Die for Our Ship/Western Animation

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Western Animation has a surprising amount of Shipping, both in Canon and out of it. So the Die for Our Ship mentality can pop up here, too...

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Other Examples

  • Lizzie Devine, Numbuh One's girlfriend during most of Codename: Kids Next Door, is often bashed. Numbuh Two is also often bashed for getting in the way of 1/5 even though he's not even in a relationship with Numbuh Five. (The latter case is no longer as common as it used to be.)
    • It is hinted in The Grand Finale that Numbuh Two may have married Numbuh Five when they grew up (despite his canon crush on 5's sister Cree). So, Two is as valid a target as anyone... Also, in the series, Lizzie breaks up with Nigel willingly.
    • Also, 34 shippers (the name is often used intentionally) are constantly at war with the Ho Yay-obsessed 14 shippers and to a lesser extent, 13 and 45 shippers.
  • Terra, from Teen Titans, was absolutely loathed by Beast Boy/Raven shippers after she appeared in season two. After her revelation as Slade's apprentice, the hate magnified even more; many fics were written featuring Terra as a maniacal sociopath... which, ironically, fits the original comic version of her. The show's version is quite different.
    • Starfire, as part of the Official Couple, tends to get a LOT of hatred from Robin/Raven fans.
    • Robin and Beast Boy occasionally get hatred from Beast Boy/Raven shippers and Robin/Raven shippers respectively. Robin will also sometimes get this from Raven/Starfire shippers.
  • Some Daria fans are still upset that Daria got over her crush on the cool slacker Trent and ended up with the charming preppie Tom, even though Tom is exactly like Daria, only male and well-adjusted and it's also made clear in the series that she would have been really unhappy with Trent. Perhaps some of this antipathy stems from the fact that, initially, it seemed like Daria "stole" Tom from Jane; in canon, the characters all eventually got past it and agreed it was unintentional and probably inevitable. The weird part is that Tom and Daria broke up at the end of the series anyway, so they're free to ship her with anyone else... and yet they still try to kill him.
    • There's also a group of fans that believe Daria must remain single for eternity in order to maintain her status as a strong female character. Therefore, any scene that depicted Daria being attracted to men, displaying a wish of having a fulfilling heterosexual relationship, or actually dating, is bashed for trying to "ruin" Daria's independence.
    • Then there are the bitter Les Yay shippers who are still convinced Tom was invented for the sole purpose of ruining their fantasies. This despite both Daria and Jane (especially Jane) constantly showing interest in and pursuing men.
    • Trent's on-and-off girlfriend Monique is also portrayed as an evil bitch in several Daria/Trent fics, despite her canon self being sweet and friendly.
    • It should be noted that after a decade, however, the whole Ship-to-Ship Combat in the fandom has died down a lot; the old fans have gotten over it and many of the newer ones went into the series knowing what was going to happen. These days, Tom-bashing is more a tongue-in-cheek joke than anything, and Daria/Trent, while still popular, is often seen as kind of cliché.
  • In a rare pro-fem example, Sprx from Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!! has been through this. Though often it's just Ron the Death Eater here.
  • Josh Mankey from Kim Possible is usually vilified for standing in the way of Kim/Ron. He is usually depicted as womanizing, manipulative, or abusive. This, even though he was shown as caring and understanding the few times he dated Kim. (Kim and Ron had shown no romantic interest in each other until the third season.)
    • Kim suffers from this in Rongo stories that pair him with Shego. Often, Kim is transformed into a demanding, jealous bitch who treats Ron like dirt. One wallbanging fic had her slash her wrists after the pair were married.
    • A small faction of Kigo writers portray Ron as a completely incompetent, useless tag-along who doesn't have any redeeming qualities -- that is, someone who doesn't "deserve" Kim. The more extreme shippers portray his friendship with Kim as little more than "generosity" (that is, pity) on Kim's part. He usually isn't killed by such writers, but he usually has his role reduced to little more than an annoying Scrappy everyone else puts up with.
    • Kigo writers have a habit of taking Drakken to one of two extremes to get him out of the picture. One has him be a bigoted Jerkass who can't stand to see Shego with anyone else (especially not a woman); the other has him be a worthless loser who couldn't tie his shoes without Shego and is holding her back from being successful.
