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Red Skies Crossover
Single-Target Sexuality
The Dark Knight Saga
Civil War (Comic Book)/YMMV
Trope, Pages with broken file links, Shipping Tropes, Ship Sinking
Ship Sinking
File:Mai Naval Strategist.jpg
Also I think I ruined a solid year's worth of perfectly good shipping with recent revelations. WHOOPSEE DAISEE
—Andrew Hussie, after a particular twist in Homestuck
Though many producers and writers are aware of Shipping in their respective fandoms, that doesn't necessarily mean they like it. It may be because of the actions of the fans if they get too rowdy about it, or maybe they just don't like the pairing involved, or maybe they just want to put an argument to rest. But whatever the case, rather than teasing the ship, they load torpedoes and send it to Davy Jones' Locker.
Ship Sinking is a scene that, whether deliberate or not, seems to kill any reasonable chance of a relationship occurring between two characters. It can be a betrayal, a sudden familial connection (not like that will stop anyone), hooking up with someone else, having the respective love interest kick the bucket, or maybe they just bring them out of the closet (or rarely, put them in). If well done, this can actually cause the fans to Abandon Ship, but don't always count on that; some ships refuse to sink.
At its most pronounced, this essentially results in a Humiliation Conga for shippers. In any case, it's probably going to take a Retcon to get those two together. Sorry fangirls (and boys!).
Compare No Hugging, No Kissing. A variation on Jossing. Another variation, the Anchored Ship, occurs when factors arise that preclude the characters getting into a relationship, but have the potential to be resolved (although the problems are not always resolved, and even if they are, other factors can still sink the ship). See also Death of the Hypotenuse, where the author takes it one step further by killing off one of the characters instead of making them a Romantic Runner-Up.
Examples of Ship Sinking include:
Aoi Hana had its share of Yasuko/Kyouko shippers, despite Yasuko's often cold behavior toward Kyouko. This ship finally sank for good when Yasuko starts studying in England and apparently begins a relationship with her roommate, who also happened to be the co-star of the School Play Yasuko played the lead in.
And even the last smidgen of hope of Kyouko still winding up with Yasuko (or maybe even another girl) gets blown to smithereens when Kyouko is set up to get back with her fiance, Kou.
Bleach: Any fan with an interest in seeing Momo and Captain Aizen get together had their ship sunk when Aizen almost fatally wounds her in a poignant Kick the Dog moment as the first act in his Face Heel Turn betrayal of the entire Soul Society.
Ships of Orihime with Grimmjow and Ulquiorra have officially been sunk. Orihime's feelings for Ichigo are still there and have remained there all the time, and Ulquiorra has been dead for a while already. Grimmjow is still missing, though according to Kubo there's a chance he'll be back in the last manga arc. (And he ultimately returned)
414 also killed the hopes and dreams of Gin X Aizen. It's revealed that Gin was just pretending to follow Aizen, to punish him for almost killing his Only Friend Rangiku, then he tried backstabbing him... and not only Aizen won the fight, but killed him. .
As of 416, Gin is dead. And that is the final nail in the coffin for Gin x Rangiku. Some would argue that Death Is Cheap, but considering that a whole Time Skip has passed and there's still not a single mention of Gin after all of that... Plus, while Rangiku was very tearful over Gin's death, an inner monologue of hers after Aizen's defeat implies that her thoughts on Gin never were romantic to start with.
At the very end, as of chapter 686.... Ichigo x Rukia was mercilessly sunk, while Ichigo x Orihime AND Rukia x Renji were confirmed as canon, with children included. The light novel We do knot always love you adds more fuel to this, as it's centered on Renji and Rukia's Wedding Day, plus the last scene features what's implied to be Ichigo's Love Confession to Orihime.. Many of the most passionate Ichigo/Rukia fans (especially overinvested fangirls) have... not taken it well, to say it politely.
CLAMP has been accused of doing this on a few occasions. In one case, during the initial run of Cardcaptor Sakura, they very intentionally did this after one artist misunderstood and drew Schoolgirl Lesbians Tomoyo being infatuated with Sakura's brother Toya, making her behavior later get a Retcon of being because she thought he resembled Sakura, the real object of her affections. The ladies got a good laugh out of this later.
Clannad: In episode 18, the three alternate crushes are swiftly dispatched all at once during a tennis match, becoming increasingly miserable as Tomoya's unconscious behavior makes it crystal-clear what the Official Couple is. There's always the Visual Novel...
And the special episodes where Tomoya hooks up with Tomoyo or Kyou instead.
In the other hand, if you though Tomoya was going to end with anyone other than Nagisa, you weren't watching this show.
The Visual Novel is not much less merciless, especially if you consider the fact that more than a good third of the game (After Story, the canon sequel to the School Arc) is devoted entirely to Nagisa. Even if you ignore that third, the game still leans towards Nagisa.
Twentyfifth Baam spends a great time chasing after Rachel, who left for the eponymous tower. He finally finds her and since she can't go on without her, he tries to take her along with him. This had a reasonable amount of ship tease. Then she pushes him over a cliff, it is revealed that she has been psychotically obsessed with getting away from the world she and Baam had lived and is shown to be scared of Baam himself, who is getting stronger by the minute. We discover how she has been leading him on all along and how both were used as pawns in Headon's and Yu Han Sungs plan. Shipping between the two stopped immediately after that.
Code Geass had not one, not two, but three serious shipping candidates for protagonist Lelouch (Ho Yay aside). Each and every one was deliberately and emphatically torpedoed.
Lelouch/Shirley: Sunk in the first season by Lelouch's belief that he's too bloodstained to deserve someone like her, after accidentally killing her father, getting her in a situation where she was Mind Raped by Mao, and then making her forget about him "for her own good". In the year between seasons, Shirley falls in love with him again, only for her to be murdered by Rolo in full Yandere mode, leaving her to die in Lelouch's arms in a definite Tear Jerker moment.
Lelouch/Kallen: Sunk late in the second season after many Ship Teases and Moment Killers, when Kallen pours her heart out to Lelouch, attempting to confirm that his "evil bastard Emperor" attitude is merely an act, ending with a rather passionate kiss. He doesn't respond at all, standing there with a blank look on his face, which leads her to believe that he doesn't care. Judging by the fact that he sadly whispers words of goodbye as soon as she walks off, it's probably a case of "I'm too rotten, I don't deserve your love" as with Shirley.
In Kallen's character poem, which came with the dvd, she states that if he had said he loved her, even if it had been a lie, she "would even follow [him] to hell," and acknowledges that this is probably the reason he didn't answer her. Given that he was about to take the UFN council hostage and embark upon the path to world domination, only to have himself assassinated to facilitate world peace, it makes sense he'd want to distance himself from her.
The betrayal would quite possibly the real ship-sinking moment, after which he had lost all hope and wished to die, making it a logical key motivation behind the Zero Requiem, which Lelouch did not want getting her involved in.
Lelouch/C.C.: Sunk (or at least badly damaged) by Word of God around the end of the first season, when Yukana (C.C.'s seiyuu) said in interviews that the love C.C. feels for Lelouch is purely motherly and not really romantic. They still did a little Ship Tease for the fans when an amnesiac C.C. seems to develop romantic feelings for Lelouch during the second season, and even after she regains her memories. she seems a bit nicer to him than usual. On top of that, there is also the fact that C.C. kisses Lelouch twice over the course of the series (though one kiss was seemingly to restore his memories...).
And of course, pretty much ANY Ship involving Lelouch got the ultimate torpedo when he was killed in the final episode. If you support the popular fan theory that He's Just Hiding, then the only person he could still get with is C.C., since he made himself look so evil that he'd never be able to show his face in public again. Still, Word of God in magazine interviews implies he's truly dead after all.
Another Sunken Ship from Code Geass includes the possible Suzaku x Kallen ship, which may never have been meant to set sail from the get go, considering the fact that Kallen truly despises Suzaku and has tried to kill him on many an occasion. But what really sunk the ship was when Suzaku decided to use Refrain on her (which, unknowingly to him, is a huge trigger for her due to her mother being addicted to it), and then decided against it at the last minute. Then, he said he wasn't going to drug her... because he didn't want to be like Lelouch. So, in one fell swoop, he not only managed to simultaneously let her know he didn't care enough about Kallen personally to not shoot her up with narcotics, but also insulted the person she's Tsundere for. Then, in the next episode, just to make sure the ship stayed sunk, they had Kallen beat the tar out of him for trying to drug her. In the end, she DID come to understand his reasons for joining Lelouch as The Dragon and is implied to hate him less by being his asymmetric Secret Keeper, but STILL...
The possibility of Suzaku x Euphemia was sunk when Euphemia died after being shot by Lelouch in the "Euphinator" incident in Episode 23 of Season 1.
Digimon Adventure 02: Every ship other than Yamato/Sora and Ken/Miyako in the Distant Finale. Although, most fans tend to ignore said finale anyway. Especially since it didn't include the two fan-preferred favorites, Tai/Sora and Takeru/Hikari.
Yamato/Sora had sunk opposing ships a lot earlier in the Christmas Episode, actually.
Just for laughs, Digimon Adventure 02 included an episode with Daisuke doing his best to impress Hikari... and V-Mon trying to ship himself with Tailmon. It didn't ended well for them, and at the end of the series, both of them had given up on their crushes and moved on.
Elfen Lied: Fan favourite couple Lucy/Kouta seemed to have some floating in the anime, but when the Manga arrived to the part of having Kouta remember that she killed his family, all hopes came crashing down and he ended up with Team Mom Yuka -- and this is after Lucy's death, much to the rage of some fans.
Fruits Basket:
Both Tohru/Yuki and Tohru/Kyou were heavily teased... but the first was sunk mercilessly when it was shown that Yuki was Loving a Shadow and then was paired up with his friend Machi.
Akito/Kureno was sunk hard when Akito stabbed Kureno in a fit of madness, though to be honest it did take a massive hit when he got close to his eventual wife Arisa and when it turned out Shigure had never stopped loving Akito.
The sequel, Fruits Basket Another, discreetly sunk the Saki/Kazuma ship that was lightly teased at the end via stating that Saki married an unseen foreigner, the father of her son Rio Mosuka.
Fullmetal Alchemist: The first anime had one of these where essentially everyone was screwed. There was a lot of contention between Ed/Winry and Ed/Rose factions, but both ships were sunk with a single torpedo when Ed was shunted into another reality. OUR reality.
Officially now as of Chapter 108 AND the end of the Brotherhood TV series, the last chapter in the manga all ships involving Ed that aren't Ed/Winry have been sunk thanks to chapter 108 which showed a picture of Ed and Winry married with 2 kids. The picture is showed as the same family picture as the one Hohenheim had but this time with a cheerful background of Ed, Winry, their son and daughter, Al, May (with these two being pretty close to each other, though the "canonization" is somewhat left up in the air) and Xiao May. Havoc/Rebecca is still hinted in Brotherhood though.
Fushigi Yuugi: The Miaka/Hotohori ship is sunk way down to rock bottom. Hotohori gets over Miaka, realising he was in love with the idea of Suzaku no Miko; few later, he gets married to a court lady named Houki who looks like Nuriko's twin sister; he gets killed heroically in the war, then his and Houki's son Boushin is born; and then Miaka gets married to Tamahome--er, Taka Sukunami. And when Hotohori gets reincarnated into a boy named Shu Eian, he gets Ship Tease with Nuriko's reincarnation, a Plucky Girl named Kou Reishun.
Future GPX Cyber Formula: The Kaga/Kyoko relationship had enough Ship Teasing in Zero and Saga to hint at their relationship, and in the final episode of Sin, it looked like they may finally get together (they even kissed!), but then Kaga retiring from Cyber Formula for good and going to America on an airplane, with Kyoko walking away disheartened dashed all hopes of them being together.
Gundam Wing: The sequel novel Frozen Teardrop, written by the show's head author, has gone and put coffin nails in a few ships already.
Wu Fei/Sally: Sally has a daughter named Kathy, but not with Wu Fei (Kathy is his subordinate in Preventer).
Duo/Anyone except Hilde and then Hilde herself as well: Between the show and the novel they got married, got divorced (because Hilde found Duo too unreliable and not without reason), had a son (may or may not be adopted, the author's teased both possibilities), and Hilde died off-"camera" with Duo never remarrying).
Heero/Anyone: He spent the last 30-odd years in cryogenic stasis after going berserk, and is still in his teens while the rest of the cast is in their 40s (or worse, thanks to a Rapid Aging disease that's affected Duo at the very least). Doubles as sinking Relena/Anyone, since she was likewise frozen, which presumably ensures she and Heero will become a couple so long as the author doesn't go for the Downer Ending or the Squicky route of setting either of them up with their friends' kids.
Zechs/Anyone except Noin: They got married and had twins. After faking his death with the help of Noin's brother, he's gone into hiding with their daughter.
A Zig-Zagging Trope in regards to Trowa/Quatre: At first Trowa (now Doktor T) was seen spending time with Quatre's little sister Catherine, and there was no word about Quatre. Then Catherine is also seen with Trowa Phobos, a young man trained by Trowa and Catherine Bloom... and also "Milliardo's" assassin., and her brother Quatre is now known as Instructor Q and Trowa's partner in building new Gundams. Neither of the two are married, and in the meantime, Trowa Phobos and Catherine are seen getting closer...
