Die for Our Ship/Video Games

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
I adore Kairi from Kingdom Hearts but she's bashed by Riku/Sora shippers simply for living! Cut the girl some slack, it's not her fault that the main guy is in love with her.
—A very wise crunchyroll user

Yes, Die for Our Ship even happens here. And not just in the Dating Sims.

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Other Examples

  • As quoted above, Kairi of Kingdom Hearts is rabidly hated by many Sora/Riku shippers despite being a kind-hearted princess type of a trio of friends without much overt romantic interest. Generally, she's portrayed by the shippers as a selfish homophobic bitch who hates Riku (usually due to one scene in which she expressed distrust toward him, which was eventually justified) and wants Sora for herself, and usually ends up dying in some over-the-top fashion.
    • There also exists a cult following for Sora/Namine that are positively vicious toward Kairi, making her out to be dumb, selfish, and evil while insisting that Namine is perfectly wonderful in every way, so she deserves to be with Sora. On the flip side, whenever Sora/Kairi shippers actually turn up, half of them seem to demonize Namine, saying that she messed with Sora's memories and tried to steal him away from Kairi, which she actually did do... under the orders of her evil, abusive guardians, and once they were defeated, she set things right with Sora. The big kicker to all of this? Kairi and Namine are the SAME BEING anyway! Honestly, thinking about it too long is enough to give one a brain tumor ("I'm a tumor, I'm a tumor, I'm a tumor...") ("It's not a tumor!")
      • Heck, Namine even gets hate from rabid Roxas/Xion shippers. Believe me, Roxas/Xion shippers defend their OTP to the grave.
        • Speaking of Xion... just XION. Nearly every Axel/Roxas shipper hated her before the game was even released, and at least 75% of them still hate her now for getting in the way of their pairing.
    • The Sora/Riku shippers are just as bonkers where Xion is concerned. The moment screenshots appeared of Xion and Riku sharing the same breathing space, the shippers went nuts and started vilifying her for getting in the way of the ship. The best part? Xion is Sora's opposite-sex clone.
    • The Organization (or, the "ORGY-nization" if you see all the pairings) XIII are all either hated or loved for various reasons in terms of fandom, but Larxene is often depicted as more of an evil, violent and sadistic bitch than necessary or just forgotten altogether in order to advance any of the yaoi pairings. Note that half of the Organization hasn't even canonically met (or at least on screen). This only encourages it by leading to shipping at near-random and therefore, bashing of rival ships. When you have people loathing Zexion for getting in the way of Xigbar/Demyx, who doesn't even appear in the same game as either of them, you know something is seriously wrong...
      • Except for, maybe, Lexeaus to any ship. He might as well not exist as far as shipping is concerned.
  • An especially ironic example would be Princess Zelda, who is frequently bashed and vilified in Slash Fics wherein Link is paired up with her male-looking ninja alter ego (who is promptly retconned to actually *be* male), Sheik.
    • This tendency toward Zelda-bashing has continued with the release of Twilight Princess, where the Link/Midna shippers keep creating ways to reopen access to the Twilight Realm, chuck Zelda through it, and bring Midna back (particularly absurd since Midna and Zelda are very close by game's end and that outcome would not be disirable to Midna at all)--if not outright have the sovereign Princess of Hyrule be the first victim of the next conflict. And let's not talk about Ilia, who gets it much worse....
    • Don't forget Ocarina of Time, which arguably added multiple love interests, depending on who you ask. Saria, Malon, Zelda, and Ruto all suffer. The older Nabooru, who has the most overt interest in him but also the least dialogue, gets much less negative attention, mostly because fans interpret her as being just a flirt with no romantic interest. Princess Ruto, who finagled a Childhood Marriage Promise, is the most loathed girl by the shippers. The hatred of Ruto doesn't even make a whole lot of sense, considering that Link clearly isn't interested and the ending makes it impossible for them to be together even if he were.