    • There's also the "Ron was just a rebound" plot device, which can go two ways. One one hand, it can be used against Ron so Kim can dump him for someone else the shipper prefers her with. On the other, it could be used to make Kim look like a bitch so Ron can run into the arms of another (who presumably isn't a rebound) for comfort. To the point that one infamous fanfic had that "another" be Kim's own mother.
    • Then there's Yori, Ron's Yamato Nadeshiko and Action Girlfriend who very clearly was in love with him. Despite Kim's jealousness fans see her as no threat to their relationship, as Yori is perfectly fine with Kim and Ron as a couple.
      • That is, until certain fans decided that she was lying about being fine with Kim and Ron as the Official Couple and is secretly and sneakily (she is a ninja after all) trying to win Ron over from Kim.
  • Danny Phantom had Samantha "Sam" Manson (the one Danny ended up with) as this early in the fandom; she was hated, despised, and bashed in fanfiction written by Danny fangirls who paired Danny with the writer's Original Character. To this day, the worst of those stories are still archived in Quizilla. However, the hate for Sam toned down when Valerie Gray went through, not only Character Development, but also a Gondor Calls for Aid episode in which she and Danny become friends, and eventually ended up in a Dating Catwoman situation. Since then, Valerie has been despised by a large part of the fandom (even though they broke up because Valerie didn't want to put Danny in danger), since the two still maintained romantic feelings for each other. Although by the end of the series it's hinted prior to his Last-Minute Hookup with Sam that Danny got over Valerie, the hate is still going strong. It's not surprising to find a fanfic in which Sam is depressed over Danny and Valerie's relationship, and it turns out that Danny is only dating Valerie because he thinks Sam will never love him and never loved Valerie in the first place.
    • Danny/Valerie shippers frequently claim Sam is some kind of manipulative shrew who thinks of Danny as a tool for her own agendas. It got even worse after the finale.
  • The Fairly OddParents: Timmy/Trixie shippers end up bashing Tootie, and Timmy/Tootie shippers bash Trixie. It is mostly Trixie and Tootie fans who do the bashing... In one fanfic, known as "Trixie's True Self 2", Tootie even went to the evil side -- something she would never do on the show -- after Timmy started dating a new tomboy-fied Trixie. It is even said to happen with the writers.
  • In Batman Beyond, the Terry/Maxine fans really hated Terry's canon girlfriend, Dana.
    • It's a bit of a two-way street, as the small faction of Terry/Dana shippers don't look too kindly on Max, either, for the most part. (Although they're usually more mature about it, or at least can't afford to alienate the majority audience.)
    • Canonically, of course, the two get along fine: Dana is much more annoyed by Terry constantly missing dates than his friendship with Max.
  • Gargoyles fans have never entirely forgiven Angela for picking Broadway over Brooklyn. Some of them even derail Broadway from a Gentle Giant into a wife-beater in their fics so that Angela can go running into the arms of Brooklyn.
    • There's an in-show example too, as Demona ships herself with Goliath even in the 1990s. Thus, she particularly hates Elisa more than she hates the rest of humanity.
  • In X-Men: Evolution, the hate against the Tsundere Jean Grey was a given because her "love rival" for Scott's affection was the very popular and wangsty Goth Rogue. Amazingly, Gambit is never usually bashed, and his fans don't tend to bash Scott either, both proffering to pretend the other doesn't exist. Lance, aka Avalanche, who thanks to Characterization Marches On became a Troubled but Cute Jerk with a Heart of Gold with strong lines he will not cross, and effectively the most moral of the Brotherhood, and even helped save the entire city of Bayville is usually bashed by the more rabid fans of Kitty and Kurt. If he is lucky, he will get paired off with Tabitha, Wanda, Pietro, or a new character. But sometimes he is made a rapist and girlfriend beater in their fanwork to favor Kurt. Kurt's girlfriend Amanda Sefton can also be portrayed as an Alpha Bitch who is mean to Kitty and treats Kurt like garbage.