And at the very end... the trope is defied by Heero and Relena. When they finally meet one another in FT she does directly ask him to kill her, but it does NOT happen. He spends some more time "frozen", and when he wakes up he and Relena get together for real.
Harukanaru Toki no Naka de: The manga, apart from the popular (and author-preferred) Akane/Yorihisa ship, had quite a bit of fans of Akane/Tenma, Akane/Yasuaki, and to a lesser extent Akane/Akuram[1]. The last one was technically doomed by default[2], and Akane becoming determined to defeat Akuram proved the ship to be too fragile to survive. Then the story continued going in the Yorihisa direction, firmly established when the incident with a not-fully-conscious kiss occurred. Even after Tenma was implied to have given up, the dramatic tension went on, since there was still a small possibility left that the manga might at least go for an open ending... until all alternate ships were sunk (or at least severely damaged) in the finale when Akane took Yorihisa to "our" world. Of course, Haruka being a franchise derived from a Dating Sim, it was bound to upset somebody...
Heat Guy J: The most famous (in its tiny Fandom) yaoi pairing (Namely, Daisuke x Clair) seems to have an attempt at this. First of all, Daisuke's feelings are towards Antonia, and later towards Kyoko. Secondly, Kyoko returns those feelings for Daisuke. Thirdly, Clair takes some interest in Kyoko (albeit subtle; he doesn't actually make any moves towards her). Fourthly, just for added insurance, Daisuke goes off on an adventure and only says goodbye to Kyoko, who tells him I Will Wait for You.
Hellsing: Any Ship with Seras Victoria other than Seras/Pip. Word of God states that that "if Seras wasn't a vampire and Pip wasn't a mercenary, they would be the perfect couple, everybody would be envious of". See also their entry on the Official Couple page.
As well as another ship with Pip that aren't the whores he frequented before meeting Seras.
Honey and Clover: Quite a few fans kept hoping that Hagu would give Yuuta a chance, but saw all their hopes vanquished after Hagu starts avoiding Yuuta after his Anguished Declaration of Love.
Inuyasha: After 500 plus chapters of waiting to see if Sesshomaru would get together with a grown Rin, Sessh/Rin shippers had their ship completely destroyed when the final chapter came out and it turns out that they not only never get together, Rin had also left Sesshomaru's side -- with both parties consenting.
It has been sunk way before that when Rin became a Shipper on Deck for Sesshomaru and Kagura.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: The Chrono/Nanoha and Chrono/Fate ships were simultaneously sunk after the Time Skip, when they had Chrono and Amy get married with kids.
More torpedoes come from this Sound stages, with Vivio directly saying in the prologue that she is the child of Fate and Nanoha.
Mahou Sensei Negima: Negi/Asuna is officially sunk after Negi told Asuna who he romantically likes. It wasn't her. She was only (highly) amused.
Mai-Otome: Arika/Sergay gets torpedoed when in Episode 22, Sergay admits that he had feelings for Arika, but that he will put them aside to follow Nagi's orders to capture or kill her for Nina's sake, and Arika also acknowledges that she will do what she must. At the end of the series, Sergay loses his memories and lives on a remote farm with Nina, enabling Nina to establish a new and presumably romantic relationship with him as a mature woman, without Sergay remembering or even encountering Arika.
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: One reason why it's reviled by some fans of the original GundamSEED was the sinking of the (canon, rings and all) Athrun/Cagalli ship. Matters probably weren't helped by the pervading (and never proved) rumour that it was partially brought about by the storyboarder's personal grudges. The consequence? Absolutely * venomous* and misogynistic bashing of Meyrin Hawke and Meer Campbell coming from enraged Athrun/Cagalli fans, some of them going as far as bragging and flaming when poor Meer was tragically killed in front of Athrun in the blogs and fansites of some vocal Meer fans who were also more or less known BNFs, and later bitching AsuMey out in the Athrun/Meyrin LJ comm and other sites, giving the AsuCaga fans as a whole a horrible reputation that took years to cleanse.
Some fans claim the Athrun x Meyrin ship was also sunk when Athrun supposedly gave a "Like Brother and Sister" speech in the CD Dramas. There is an corrected interview with Chiaki Morosawa. The interview is right here if you can't read Japanese though [{{[http|//community.livejournal.com/asucaga/156077.html?thread=2121901#t2121901 here is English translation. here}} and [http://community.livejournal.com/asucaga/156077.html?thread=2420141#t2420141 here]. It did sink Athrun x Cagalli, and it was followed by this.
Super Robot Wars Z does a better job at sinking the Shinn and Stella pairing partially by having Shinn and Luna's relationship not be so badly fumbled so that it lives up to Fukuda's claims that theirs was the ONLY pairing experiencing true love. In Setsuko's route, provided Stella is saved, one of Shinn's first lines when she comes on board is to tell Luna he considers Stella like a sister.
The heavily hinted at Dearka/Miriallia ship from SEED was also sunk in Destiny in an even more unsatisfying way. One scene where Athrun mentions he met Dearka on the PLANTs, and Miriallia's reaction is 'oh, him ', and the next scene when she arrives on the Archangel and Murdoch asks her about what happened between them, and she says 'I dumped him'. All off-screen, of course. In a bizarre semi-subversion though, some fans of the ship were actually excited about this, as it meant that the couple had gotten together at one point. To this day there is a great deal of Fanon that interprets their relationship as one of those bickering on again, off again things.
Naruto: Several ships have recently been rendered almost completely impossible to happen.
In Chapter 481 Sasuke shoots a Chidori Blade through Karin to get to Danzo, coldly denouncing her as worthless. Karin later thinks to herself that she's done with Sasuke.
Even more, at the very end of the manga/chapter 700... Naruto is married to Hinata and has two children with her, while Sakura and Sasuke have a daughter. And this is on top of several other match-ups taking place: Shikamaru and Temari, Ino and Sai, Choji and Karui, Kiba and a girl named Tamaki, etc. The screaming and crying from some shippers who saw their ships sunk last even to this very day.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Shinji Ikari, the guy who has an inordinate number of girls throwing themselves at him, fell for the guy instead. Kaworu was the only one who got a love confession and lowered Shinji's AT field in End Of Evangelion (which only a person's most loved one can do). Even in the manga, which features Evil Manga Kaworu, Shinji admits to being attracted to him.
One Piece: Creator Eiichiro Oda, must be a least somewhat aware of fandom's shipping tendencies since he apparently had the foresight to launch a couple of good sized torpedoes at the potential Luffy/Hancock ship.
Special note needs to be taken of Luffy explicitly rejecting her proposal of marriage after the time skip. You really can't get much more straight forward than that.
Well, aside from the fact that they're still very clearly on friendly terms, and it's obvious that Hancock isn't giving up on the idea of marrying Luffy, and plans to keep asking him in the future.
He also seems to have issues with the Zoro/Nami ship's popularity in Japan. The ship's main basis is the so-called "sexual tension" indicated by their fighting, yet it's shown that he's not even attracted to her, to the point that his lack of interest is almost a running gag.
And Sanji/any woman period. Several times. Until his very, VERY complicated matters with Pudding came afloat.
Ouran High School Host Club has minor Ship Tease for many different Haruhi pairings, but especially for Haruhi/Hikaru, to the point that many shippers of said pairing began to hope that it may become canon (although it was pretty obvious which pairing Haruhi would end up in), but that ship was sunk when it's confirmed in the manga that Tamaki and Haruhi would be together, and Hikaru gives up on her.
Pokémon: The anime seems to attempt to sink Tracey/Misty every single time they appear onscreen together. Misty outright says Tracey is not her boyfriend twice in the Chronicles dub, which blatantly pairs Misty with Ash.
That said, Misty getting Demoted to Extra officially put an end to the Pokeshipping, at least canon-wise.
Takeshi Shudo, a former chief writer of the anime, managed to sink all Ash Ketchum ships from beyond the grave with his blogs. While it's not as if the current writers of the show are bound by that, the very nature of the show makes it unlikely to change.
In Pokémon Black and White, N/Hilda is a very popular pairing, but in Pokémon Special, the possibility of N ending up with Hilda's counterpart White has been blown to pieces when N convinced White's Tepig Gigi to side with him and leave her, the action of which caused White to fall off the Nimbasa Ferris Wheel while N just looked on coldly.
Princess Tutu: Are you still waiting for Ahiru to end up with the Prince, despite how dark the series has gotten since the end of episode 13? You'll change your tune come episode 24. A lot.
This was also an in-canon Ship Sinking, since the plot is really about the sinking of Drosselmeyer's absurdly elaborate efforts to ship Ahiru and the Prince, just so he could have a totally dramatic Downer Ending, when Rue falls in love with him instead AND has her feelings requited, while Ahiru falls in love with the Prince's best friend Fakir.
Strawberry Panic ended in disappointment for many Tamao x Nagisa and Yaya x Hikari fans to say the least.
The creators of Tiger and Bunny like to play around with this. Episode 4 reveals Karina's crush on Kotetsu, a Widower Hero with a kid. She doesn't find out about his wife and daughter until ep.9, upon which she seems to abandon pining for him. But following a Love Epiphany in ep.14, she realizes she can't help her feelings. The 25th episode shows Karina apparently deciding that she wants to Romance The Widower after all (take a look at the picture on the trope's main page), but then...the series ends. Kotetsu's utter obliviousness throughout the story frustrated a lot of fans, to say the least. However, the creators' later comments that "her crush was meant to be depicted as hopeless" did little to deter some shippers.
Umineko no Naku Koro ni sunk one popular couple - Ange x Amakusa - in the EP 6 tea party by revealing that Amakusa was just getting close to Ange to use her as bait to lure out Kasumi. Once he's killed Kasumi, he shoots Ange. And he doesn't even do it out of any particular strong emotion, which could still be worked off of for shipping purposes, but simply because She Had Outlived Her Usefulness.
EP 8 sinks it even further: In the end of the "Trick" ending, Ange shoots him. In the head
Urusei Yatsura: The above Inuyasha example wasn't Rumiko Takahashi's first experience with Ship Sinking, either. While the accuracy of claims that she developed a deep dislike of the Fan-Preferred Couple as a result of Lum's status as the Ensemble Darkhorse, resulting in her being forced to retool her to be the Official Couple with Ataru Moroboshi, are highly questionable, it's a fact that she did this as the end result of any Ship Tease story that emerged in Ranma ½.
Ranma/Nabiki: The story "Nabiki, Ranma's New Fiancee" saw Ranma's engagement transferred to Nabiki by Akane after a temper tantrum on the latter's part. Nabiki promptly spends the rest of the story indulging her Chaotic Evil side, emotionally tormenting Ranma and selling him off to dozens of people (including, in the manga, a scene designed to showcase that the other members of Ranma's Love Dodecahedron are villains by having Nabiki offer to auction him off to them, only for them to decide that they can just kill her and take him), in between attempts to offer to let Akane, Ranma or both pay her to get her to switch the engagement back to Akane. When Ranma approaches her and asks her out on a date, Nabiki decides that things have gotten too boring and promptly arranges for Ranma and Akane to make up.
Ranma/Ryoga: In the "Koi Rod of Love" story arc, Ryoga acquires a magical fishing rod that will cause anyone he "catches" to fall in love with him for cheap, and promptly tries to use it on Akane, only to accidentally catch Ranma. When he realises why Ranma is acting so weird, Ryoga is so disgusted that he promptly bundles the (presumed) sleeping Ranma up and carries "her" deep into the woods, digging a grave and planning on killing Ranma in his/her sleep so that he can then bury the body out here, thus allowing him to woo Akane and, more importantly, getting Ranma to stop flirting with him. While he initially finds himself unable to do it when Ranma tells him that "she" is willing to let him do it, he promptly resumes trying to kill Ranma when she takes that hesitance for a sign of affection. When Ranma is finally cured, he promptly beats the snot out of Ryoga and is shown deriding him as a disgusting pervert in the finale.
Ryoga/Ukyo: "Oh, Cursed Tunnel of Lost Love! Let My Love Be Forever!" was the story used to sink this Ship in the manga. Ukyo makes plans to see Ranma and Akane go through a haunted tunnel whose resident spirits exist to break up loving couples, with a reputation that those split up by the tunnel are cursed to never repair their broken relationship. However, to get in, she needs to partner up with Ryoga. Seeing how Ryoga and Ukyo act much like they themselves do (bickering and squabbling over Ryoga's bungling), Ranma and Akane jump to the conclusion that they are a couple (and seem to approve, amusingly enough), as do the ghosts who wind up ignoring Ranma and Akane's Belligerent Sexual Tension to focus instead on "breaking up" the seemingly-reconciled Ryoga and Ukyo. In the manga, the story ends with Ryoga and Ukyo vehemently blaming each other for things going wrong (making it clear that the "curse" has struck again), and for the entire rest of the series they are never seen to so much as speak to one another. The anime, however, hits a somewhat different note -- while they are eventually forced apart, they are shown taking turns saving each other from the monsters, getting a Back-to-Back Badasses moment in the process, and the story doesn't end with them yelling at each other but collapsing and being teased as lovebirds by practically all of Nerima. Many people have seen the episode as promoting the couple, which can make the original manga something of a shock to someone who saw the anime first.