    • Wind Waker had only three significant female characters: One was Princess Zelda, the next (Medli) showed obvious attraction to another boy, and the third was... Link's sister. (There's also this weird fairy queen with the crush on Link, but hardly anyone ever remembers her.) Also, making Tetra an actual girl, instead of a girl pretending to be a boy, was probably a wise choice as well... At least, there are little to no Wind Waker Shipping Wars out there, but even without them, the number of fanfictions involving Link escaping Tetra's fan-overblown controlling bitch personality and heading off to be with Medli are astronomical. (They, however, almost never kill of Komali, who is hinted to be Medli's love interest. They rather pretend that he never existed.) Also, the only ones the Yaoi Fangirls pair Toon Link up with are... pretty much all of the other Links.
    • Oddly, original Fairy Companion Navi is mostly left out of shipping wars despite Word of God stating that she was in love with Link and was jealous of Zelda (though she didn't hate her by any means), and even despite her scrappy status. Might have something to do with her being only three inches tall.
  • Arakune from BlazBlue; it’s not easy to find a Bang Shishigami fan who doesn’t want the critter dead for good. Bang’s fandom logic for this is quite simple: the manliest man has to hook up with the woman he has his eyes set on, and it doesn’t matter if she likes him or not at first; for them, Bang’s passion will be corresponded no matter what. Unfortunately, in the sequel, the script writers made Litchi and Arakune’s relationship is so tight knit that it borders on “they were made for each other”; needless to say, the Bang x Litchi shipping squad is not amused.
    • There is another huge reason for this which doesn't go into Fan Dumb or Hate Dumb. Litchi x Arakune triggered a Face Heel Turn for Litchi, as the only cure for him that she sought lies within NOL, so she joined a league of Complete Monsters (notable members including Hazama and Relius), and smeared a lot of mud into her otherwise perfectly good morality. Most Bang x Litchi shippers believed that if Arakune dies, then Litchi will have no reason to be an antagonist and will go back into the straight path of goodness once again, a view shared by normal Litchi fans. It doesn't help that Arakune himself has been begging Litchi to kill him already... In other words, it's not just Bang fans that want Arakune dead... even some Litchi fans want him dead so that Litchi will be free and clean again...
    • And believe it or not, the reverse of this could hold true too. Bang being some sort of Base Breaker (either seen as an annoying Idiot Hero or an Ensemble Darkhorse) means that some people would have him die so he'd stop pursuing Litchi already and leave her to her quest to save Arakune, because Bang could get annoying in some people's eyes.
    • Noel is quite hated, especially amongst Ragna/Jin shippers. There are also those who wishes Noel would fulfill her destiny of being killed to save the world, just so she doesn't get in the way of Jin/Tsubaki. Which is canonically Tsubaki's big problem. Of course, many of the rabid Jin x Tsubaki fans fail to realize that Noel herself is a Shipper on Deck in favor of those two, and took her job under Jin to aid her ailing family. If it weren't for that, she'd have held out for Tsubaki to have that role.
  • Amy Rose in Sonic the Hedgehog (and to a lesser extent, Sally Acorn in the Archie Sonic comics) is forever reviled by Sonic/Shadow slash shippers, a prospect made easier due to her Stalker with a Crush status. The Sally and Amy fans also hate each other's characters, each blaming the other's chosen character for making the series Jump the Shark and Flanderization destroying theirs.
    • Don't forget Elise, Sonic's awkward love interest in Sonic 06. She's widely hated by Sonamy fans. But then again, she's pretty much hated by everyone.
    • Depending on what is supported, Shadow, Knuckles, and Rouge are subjected to this treatment, with Rouge being portrayed as an evil seductress trying to lure Knuckles and Shadow away from each other by the Shadow/Knuckles shippers, Shadow being portrayed as a gun-toting manic by the Knuckles/Rouge shippers, and Knuckles being portrayed as abusive and obsessive by the Rouge/Shadow shippers. (And for the latter, this is if Knuckles isn't portrayed as wanting Rouge dead so that she won't be able to try to steal the Master Emerald anymore.)
    • This is also the case with the Shadamy shippers, who usually portray Sonic as a Jerkass who doesn't want Amy until she's off with someone else.
    • Many fanfics kill Sonic off in order to pair Amy up with... Metal Sonic.