    • Some Lance/Kitty fans are getting just as rabid as Kurtty fans. Yeah, overall they're not as bad, but some are really getting vicious towards Kurtty fans, and even Kurt in general. Usually they tend to just stick him with Amanda or even Wanda, but now, well, he's just as likely to get bashed. Although some do it to defend Lancitty from attack, some do take it too far, and accuse anyone who doesn't ship Lancitty, no matter the reason, of just being narrow-minded Kurtty fans. All this fighting over little Kitty! Someone needs to drop her and write the much hotter Lance/Kurt.
  • Ben 10: shippers of the Ben/Gwen pairing have, more than once, bashed Kevin for getting together with Gwen in Ben 10 Alien Force.
    • As for Ben, Kai is often portrayed in fanfiction as a snobby Rich Bitch-esque character.
    • And nobody likes Ben's canon love interest Julie, whose existence sometimes make Ben/Kevin Ho Yay shippers and Cousinshippers Ship Mates.
    • Kevin/Gwen fans now perceive Charmcaster as getting in the way of their ship due to her seducing Kevin in her Alien Force debut episode. Michael Morningstar/Darkstar gets a similar reaction due to his constant flirtations toward "lovely Gwen". Sometimes there is no Die for Our Ship, though, and Charmcaster and Darkstar wind up paired with each other instead.
  • The Spectacular Spider-Man: When Liz Allen came onto the scene, many viewers hated her for getting in the way of Peter/Gwen... but then this trope ended up becoming subverted when these viewers' hatred gave way to pity as it became clear that Peter loved Gwen and Liz was just a Hopeless Suitor. It helped that her inevitable breakup with Peter was a Tear Jerker.
    • A reversed situation happened with Harry/Gwen. When Gwen starts dating Harry, it's clear that she's doing so just because she feels sorry for him. Shippers agreed with her decision (Harry went through some Grade-A Shit last season) and they waited patiently for them to break-up so we could get to the Peter/Gwen. Just when the build-up to the fabled ship arrived, Harry found out Gwen's true feelings and became jealous. Then another woobie moment happens, and Harry decides to Kick the Dog by manipulating Gwen into staying with him to "ease the pain," though it's evident he's just jealous of Peter. Shippers promptly went to war.
      • In conclusion: Spectacular Spider-Man shippers are some of the sanest out there. And therefore the most horrifying. * shudder*
  • A great number of fans of the movie Felidae are huge fans of the Francis/Felicity pairing even though Felicity is brutally decapitated only minutes after she's introduced in the film and the cat Francis had sex with in the film is the one who becomes his mate. It probably has something to do with the fact that Felicity is set up as a sweet naive Ill Girl shortly before she dies. By contrast, Nhozemptekh - exotically pretty as she may be - is unfortunately given little character development beyond being a Nubile Savage in kitty form.
    • Justified in that the film is about cats, who are more interested in plain ol' sex rather than anything romantic. Too bad the fans don't realize this...
  • Many shippers of the Jake/Rose relationship in American Dragon: Jake Long became irate when Jake flirted with a certain pink-hat wearing girl because she was a girl who Jake was attracted to and who was not Rose. She was even speculated be the "Siren" of a later episode and working for the Dark Dragon. As the show played out, however, the girl proved to be nothing more than an extra with a few lines.
  • Phoebus, from the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, gets this a lot from people who prefer Esmeralda to be with either Quasimodo or Frollo. Instead of being the wry, sensible man he is, Phoebus is portrayed as an abusive Jerkass (completely accurate in the novel, where Phoebus is the only main character without a single redeeming quality, but not in the Disney film). Quasi/Esme shippers especially seem to think that having Esme end up with Phoebus is a betrayal of the film's "Looks don't matter" message.
  • Suzy Johnson of Phineas and Ferb is an odd example of this because she is Jeremy's little sister. However, she's violently opposed to him dating Candace and tortures her at every opportunity, making her highly unpopular with C/J shippers.
    • Johnny occasionally got this from some Ferb/Vanessa shippers, though it largely subsided when it seemed he would just be a Boy of the Week. More than a season later he's back as Vanessa's official boyfriend (in series of the Latin American version at least), and it's started up again.
      • In "Minor Monogram", they break up because Johnny is more interested in a video game than her.