Shampoo/Mousse: It's hard to say that this ship was ever sunk, as Mousse was pretty much always portrayed as a Stalker with a Crush, but the second-last story of the manga has Mousse give up a chance to make Shampoo his devoted slave (which is rather jarring, seeing as how all of his Establishing Character Moments are about how amoral and obsessed he is with getting Shampoo's "love", even declaring he would happily participate in a rigged fight if it would get him Shampoo's hand)... with the next panel showing the freed Shampoo glomping onto Ranma and thanking him for saving her, acting as though Mousse isn't even in the room.
Nabiki/Kuno: While this was never officially shipped, it was (and is) a common Fan-Preferred Couple, as Kuno is rich and gullibly stupid, while Nabiki really likes money and enjoys messing with people for her own amusement. The result is a Ship Tease Filler story in both the manga and the anime, both of which end with the idea being made fun of. In the manga, Kuno and Nabiki end up momentarily falling under a literal Together Umbrella and Nabiki promptly demands that Kuno pay her money for being there with her, and is horrified that she charged such a (relatively) small amount when they are set loose. In the anime, a wandering fortune teller predicts that Kuno will marry Nabiki... while the horrified Kuno tries to reluctantly go along with what he believes is foretold, he finds himself unable to give up his perverse lust and ends up with a beating from all three girls after announcing he's figured out that he will wed Nabiki as his official wife and keep Akane and Ranma-chan as concubines. He then discovers that the prediction was totally wrong, because Sasuke accidentally used the wrong firewood in the mystic flames, and goes berserk, savagely attacking both of them off-screen as the end credits roll for putting him through such an experience.
Yes! Precure 5: When Komachi and Nuts's mutual attraction became undeniable in the middle of episode 26, you could practically hear the maniac screaming from the Coconuts and Karen/Komachi shippers. (Meanwhile the Rin/Nuts shippers just kind of whimpered.)
Toei hasn't completely alienated its Girls Love fandom, since it makes up half the viewers, after all. Ever since Komachi/Nuts became obvious, they've been hinting towards putting Karen with Kurumi, just to keep them on.
The adverts for the sequel, GoGo, announced Syrup was going to be shipped with Rin. Next thing you know, he forms some kind of bond with Urara, especially in episode 18 (and the very couple-hinting scene near the end. Cue the collective Squee from the Syrup/Urara fanbase.
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Though usually the writers don't bother to sink shippings, in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's they seemingly felt like doing so. Pretty unusual case though, subverting the common First Girl Wins. Mikage Sagiri was the very first female character introduced in the show, crushing on Jack Atlas since the very beginning. Still she got pretty much dismissed by him in episode 30, and eventually was completely (and pretty harshly) turned down by him in episode 45, in favor of a girl who appeared an entire season later.
Wandering Son had two ships sunk the chapter they were first shown. Two children became infatuated with Takatsuki and Chiba in chapter 97, only for around page 13 the mangaka stating they'll get married in thirteen years.
In Mai-HiME, while Natsuki x Takeda never had much of a chance, "Natsuki no Prelude" included a scene in which Natsuki sent Takeda a letter saying she did not love him around the time the Hi ME fighting forced the school to shut down. The art books imply that she eventually ends up with Shizuru.
Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl anime adaptation did this in a rather cruel way. After Hazumu gets her girl, and the final episode had aired, an OVA came out. Hazumu and Yasuna had broken up, because the latter wanted to be independent; which makes no sense since that didn't mean she had to break up with Hazumu. At the end of the episode, Hazumu and Tomari gain a Relationship Upgrade and get married. The OVA seems to be pure fanservice for the shippers, since most strings had been tied and the ending did nothing.
Air Gear's The Ikki Minami/Kururu Sumeragi ship has been hit by Oh!Great and is taking on water fast as of Chapter 327. In order to make sure the Storm Regalia can be created before the aircraft carrier sinks, Kururu has taken over for the damaged core of the on-board supercomputor and is holding the ship together. In the meantime, after gently thanking Kururu for her hard work, Ikki has personally requested that Ringo Noyamane be the one to tune with him. Tuning in this series is remarkably close to sex and is typically done between romantic interests, which was the main thing holding Ikki/Kururu together. Now that that factor is gone...
Gunslinger Girl. Despite Ship Tease comments from cyborg Triela on how she feels for her handler Hilshire, the latter hooking up with prosecutor Roberta Guellfi appears to have killed off even a strictly platonic romance, with them instead reverting to their surrogate father/daughter dynamic.
Zoids: Chaotic Century: The Thomas/Fiona ship was sunk in episode 51, after Van went missing after being defeated by Raven. Irvine told Thomas that Fiona loved Van, and after this point, Thomas stopped flirting with her.
Zoids New Century: The Bit/Leena ship was sunk in the third episode. After Harry challenged Bit to a Zoid battle, Bit was horrified when he realised that Leena would go to the winner. After Bit defeated Harry, he told him that he could have her.
Subverted in Fairy Tail. Jellal informs Erza that their relationship can't happen-he's gotten a fiancee over the time skip. However, it's quickly revealed to the audience that Jellal completely made that up in order to discourage Erza in a guilt complex guided of I Want My Beloved to Be Happy. Doesn't help that they were in the middle of kissing when he decided to try and call things off either. The end implies a Maybe Ever After for them, however.
In Detective Conan, with Shinichi all but admitting his love for Ran to her in the London arc, the flashback to how Ran and Shinichi met as children and Ran kissing him on the cheek in Kyoto, any other ships that involve Ran or Shinichi/Conan have been pretty much sunk. Including the very popular CoAi aka Conan/Ai Haibara
Archie Comics's adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog has about as much shipping (and ship teasing) as your typical Soap Opera; one of the first ships, early in the comic's run, involved Tails and an Australian Freedom Fighter named Barby Koala. Despite the fact that Barby was a minor character and significantly older than Tails, who was canonically 10 or 11, fans of the ship carried a torch for her for years because she was one of only two love interests Tails ever had in almost 20 years of publication (the other one turned out to be a robot). In a recent forum post, writer Ian Flynn torpedoed the ship with this statement: "Okay, let's stop the Barby/Tails wagon right here... There is no Barby/Tails. Barby's affections were entirely one-sided and extremely creepy. I'll find a way to write that one into the ground to bury and kill it later, but for now, there is no Barby/Tails. And there won't be so long as I'm on the book. Seriously... ugh."
In Spider-Girl there was huge May/Brad shipping. At last until she discovered he hates mutants and people with superpowers. From this time she can't even stand five minutes near him. Tom DeFalco was playing Will They or Won't They? for years, and sink it in one issue. And it worked!
Normie's marriage to the Romantic False Lead killed the then-Fan-Preferred Couple Normie Osborn and May, too, after years of Ship Tease.
Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy in the comics based on the DCAU - Ivy crashing the Joker and Harley's wedding leads Harley to dissolve their friendship once and for all. Their mainstream counterparts are currently sharing a house with Catwoman.
And in Gotham City Sirens #24 the Les Yay between Harley and Ivy is acknowledged and weaponized by Harley against Ivy when Ivy tries to "save" Harley from the Joker's influence. Near the end of the issue, Selina also turns on Ivy as payback for one of Ivy's attacks in the past. The entire issue was devoted to sinking all of the ships between the female leads.
And probably to set up a sort of reason for Catwoman being alone, Ivy being a Birds of Prey villain, and Harley on Suicide Squad in the Reboot. Just like Stephanie being shipped to England and Jason escaping custody in a weird and Ass Pull-ish manner. They're setting up the reboot, that's all folks!
Large chunks of the Blackest Night Green Lantern Corps tie-in issues are devoted to sinking Kyle Rayner/Jennie-Lynn Hayden (aka "Jade") in favor of Kyle Rayner/Soranik Natu; this, despite the fact that Jennie is dead and only came back as a zombie. Considering how common resurrection is in comics, it seems the writers wanted to ensure that Kyle/Soranik wouldn't be sunk when Jennie got a proper resurrection at the event's end.
However, this was largely for the sake of Dramatic Irony: the first Blackest Night tie-in issue - in an often-overlooked quiet moment before stuff went down - saw Kyle admit that when he and Soranik were shown their One True Loves by a Star Sapphire, he saw Jade. He just hadn't told Soranik because she saw him and Jade was dead; why waste time getting hung up over a dead woman? Keeping that in mind adds a bit of subtext to the rest of the event's Kyle/Soranik scenes, especially the ones involving Zombie!Jade. To Kyle's credit, he continued being faithful to Soranik even after Jade's resurrection - until he opened his big mouth about the One True Love thing after the "War of the Green Lanterns" storyline, prompting Soranik to dump him.
A related sinking came thereafter for Kyle Rayner/Donna Troy, with both Kyle and Donna taking great pains to explain to Jade how utterly not interested in each other they are.
In Ultimate X-Men the Nightcrawler/Colossus ship was brutally sunk when it was revealed in issue 67 that despite being persecuted for being a blue demonic mutant and otherwise being one of the purest nicest guys on the team Nightcrawler is suddenly a homophobe with a creepy obsession with Dazzler.
Mixed with Die for Our Ship in the case of Teen Titans. So Devin Grayson doesn't like Dick/Kory and prefers Dick/Babs? Easy way to solve it: she makes Kory a shrill bitch to favor Babs. And then It Gets Worse.
Beast Boy and Raven was sunk before it really got started. Fans had been shipping the couple almost as soon as the animated series got off and running. Not long after Geoff Johns took over the Titan comic book, he made it pretty clear he was a Gar and Raven fanboy and after a year of teasing, put them together in 2005. Infinite Crisis and 52 came and went, and one timeskip later courtesy of One Year Later, and Gar and Raven were broken up. Once Johns left, other writers teased the two getting back together for a few more years, but overall nothing came of it, and with the DCNU rebooting the timeline and placing Gar on another team entirely (alongside his most infamous love interest Terra of all people), it seems this couple may never see the light of day again
The infamous One More Day storyline broke up Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson, a couple that had been married for roughly twenty years in real time, so Spider-Man could back to being a swinging bachelor. Or at least that's what Marvel claimed; in practice they missed the "swinging bachelor" part by setting him up with Relationship Sue Carlie Cooper.
Marvel has attempted to break up Spider-Man and Mary Jane before. First, they tried The Clone Saga. Then, they tried killing MJ in a plane crash. Neither worked for long. One More Day is just the most persistent attempt.
Recent stories, such as Spider Island have taken us back to Ship Tease/Unresolved Sexual Tension between Peter and MJ. As much as it seems Marvel hates the pairing, they sure do love teasing it.
Although it might have less to do with Marvel or creators hating the pairing- despite what some of the "Fan Dumb" might believe, and more of a desire for individual writers to be the ones who write the "definitive" tale that gets the pair together. Which might make it more of a "Writer on Board" than a "Die for Our Ship."
Joe Quesada's dislike of the Spidey/MJ ship is well documented. Most likely, all the Ship Tease we're seeing of them now is a case of Writer Revolt. His promotion from Editor-in-Chief to Chief Creative Officer might have kicked him far enough upstairs that they can get away with it.
After the second Book of the Anathos Cycle in Les Legendaires, fans started elaborating hypothesis about Anathos not being as evil as it seems and assuming he might have feelings for his female Dragon Dark Jadina (to be fair, most villains in this series are subject to Even Evil Has Loved Ones, so it might have been partially justified). The author quickly sinked the shipping in the next book by revealing Dark Jadina was indeed kinda Anathos' Dark Mistress... only to have him killing her from cold blood after she failed to defeat Jadina.
Readers of At Soul's Edge, one of the numerous adaptations of the original plot of Baldur's Gate, were apparently suggesting the heroine would make a good match with Edwin, who hadn't even appeared in the story so far. The author disagreed. So Edwin made his appearance - the characters happened upon his hanging, which was executed without interruption.
Subverted in Kyon: Big Damn Hero. Kyon has accepted he has some feelings beyond friendship for all girls in the SOS Brigade but has refused to take the initiative on any of them (his Arranged Marriage and the kisses received from all of the girls from the brigade adding extra pressure doesn't help). Yuki comments "It is not ... mutual" when Kyon stayed to comfort her (Yuki had to save Kyon of something that makes her afraid). After Kyon's answer, who believed she was talking about their relationship and even had to give himself a Better as Friends inner monologue, Yuki explains that she really wanted to say is her own actions aren't on par of what she expected Kyon to do.
In Naruto Veangance Revelaitons, after the rest of Team 7 is apparently killed in Orochimaru's attack on the temple, Sakura is briefly shown mourning them, noting that she loved them as friends, not as lovers, and could not fall in love with them because their penises were small unlike Ronan's enormous penis. Naruto comes back later, deeply jealous of Ronan's relationship with Sakura, but Sakura only has sex with him to satisfy her cravings.
Deliberately done in Ultimate Spider-Woman: Change With The Light when Mary Jane Watson and Peter Parker realize their shared origins. They feel a special Like Brother and Sister bond, and wonder if they could have gotten together...and then they burst out laughing at the sheer idiocy of the idea.
In White Devil of the Moon, Nanoha/Yuuno is ruled out as an option when it is mentioned that Nanoha and Yuuno have drifted apart over the years because of how busy they were at their respective jobs. Later, Nanoha/Mamoru gets sunk when Nanoha's date with him goes poorly, and after visiting the moon and rejecting her past life as Princess Serenity, Nanoha and Fate kiss.
