser/Ray K shippers were brutal. And God forbid somebody said they liked them both...
  • A pretty extreme case is the character Elle on Gossip Girl. She only appeared in two episodes, yet she's passionately hated by the Chuck/Blair fans (which is roughly 95% of the viewers) for being a love interest for Chuck.
  • Merlin fandom contains the extremely popular Merlin/Arthur pairing, which leads to bashing of any character linked romantically with either man: leading ladies Morgana and Gwen are the most common targets but there's also Freya, Sophia, Lady Vivian and others.
    • Gwen's an interesting case of a character who is generally liked for herself, just not as a Love Interest — there probably isn't a fan alive who doesn't think that her best friend relationship with Merlin isn't the most adorable thing ever. As she's Arthur's future (now current) wife there's very little the shippers can do to get rid of her. Yet even though there are some who don't like her specific role, the character is so genuinely sweet that very few writers can bring themselves to derail her or otherwise do anything horrid to her. As such, she's usually just ignored in fics that pair Arthur with Merlin, or paired with Morgana or Lancelot instead.
      • The slashers are also genuinely stumped by the fact that Merlin adores Guinevere, and is a Shipper on Deck when it comes to Arthur/Guinevere, encouraging them to get together at every available opportunity. Any fic that has him resentful, depressed or jealous at the pairing instantly makes him Out of Character.
      • But Gwen also gets it in the neck from Morgana/Arthur shippers, often with a side of Real Women Never Wear Dresses since Morgana tends to fill the Action Girl role more often. This has died down somewhat with third season revelations that Arthur and Morgana are half-siblings and that Morgana has gone evil.
    • An interesting case is that of Princess Mithian, brought in as a last hurdle to the Official Couple of Arthur/Guinevere, and who exemplifies the tangled (and practically nonsensical) rationale of fandom shipping. Because her role as a temporary Romantic False Lead was obvious, Arwen shippers were fairly nonplussed, but Merthur shippers ended up embracing Mithian, firstly because she posed no permanent threat to their Fan-Preferred Couple, secondly because singing her praises was an easy way of scoring points against Guinevere, and thirdly because of a scene in which she approaches Merlin and tells him that Arthur values his opinion above all others. Having dubbed her an honorary Merthur shipper, they went on to claim that they a) wished that she'd been cast as Guinevere, b) would have happily shipped het if Arthur/Mithian had been the main pairing, and c) that she was the only good part of the episode (which not only involved Merlin as a very passionate Shipper on Deck for Arthur/Guinevere, but also had him display In-Universe Die for Our Ship toward Mithian).[2] Of course, one can't help but suspect that this adoration of Mithian would have instantly dissolved into seething hatred had she actually stuck around and become Arthur's wife.
  • Chuck: Bryce, Cole, Jill, and Lou have millions of Chuck/Sarah shippers hating their guts.
    • There are small but extremely devoted groups who ship Chuck with Casey, Morgan, Bryce and Ellie despite Sarah. The first two are plausible, if extremely far-fetched. The latter two...
  • In the Life with Derek fandom, there's a handful of Dasey shippers who demonize Emily, turning her into a jealous Stalker with a Crush who would do anything to get Casey out of the way. And let's not even get started on Sally...
  • Castle introduced a rival for Castle in the form of Robbery Detective Demmings. As of "Overkill," Demming has now been told this by the fans (99.99% of them shipping Castle/Beckett) because he kisses Kate at the end of the episode.
  • Alias. Sweet mercy, Alias. One faction of obsessive shippers wanted the protagonist, Sydney Bristow, to pair up with villain Julian Sark. Fic after fic was written either trying to show Sark as being not so bad as that, even though he clearly was in canon, and occasionally letting Sydney be a villain with him. They equally set out to turn Michael Vaughn into a murderous loon or worse, again in defiance of logic and common sense. The villainous Irina Derevko was supposed to be Jack Bristow's true love, even though she had basically wrecked his life earlier on, and she was morphed in fanfic into a loving, protective character totally out of synch with canon reality. To match Jack Bristow (the protagonist's father) back up with her again, fanfic writers tried all sorts of bizarre expedients, including recasting Jack as a villain. It got further and further out into the ozone as time went on.
    • Sarkney (Sark/Sydney) as well as Sydney/Michael shippers all started killing Lauren off once she was introduced. Her name in fandom was the COW (contrived odious wife) and there were deadification contests held in her honor.
  • The cross-canon Die for Our Ship is ridiculous in the Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes fandom. Either you ship Gene Hunt with Sam Tyler, hold LOM as the superior series, and bash Alex for being a "whiny, bitchy slut who can't keep her knickers on"; or you ship Gene Hunt and Alex Drake, most likely haven't even seen LOM and are sick of Sam being mentioned in A2A so much. Meanwhile, the Chris/Shaz, Alex/anyone else, and Sam/Annie fans are trying to stay clear of the fray and the multishippers are all going "well, that's silly, why choose?"