      • The real irony is that the first time Metal and Amy met, Metal kidnapped her.
    • In the case of Sonic X, there is mutual hatred between fans of Cosmo/Tails and Cream/Tails. Cosmo dies in the final episode anyways.
      • Also in Sonic X, Molly is bashed for trying to steal Maria away from Shadow. The ironic thing is that Maria is already dead by the time Molly is introduced.
    • Don't forget how often Amy is written off merely for existing.
    • Within the Fleetway fandom there's a joke that Tekno and Amy are more than best friends. Cybernik is already The Scrappy due to his annoying behavior, but Word of God saying there's a romantic connection between Tekno and Cybernik just dug his grave even more.
  • Star FOX, with its predominantly male cast, naturally gets this, especially in the form of Krystal the blue vixen, who is both Fox's love interest and the Base Breaker of the series as a whole. A portion of fans shunt her aside in favor of Fox/Falco and Fox/Wolf; there's also Fara Phoenix from the 1993 Nintendo Power comics based off of the SNES game as a replacement, even though she and Fox have little chemistry between them. More precisely: As much as Fox and Krystal do.
  • Tales of Symphonia has this for Colette, the female lead who interferes with alternate pairings (both het and yaoi) for the male lead. She's detested by much of the fandom, mostly for being a Damsel in Distress, a situation that is highly agitated by the fact that, statwise and storywise, she's actually an incredibly capable Glass Cannon. And she's still a Damsel in Distress. This already bad situation is completely destroyed by the presence of Sheena, a female with obvious interest in the male lead who has a tragic past, giving her aspects of The Woobie, and whose Character Development is much more interesting than Colette's, and to top it off, is portrayed as a fully-capable Action Girl. And this is despite the fact that, in real life, most people would probably love Colette. Including, in-universe, almost all of her romantic rivals.
    • Zelos is loathed by some Lloyd/Sheena fans for his canonical interest in Sheena, who take the worst of his Handsome Lech persona and turn him into a straight up Jerkass. While it is possible to both kill off Zelos and pair Lloyd up with Sheena in the game, you cannot do both at the same time, and if you do kill off Zelos, you've not only thrown off the canon altogether, but thoroughly set Lloyd up with Colette.
    • At the shipwars' height, to people who shipped Kratos/Anna, Raine was a bitch and a slut stalking Kratos and trying to force him to forget the only true love he could ever have. To Kratos/Raine shippers, Anna was a blank NPC who Kratos didn't really love, but only felt sorry for. This was despite the fact that Kratos and Raine had fairly minimal subtext, that Kratos and Anna canonically had a child together, and that Anna has been dead for so long in the first game that she and Raine would never have needed to be in competition.
      • Anna also gets the same treatment from some Kratos/Yuan fans, although they usually leave Raine out of it entirely. In this case, it also seems partly driven by Het Is Ew.
  • Tales of Legendia also has this for Shirley, who, like Colette in Symphonia, is the game's female lead. She interferes with alternate pairings for Senel (Senel/Chloe apparently being the overwhelming favourite), especially since she and Senel apparently become "engaged" at the end of the Main Quest. But even so, it would seem that the vast majority of the Legendia fandom just generally wish Shirley to burn in the fiery depths of hell anyway.
    • This is made slightly ridiculous by Senel being a Chaste Hero, who shows no interest in anyone bar his dead ex-girlfriend Stella—who's also Shirley's dead sister. Indeed, the two girls actually bond in one scene over the fact that he doesn't seem to have anything but friendship for either of them! (Despite Shirley being engaged to him, bizarrely enough.)
      • Even more absurd is that both Senel/Shirley AND Senel/Chloe were already suffering by the point a love triangle emerged. Neither got together with him in the end, but their pining for him prior to that wore thin VERY fast. It makes one consider the possibility that perhaps any pairing with Chaste Hero Senel isn't a good idea at all...
  • Cheria from Tales of Graces is strongly disliked by fans of Asbel x Sophie and Asbel x Richard.