Meanwhile in Blood That Flows, the premise pretty much involves Lina not being paired with any one of the Slayers cast in order to make Lina marry Shiro and become the biological mother of Nanoha. To be fair, it wasn't like Lina wouldn't have gotten with either Gourry or Zelgadis, but being seperated from your friends and dumped on an unknown world would put a damper on any possible relationships. Gourry does get paired with Sylphiel as consolidation. Later, fan favorite pairing Filia/Xellos got tossed aside. Filia ends up in a three way relationship with Chrono and Amy. As for Xellos, he somehow gets into a relationship with the Shinzoku Earth Lord Ragnort, considering they would be mortal enemies in any other situation, if it weren't for the truce. Zelgadis/Amelia is still safe for the moment. As for pairings on the Nanoha-side, expect anything but Nanoha/Fate, as the author is tired of the pairing due to the Fan Dumb that favors said pairing.
Star Wars did this with Luke and Leia. Lucas strung the fans along until the third movie and BAMM! sprang the family relations card.
Jurassic Park: For people who haven't read the books, the scene in Jurassic Park 3 between Ellie's kid and Alan was a major blow when we discover he is not the father.
In Tamora Pierce's Provost series, the Beka/Rosto ship favorite is sunk in a big way when she ends up falling (really quickly) for a completely new character, Farmer, effectively nulling all the delicious ship flaunting from the first and second books. While the new Love Interest is perfectly acceptable (even likable), the fandom is still in hysterics.
Louis and Lestat from The Vampire Chronicles. After becoming super religious after a death in the family, Anne Rice had all Vampire Chronicles fanfiction removed from Fanfiction.net, had Lestat date the Queen for awhile, then pawned Louis off to a witch with Lestat's blessing. She also did this to Marius, who ended up with neither Armand nor Pandora.
In Twilight's first three books, Bella comes to love Jacob and even agonizes over whether to choose him or Edward. Although it's pretty obvious she'd end up with the vampire, there is some tension in the third book. At the very least, the huge Jacob fandom hoped for some sort of relationship before the inevitable. Then the ship was totally torpedoed in the fourth book when Jacob imprints (soul-mate, true-love, only-one-for-him recognition) on Bella's infant daughter. Bella's infant daughter.
It almost seems like Louisa May Alcott wrote the first sequel to Little Women deliberately to sink the Jo/Laurie ship ("I won't marry Jo to Laurie to please anybody," she wrote in her diary); Jo March's marriage to Professor Fritz Bhaer in Little Women is a confirmed Authorial Take That to Jo/Laurie shippers. Alcott showed NO mercy to her fans' demands of having Jo marry Laurie -- a Like Brother and Sister speech, an Ill Girl (Beth) who chases all thoughts of other love from Jo's mind, Jo marrying Bhaer aka her other best male friend (and beta-reader) when she's "back", and a Last-Minute Hookup for Laurie with Jo's little sister Amy. According to the Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of the book, Louisa May Alcott wrote to a friend, Alf Whitman, "Jo should have remained a literary spinster, but so many enthusiastic young ladies wrote to me clamorously demanding that she marry Laurie, or somebody, that I didn't dare refuse & out of perversity went & made a funny match for her. I expect vials of wrath to be poured out upon my head, but rather enjoy the prospect."
J. K. Rowling had to do this thrice for the Harry/Hermione ship. First, in an interview about the possible pairing, Rowling said she didn't think they were suited for each other. Secondly in Half Blood Prince, and then the internet exploded, with Harry/Hermione shippers sending out death threats, burning books, and swearing to abandon the series if she didn't change it. To drive the nail in the coffin, the last book has Harry giving the "Like Brother and Sister" speech to Ron and Hermione, right after a scene in which Harry/Hermione appears as an evil illusion made by the locket-Horcrux that seems vaguely perverse and is intended entirely to enrage Ron into attacking Harry. And it uses frequent Harmonian arguments, at that.
Some Harry/Hermione shippers think that JKR wrote the "nineteen years later" epilogue primarily or solely to spite them by making "Harry and Hermione get together after Hogwarts" stories uncanonical. A number of fans reject the canonicity of the epilogue to get around this, leading to the phrase "Epilogue? What Epilogue?"
Some Sirius/Remus shippers think that JKR paired up Remus with Tonks solely to disprove the first ship, since as everyone knows there are No Bisexuals.
She also personally took a torpedo to Luna/Neville after Order of the Phoenix was published. When asked about the seeming rapport that the "two misfits" of the Order had, JKR said that she had no plans to make that a pairing, noting that she thought Luna was far too weird for Neville's comfort levels.
Word of God post-series sunk it even harder, as Neville apparently wound up with a Hufflepuff girl named Hannah Abbott, a side-character who doesn't appear that often[3], while Luna ended up with a boy named Rolf Scamander, who didn't appear or get mentioned in the books.
The movie makes Luna/Neville canon, one of the few egregious book/movie relationship differences... Until even that was sunk, when Neville's actor Matthew Lewis stated that the film's pairing was just a "summer fling", and that both characters did eventually move on to their canon pairings.
And don't forget Deathly Hallows's revelation that Snape only ever loved Lily Evans Potter.
This also happened to Draco Malfoy and his fellow Slytherin girlfriend, Pansy Parkinson. Rowling stated that Draco went on to marry Astoria Greengrass, a Slytherin girl two years his junior who never appeared in the books.
Yet another example was Percy Weasley and Penelope Clearwater; according to Rowling, Percy married a woman named Audrey who also was not seen in the books. Some fans have tried to get round this by writing Fix Fic in which "Audrey" is a middle name or alias of Penelope's.
A ship sunk in the books themselves was Ron/Lavender Brown, which used to be a popular Beta Couple among shippers of Harry/Hermione even though there was little interaction between them in the books. In Half Blood Prince Lavender briefly becomes Ron's girlfriend and rapidly turns into a Stalker with a Crush, becoming wildly jealous over his poorly-hidden feelings for Hermione. This did seem to have the desired effect of putting fans off the ship, and from then on Ron/Luna became more popular.
The films start sinking H/Hr a lot sooner and more explicitly than the books do, from the awkward handshake between Ron and Hermione at the end of Chamber to Hermione grabbing Ron's hand during the "Harry with Buckbeak" sequence in Prisoner. Also, the aforementioned Like Brother and Sister scene is between Harry and Dumbledore in HBP. That being said, Hermione's a lot more openly affectionate to Harry in Goblet than the other films, and subtext can be easily read into Luna's interactions with Harry. One also has to wonder if the dance scene and Horcrux kiss in DH were meant as Ship Teases or Shout Outs to the H/Hr ship.
Gone with the Wind: ... now that you mention it, probably every potential ship involving Scarlett, all very painfully. Proof that beauty doesn't guarantee true Official Couple status?
Eoin Colfer, writer of Artemis Fowl has attempted two different ship sinkings, with varying degrees of success.
A possible relationship between Minerva Paradizo and Artemis Fowl seems particularly well-sunk, as she is barely mentioned in the two books since her introduction. In order to send the ship straight to the bottom, Colfer said on Twitter that she would not be appearing in book 7, as she was "involved with a skier in the Alpes Maritime at the moment and only has eyes for him." And the majority of the fandom...rejoiced.
Fan-favorite pairing, Artemis Fowl II and Holly Short, is treated rather inconsistently by Colfer. They kiss in book 6 and book 7 is very focused on Artemis's feelings for Holly, with the book description itself playing up "embarrassing professions of love to a certain feisty LE Precon fairy." yet Colfer has said, as the final book approaches, that Artemis and Holly will not end up together. Given that Artemis has no other love interest, fans are...shall we say..."ignoring him."
Or sharpening a variety of already very-pointy weapons.
Star Wars New Jedi Order novels Conquest and Rebirth built a lot of potential romance between Anakin Solo and his childhood friend Tahiri Veila, right down Anakin giving Tahiri her First Kiss, except that in the next novel Star by Star Anakin is killed. This is actually a very common occurrence in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, as the authors are split into two major factions: those who approve of Jedi in love, and those who disapprove of Jedi in love. Since any author is allowed to write about any character, an anti-love author can respond to any pairing with the power of canon behind them. The marriage between Leia and Han is untouchable, but any other Jedi who fall in love will -- without exception -- fall to the dark side, die, suffer the loss of their love interest, go insane, and/or worse.
Anakin Solo and Tahiri were more a victim of a THIRD category of Lucas authors: the ones who get handed a character's death warrant and told to kill him off. Anakin was marked for death (instead of his brother Jacen)) because the books were coming out at the same time as the prequels and LFL thought readers would be confused by having two characters called Anakin, despite their stories being set decades apart.
Harry/Luccio, at the end of Turn Coat.
Though perhaps not permanently, as Word of God has publicly stated he "has no idea whom Harry will ultimately end up with."
Harry/Susan is also looking unlikely after the former is forced to kill the latter to destroy the Red Court at the end of Changes.
The Will of the Empress spent so much effort on sinking ships between Briar and any of the girls, you'd think these ships were out when Tris decided to play with some hurricanes.
Stephanie Barron did it via a previously unmentioned and unexpected love interest for Lord Harold in Jane and the Stillroom Maid. Still bitter.
The Pendragon Adventure sets up Bobby/Loor only to knock it down a few books later.
Though it is a Crack Pairing and/or Cargo Ship, JayxStick of Warrior Cats has accumulated quite a fandom. Shame that the previews of The Fourth Apprentice reveal that he broke the stick.
Much to the surprise and sadness of the series' fans, Inkdeath brutally took down Meggie and Farid, who had already achieved Official Couple status in the previous book. Instead, they paired Meggie up with some inventor guy who hadn't even been mentioned in the previous books and had almost no importance to the plot. Then they made it seem, intentionally or not, as though Meggie picked him instead Because Destiny Says So.
The Lifebonding of Dirk and Talia in Arrow's Fall , third novel of the Arrows trilogy of the Heralds of Valdemar series, officially shot down any hope of Skif and Talia hooking up, setting their Like Brother and Sister promise firmly in stone.
Many fans of the Skulduggery Pleasant series watched the buildup of ship hints between Tanith Low and Ghastly Bespoke with growing enthusiasm. Then, in the fifth book, when it was beginning to seem like Ghanith would become canon... a Remnant possessed Tanith (possibly for good), leading her to run off with Billy Ray Sanguine. The shippers were displeased.
Aragorn/Eowyn got torpedoed in The Return of the King. As Aragorn heals a severely wounded Eowyn, he has a chat with her brother Eomer and explicitly tells him that Eowyn's affection for him is more of a Loving a Shadow case, coming from her past and her desire to be free - this is proved when Eowyn wakes up from her coma to sound of her brother's voice, since their family love is stronger than her feelings for Aragorn himself. Aragorn later marries his girlfriend Arwen, whom he's been with for years already, while Eowyn befriends Lord Faramir and he becomes her Second Love.
Mockingjay kills off Katniss/Gale with authority when President Coin orders a False-Flag Operation, which Gale had previously suggested, that kills Katniss' beloved kid sister Primrose and several other innocent medics. Even when Coin is the one who perfoms the operation and Gale is not happy when Prim dies, Katniss cannot forgive Gale for coming up with the idea in the first place and cuts him off completely from his life, realizing that they're Too Much Alike.
In Heroes, The Reveal of Peter and Claire being related (her biological father is Peter's brother Nathan) came almost immediately after the Peter/Claire ship was reaching full-steam.
And during the finale of Season 4, Hiro's girlfriend Charlie who was sent back in time is revealed to have grown old, married and had a family. Even Hiro himself admitted that the relationship was wonderful while it lasted, but otherwise done.
Supernatural sunk an incestual ship when Sam and Dean were shown to be disgusted and shocked that people were pairing them. Didn't stop this special breed of fan, although a lot of them were offended at the brothers' perfectly normal reactions.
Honestly, this ship was sunk even before it begun. Aside from the fact that they are, at their core, a brother who raised the other, there was never any chance that this would actually happen on the show. Without, you know, grossing out the mainstream audience.
Dean/Castiel is sinking very fast but most shippers are going down with it.
Really, any and every ship is in the crosshairs on this show, particularly if it involves a woman. It's hard to say whether this is Pandering to the Base, a Take That to shippers, something of both, or an incidental side effect of the fact that most non-Winchesters tend to die rather quickly, but at least one of the actors has allegedly suggested that female characters don't stick around very long because the (mostly female) fans don't like them getting near 'their boys.'
The Buffyverse as a whole has a weird relationship with Buffy/Angel in that it keeps pulling out things to get in the way of Buffy/Angel and make it seem more and more likely that they will never end up together, but still maintains that the two of them have a frankly invincible mutual attraction when in close proximity to each other. First, they have sex and Angel turns evil. Then Buffy kills evil!Angel and sends him to hell, just as he's transformed back into good!Angel. Then he comes back but can't stay with her because he feels like she'd be wasting her life with him, and so leaves town. Then, on Angel, the two come to a very serious (almost physical) confrontation over what to do about Faith when she escapes to LA, seriously hurting any kind of lingering friendship. Over the next few years they barely interact and are paired off with other love interests. Despite all this, Joss teases the possibility of future Buffy/Angel in the Season 7 finale with a funny cookie metaphor. And finally, in the Grand Finale of the Season Eight comics, they are both endowed with superpowers by the universe so that they can have crazy, flying sex in order to create a new, "better" universe, which they then abandon to save their friends, but which comes back after them with a vengeance, possesses Angel, and makes him murder Giles right in front of Buffy's eyes. Now an un-possessed Angel is being rehabilitated by Faith, and Buffy can't even bring herself to look at him anymore. You'd think this would kill the ship forever, but who can tell with this series.