  • Though Xena: Warrior Princess existed during the early days of the Internet, that didn't stop one of the first and bloodiest full-scale ship wars between Xena/Gabrielle shippers (aka 'Subbers') and Xena/Ares shippers (simply known as Shippers throughout the fandom—those were much simpler days).
  • The Big Bang Theory: Many Sheldon/Penny fans are notorious for their hatred of Leonard. Although they have backed off Leonard now that he and Penny have broken up. Amy, Sheldon's canon love interest, hasn't gotten it as hard.
    • Well... Penny and Leonard have gotten back together again, the hate is back on the poor guy. And now that Sheldon and Amy have become official, it's gotten kinda worse for her for some of these people. Poor girl.
  • How I Met Your Mother:
    • Barney/Robin shippers automatically hated Don when he became Robin's new love interest after she and Barney broke up (though admittedly, it wasn't just them who wanted Don to die). Then in the season 5 finale, Robin broke up with Don, leading to much cheering from the fandom.
    • As of seasons 6 and 7, Barney has a new girlfriend, Nora. While there are some fans out there that like her and want her to be Barney's future bride, lots of Barney/Robin shippers hate her, especially now that Robin is in love with Barney again.
    • Opinions towards Kevin, Robin's season 7 love interest, were split down the middle: half the people hate him, half the people love him. However, no one, not even people who don't ship Barney/Robin, wanted him and Robin to be together, because their relationship was intentionally flimsy and lacking in chemistry, considering that Robin was still in love with Barney, but simply couldn't bring herself to take the risk. People still like Kevin because he's actually funny and cute, unlike Don (he was played by Kal Penn, after all).
  • There is a large amount of fandom hatred for Hayley Hotchner of Criminal Minds, with fanfic often portraying her as a whiny, demanding bitch. A rather ambiguous moment in season 3 didn't help matters by suggesting that she was cheating on Hotch prior to their divorce, although stories in which she gets her 'just desserts' have waned slightly since season 5, when the show's writers took the first part of this trope somewhat literally.
  • Hikari Sentai Maskman has Takeru/Iyal as the Official Couple from the outset, but many fans wanted to see Takeru get together with Momoko (even though they hardly interact or get any screen time together) and dislike Iyal intensely. The Star-Crossed Lovers ending of the show is taken as the definite sign that Takeru will eventually hook up with Momoko, even though there is still no evidence of him having feelings for any woman other than Iyal. This is also applicable to Haruka (who at least has more interaction with Takeru).
  • Kylen Celina sometimes gets this from the Space: Above and Beyond fandom. Granted, there is a legitimate reason why her relationship with Nathan West may not be tenable following her rescue in the series finale (namely, the fact that the Marine pilot is no longer the naive would-be colonist he started the series as). However, fanfiction frequently has her act on this in the pettiest fashion possible. Predictably, this leaves the door open for a heartbroken West to be comforted by his One True Love (usually Vansen, Hawkes, or Col. Mc Queen).
  • Kamen Rider Double's Official Couple is Terui/Akiko, the problem being that Terui is one of the most popular secondary Riders in recent years while Akiko is widely disliked. As a result, there's a number of fans who'd like to see Terui with any woman but Akiko, and frequently wish violent death on her for daring to fall in love with him. Made worse by the fact that two guest characters who showed interest in Terui were played by actresses already popular with fanboys after previous roles in Super Sentai.
  • The Glee fandom is rife with this.
    • Anyone who is or feasibly could be shipped with Kurt. His canon boyfriend Blaine gets Flanderized into an emotionally and physically abusive jerk. His Stalker with a Crush Karofsky gets turned from an aggressive, sexually confused bully into a psychopathic rapist. Hell, his once-intended boyfriend, Sam gets this as well. Each faction engages all others in all out Ship-to-Ship Combat for the right of Kurt's affections. The Klaine shippers are the most plentiful, though the Kurtofsky and Kum shippers make up for their lack of numbers with sheer volume. All three have their fair share of batshittery, but Klaine fans are decidedly the more prone to psychotic insanity, including creating tumblrs just to insult kurtofsky shippers and telling them they should die and fabricating false news about Max Adler, the actor who plays Karofsky, just to spite his fans, so much so that when someone in the fandom does something insane, it's most likely going to be a Klainer. Max seems to also be one of their primary targets, since in an interview for Billboard about his character's attempted suicide in On My Way, he commented about having received tweets from people saying they hoped Karofsky could end up succeeding in his attempt and dying so Kurt and Blaine should be together.