  • For the King of Fighters fandom, we have Kyo's girlfriend, Yuki. Sweet, outspoken, straight-A student... and absolutely hated by Kyo/Iori slashers, Kyo/Shingo shippers, and authors who want their Author Avatars to hump Kyo instead of this unfortunate Naive Everygirl who gets caught in the crossfight between Kyo and the Orochi clan who want to sacrifice her to bring Orochi back into this world, since she's the last descendant of the legendary Kushinada sacrificial maid.
    • To a lesser extent, this is also true of Athena; Where Kyo is concerned, some fics portray Athena as either a Stalker with a Crush or a manipulator who selfishly toys with Kyo (and/or Kensou's) feelings.
    • Let's not forget Andy Bogard, in both King of Fighters and its sister series Fatal Fury. Andy took quite a beating from rabid fanboys who preferred Mai with their Author Avatars, other male characters (like Terry, Joe, Eiji Kisaragi, Iori, or even someone from a completely different, unrelated series), and/or other female characters (from Fatal Fury, King of Fighters, and otherwise).
    • Not to mention Blue Mary, Terry Bogard's later love interest. Too many authors resent her for being an obstacle for their Author Avatars. Though the fact that many of them have only seen the anime adaptations thus barely know she exists (also not knowing that the anime is the only place Terry has a "dying girlfriend curse") may be a factor there.
  • In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, there isn't a lot of bashing, but the majority of what there is is thrown against Iris, for daring to be the twin sister of the Cute and Psycho Dahlia Hawthorne and Phoenix's ex-girlfriend who actually dated him to save him from her evil sister. To some extreme Phoenix/Edgeworth shippers, this means Iris is "an evil, hypocritical, stupid Canon Sue whore who keeps Phoenix and Miles away from each other". To make things worse, the case that introduced Iris also gave fuel for both Phoenix/Maya and Phoenix/Edgeworth shippers, making her something of a Third Option Love Interest. Fortunately, the series never resolves potential romances between the main characters, which keeps bashing to a minimum.
    • At least Iris didn't actually hook up with Phoenix. Leona Clyde from the Takarazuka musical gets a lot of hate for taking the place of several canon characters in Phoenix's life and being his love interest to boot. Of course, much of the shipper hate is mitigated by the wonderful Ho Yay number with Phoenix dancing with/being assaulted by Edgeworth's backup dancer clones.
    • In-universe example: Pearl Fey. Having seen many members of her family (including her mother) deal with broken marriages due to the matriarchal nature of Kurain, she's desperate for her beloved cousin "Mystic Maya" to have a happy and secure marriage with Phoenix Wright. This leads to her flipping out and slapping Nick on occasion if he so much as stands next to other women (including Iris, Pearl's own sister), despite the pair's constant recital of She Is Not My Girlfriend.
  • Omitsu is the favored punching bag for bitter shippers in the Ganbare Goemon fandom, as she is the sole love interest of the main series - a matter exacerbated by her lack of screen time outside of kidnapping plots, leading her to be denounced as a useless cuckoldress or simply ignored as a result. To rub more salt into the wound, Konami has been making Goemon and Omitsu's romance more overt in recent times, and even threw in a couple of moments to sink the more popular GoeYae couple. (The fans of the aforementioned couple have the manga and Bouken Jidai Katsugeki to go on, but they're Alternate Continuity, so they "don't count.")
  • Metal Gear Solid fans who prefer Otacon over Meryl can actually kill her off in game if they so choose. No, it's not canon, but it's better than nothing.
    • They appear to have noticed this and provided ample evidence for both Snake/EVA and Snake/Ocelot, letting you choose which one you like better.
    • Guns of the Patriots sets up a romance between Naomi and Otacon, over which Snake shows visible signs of annoyance. Later on in the story, she commits suicide by deactivating the nanomachines that are keeping her alive. Since Naomi has a list of Kick the Dog moments as long as one's arm, it's probably for the best that she did die. Heaven knows what her standing with the fandom would be if she had survived to get in the way of Snake/Otacon.