Buffy Season 8 #15: Buffy isn't Willow's type. Damn!
The comic also showed Buffy having feelings for Xander. Turns out he's dating Dawn, though.
In the episode "Band Candy" Giles and Joyce have sex while under the influence of candy that causes them to act like teenagers. It kills any and all sexual tension between them, despite the fact that Giles is effectively Buffy's surrogate father.
In "Graduation, Pt. 2", Wesley and Cordelia (who have been infatuated with one another since they met) finally kiss. The kiss is awkward enough to wipe out half a season's worth of chemistry, and when the two of them end up on Angel together, they hardly ever so much as flirt again.
In the fifth season of Angel, Fred hooking up with Wesley sank any possibility of Spike/Fred ever happening, even though there was some subtext that supported it. But when Illyria came on the scene, it suddenly became plausible again.
The new series of Doctor Who is a strange mixture of both ship teasing and sinking, resulting from the change of focus to the relationships between the characters while still being influenced by the No Hugging, No Kissing policy of the original series.
The best and most well-known example is Rose, who, after spending two seasons as effectively the Doctor's interstellar love interest, was trapped in an Alternate Universe with no hope of return. The flood of Fix Fic that followed speaks for itself. Including what could be considered a canon almost-Fix Fic, when a later storyline had the Doctor leave his half-human clone with Rose giving her the best of both worlds -- she got a clone of the Doctor who looked and acted the same and felt the same way about her as the original, but would age at a human rate (and avoid a Mayfly-December Romance) and would be free to declare his love for her. He still never says "I love you" onscreen, though.
A deleted scene would have taken the Fix Fic to new levels when the Doctor gives his clone a piece of the TARDIS, which he could supposedly use to grow his own and travel the alternate universe with Rose.
The Eleventh Doctor's first series effectively shoots down the much-teased Doctor/Amy pairing in the series finale when Amy and Rory marry, and River hints that she is or will be the Doctor's wife. With the very unexpected revelation that River Song is the daughter of Amy and Rory in series six, the Doctor/Amy ship is very, very thoroughly sunk.
The End of Time, Part 2 sank Martha/Tom Milligan, which had become a popular Ship Mate to Doctor/Rose and was canon in the revived series four, by showing that Martha had married Mickey.
Star Trek: Enterprise spent its first two seasons establishing a fairly obvious ship between Captain Archer and T'Pol, only to sink it in Season 3 by having her unexpectedly take up with Trip Tucker.
House: Even though they still tease the pairing (like they do with everything), the Hameron fans were crushed when "Kids" and "Love Hurts" happened. In the former, Cameron telling House that she would only come back to work if he would go out on a date with her was seen as blackmail and in the latter, their distastrous date consists of small talk, an extremely misguided Cameron and House eventually telling her that she doesn't love him -- only pities him because he's crippled and emotionally damaged.
That wasn't the last attempt to sink the Hameron ship. We have Cameron reject House when he propositions her under the influence of ketamine -- though he wasn't serious at the time. And we have her speech to him when she left in season 6. Even this isn't stopping the Hameron shippers; they are very stubborn.
The Chameron ship, after being an Official Couple for two years, got sunk in the same season 6 speech. She effectively declared that she considered Chase mentally incompetent.
And then Huddy, after becoming the second Official Couple at the very end of season 6, got sunk as well when the two broke up a season later, and Cuddy left the hospital on very bad terms with House. The pairing already got a nice nod to Ship Sinking quite early on in the show:
House: You gave me everything I asked for, because one night I gave you everything you--
Cuddy: Stop staring at my ass when you think I'm not looking, showing up at restaurants where I happen to be on a date and fantasising about me in the shower. That ship sailed long ago, House. Get over it.
House: If you're still referring to your ass, I think that super tanker sailed would be a more precise metaphor.
In Kamen Rider Den-O, if Hana being de-aged didn't derail Ryotaro/Hana shippers, revealing that she was his niece surely did.
Considering that Yuriko Shiratori * was* Hana, who wouldn't have shipped them at first?
Firefly devotes an entire episode to having Wash suspect Zoe of having feelings for Mal, and being repeatedly proven wrong.
In Scrubs, the end of the third season and beginning of the fourth season seems to sink JD and Elliot forever. There's JD realizing he only wants her because he can't have her, and the final torpedo seems to come in "My Common Enemy" with JD's quote, "That's when I realized that Elliot and I had absolutely no romantic feeling for each other anymore. No matter what the situation. It was a little sad, but maybe it meant we could be friends today."
But the ship is unsunk abruptly at the end of the sixth season and becomes Will They or Won't They? again until they finally get together in the eighth season.
In the first episode of How I Met Your Mother, after playing up the Ted/Robin romance, they revealed that Robin would be the honorary aunt of Ted's children, thus killing any future relationship before it begins.
However many fans refuse to let it go--see comments
This ship was finally sunk in the episode Symphony of Illumination (Season 7), where it is revealed that Robin cannot be the mother of Ted's children.
From Robin Hood. Poor Guy/Marian shippers. It was always doomed considering that the show was called Robin Hood, but then Guy went and killed her. If that wasn't enough, he eventually admits to Robin that: "she was always yours." Then Robin dies and is reunited with Marian in Heaven, at which point she tells him that she's his wife: "now and forever." So Guy is presumably parted from Marian even in death. Could a ship possibly get more sunk than this?
For the very few people shipping Robin/Kate, Robin's Together in Death with Marian sinks that one too. Just prior to the scene, Kate tries for a Last Kiss from Robin, but he deliberately turns his face away and she has to settle for a Last Hug.
Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, in the fourth episode, hints on the eventual Ryuunosuke-Mako pairing, with Ryuunosuke being the first visual victim (of the opposite sex anyway) of Mako's Cooldown Hug, first eater of her cooking, and they slept on the same futon TOGETHER. When Ryuunosuke wants to finally officialize it, Mako sent down a torpedo to the ship before it even sailed. And afterwards, they never get a pair-episode again and Ryuunosuke never bothers to mention it again.
The popular Masumi/Natsuki ship in Go Go Sentai Boukenger was sunk when both actors stated in an interview that they considered the characters' relationship akin to a father and daughter. They never became an Official Couple, although it was hinted that they might.
When Chandler/Monica became the Fan-Preferred Couple on Friends, the writers seemed like they were doing this at the end of the third season. Chandler repeatedly asked Monica why she said she would never date him. He doesn't seem to have feelings for her - he's just pissed that she didn't take the idea seriously. In the season four opener, he has to pee on her leg after she's incapacitated by a jellyfish sting, leading her to tell him:
Monica: Okay, all right. I think you're great, I think you're sweet, and you're smart... and I love you. But you will always be the guy who peed on me.
By the end of the season, they'd hooked up, and within three years they were engaged...
The Burn Notice episode "Where There's Smoke" is devoted to two things. The first is Fiona saving the client from kidnapping/murdering Mexicans while being kidnapped herself and generally being a badass. The second is hammering in the point that Jesse has absolutely no chance of getting between the big Tsundere love of Fiona and Mike. Maddy even takes Jesse aside and talks to him specifically to makes sure he knows it.
Dollhouse doesn't so much "sink" Topher/Bennett as it orbitally obliterates the 'ship with an Ion Cannon when Saunders shoots Bennett in the head.
Of course, that happens right after the two kiss, and Saunders notes that he actually loves her. A straighter example would be Claire and Topher's own sunk ship at the beginning of Season 2, when Claire enters his room and forces herself onto him. He protests, she works out her emotional issues due to being a doll and being too afraid to give up the body to whoever had it before, and then she admits she hates the smell of him.
Chuck did this with Sarah and Shaw. First, it was revealed that Sarah killed Shaw's wife for her "red test" to become a member of the CIA. Then, when Shaw decided to betray the CIA and tried to kill Sarah, Chuck killed Shaw with three bullets to the chest. It didn't take, but still...
More drastically, this was done to Morgan and Anna, who were heading toward being an adorable Beta Couple...then she was used very sparingly in the second half of Season 2, then fired altogether in Season 3. In one of the most crushing, aggravating moments in shipping history, Anna returned in a special appearance at the end of Season 3, for thirty seconds, JUST for Morgan to shoot her down and dump her for good. This episode was hyped as the "return" of Anna.
Bones, episode 100 Booth goes for it and gets shot down. Necessary to preserve the UST
Seems like it was only for the UST: as of the end of season 6, Bones and Booth have gotten together, and Bones is pregnant.
In an interview with some magazine, The Big Bang Theory actress Kayley Cuoco was asked about the Sheldon/Penny ship, and replied that if they ever did date, she'd end up killing him (and I don't think she meant with sex). However, given that Penny & Leonard have recently broken up due to the latter's obsessive need for love and the machinations of EVIL! Wil Wheaton, this will not deter anyone.
Jim Parsons has made similar comments on the matter. He said he'd actually be confused if the writers suddenly went for Sheldon/Penny and that he just didn't see it happening EVER. On the other side, the season 3 finale implied that while they were back to being friends, the Penny/Leonard ship is going to be teased to hell and back.
Well, at least until Priya came along...
A small version of this may have just occurred on the FX show Justified between Raylan and his ex-wife Winona in "Hatless": Winona's husband gets into trouble with some bad men over land and Raylan comes to her rescue to ensure she won't be hurt. The potential for Big Damn Heroes is completely averted since Winona doesn't want to leave the house, especially since her husband is MIA. Later, she explains why she chose her new husband over Raylan (even though Raylan is tougher, funnier, and better looking) and still goes back to him at the end of the episode despite his bad decisions that endangered her. If there were any Winona/Raylan shippers, they're probably feeling pretty bad right about now.
Happily, the ship has been temporarily unsunk as of "Father and Sons", but the two still have loads and loads of problems to deal with in the meantime.
Thirty Rock: Tina Fey has often said in interviews that Liz/Jack will never ever happen. Didn't stop them from being accidentally married for the duration of an episode, though.
Many fans of CSINY ship Mac/Stella, but it was sunk when Melina Kanakaredes did not return for season 7.
Naomi and Cook's bantering in Skins developed into an Odd Friendship, but some Nookie shippers (mainly those on the Everyone Is Bi horse) saw plenty of UST there, despite the fact that Naomi's Single-Target Sexuality is firmly pointed in Emily's direction. The book tried to sink it with some very impassioned statements from Naomi (immediately declared as The Lady Doth Protest Too Much by the Fan Dumb); the show finally managed it.
Cook: I'm never going to get to bone you, am I?
Naomi: No. I love someone.
Cook tries to cling to the himself/Effy ship, but Effy kills that one in her S4 episode when she addresses Cook as "a friend".
Everyone's ship has been sunk over on Law and Order Special Victims Unit: the producers continue to insist that Elliot and Olivia are Platonic Life Partners /LikeBrotherAndSister /TheNotLoveInterest (which there is plenty of evidence for within the show), which pisses off the Bensler nuts; on the Les Yay side of the fence, Olivia has said that she's straight, thus pissing off the Alex/Olivia shippers.
And popular Beta Couple George/Alex (to Elliot/Olivia) got sunk when after years of debate, George was canonically confirmed to be gay.
Stephanie March, however, has saved the Alex/Olivia ship from sinking. She has said that she has not discounted the possibility of an Alex/Olivia romance in her own mind, and, in fact, finds it quite possible that they have been quietly in love for years. We love you, Stephanie March.
Passions : The producers decided to pair Luis with Fancy and then they decided to put Sheridan with Luis' lackluster brother Antonio. Needless to say, Sheridan and Luis fans were NOT happy .
Late Series 2 of Merlin effectively killed any and all ships with Morgana, but given the legend this shouldn't have come as any surprise. Just to hammer some nails into the coffin of Arthur/Morgana, season 3 has established that they are in fact half-siblings.
After the show had hinted at Merlin/Gwen in series one, the ship was sunk in the following series when Gwen suddenly falls in love with Arthur and Merlin meets Freya.
And, of course, let's not forget the Fan-Preferred Couple Merlin/Arthur. I mean, we knew it was never going to happen, but even after Arthur falls in love with Gwen, there's still hope for a unspoken unrequited love story from the side of his servant, right? Enter Merlin, Arwen Shipper On Deck. He ships it more than the couple does. In fact, he acts like a kid in a candy store when they start being romantic. Nothing's gonna sink the Merthur ship, but it's leaking pretty heavily.
Kamen Rider Double sank the Shotaro/Akiko ship by making Akiko and Ryu the Official Couple in episode 44, although by then she had started getting ship tease with both. Fully sunk as of Movie War 2011, where Akiko and Ryu marry.
The awkward attraction between Wakana and Philip is both ruined and justified with the revelation that she is his long-lost, barely remembered sister. It's the reason they seem to feel drawn to each other but romance would be a bit...awkward.
The Tara and Jason ship has been sunk twice. Still, with Season 3 almost over and Season 4 on its way next year, we'll just have to see how it plays out.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show's penultimate episode, "Lou Dates Mary" addressed the MaryLou ship. They went on a date, kissed... and immediately burst into giggles and both admitted it would never work.
ICarly: The end of iOMG, 10 episodes after Sam revealed she had a crush on Spencer, pretty much sunk what little chance the Sam/Spencer ship had.