    • Vanessa isn't too liked by a small number of Ferb/Gretchen shippers, or just people who find the idea of her and Ferb together---which seems sort of unnecessary, since she doesn't even know Ferb likes her anyway.
    • Nor is Peter by the Perry/Doofenshmirtz shippers.
    • Isabella gets this from time to time for her crush on Phineas, especially from Phineas/Ferb shippers.
  • Trent of Total Drama Island used to be bashed by people who would rather see Gwen and Cody together, often portrayed as a shallow, abusive jerk. The hate has more or less ended now that they broke up on the show (ironically for the opposite reason - he was too clingy and needy).
    • Another major Shipping War lately: Duncan/Courtney vs. Duncan/Gwen. A rare example when the writers took away Duncan/Courtney's canon status and gave it to Duncan/Gwen.
    • Sierra gets crucified for her massive crush on Cody (Though there are other reasons to dislike their relationship even if you don't ship him with someone else). In fact, it already happened when Beth kissed Cody on the cheek as he was voted off (few people like Beth/Cody). He's one popular dude: he's been shipped with just about every girl at least once, though not nearly as often as with Noah.
    • Alejandro (the new male contestant) gets quite a lot of hate from Harold/Leshawna, Geoff/Bridgette and Tyler/Lindsay shippers, and anybody who ships Heather with anybody else. Of course, this is sort of a Justified Trope with everyone but Heather---he never had any interest in those other girls, he was just toying with them for his own villainous purposes.
    • Owen's growing dislike-dom largely overlaps with those who pair Izzy with anyone else. It really doesn't help that he once had a What the Hell, Hero? moment when he pushed her in front of a serial killer to save his own life. This has died down after they broke up in the actual series... only instead of keeping him and Izzy together, fan works use this as a way to quickly pair up Izzy with someone else.
    • Geoff is sort of an unusual example - TDA turned him into a massive Jerkass and came very close to breaking him and Bridgette up, but he pulled a Heel Face Turn by the end of the season and won her back. Still, those who want to pair Bridgette with somebody else sometimes just use that as an excuse, creating an AU where he stayed a jerk.
    • There are many reasons for Total Drama fans to hate Heather. One of them is being seen as a threat to Harold/Leshawna shippers.
    • Tyler is the butt of many Trent/Lindsay jokes.
  • South Park isn't safe, either. Kelly and Tammy are often hated by fangirls who have a crush on Kenny or prefer slash pairings. Wendy, Bebe, and a few others are disliked for the same reasons.
    • Fans who ARE fans of Kenny/Tammy bashes Kelly for being a "whiny wuss who picks her nose and can't get Kenny's name right", and the Kenny/Kelly fans bashes Tammy for being a 'Jonas brothers loving slut who killed Kenny".
    • NOT every fan 'hates' Wendy and/or Bebe,(otherwise those two wouldn't have alot of fanworks)even if they don't pair them with the boys. Sometimes they're just there for crap's sake or they're paired with each other instead.
    • Wendy is especially hated for being with Stan by adamant Stan/Kyle shippers and Stan/OC shippers alike. First they hated her for being with him, then hated her for breaking up with him, then for getting back with him. And she's either too bitchy and Straw Feminist or too "girly and useless" in the fans' eyes.
    • Rebecca Cotswolds, a minor one-shot character in the vein of Kelly, is absolutely demonized by Kyle/Bebe shippers and Stan/Kyle shippers as well. Sure, she became promiscuous towards the end of the episode, but those fans will often ignore her naive and sheltered personality and turn her into a violent, manipulative bitch and skank who wants nothing more than to make Kyle's life hell.
    • More recently, Kyle/Cartman writers have taken to writing what are essentially anti-Stan/Kyle fics that either a) have Stan die and Cartman swoop in to woo Kyle, or b) change Stan's character beyond the point of recognition, making Kyle turn to Cartman for friendship/romance.
    • Stan seems to be in the Dangerzone with the Cartman/Wendy fans for being passionless and neglectful with Wendy. In fanworks he ditches/dumps a sad/brokenhearted Wendy for Kyle which then she gets conforted by Cartman.
    • A long long time ago when The South Park movie was new, Gregory used to get this from Stan/Wendy fans. That's all ancient history now.