    • And then there's the horrible treatment Rosemary gets from people who ship Raiden with the other characters, especially from the slashers. While admittedly annoying in Sons of Liberty with plenty of narmalicious quotes, people really took Accentuate the Negative to extremes with her character. The sheer amount of vitriol sent her way would almost make the non-MGS fan think she was the true villain of the series and more depraved than Vamp and more monstrous than Volgin. She did become more likeable for some when Guns of the Patriots rolled around, though.
    • Johnny "Akiba" Sasaki has recently received this treatment as well. In Guns of the Patriots, he gets to marry Meryl; since then, some pretty rabid Snake/Meryl shippers have brutally bashed his brains out too. As if he didn't have enough troubles already...
      • Your Mileage May Vary, but you have to admit, Akiba marrying Meryl after all she and Snake had been through in the first game (not to mention hints that Snake still carried a torch in the second) was outright depressing for veteran fans of the series. As if the ending wasn't like that already.
  • Even the Mario fandom suffers from this. Mario himself has been bashed and demonized in fanfiction for the sake of pairing Peach with Bowser or Luigi, and tomboyish Princess Daisy is bashed by people who want to pair Luigi with Peach.
    • Daisy is also bashed by those hung up on Luigi being gay
    • In the anime film Super Mario Bros: The Great Plan to Rescue Princess Peach, Prince Hal from the Flower Kingdom comes under fire from this due to him being Peach's fiance. In other words, messing up the MarioxPeach ending. Thankfully for them, Hal is a Canon Foreigner who will never show up in the games.
  • There are countless Soul Series fanfics where the non-playable character Rothion gets killed off so they can pair his wife Sophitia off with someone else, usually Siegfried or Taki. In one case, she's been paired up with Darth Vader.
  • Even Mega Man Battle Network suffers from this. Mayl, in particular, gets all the hatred of the yaoi fans (not to mention a humiliating Fan Nickname) for daring to stand in the way of Lan/Chaud... never mind that Lan/Mayl is the Official Couple, as the sixth game shows in the ending. And the ever-shrinking Lan/Mayl fandom tends to demean Dex, who has a huge crush on the pink-haired girl... And let's not even speak of the feud between Chaud/Yai and Chaud/Anetta fans!
    • On a related note: Mega Man Star Force. Two het pairings (Geo/Sonia and Geo/Luna) are all but canon and the first game has some heavy Ho Yay between Geo and Pat. Throw in any other oddball pairings implied from the anime or whatever and you start to see the problem. It's mostly contained to the two big het pairings, though - G/S shippers say Luna's too much of a Clingy Jealous Girl and G/L shippers say Sonia and Geo are Like Brother and Sister.
  • Drakengard fandom falls into this habit as well, with both Nowe/Manah and Nowe/Eris fans blasting the third side of the Love Triangle for getting in the way on their OTP. Usually, it is Manah who gets the brunt of the hatred (which probably has something to do with the fact that she was the Big Bad in the first game), but there are quite a few Eris-haters out there, too.
  • Pity Anomen Delryn of Baldur's Gate, a noble would-be paladin who is deeply flawed with pride and, to a degree, selfishness, despite his essentially honorable and kind nature. He arguably caused the npc modding community, and tends to suffer badly at the hands of the fanfic community, usually in favor of Xan, Edwin, or Kelsey. On the other side of the gender equation, the naive and idealistic Aerie tends to be revealed to be a Clingy Jealous Girl, secretly evil, or worse.
    • Aerie as a Clingy Jealous Girl is pretty much canon. Secretly evil, not so much.
    • Anomen's real problem is less Die for Our Ship than "die for any ship at all". He is the one and only romanceable NPC if you're playing a female PC in an unmodded game, and struck a lot of people as whiny, grating, stupid, or all three. The presence of otherworldly bishounen Haer'Daelis as a very visible intended Love Interest (he tries to seduce away your love interest, if you're a male PC) cut late in development just adds insult to injury for those who disliked Anomen already. Long story short: Revenge Fic poured in from a wide range of interests, and with a large modding community to support it, got more than a little out of hand...
  • Lili from Tekken is often portrayed as a full-blown Rich Bitch or Alpha Bitch, in order to accomodate relationships with people she's not even closely related with (e.g: Steve and Christie). And here, she's just being a normal Ojou who happens to like fighting...