Wizards of Waverly Place sunk the Justin x Juilet ship by turning her into an old lady. Then they dropped depth charges on it by having Harper pretend to be Juilet and tell him to move on, Alex repeating 'Juilet's never coming back', Justin dating an OC Stand In at the last minute, and Old Lady Juliet looking on and approving of this. The Icing on the Cake? The plot was used up in 15 minutes, so the second half was nothing but the first half repeated. The episode served no further point than to make fans forget about Juilet.
The writers had a few torpedos left, so they sunk Justin X Harper too, by having Harper tell Justin that she was in love with his sidekick, Zeke. You know what that means....
BUT WAIT! It turns out that Juiliet is back AND is a young girl again! "Wizards Vs. Everyone" With no logical explaination what-so-ever! It was just so they could shut us up.
Don't expect it. Alex may or may not have Mason with her right now, but I won't hold my breath for the Brother-Sister Incest to come.
La Femme Nikita (the original TV show, not the 2010 remake) ends Season 4 with Nikita saying to Michael "I don't love you. I never did", and walking away without looking back. Shipping fans were furious.
For years, Smallville had a rather vocal contingent of fans who wanted Clark to end up with Chloe, including those who were praying that she'd turn out to be the real Lois Lane, rather than the one introduced in Season 4 and played by Erica Durance. Then the Grand Finale showed, in no uncertain terms, that Clark married Lois, and Chloe got married to someone else and had a son, as seen in the final scene Distant Finale.
Stargate SG-1: The Daniel/Janet ship is sunk in the episode Heroes, where Janet is Killed Off for Real.
Stargate Atlantis: Sheppard/Weir is sunk when she turns into a replicator, and Teyla/Sheppard when she becomes pregnant with a random off screen guy no-one had ever seen before. The Katie Brown/Rodney McKay coupling is sunk when Rodney makes it known he's thinking about proposing, but isn't sure to go through with it. This makes her think he wants to break up, and she goes back to Earth.
Stargate Universe: If Eli being symbolically shown as Chloe's 'brother' in Cloverdale didn't do enough to convince viewers that pairing was sunk, Epilogue torpedoed it then dropped some depth charges on the wreck just to be sure.
The killing blow may have been Eli entering a relationship with Ginn. Most Eli/Chloe fans had long given up any real hope of seeing them together, so when Eli did find someone, they jumped ship.
Lost took perverse delight in zig-zagging this trope, long after the majority of its fandom had stopped caring about Jack/Kate vs Sawyer/Kate. If Kate was interested in one of them, it was only a matter of episodes before a plot twist drove them apart and seemingly killed off the ship for good... only for it to be resurrected next season when Kate fled the other one's arms. The rival FanDumbs fell for it every time, going both sides through a cycle of gloating and trolling the supposedly dead/sunk ship, only to retreat and grumble about "endgame" when their own ship was pushed aside. Jack/Kate ended up as endgame, but Sawyer/Kate fans seemed angrier about Sawyer/Juliet -- ironic, since it was the one "love square" pairing that non-shippers seemed to like when the show was over. However, this trope was played straight a few times too:
Sun and Michael's mutual interest was killed dead after Jin was humanized and Sun fell back in love with him.
Ben's interest in Juliet was revealed to be very much one-sided. And creepy.
Jack/Juliet was firmly sunk after Juliet realized he was in love with Kate and let him go.
Daniel/Charlotte was the rare ship not to get a revival in the sideways timeline. The two interacted briefly but did not "flash" off each other like so many other pairings, both platonic and romantic. Although neither were seen in the afterlife, so theoretically they could eventually get together.
A Ship Sinking so big that it still can cause arguements in the fandom over 15 years after it actually happened, appears in Power Rangers Zeo. Kimberly, offscreen, sends Tommy a letter. A Dear John letter. It was later confirmed that this was to change the aiming of Tommy's romance from Kimberly to Kat, the current pink ranger, but the backlash this one letter had and still has is huge, and its one of the things that makes people who ship Tommy/Kim rather unfriendly to those who ship Tommy/Kat... as one theory about the letter (deconfirmed by Word of God) is that Kat fabricated it. The mere words "Dear John Letter" are still associated with this in the fandom.
Game of Thrones has created certain pairings that are exclusive to the show rather than the book. One such pairing is Irri and Rakharo, two background Dothraki characters who shared plenty of Belligerent Sexual Tension despite not really interacting in the books. Promotional material for the second season confirmed that Irri had a thing for him. The season two premiere also had a heartfelt scene that inspired quite a lot of shipping between Daenerys and Rakharo. The second episode just as quickly crushed any hopes for both ships by killing off Rakharo, who is still alive in the books.
Considering that it was made quite clear in KHII and KH:CoM that Nobodies don't have emotions, it could be argued that any ship involving the Organization was preemptively sunk (at at least in canon).
Saix/Xemnas got shot down even harder when Saix revealed part of his plan to overthrow Xemnas.
Inverted with Army of Two. The prequel seems to torpedo the game's massive Ho Yay by showing Rios to have a girlfriend and a daughter... until you get to the part about him outright missing or otherwise delaying the wedding multiple times, over several years, so he can go on another mission with his Ho Yay buddy, Salem. At the end of the book, Rios' girlfriend is all but forgotten as Rios and Salem plan a vacation in Hawaii together.
The clumsy (but perfectly in-character) romantic subplot involving Naomi Hunter in Metal Gear Solid 4 was arguably added to distract from the fact that Snake and Otacon had been living together for nine years and had recently adopted a daughter together. It failed to work -- shipping carried on as normal, but now everyone just hates Naomi. It's the two men who end up "together" at the end, anyway.
Plus Otacon is required by divine law to kill one woman a game.
There should be a divine law that says Otacon isn't allowed to have romantic feelings for anything female, given their death tally. SO far the only one that seems to be still alive is his stepmother, who he was banging as well being sexually abused by.
Just female? Snake's life expectancy can be measured in weeks at best...
At the end of Xenosaga, the obviously romantic subtext between Shion and KOS-MOS is abruptly shoved aside when Shion ends up with Allen, the series' resident Butt Monkey. In a case of Throw the Dog a Bone, KOS-MOS and Shion can't be together, but will be in another Reincarnation. So hey, he gets to be with her since she can't be with her soul-mate.
Xenoblade has curious in-universe example: Sharla encourages Melia to keep fighting for Shulk's affection despite that his Childhood Friend Romance girlfriend Fiora is Back From the Dead. Melia eventually gives up on him, though.
Guilty Gear: Many people were so surprised to find out Ky Kiske is now unofficially married to a Gear and fathered a son. Ky/Jam supporters got an ouch there and for some reason, Ky/Dizzy fics are starting to pop up more often.
It turns into an "AAAUUUGGHH!!!" with Accent Core Plus, where they put more Ky/Dizzy Ship Tease. And THEN Xrd Revelator keeps confirming Ky/Dizzy even further, with Dizzy returning to the plot after being frozen as the Maiden of the Grove and reuniting with Ky AND their son Sin. Who was raised by Sol. Who was then officially (and hilariously) confirmed as Dizzy's biological father.
While Goemon/Omitsu are the de facto Official Couple of Ganbare Goemon, there's an instance of Goemon/Yae teasing that's almost directly followed by sinking in Kuru Nara Koi! Ayashige Ikka no Kuroi Kage. Partway through the game, an injured Goemon is too weak to take the medicine brought to him by his friends, resulting in an impending Medicine Kiss scenario. A flustered Yae states that "Goemon's life is an irreplaceable thing!" ... So she has an obliging Ebisumaru perform the task instead - No Yay, indeed! (Just to rub it in, the conversation following that scene has Goemon and Yae make it very clear that Omitsu is the one he's truly concerned about.)
In Baldur's Gate II, there's plenty of interaction and fondness and loyalty between Imoen and the main character...and then, boom! Half-siblings. (Didn't stop some people, and was even referenced in-game.)
There's a game mod that allows you to romance her. To say "didn't stop some people" is an understatement.
There's game mods that allow you to do a lot of things... like romance Sarevok too. Your half brother.
Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World intentionally creates and sinks a ship as a distraction. the "Love Letter" Raine gives Regal was actually a note asking him to keep an eye on Emil's personality changes
Then there was the moment where Raine told Emil and Marta about how Paul's father died when the Desians attacked Iselia and Lloyd proposed to his mother Lilia, in order to take on the role of his father, resulting in tomatoes being thrown. Even though Lloyd managed to cheer them up, the damage to every Lloyd X ship was still done.
And neatly, completely undone in a sidequest in chapter 8.
Playfully done in Super Smash Bros Brawl, with the "Unwanted Suitors" event. Zelda and Samus fight off a long approaching stream of invisible Luigis and Captain Falcons, and since Samus/Falcon was the most popular het pairing in the fandom before Brawl came along...
Some Warcraft fans have interpreted an interlude in Arthas: Rise of the Lich King as sinking the Thrall/Jaina ship. However, Your Mileage May Vary.
The official sink, however, is pairing Thrall with a Mag'har shamanka in The Shattering. And just in case he and Aggra don't work out, Metzen said in no uncertain terms that Thrall/Jaina will never happen.
As of World of Warcraft patch 4.2: Aggra and Thrall are now life mates (married, for you non-orcs), officially and utterly destroying the Thrall/Jaina ship. If that still doesn't deter the more zealous shippers, it was taken a step further at the end of the final battle in patch 4.3, it's confirmed by Alextrasza that Aggra is pregnant.
A lot of Path of Radiance's ships were denied paired endings due to the neutered support system in Radiant Dawn, but aren't necessarily rendered invalid as the player can still choose not to make the limited romantic pairs canon. Ike/Elincia, on the other hand, is sunk without mercy: they lack the ship tease they had in the previous game, Geoffrey is more or less seen as Elincia's canon love interest, and Ike's only two paired endings are with Soren and Ranulf.
An odd (and cruel) example is in the first series. Nyna/Camus doesn't work out because he dies. But then, in Fire Emblem Gaiden (and its remake, Echoes), he is now with Tatiana, a healer who saved his life. This would leave Hardin/Nyna and they're married at the end of the first game. Sadly, even that is sunk in the third game when it is revealed that Nyna had been faking love for Hardin for the sake of their realms, and he soon falls victim to Love Makes You Evil and Brainwashed and Crazy, becoming a Big Bad and eventually being put down by Marth. Nyna then confronts Camus but he leaves anyway since he thinks he only brings her sadness AND Tatiana is waiting for him in Valentia. In fact, in Echoes, their ending flat-out says the two get married. The writers must've been feeling sadistic.
While the sources are somewhat unproven, in the prototype of Genealogy, Seliph/Julia was a hard-lined Official Couple, but in the release, it was given a "490 -5t" love growth, making it practically impossible... unless the players are very patient and have some mad skills.
In Fire Emblem Awakening, Cordelia is furiously yet hopelessly crushing on Chrom... but the game mechanics don't allow them to hook up. In a certain DLC stage, Cordelia can have a rather awkward talk with Chrom as long as she's unmarried, but nothing comes up from it. Additionally, when both Chrom and Cordelia showed up in Fire Emblem: Warriors... they didn't get support talks there either.
Though some fans actually like Bowser and Peach together, that ship sunk in Super Paper Mario when it was revealed that if Bowser and Peach would be married at any time, chaos would end the universe.
Though, of course, they did get married (at the start of the game) and they never got divorced (its not even suggested in passing).
They were never pronounced husband and wife if that means something.
They were pronounced married "'till [their] games be over." This actually happens in-game, when Dimentio surprise-attacks them and sends them to the Underwhere. So perhaps this annulled their marriage.
Though, to be fair, the fact that Peach was mind-controlled into agreeing to marry Bowser, getting technical, pretty much any court would deem the marriage illegitimate anyway.
Much rage erupted among Team Fortress 2 fans who ship Heavy/Medic when the WAR update gave the Demoman the Medic-specific domination quote: "DOMINATED! And I've been shagging your wife!"
Similarly, one of the Soldier's new domination quotes over the Sniper is: "I'll send condolences to your kangaroo wife." Given that this is, well, the Soldier, fans are much less inclined to take this as evidence that the Sniper is not secretly snogging the Spy senseless.
Said Sniper/Spy fans are also apt to pretend that Scout's Mom doesn't exist.
And, of course, the Demoman/Soldier pairing came courtesy of Valve pre-sunk as the Excuse Plot for the WAR update was that the Administrator was out to destroy their friendship.
Strangely, shippers seem more apt to go to incredible lengths to ignore/rewrite the Ship Sinking rather than go the easy route and entertain the idea that the characters may be bisexual.
While its relationship to Canon is still being debated, more Heavy/Medic shipsinking can be found in Poker Night At the Inventory. When Tycho mentions his redheaded Love Interest, Heavy's reaction suggests that he is prepared to kill Tycho to take her for himself.
Fans took to pairing Bayonetta and Dante before her game even came out (it doesn't hurt that she's his Distaff Counterpart, not to mention that they were even created by the same guy). Too bad she can't stand the talkative types.
There's always Kratos...
Depends on which Dante we're talking about. She'd probably hate DMC3!Dante, but the Dante in games one and four was a lot more composed and serious. And then there's the Dante in 2 (yes, that one), who seems to be channeling his brother Vergil's spirit in terms of stoicism and laconic nature...
Prior to the game's release, some Final Fantasy XIII shippers had taken to Snow/Lightning which was Jossed hard by canon since Snow's engaged to Lightning's sister and Lightning really hates Snow.