    • New character Sebastian is getting this big time from Klaine shippers due to his pursuit of Blaine, going from an aggressive flirter to an outright stalker and rapist who needs to be shot. This despite the fact that his behavior has been relatively mild and not even close to the actual canon stalking of Karofsky last season. His actor, Grant Gustin, has stated in interviews that he has received actual death threats from rabid shippers.
    • Hardcore Brittana shippers launched a full scale war against Bartie and the ravenous Bartie fandom that doesn't exist. The actor who played Artie once commented on the angry tweets he received from hardcore Brittana shippers.
    • Finn gets this treatment from rabid St. Berry fans who distort him into an Evil Abusive Boyfriend holding Rachel back from achieving her dreams and being with the much more sensitive and talented Jesse.
    • Like with any major ship, Finchel has its vocal minority that can be extremely rude to Fuinn shippers, especially. They tend to exaggerate the terrible things Quinn does while completely excusing Rachel from her similar actions.
    • The hate against Mercedes coming from rabid Sam shippers who don't like the Sam/Mercedes ship is so strong that kicked the proverbial pup via leaving nasty messages on her actress (Amber Patricia Riley)'s twitter account.
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 'Tumblr reblogger: "She’s right. Does it really bother you that much that Sam might be with Mercedes instead of Quinn or Kurt? If it does bother you to the point that you have to send someone horrible tweets — then you need help. Amber doesn’t write the storylines. She can’t really say “No, the assholes on tumblr/twitter want Sam to be with someone else, I refuse to do this storyline!”. Even if she could — you expect her to turn down screentime just to make a bunch of shippers happy?"

Cquote2
  • Sometimes this thing happens very nebulously when there are no true factions, especially in non-hardcore fandoms like those of sitcoms. Example: on Frasier, most Frasier/Lilith and Frasier/Roz shippers think Frasier/Charlotte was a terrible pairing. On the other hand, they don't hate each other much at all. And then there's a group of fans, who have a small overlap with both the Frasier/Lilith crowd and the Frasier/Roz crowd, who commit themselves to despising every single Girl of the Week Frasier has. Then there's those who think both the Frasier/Lilithers and the Frasier/Rozers are deluding themselves and take the potential of Frasier's obviously doomed girls of the week too seriously, (especially Claire). It's nigh impossible to get any sort of lock on what the majority of the viewers is gunning for. Then again, Frasier was never part of the show's Official Couple anyway...
  • Skins, the UK version, has this with Michelle, for getting in the way of everyone's OTP, Sid/Cassie. Even when it was clear from the start that Michelle was Sid's Romantic False Lead. It got particularly bad in Season 2 when Sid and Michelle actually were together for a short while, though with it still clear that their true loves were Cassie and Tony, respectively. People started accusing Michelle of being a "slut," even when Cassie was actually engaging in some extremely promiscuous behavior. In Season 3, JJ also got some hate from the Naomily shippers when he slept with Emily, though it was minimal — probably helped by the fact that Skins writers had learned their lesson and made it even more abundantly clear that Emily/JJ wasn't going anywhere. (Emily comes out to him as gay at the beginning of the episode, and right before they sleep together, she tells him it's a "one-time-only charity event.")
  • Sherlock fans hated any female character who posed a threat to the John/Sherlock ship, but Mary Morstan got it the hardest for being John's canon wife. It got so bad that Johnlock shippers started sending death threats to her actress!
    • Irene Adler got some hate before it was revealed she was a lesbian. Then again, she did admit to having some sort of feelings towards Sherlock, and Moffat has a reputation for not writing lesbians very well...
  • Once Upon a Time sort of avoids ship wars because of the nature of the show—most of the fairytale pairings have a "One True Love" dynamic that's well supported by the fandom. That being said, the revelation of Belle as Rumpelstiltskin's love interest did provoke some hate from more zealous Rumpel/Emma (aka Golden Swan) shippers.
    • In addition, fans can get pretty nasty toward other fans and characters over who they believe Emma Swan should end up with. The vocal Emma/Regina fandom seems largely undisturbed by the fact that Regina literally killed Emma's canon love interest—but this development rendered "die for our ship" treatment largely absent in the fandom. Since Emma hasn't had any other love interests besides some Ship Tease with August, fans largely ignore conflicting ships in their works.
  • As the World Turns has Luke/Noah shippers vs. Luke Reid shippers. Mention the Nuke's borderline Destructive Romance or Reid's Dr. Jerk persona and you'll be brutally attacked. It doesn't end well for Reid.
  • During the Great Girl Meets World Shipping Wars that took over half of season 2 and 3 each, Maya/Lucas shippers were not kind to Riley, who'd dated Lucas for a while and still held a torch for him. A lot of this tied into Riley becoming The Scrappy among fans who thought a cheerful and silly girl was a "bad protagonist" compared to her more jaded friend Maya.