    • Out of all the female characters from South Park, Estella gets the worst of them from the Damien/Pip fans for "being a snooty bitch to Pip", even though it's not like Damiem ever treated Pip any different or better.
  • In The Powerpuff Girls fandom, Powerpuff/Rowdyruff shippers are surprisingly vicious towards anyone who even touches pairings but the Girls and their color counterparts, even though the Boys are their Evil Twins and Buttercup had more sexual -- um, tension towards Ace than towards Butch -- and that's just for starters.
  • The owner of the Rikochet/Buena Girl Yahoo! group once ran a poll asking "Do you hate Penny Plutonium because her crush on Rikochet interferes with his relationship with Buena Girl?" Immediately following, he got responses voting for "Yes! Death to Penny Plutonium!"
  • Jimmy/Cindy shippers in Jimmy Neutron do not approve of the existence of Betty, or in some cases April. Though, for what it's worth, Cindy doesn't exactly approve of Betty either. Made weirder because Betty made it clear she didn't have any romantic interest in Jimmy and basically told Cindy that she could have him. Some fans just can't accept that Cindy is in the wrong with her behavior here.
  • Code Lyoko's Ulrich/Yumi shippers tend to take the flawed character aspects of alternate love interests Sissi (who is canonically outwardly annoying, but does show Jerk with a Heart of Gold depths) and William (a canonical Stalker with a Crush, but more dark than evil) and exaggerate them beyond recognition until there's no way they could threaten their beloved ship. Or the writers save themselves the trouble and kill them off, or pair them with each other. All of which is really unnecessary, since both Sissi and William are canonically Hopeless Suitors (Sissi from the beginning and William once he becomes Brainwashed and Crazy.) Ulrich/Yumi is in much more danger from Ulrich and Yumi themselves than outside forces.
  • There is an obnoxious tendency on the part of Kodi/Dusty shippers to kill off the characters Ralph and Kirby; in the first case Dusty/Ralph is canon according to Word of God with Kodi/Kirby just being a consequence of mild Ho Yay. And don't think about shipping Kodi/Dusty and Kirby/Ralph; it's a ticket to the afterlife. That said, many people also kill Stella (the female goose from the second sequel, which is also from where all the characters mentioned in this paragraph come from), and whereas they pair Boris with someone else or not is irrelevant.
  • Many Helga/Arnold shippers hate and despise Lila for Arnold's former crush on her throughout the last part of the series. Which is odd, because Lila did nothing but gently and repeatedly turn Arnold down, and even helped Helga kiss him after getting her to admit her crush. Granted, it has been said by Word of God that Lila is really subconsciously stringing Arnold along due to a repressed sexual side, but that still doesn't make her the Evil Bitch from Hell!
    • Ruth and Summer also don't get spared from this, despite the fact that Ruth was insignificant to Arnold after season 2 and Summer was just a one-shot character who was just using Arnold to begin with and already had a boyfriend.
  • Dawn from KaBlam!! probably gets a lot of hate from Henry/June shippers, when in her first (and probably only) appearance, Henry started flirting with her. June was not pleased.
  • One-shot character Kitka the Falcon from The Penguins of Madagascar occasionally gets hate from Skilene shippers. Said shippers also don't like seeing Marlene paired with Julien or Fred the Squirrel, either.
  • Bo Peep from the Toy Story franchise is constantly bashed on, sometimes for getting in the way of the Woody/Jessie pairing. In Toy Story 3, Bo is mentioned to have been sold to someone else at a yard sale, leaving her out for good... But it's in the same movie that the Buzz/Jessie couple becomes more apparent.
    • Jessie can get this a bit from Woody/Buzz shippers, and is often called a female version of Woody who was just paired with Buzz because it was more socially accepted.
    • The Woody/Dolly pairing has also become quite popular with some fanfic authors. There are at least a couple of AU human fics that have turned Bo into an Alpha Bitch so that Woody could break up with her and pair with Dolly, his artistic childhood friend.
  • In The Real Ghostbusters Janine Melnitz often becomes the target because of her love interest Egon Spengler. Usually vilified as either an over controlling harpy or a heartless slut. If the pairing is OC/Egon than this can get especially bad. Doesn't help that Ramis isn't too fond of Janine/Egon either in the original movies.