In the trailer for The Passing, an expansion campaign for Left 4 Dead 2, Francis (L4D1 Survivor) and Rochelle (L4D2) see each other; Rochelle randomly says that she hates stairs. Francis, who has a meme of hating everything, says with genuine interest "Oh my god... you hate stuff too?". Rochelle says she hates various things, with Francis happily agreeing with her. Then she crosses the line and says "I hate your vest!", to which "I don't think this is gonna work out."
The entire compilation of Final Fantasy VII is a massive torpedo that neatly pairs off Cloud/Tifa and Zack/Aerith.
Final Fantasy VIII fired both tubes to ensure that players understood that Quistis was not going to interfere with the Official Couple.
After Metroid Fusion, many, many fans had shipped Samus with Adam Malkovich. Now that Other M is out, the writers have fired a Super Missile at said ship with this single line: "Because I was so young when I lost both of my parents, there's no question that I saw Adam as a father figure."
Golden Sun: Many a Mudshipper (Isaac/Mia) weeps at the revelation that Matthew is the product of Valeshipping (Isaac/Jenna).
Mud and Flame (Garet/Jenna) were far from the only casualties of the sequel. Whole squadrons were scrapped to make way for Generation Xerox.
Due to ZUN's Shrug of God and the lack of an Official Couple, the Touhou fandom usually doesn't have to worry about this. Usually. Aya/Momiji shippers got a nasty kick in the pants when ZUN revealed in Double Spoiler that there's actually a bit of bad blood between the two. Interestingly, this has not stopped the fanart from rolling in the slightest.
Falco Lombardi and Katt Monroe from Star Fox are not only a Ship Sinking, but an Incompatible Orientation. (A scene from Farewell, Beloved Falco is actually the current top picture for Incompatible Orientation.) There was not much of an associated fandom Humiliation Conga in the West, because the canonical manga this appeared in was Japan-only (packaged with Star Fox Adventures), and only started to surface in the West in recent years through Scanlation, long after Falox had already become the dominant Falco Ship in Japan and the Western fandom had long since already broken over Krystal (introduced in the aforementioned Adventures).
In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Word of God confirming the split timeline sinks every single Link pairing. At the end of Ocarina of Time Zelda sends Link back in time to when he was a child. This creates two timelines, the "Adult Timeline" where Link defeats Ganon and where most of the game took place, and the "Child Timeline", the timeline only briefly seen during the ending where Link is a child again. In the "Adult Timeline", Link ceases to exist and it eventually leads into Wind Waker while the "Child Timeline" eventually leads into Twilight Princess. While technically Link can still be paired in the "Child Timeline", the versions of the characters you meet during the game are the "Adult Timeline" versions. Not only do none of the shipping options happen, none of Link's friends ever see him again after the ending. Furthermore, in Wind Waker, Tetra is supposed to be a direct descendant of OOT Zelda, which implies that in the Wind Waker timeline, OOT Zelda did eventually marry someone who wasn't Link.
In Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten near the beginning we get a nice comment courtesy from your friendly neighborhood Werewolf Fenrich, that implies something may or may not happen between main character Valvatorez and Action Girl Fuka. It turns out nothing happens between the two and Fuka ends up shipping Valvatorez and Artina. And even if you do get Fuka's epilogue, she ends up sinking her own ship by choosing not to pursue Valvatorez, knowing that she would have to deal with Artina and Fenrich and break the "friendship rule" if she did.
Dragon Age 2 gives you a chance at playfully flirting with one of your companions, Aveline. This of course is during the beginning of the mission where you have to play match maker with the guy she's actually interested in.
In Portal 2 the Chell/Wheatley ship is sank when Wheatley is launched into outer space after nearly killing Chell
Sonic the Hedgehog: Word of God says that Amy will keep chasing Sonic, and Sonic will keep running from Amy, but they'll never get together with each other or anyone else.
Tails' character design is partially due to preemptive Ship Sinking.
Soulcalibur V gave the Kilik/Xianghua shippers a tease when the latter's replacement and daugher Leixia appeared wearing Kilik's Dvapara Yuga necklace. However, it sunk HARD when it was revealed Xianghua married the Ming General Yan Wujin. However, with the revelation that Hilde has two children and is now living with Siegfried's mercenary group, Siegfried/Hilde shippers may still have hope. We'll know more when the game is released.
Though when the fans rage about the Kilik/Xianghua sinking, the developers did say something along the lines of "Wait until the game actually comes out, meaning its still not impossible. There are numerous circumstances where Kilik/Xianghua is still valid even given the above situation.
Tira's story profile appears to have sunk the Nightmare/Tira pairing.
In Assassin's Creed Revelations the Lucy / Desmond ship was sunk when it was revealed that Lucy did not survive being stabbed by a possessed Desmond at the end of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. Fans of the ship can only hope that She's Just Hiding.
The first half of the webcomic Boy Meets Boy heavily implies at a future romance between Cyanide and Skids. Then the author took a closer look at them, decided that they actually weren't compatible, and hooked Cyanide up with the female Ronnie. To clear away any doubt, Skids says outright that Cyanide isn't his type, is revealed to have a long-time crush on Harley (which is ultimately futile, as Harley is happily with Mikhael), and is paired up with Tybalt at the end. Many fans did not take this well, as lampshaded in this comic.
Fuhr did this again in later comics, with the added gut punch that a canon couple (Fox and Collin), formerly seen as unshakeable due to their best-friends-as-well-as-lovers status, were split up in the gap between Friendly Hostility and Other People's Business - with one of them marrying someone else in the time between. This time, however, she told readers that they were free to label the later comic as an Alternate Universe and pretend everyone in Friendly Hostility got a happy ending - Cy and Skids, on the other hand, were lampooned Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - style: in the creator's mind, they would never be together. A small mercy for F.H. 'shippers, but a mercy nonetheless.
Lampshaded (like so many tropes) in Order of the Stick, after Therkla (a potential alternative love interest for Elan) was killed by Kubota:
Elan: You were her captain... now you're going down with her ship.
Played straight (Humiliation Conga flavor) in this strip and its successor, where the Roy/Miko ship is brutally and decisively sunk. (The facial expressions are priceless.)
In Gunnerkrigg Court, Tom Siddell seemingly Jossed Zimmy X Jack in a comment at the end of their first meeting.
Tom: ZimmyXJack? More like shutXup.
Then years later, he threw it a bone when he revealed that Jack's spider-driven obsession with her eventually developed into a full-blown crush on her, even after being freed of his astral parasite.
And one can't forget the brutally blunt ending of Alistair and Kat's relationship. Ali leaves, and the narrator states "And [Kat] never saw him again."
And the bastard's done it again with Jack x Annie.
Readers have lost track of all the times that the Something Positive Davan/PeeJee has been sunk, unsunk and then resunk.
Word of God says the person PeeJee's is based on has only one request regarding the comic: The Davan/PeeJee ship NEVER sails. In the immortal words of that famed philosopher James Storm: Sorry bout your damn luck, shippers.
Questionable Content deliberately sinks the surprisingly popular Marigold/Hannelore, in a strip that's even titled "Suck it, Shippers."
Poor Marigold. She gets Angus (shot down here) and later Tai (similarly destroyed here), neither of which work out too well.
Marten/Faye one, officially sunk with just one question:
Faye: What's your favorite Toto song?
Schlock Mercenary introduced 19-year-old Lieutenant Ventura at the beginning of the previous arc. She started to get along a bit too well with commander Andreyasn until his girlfriend showed up to sink that ship in a very clear and precise manner. At the end of the arc, she pretty much singlehandedly promoted a Red Shirt to Mauve Shirt when he saved her life, and the subsequent affection she showed him because of it. That ship was sunk early next arc when said Mauve Shirt assured his fellow crewmates he doesn't like little girls.
General Protection Fault sunk any chance of Nick/Trudy not only by having Nick get together with Ki, but by having him permanently reject her after learning of her plans in Surreptitious Machinations ("I can't love someone I can't trust.") Todd gets this twice, with a grown-up Sidney in the Bad Future (who stays behind to let him go back in time, getting captured and executed), and an amnesiac Mischief, (who regains her memories while forgetting her feelings for him, much to his dismay).
In Kevin and Kell, the Toy Ship of Nigel and Coney was first sunk when he and Catherine Aura went back in time at the end of the Y 2 K storyline, raised when they returned to deal with Rudy's webcomic, and sunk again when the two of them left for the human world to maintain the balance. While Nigel still harbors feelings for Coney, his mother does not allow him to contact her and hopes he will forget about her.
Homestuck: "Also I think I ruined a solid year's worth of perfectly good shipping with recent revelations. WHOOPSEE DAISEE"
Specifically, John and Jade are siblings, as they're the ectobiological children of Grandpa Harley and Nanna Egbert; Rose and Dave are also siblings, as the ectobiological children of Mom and Bro. Cue the two most popular pairings suddenly becoming Brother-Sister Incest.
Those pairings haven't disappeared from the fandom by any means however, and are still accepted mainly because of how popular they were before that particular bomb dropped.
Admittedly, with the expansion of the cast with the introduction of the trolls, the pairings have become a little rarer.
And another ship or two (John/Dave and John/Karkat) have been sunk by John's admission to Karkat: EB: i am not a homosexual.
Any hopes that Eridan and Feferi would get together were cruelly crushed on the 01/22/11 update.
In a less dramatic fashion, Nepeta/Karkat was simultaneously confirmed as canon and then sunk when it was brought up as being a one-way crush of Nepeta's.
Apparently, Hussie has done enough of this that he feels a need to parody it in a pesterlog between Jade and John.
Ow, My Sanity is a young webcomic. The David/Collette ship was a young ship. It died young.
In Penny and Aggie, Sara broke up with Daphne for reasons including, though not limited to, wanting to get with Lucy, her Reality Show costar. However, Lucy eventually made it clear she wanted to be Just Friends.
Out There: Martha, echoing a large part of the audience, thought that Sherry and Miriam had been sleeping together in their younger years; Sherry shoots the idea down flat, apparently genuinely surprised Martha thought so—although Martha herself still isn't convinced.
Gaia Online's Gee Boi Turbo item has the boss of the Dark Elves going to a Gaia-centric anime convention and finding... compromising... fanart of himself with Devin.
Kuro: Seriously, guys... this isn't canon.
That's not even as blatant as how they sunk the Meredith X Ivan Ship.
Lex: Ivan! Hey Ivan! Why was your opposite self married to Meredith? Don't you like her?
Ivan: Well, yeah, I love her very much.
Lex: Then why--
Ivan: Because she's my cousin.
Linkara/Marz Gurl was sunk for good when Lewis's girlfriend, Iron Liz, became a part of his show. Though most fans seem to like Liz, so this isn't the problem it would be in other fandoms.
The finale of Teen Titans may as well have been titled "Sorry, Shippers". What's worse is the fact that the episode was also Terra's Back From the Dead moment, making BB/Terra the ship so nice they sank it twice.
In issue fifty-one of Teen Titans Go!, Terra's brother Geo-Force, when looking for his sister, gets one good look at the Schoolgirl and shouts, "It's HER!" then comments that she looks happier than she's ever been before. Afterwards, he and Beast Boy leave, as Terra/The Schoolgirl watches them go, a knowing smile on her face... so yeah, the 'ship's so nice, they sunk it thrice.
Teen Titans Go! still let a little Ship Tease pass through every once in a while though. For the Valentine's Day issue, in the non-canon bottom gags, Terra and Beast Boy are as friendly as ever.
The creators sunk Beast Boy/Raven as well in the original cartoon, after the heavy amount of Relationship Writing Fumble, when they declared that all the titans are like siblings (except for Robin and Starfire). Unfortunately for them, this was counteracted by the actual comics, where those very same characters did hook up right around the same time, apparently by coincidence.
While Blackarachnia/Optimus was fairly obvious in Transformers Animated, "Predacons Rising" killed off any hope of Sentinel/Blackarachnia. He isn't just disgusted by her, he actively wants to murder her.
Ben 10: Man of Action must have deliberately paired Ben with Julie and added Kevin and Gwen's odd relationship in Alien Force just to sink Cousinshipping. It didn't exactly work out...
Season 3 appears to be doing much to fix the strangulation of Gwen and Kevin's relationship from earlier episodes by adding conflict to it. Many people, however, think it's far too late to rescue the couple from the scrappy heap.
The head writer of Code Lyoko confirmed in an interview that there was no romantic affection between Odd and Aelita, and that their relationship was purely platonic, like the cousins that they pretend to be.
Glenn Eichler of Daria has admitted in interviews post-show that he never intended from the beginning for a Daria/Trent relationship to actually be possible. Some fans took the creation of Tom Sloane as an example of Ship Sinking, but the sinking had already been in action before Tom's conception. However, the fact that Tom was created to see how Daria would react to a boyfriend without even considering Trent a viable romantic partner shows that he never took Daria's crush too seriously. Some fans over the years have still accused Tom of being an Ass Pull no matter how much evidence has been produced of how long they intended the process to be. These are usually the ones that try to kill him.
Coincidentally, the episode in which Tom was introduced, "Jane's Addition" was also the one that sunk the Daria/Trent ship. The conversation the two have near the end about Trent's failure to provide the music for their school project, is basically stating the reason why the two can't be together ("not good with deadlines" indeed).