  • Spyro the Dragon. Yes, even this fandom has some nasty eruptions:
    • Probably the worst flak is given to Spyro/Cynder, although Sierra themselves pretty much showed that they were the one true pairing. Many claims hold Cynder as a cliched character with a generic dark past, leading to ridiculous flame wars with fans and non-fans.
    • Then there are those who will fight about Flame/Ember and Spyro/Ember.
    • Don't forget the ones who prefer Spyro/Elora or that Spyro not be paired with anyone, period.
  • Breath of Fire II saw a rather one-sided attack on Nina by fans of the Ryu/Katt pairing. And, yes, in fanfiction, her personality generally takes one on the noggin.
    • Although they're less guilty of it, fans of Ryu/Nina aren't completely innocent of this sort of thing, either, as they tend to completely Flanderize Katt into a brainless, unrefined, and violent idiot.
  • Neverwinter Nights 2 makes this actually possible, since under certain circumstances, the main character may have to kill Elanee, Neeshka, or Bishop.
    • It helps that the companions' personalities change depending on the player's choices, so a dead Neeshka is quite likely to have joined the enemy of her own volition, while a surviving Neeshka is a steadfast and loyal companion who can beat Blood Magic with the Power of Friendship.
    • It's also worth noting that Neeshka and Bishop were originally supposed to be romanceable, but the subplots got Dummied Out. Naturally the modding community has seen fit to repair this.
  • Touhou fandom has a lot of choices to work with, what with the main characters being virtual launchers of a thousand ships and no Official Couple in sight, so there tends not to be much in the way of hard feelings towards the other non-shipped characters... except Alice. The Marisa/Alice ship being one of the most popular, some Reimu/Marisa shippers have the tendency to portray Alice in the most negative light possible to drive Marisa away from her. For example, the "Touhou Seasons" quartet of Doujinshi has Reimu and Alice both fawning over Marisa; while Reimu can be a little annoying, Alice is portrayed as barely being tolerated, with massive and bothersome nosebleeding whenever she interacts in the slightest with Marisa.[1] Another doujin has, as its entire plot, Alice soiling and then embarrassing herself in front of Reimu and Marisa. And then there's the Alternate Character Interpretation of Alice as a creepy Yandere doll Otaku...
    • It doesn't help that the series is pretty much devoid of men, which allows the yuri fanboys and fangirls to go wild.
  • In the Tokimeki Memorial Japanese fandom, there was back in the time of the Classic Kirameki Saga's boom in 1996 quite a backlash concerning Yoshio Saotome's pairing in the wake of the Motto! Tokimeki Memorial Radio Drama series, which is one of the pillars of the Classic Kirameki Saga's mythos: near the end of this Radio Drama series, a whole chapter (Chapter 9) was dedicated on how Yoshio and Mio Kisaragi hook up. Since in the original game, aside from his best friend of a main protagonist Naoto, and his little sister Yumi, the person Yoshio had the most interaction with was his friend since Junior High Yuko Asahina, a good number of people took that pairing as granted ( despite the fact Yuko considers Yoshio as a kusare-sen friend, aka a person she doesn't really want to have as a friend but is inevitably a friend anyways) and were not amused at this shipping course change. The whole thing, of course, evolved as well into Ship-to-Ship Combat with those who liked the new course. The mess has fortunately died down nowadays.
  • Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones actually provides a canon example of this when Kaileena is killed by the Vizier and becomes the Sands of Time, and isn't revived until the end (whereupon she declares that she will be leaving the planet so that no one can abuse her power again). This opens up the way for the Prince to court Farah again without having to worry about competition. Of course, since most fans liked Farah better, this was actually very well received.
  • Not even Mortal Kombat is free of this. Action Girl Sareena gets Ship Tease with Sub-Zero and Noob Saibot... guess what happens to her.
  • Your Mileage May Vary, but most Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice Mao/Almaz shippers tend to use the Almaz ending for fanfictions, because Almaz's love interest, Sapphire, ends up wanting to kill him, thinking he is going to kidnap her if she doesn't stike back, automatically getting her out of the way, and making her a pretty nice target. Nevermind that Mao also wants to kill him for his title in this ending.