    • Farkle Minkus was loathed for a while by shippers and non-shippers alike, due to his childish and misguided attempts to get Riley and Maya to like him. One reviewer even called him "rape culture in a cheerful little package"! Luckily, the hate for him cooled down once he underwent Character Development and became an Official Couple with Smackle.
    • Maya's mother Katy is not liked by Shawn/Angela shippers, due to GMW sinking the latter ship beyond the shadow of a doubt by first having Angela marry someone else, then marrying Shawn off to Katy in the third season. Some fans even decry it as racism, due to Angela being a black woman and Katy being white! Never mind that Angela's race was never an issue in the parent series, and that both she and Shawn were heavily damaged people who tried with all their hearts to work out as a couple, but in the end couldn't due to their lingering issues. Which happens in real life.
  • Diana Bennett in Beauty and the Beast was despised by Catherine/Vincent shippers. Not just for getting in the way of their ship, but because her arrival came on the heels of Catherine's death in season 3. Many fans couldn't even bear to look at pictures of her actress, Jo Anderson!
    • On the flip side, Diana/Vincent did have its share of fans, and some of them badmouth Catherine as "passive" and "weak" due to her regularly falling into the Distressed Damsel role.
  • While not as violent as other shipping wars, there is a steadfast contingent of Jack/Janet shippers in Three's Company fandom who don't like Janet's canon husband Phillip or Jack's canon girlfriend Vicki. Fanfics that don't pretend the characters never existed will kill them off or have them turn out to be cheaters or unappreciative towards Jack and Janet, leading to breakups and divorce so the Fan-Preferred Couple can be together. Joyce DeWitt herself was reportedly upset about the Jack/Vicki development, though a large part was due to the producers creating the Three's a Crowd spinoff behind her back.
  • Victorious:
    • Main character Tori gets this a lot.
      • Not all Bade (Beck/Jade) fans are toxic fans but the ones that are really, really, toxic and regard Tori as a Catch-22 for any problems in Beck and Jade's relationship in spite of all canon evidence showing Tori, while very likely attracted to Beck, has no romantic feelings towards him, and even goes out of her way to help Beck and Jade through any relationship problems, most of which are created by Jade. In fact, the show established that Beck is crushing on Tori and these fans regard this as Tori's fault (apparently being a nice person who people want to spend time around is a sin). Never mind that Beck and Jade's relationship was so terrible that it not only needed Tori to survive two breakups, it was voted "The Worst Couple" in a game show where the the other two couples were fake!
      • Since Tori is regraded as Hollywood Arts' Most Beautiful Woman, there are some Cat/Robbie fics that go out of their way to demonize her for daring to have caught Robbie's eye. Despite the fact that Robbie flirts with any female and Tori is the only girl that doesn't invoke The Unfair Sex when talking to the guys. Makes sense why Robbie would prefer Tori's company.
    • As Jade/Tori grew in popularity, Beck started getting this treatment, as people began viewing him as a homophobic misogynistic troll who liked rilling up Jade's jealousy by letting other girls flirt with him.
      • It's also quite common to see him get this treatment in fics that ship Jade with Freddie Benson so that Freddie can become Designated Hero and heroically defend woman's rights.
    • Those that ship Cat with someone who isn't Robbie are merciless towards Robbie himself, painting him as an Entitled to Have You pervert. This neatly sidesteps the fact that Cat is the one who displays Entitled to Have You tendencies in the show itself.
    • Cat herself gets this in fics that ship Robbie with someone else, playing up her Spoiled Brat and Entitled to Have You moments.
  • Friends:
    • Many of Ross and Rachel's Romantic False Leads are liable to get this treatment, Emily and Mark in particular. The only who didn't was Julie on account of being so Adorkable that it proved impossible to hate her.
    • The extremists of the Monica/Chandler ship will happily invoke this for Richard, the nicest Nice Guy in the whole show. This cropped up to Richard returning to the show when Chandler was about to propose to Monica but even that doesn't excuse it as Richard gave Chandler his blessing to go after Monica and offered him free advice.
  • The Laverne and Shirley fandom is small, but Carmine/Shirley shippers really hate Shirley's canon husband Walter Meeney.
  • While the titular Dawson of Dawson's Creek did take a level in Jerkass as the series went on and showed some entitlement towards Joey, Pacey/Joey shippers took it and ran with the idea that Dawson had no redeeming qualities and would do anything to ruin the OTP's happiness - even though by the finale, Dawson's calmed down and accepts Joey choosing Pacey. Said shippers also tend to put Pacey up on a pedestal and ignore his faults. These lists by MsMojo basically say it all.
  1. Most of the Doctor's memories of Clara were erased in the last main episode of Series 9.
  2. In fact, it's tempting to say that his attitude deliberately lampshaded the fandom's propensity for this trope
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