Codename: Kids Next Door can fall under this trope because there exist people who would've preferred Numbuh 5/Abby to end up with Numbuh 1/Nigel instead of Numbuh 2/Hoagie as shown in the Grand Finale (some of these people would also have preferred Numbuh 2/Hoagie to end up with Numbuh 86/Fanny).
1/362 also conflicted with 1/Lizzie, at least, until Lizzie Broke up with Nigel. However, 1/362 didn't have a chance of happening either, since the next and last time the two ever interact is when she finally kicks his sector off of all cake retrieval missions..
Although, considering the ending of the final episode, this may not necassarily be true Numbuh 5 appears to have lied about not being in the KND so we will never know what really happened as they grew up..
It seems the writing team of Avatar: The Last Airbender absolutely HATE the Katara/Zuko (Zutara) pairing.
They've tried to torpedo the pairing via canon a few times... once just outright teasing them with a scene that looked like Katara was going to lead Zuko to the path of righteousness, but immediately dumping him once Aang shows up to rescue her and further destroying it by having Zuko head back to The Dark Side... and when Zuko finally goes good for real? Katara threatens to kill him if he betrays them again and means it.
Mai, initially a Deadpan Snarker and Emotionless Girl, was widely dismissed by extreme Zutara shippers as a shallow shrew incapable of understanding Zuko at best and a social climber who has no interest in anything but bedding a Prince at worst. Then, Mai pulls off a You Shall Not Pass when she and Zuko are reunited (after Zuko left her, leaving just a note) at The Boiling Rock. Mai was fully prepared to face Azula's wrath afterward, too. Mai was just lucky Ty Lee was there.
Mike and Bryan confirm in the commentaries for the third season DVD box set that it was all about the Kataang and Maiko from the beginning, noting that "[the Zutarians] are probably mad right now."
The writers parodied the Zutara ship in "The Ember Island Players" (an episode explicitly meant to be a humorous nod to the fandom in general), where the versions of the Gaang in the play behave exactly how the most rabid Zutarians would like them to -- "Katara" is dreamily nursing a crush on "Zuko" while she and "Aang" gleefully declare themselves to be Like Brother and Sister. The reactions from the real characters had both Zuko (disgusted) and Katara (incredulous) rapidly putting as much space between them as they could, while Aang became even more depressed. A similar reaction occurs a mere episode later in a scene where Jun the bounty hunter teases them about being in a relationship, much to their chagrin.
In the "Sozin's Comet" novelization interview: According to Mike, Zutara was "never intended" while Bryan said, "Come on, kids! "Zutara" never would have lasted! It was just dark and intriguing."
And the most notorious instance: The "Book 4: Air" July 2008 Comic Con prank, If all of the above sunk the ship with nuclear torpedoes, then this one dropped a + 50 Asteroid of Smiting on it.
And then, the "Avatar Extras" pop-up commentaries on Nicktoons Network had "Kataang Wins!" pop up at the end of the final episode.
With news of The Legend of Korra, the ship has officially been obliterated, as an interview reports that the mother of Tenzin, Korra's airbending master and son of Aang, just so happens to be Katara.
There seems to have been an entire episode ("The Headband") dedicated to sinking Zutara. In the A-story, Katara exhibits real crushiness towards Aang and jealousy when he dances with a Girl of the Week. Then, the two of them Kataango. In the B-story, dorky-cheeseball-in-love Zuko shows off the true extent of his dweebery when on a romantic picnic with Mai, and they Maikout.
The Toph/Sokka was similarly sunk in the finale, with Sokka being officially paired with Suki.
At the very end of The Legend of Korra, Korra and her on-and-off boyfriend Mako settle on Amicable Exes, and so do Mako and his other ex-girlfriend Asami. Then, Korra and Asami get together.. Previously, Bolin's VERY weird relationship with Korra's Strange Girl cousin Eska had also been sunk and he found solace and love with Opal, Toph's young relative
While it might not sink the ship completely, The Spectacular Spider-Man's Spider-Man and Blackcat are now unlikely to ever have a relationship. Let's just say alone time with the girl whose father killed your uncle, the closest thing you had to a real father would be awwwwwkward.
Hey, in Pushing Daisies Chuck managed to make it work with the guy who accidentally killed her father, so you never know.
More to the point, Blackcat made it clear that she can't forgive Spider-Man for "convincing" her father to stay in prison.
Well the show has been cancelled so that puts an end to that.
The Futurama episode "Put Your Head on My Shoulder" torpedoed Fry / Amy.
The Kim Possible episode "Emotion Sickness" could've been interpreted as a mockery of both Kim/Ron shippers and Drakken/Shego shippers -- Until it was revealed that Kim and Ron were supposed to have ended up together all along.
Season four's "Stop Team Go" features Shego being turned good by a Mirror Morality Machine and immediately becoming best friends with Kim. It's like a gift to KiGo shippers for their support and promotion of the show, and even has the Ship Tease-baiting line of Shego saying "You know, Kimmie, I couldn't tell you this when I was evil, but--" Right then, she's flipped back, flies away crowing with her partner in crime, the machine is smashed to pieces and and Kim and Ron pretty much say "Shame, but maybe it's for the best." It's as if the Word of God was saying "Well, wasn't that fun? But no. No, it's just not going to happen."
They sunk KiGo with The Movie... Then revived it with the last seasons teases, and sunk it again rougher then before with the finale.
In The Venture Brothers, any hopes of progression for Brock/Molotov may have also been sunk after "Operation: P.R.O.M." Not only does Molotov claim she's in love with Monstroso, she crosses the Moral Event Horizon once again by threatening to have all of the people Brock cares about murdered by her Black Hearts if Brock doesn't let her go. Oh, and she fell off of a cliff in a limo and may be dead. Possibly. This is Venture Bros. after all.
Not really sure this one really counts since Brock/Molotov was originally shipped in canon in the first place and the ship was reinforced repeatedly through out every season up to that point.
In Justice League, Batman/Wonder Woman was sunk before the series had even started. Batman Beyond, you know.
For that matter, Batman Beyond sunk every Batman/anything ship in the DCAU by revealing that Bruce stayed a bitter, lonely man into retirement age.
Bruce: When I was young, women used to throw themselves at my feet all the time.
Terry: What did you do?
Bruce: Step over them.
Terry: Smooth.
Bruce: I thought so.
Batman Beyond also sunk the Dick Grayson/Barbra Gordon ship. She ended up married to some guy who had never even been mentioned before this series.
After she dated Bruce/Batman.
In The Fairly Odd Parents "Wishology" trilogy, Trixie being Timmy's love interest during the three movies effectively did this for Timmy/Tootie shippers. While a Reset Button was hit on the relationship, a lot of people gave up hope the couple would ever recover.
It eventually did recover, and Timmy ends up with Tootie at the end of the Fairly Odd Movie (and unlike Wishology, with no status quo ending). Fans of Trixie and other love interests acted far more irrationally to this news than their Tootie counterparts did, going as far to dismiss the movie as Alternate Continuity before it had even premiered.
The Total Drama Action special might have done this for Trent/Gwen shippers: not only do the two have no one to one interaction at all in the special (significant enough in itself) but Gwen admitted she finds Duncan attractive while Trent has already begun dating different girls.
Worse: Revenge of the Island's beginning shows that Gwen and Duncan are still in a relationship.
Total Drama World Tour did it to the Courtney/Duncan ship. Dropped a thermonuclear warhead on the ship before doing a Colony Drop on the ashes.
If TDWT nuked the Duncney ship, then Duncan's voice actor dropped a +100 Asteroid on it. He prefers Gwen/Duncan. Not only Duncan/Courtney, but Heather/Alejandro also seems to be sunk, after Heather chose the prize over his love, sealing her decision with a Groin Attack.
And before, relatively popular pairings in fandom like Heather/Harold and Heather/DJ (both had some Ship Tease in previous seasons) were also sunk. The first in the first TDWT Aftermath and the second in Newfoundland.
The finale of that season also sunk Heather/Alejandro.
The 2D/Murdoc ship from Gorillaz has most likely sank, with the recent utter lack of any sympathy coming from either characters. In the band's early years, 2D, despite being ran over with a car twice, put in a coma, frequently beaten up, having both of his eyeballs fractured, his upper front teeth knocked out, several of his possesions and both girlfriends he had during the time they knew each other stolen, he's never shown any sign of resentment, let alone hate, for Murdoc. In fact, he seemed to have a sick sort of mad devotion to him. Obviously, Murdoc has never, ever shown any affection or respect towards the singer. Word of God, when asked if there was anything between them, replied that it was "highly unlikely, but use your imaginations". However, since there are two Gods, the other one wasn't paricularly pleased when he was informed of Gorillaz slashfic ("People write that stuff about Gorillaz? Seems like they have too much time on their hands."), and possibly set up the Plastic Beach plot as to completely have any Ho Yay implications out of the way - when 2D expressed a lack of interest in making a new Gorillaz album, Murdoc simply kidnapped him and currently holds him captive on Platic Beach. 2D also seems to have no more positive feelings for Murdoc, as he clearly stated he "hates that sod" somewhat recently (can't blame him).
With that said, Murdoc is also supplying 2D with porn while keeping him in captivity. That, and the fact that this was never a healthy relationship to begin with, means that the ship hasn't been sunk as much as wobbling around strangely on the surface of the water.
Word of God might have done that to Finn/Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time. Finn is sporting a pretty obvious Bodyguard Crush on Bubblegum, whose actual age wasn't revealed yet. When the creator was asked about this on his formspring account, he replied that Bubblegum "is way out of [Finn's] league".
His and one of the storyboard artist's opinions seem to collide. A recent formspring question regarded the actual existence of the pairing, to which the reply was "It's as real as the feelings you feel. Expect that multiplication sign to be addressed in future episodes. In due time".
At the end of season two, Bubblegum undergoes a plot relevant age down to thirteen, same age as Finn, which seems to be setting them up for a genuine romance. However, in Too Young Bubblegum returns back to original age, and denies Finn's request to continue hugging, saying that it happened five years ago, sinking that ship yet again.
As of "Incendium", the Finn/Princess Bubblegum ship has sunk even deeper in the ocean due to Finn getting over Bubblegum and having a crush on a new character, Flame Princess. And the VERY last episode delivers again, via Bubblegum rekindling her past relationship with Marceline the Vampire Queen
In Phineas and Ferb the scene where Doofenshmirtz takes Linda on a date was intended to sink the idea that Doof is Phineas' father.
The upcoming "Minor Monogram" sinks Vannesa/Johnny. This could make Ferb/Vannesa shippers happy....but at the end There's a Ship Tease with Vannesa and Monogram's son. Here we go...
ThunderCats (2011): Although Cheetara and Lion-O had a lot of Ship Tease moments, that ship was thoroughly sunk in Episodes 12 and 13 when it's revealed that Tygra had a crush on Cheetara since childhood and Cheetara returned his feelings but put her duty to Lion-O above her feelings for him, topped off by Cheetara and Tygra sharing their first kiss in front of a shocked Lion-O!
In Transformers Prime even after a rather rough first encounter with each other in the episode Metal Attraction, Airachnid and Breakdown were shipped following a line from Breakdown that even though he felt she was domineering and her extra arms were weird, that he found himself intrigued by her. Come the Season 2 episode Crossfire however, Megatron orders Breakdown and Dreadwing to take Airachnid to a remote location and execute her, for trying to take over his command last season. Things quickly go wrong, leading to Breakdown chasing after her alone and getting trapped, where Airachnid tears him apart and kills him.
Even canon ships aren't safe, when Young Justice kicked off it's second season with Miss Martian suddenly kissing Lagoon Boy, even though she had been dating Superboy in the first season. Granted, a lot can change in five years, but the show hadn't told anybody about that part until afterwards.
Voltron: Legendary Defender had buttloads of Ship Tease, but also lots of this:
In this series Prince Lotor and Princess Allura DO get together, and they even share a kiss. Plus this incarnation of Lotor seems to be more in the lines of an Anti-Hero than his original one, and there are many parallels between the two and Lotor's parents. But in Season 6, Lotor fully reveals his villainy (including acts like using Alteans for Quintessence), and Allura is understandably angry and heartbroken.
In Season 7, Shiro is revealed not only as being Badass Gay (sinking the well-loved Shiro/Allura and any possibility for Shiro/Romelle, coming from Sven/Romelle from the original Voltron) but as having had a male lover named Adam. However... they had broken up before the series started... and later it's revealed that Adam was killed in action. Shiro was not aware of this, and when he finds out, he's quite saddened.
In Season 8, one ship is propped up, then sunk and sort-of reaffirmed, in a way. It's Lance/Allura. It was "Propped Up" via Lance becoming Allura's Second Love after her Lotor deals, it was "sunk" with her Heroic Sacrifice that involves her ascending to a higher plane of existence, and then sort-of reaffirmed by them swearing to love one another forever. (And according to some interviews, there is a good chance that sooner or later she'll find a way to return to his side.). And at the very end... the extremely popular Shiro/Keith is sunk as well, via having Shiro marry his crewmate and subordinate Curtis and keeping Keith single. However, multiple realities are canon in this series, so fans can at least take comfort in imagining that their OTP is together elsewhere...
↑ of course, there are plenty of other guys, but these seem to be among the most popular
↑ via Akuram being the main villain and not even being a possible choice in the game until its remake version
↑ although considering Hannah explicitly shares Neville's interest in Herbology and was a staunch member of the DA during Deathly Hallows, the pairing is at least plausible
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Shipping Tropes