Die for Our Ship/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions

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

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** 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]].

** There's been a bit of backlash from Kara/Lee fans because Kara and Sam Anders {{spoiler|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 {{spoiler|that moment where they nearly cheated on Zak (her fiance, his brother).}} Some of them even take umbrage at the suggestion that {{spoiler|Sam, who is a [[Artificial Human|Cylon]], has a [[Our Souls Are Different|soul]]. To quote, "[[Completely Missing the Point|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 [[I Want My Beloved to Be Happy|let Mamoru go]] willingly.

*** It makes you wonder if Judith Mccreary was one of said shippers, since she did the next best thing in writing the episode "Cold" - {{spoiler|she killed Novak's career.}} {{spoiler|Sort of.}}

* Some fans of the original ''[[Law and 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 [[Ship Sinking|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 [[All Girls Want Bad Boys|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]].

**** 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 [[Les Yay|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.

** Nathan's wife Heidi isn't really ''hated'', but fanfic writers tend to marginalize her since her existence interferes with the One True [[Brother-Sister Incest|Bro]] [[Ho Yay|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.

** Claire's second-season boyfriend West is just as loathed, but this may be because [[Relationship Writing Fumble|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 {{spoiler|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 [[Slash Fic|Hiro/Ando and Hiro/Kensei shippers]], {{spoiler|and some fans believe she's a [[Did Not Do the Research|historically inaccurate]] [[Mary Sue]].}}

** 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. [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3582047/1/The_Rampant_Disease 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.

** 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 [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute|replaced]] by the recently [[Heel Face Turn|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.

** And then they basically [[Derailing Love Interests|did it in canon]] to Tess, when she wound up {{spoiler|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 [[Mr. Fanservice|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.

** 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, [[Just Friends|Chloe/Eli]] and Chloe/Scott pairings fought together against the group that wanted Chloe dead.

** 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.

*** 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 {{spoiler|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.

* The American version of ''[[The Office]]'' had this with Karen in the third season, which led to incidents like [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3m6Mghzgh0 this].

* The ''[[Supernatural]]'' fandom is notorious for its [[Het Is Ew|negative reaction]] to recurring young female characters for interfering with the [[Ho Yay|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 [[Near-Rape Experience|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 {{spoiler|a demon}}. The same cannot be said for Bela who {{spoiler|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.

** 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 [[Les Yay|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'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 "[[Fandom Nod|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.

* ''[[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).

*** 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 [[The Scrappy|loathed in general]]).

** 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 {{spoiler|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 [[Unlucky Childhood Friend|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.

** There are also the [[Creator's Pet|L]][[Canon Sue|a]][[Purity Sue|n]][[God Mode Sue|a]]/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.

** 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 the Next Generation|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...[[Completely Missing the Point|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?"]]

** 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 Sue|Mary Sues]] (or something along those lines) who get between the twu wuv of Danny and Flack.

* 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.

** Eva gets nearly as much hate, since she's viewed as a [[Relationship Sue]] who hit all the tropes from [[Hooker with a Heart of Gold]] to [[Florence Nightingale Effect]] and still failed to be half as awesome as Blair.

** 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 [[Ron the Death Eater|derail her]] or otherwise do anything horrid to her. As such, she's usually just ignored in fics that pair Arthur with Merlin, or [[Les Yay|paired with Morgana]] or [[Romantic Runner-Up|Lancelot instead]].

*** The slashers are also genuinely stumped by the fact that [[Like Brother and Sister|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]].

* 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-to-Ship Combat|ship wars]] between Xena/Gabrielle shippers (aka [[Subtext|'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 {{spoiler|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}}.

* ''[[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 [[The Scrappy|Don]] to die). Then in the season finale, {{spoiler|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 {{spoiler|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.

** 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.

{{quote|'''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?"}}

* 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 [[Amicably Divorced|Frasier/Lilith]] and [[Better as Friends|Frasier/Roz]] shippers think [[Last-Minute Hookup|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 [[Foregone Conclusion|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...

* [[As the World Turns]] has Luke/Noah shippers [[Ship-to-Ship Combat|vs.]] Luke Reid shippers. Mention the Nuke's borderline [[Destructive Romance]] or Reid's [[Dr. Jerk]] persona and you'll be brutally attacked. [[Die for Our Ship|It doesn't end well for Reid.]]