    • Vocal Valvatorez/Fenrich shippers aren't exactly thrilled with Vulcanus since she possesses some Common Mary Sue Traits and, initially at least, a rather sharp tongue. On the flip side, some of the people who ship Val/Artina are not exactly fond of Fenrich's Jerk Sue traits.
  • Flora gets treated this way by some members of the Professor Layton fandom, because she's seen as an obstacle to hooking up Layton with his apprentice Luke. This is a particularly odd example, because 1) Layton's only known canonical romance was with a woman, 2) Flora is Layton's adopted daughter (though there are Layton/Flora shippers too), and 3) Luke is approximately thirteen to Layton's approximate 36.
  • Star Ocean the Second Story gets a lot of this between Claude, Rena and Dias; Rena/Dias shippers tend to turn Claude from a good-hearted but very lost teenager into a weak, whiny jerk whose only purpose is to drive Rena into the arms of Dias, who is suddenly smooth, tender and incredibly good in bed. In canon, Dias is very aloof and awkward with emotions, and he and Rena spend most of the game thinking of each other as surrogate big brother/little sister despite not being related. But most of the shippers never acknowledge that and go straight for the romance.
  • While not as vicious as other fandoms, Guilty Gear has its share of charabashing based on pairings, and specially after some rounds of Ship Sinking. The main victim is Kuradoberi Jam (perceived as a shrill bitch who wants to keep Sol and Ky away due to her flirting with Ky in canon). Moreover, a scene in AC+ where she tried to poison Ky become another reason to increase the hate.
    • (Curiously, Dizzy gets much less hate than expected after, you know, becoming the Maiden of the Grove, marrying Ky and being the mother of his child, Sin.)
    • On the other hand, a small number of TestamentxDizzy fans are sour with Ky Kiske. They think that Ky stole Dizzy, the only person left in Testament's world.
  • Particularly convenient in Persona 3 Portable, where fans who dislike FeMCxShinjiro insist that his death is the canon path. And they'd be right, considering that even if she saves him from the gunshot the supressants would still kill him eventually
    • Aside of this, the fact that the FeMC can be paired with the 10-year-old Ken Amada is rather... polemic on its own.
    • And we're not considering all the hate that Yukari gets from all other MC/anyone else shippers.
  • Persona 4 fans aren't innocent of this behavior either. Specially after the release of The Anime of the Game, which has pinned the MC/Yukiko, MC/Chie and MC/Rise shippers against each other into quite the bloody fights. Yukiko is called "boring" and "antifeminist", Chie gets ignored, Rise gets slutshamed, and God know what will happen when Naoto joins in...
  • Feron of Mass Effect fame is slowly becoming a target amongst the hardcore fans of Any!Shepard/Liara (particularly Female Shepard), especially after Word of God suggested that Liara may have had feelings for the drell during the prequel comic tie-in to Mass Effect 2 (regardless of her relationship status with Shepard). Because it's totally healthy to not move on even a little after your S/O supposedly died right before your eyes, right? It is worth noting that Liara never acts upon those supposed feelings: if you continue the romance, Liara says she only saw Feron as a good, platonic friend and nothing more. It doesn't stop the more hardcore fans from invoking this trope on him.
    • Despite there being no overt references or hints of romance between Kal'Reegar and Tali (not that it's ever stopped anyone) in game, Kal'Reegar fares no better with the hardcore Tali/Male Shepard fans. While he can die in game, most just kill him off on Haestrom anyways, this doesn't mean this trope plus Ron the Death Eater doesn't seep in from time to time too.
    • Some people don't like that Tali and Garrus can hook up, this is completely ignoring that it only happens if neither party is romanced or dead
  • In Aveyond, the Dameon hate is extremely strong due to fans preferring Rhen/Lars to Rhen/Dameon.
  • The Harvest Moon fandom is completely dedicated to shipping; the games are more-or-less Dating Sim's with farm elements to most fans. Of course there's going to be shipping wars, usually related to The Rival of certain characters. IE; in More Friends of Mineral Town related fanfics related to Claire/Kai, Popuri's already flanderized in canon personality gets flanderized into having no redeeming factors and just being a Clingy Jealous Girl to Kai.