  • From Adventure Time, Marceline the Vampire Queen is not the favorite character of Finn/Princess Bubblegum shippers.
    • And both Marceline/Finn and Finn/Bubblegum shippers have been reduced to screaming messes after the appearance of the Flame Princess.
    • Many fans had this opinion about Lemongrab after Too Young. Never mind the fact that he's an obnoxious, unempathetic, mean jerk- the fact that he (unintentionally) prevented Finn from being with Princess Bubblegum was what got Fubblegum shippers to hate him!
  • Lo from Stoked is public enemy #1 for Reef/Fin shippers.
  • Leela from Futurama often gets shafted in Fry/Bender fics as a cruel, snobbish, manipulative, ungrateful bitch. Stories like this often culminate in Bender protecting Fry from Leela, leading Fry to realize that Bender is his true love, and his (Fry's) longing for Leela is unhealthy because she, unlike Bender, doesn't give a damn about how much Fry loves her and/or is extremely abusive towards him. This despite the fact that Bender is canonically far, far more physically and emotionally abusive towards Fry than Leela is, not to mention canonically manipulative and needy and near-psychotically possessive. Since everyone in Futurama is royally screwed up, having Leela being mildly abusive (but far less abusive than Bender) towards Fry would be acceptably in-character — it's only when Leela manages to top Bender in abusiveness that signals that this trope has come into play.
  • Transformers fans are often the embodiment of this trope, with Prowl/Jazz frequently serving as the poster child.
  • Surprisingly, there's little to none of this immature behavior in Justice League fandom, despite the Love Triangle between Shayera/Hawkgirl, Mari/Vixen and John/Green Lantern. Maybe it's helped by how, yanno, the three act more or less like adults in canon about it? Then again, it is also canon that Rex/Warhawk is Shayera and John's Kid From the Future, so maybe the GL/HG fans don't feel that threatened since they know Mari will be out of the picture later without any need to derail her.
  • Margaret and Eileen are hated by the Mordecai/Rigby Yaoi Fangirls
    • Actually Margaret's the one that gets all the bashing and hatred while Eileen just gets ignored.
  • In the Sidekick fandom, Kitty and Vana are despised by the Trevor/Eric fangirls for obvious reasons.
  • Oh God, Wild Kratts. It was BAD. Youtube was the real warzone for a while, until one user put their foot down and put a stop to the bashing. It then moved to Fanfiction, up until yet another user put their foot down. The Vocal Minority were basically terrorists, claiming that the show has evidence (which was parodied in another Youtube video, which has just as much "evidence" as Martin/Aviva). And poor Chris. Poor, poor Chris, who did nothing wrong, was victimized, all for being Martin's brother. The only way to stop it is to fight fire with fire. It's beginning to look like the Vocal Minority are indeed sock puppets of the same person...
  • Even the romance free Ponies aren't safe from this. Miss Cheerilee used to be a well liked background pony. Then the synopsis for the episode "Happy Hearts and Hooves Day" said she would be going on a date with Big Macintosh. Since Big Macintosh was a Launcher of a Thousand Ships, the fallout from FlutterMac, TwiMac, and CarMac etc shippers was vicious, even in spite of the fact that (a) it was an episode about the Cutie Mark Crusaders setting up the pair, and everything they do is usually an adorable failure, (b) ultimately, the episode ended on a very ambiguous Maybe Ever After, and (3) any other hints of a continued relationship between Cheerilee and Big Mac were never mentioned or spoken of again. But try telling that to those wishing death on Cheerilee and calling her among other things, a scarlet woman (because according to the fandom, she is older than Big Macintosh).
  • Young Justice is getting a lot of this in light of the recent timeskip for Season 2, "Invasion." Every Fan Girl who has shipped Superboy and Miss Martian together are all up in arms over their breakup, and her being with Lagoon Boy. There is so much hate for poor La'gann that it's starting to turn into hate for the show in general as far as they're concerned. Those fans of the show who remember the MST3K Mantra have started referring to them as "Keezy Fem," a derrogatory term in Interlac, used In-Universe by Lobo in reference to Wonder Girl and Batgirl, who were in his way on a bounty-hunting job in the first episode of Season 2.
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