    • Sabrina seems to get the worst of this from her massive Hatedom, especially when it comes to the Vaughn/Chelsea pairing.
    • In Tree of Tranquility/Animal Parade, the three most popular guys to marry are Gill, Chase and Luke (and the fourth would be Wizard but he has no love rival). Their love interests Luna, Maya and Selena ARE NOT liked at all. Special mention to Luna and Selena though as in Animal Parade, if you tell them you like Gill or Luke, their worse personalty comes out and to be fair, Luna and Gill aren't really a good match...and neither is Luke and Selena. At worse, Luna is seen as a stupid brat that doesn't understand Gill's feelings at all even during their rival scenes and Selena is seen as a whore who basically seduced Luke in the first place. Maya gets the least amount of flak out of the three but she's bashed for getting a hot guy like Chase.
    • And in A Wonderful Life, hardly anyone likes Muffy. Fanfics that pair up Jack with one of the other bachelorettes (usually Celia) often derail Muffy into being a slut. And then you have people who dismiss Celia as being "a boring housewife."
    • Another example in the Wonderful Life fandom is Marlin. In canon, he has a tendency of being a little overprotective of the people he cares about. However, in just about every Jack/Celia fic, Marlin's protectiveness gets Flanderized to Stalker with a Crush levels.
  • In Team Fortress 2, the Medic's wife gets this from slash ficcers, despite the fact she's only mentioned in one line (where an enemy Demoman claims he is sleeping with her).
  • Shizune Hakamichi from the Visual Novel Katawa Shoujo seems to have suffered the misfourtune of being pratically set up of this. First, her route is very much an aquired taste, relying more on intellectual nuance, Foreshadowing and subtext than the "feels" that are common in other routes. Meaning that you need to play it a few times in order to truly get it. (The fact that it is the most linear route, with only one choice, as well as a Slice of Life narrative structure that not everyone appreciates, doesn't help matters.) Second, she is a Spirited Competitor to a degree that one either finds charming and endearing or obnoxious and annoying; she can also can be rather blunt (justified in part because she is deaf-mute). Thirdly she is The Rival to Lilly who is by far one of the most adored characters in the game and whose route is seen as much smoother and sweeter except for the end, but that one also ends up well. Lastly, her best friend Misha is an Ensemble Darkhorse who doesn't have a route of her own and is, in fact, in unrequited love with Shizune herself - which is what triggers THE single choice in the Shizune route. You'd think people would not be able to pour so much hate at an eighteen year old deaf girl.
    • Interestingly enough, in Lilly's route, Shizune reconciles with Lilly, and initiates the process. And instead of competing with the other girls over Hisao, Shizune, along with Misha, is a Shipper on Deck.
    • Lilly herself gets some of this trope from fans of the other route, who resent her for being the most popular girl. She is also sometimes accused of being a Mary Sue, although this, like other tropes, is deconstructed, when Hisao finds himself relying on her too much, doesn't challenge her decision to go to Scotland until almost literally the last second, and realizes that she has flaws of her own, such as hiding her emotions.
  • Golden Sun has had a very strong shipping base since the first game, but it was the third game when people really got violent about it. When it was made cannon that Isaac and Jenna got married, and were the main protagonists parents, the hate fics began to flow like water. Many fans had been a fan of shipping Isaac and Mia, as well as Garet and Jenna. The takes of these fics have been from Isaac being detached and a jerk, Jenna cheating on him with someone else (freeing him up) or simply stating that one half of the couple is dead already.
  1. ↑ If there's any doubt that the circle is Reimu/Marisa, compare their doujins "Touhou Kotatsu Gakari" and "Touhou AliMari Medical": "Kotatsu" has no Alice, and Reimu and Marisa being gently romantic; whereas "Medical" centers around Marisa trying to stop Alice's nosebleeds (because, again, it's annoying) and then fending her off when it goes wrong, with Reimu only showing up at the end to misunderstand the situation. The artist claims to like both pairings, but this troper doesn't buy it.
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