Ship War
From Fanlore
| Synonyms: | shipwar, shipping war | |
| See also: | shipping, OTP | |
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(n.) A heated disagreement between two or more groups of shippers. Unlike your garden variety of wank, ship wars span a long time (often years) and involve many people in their fandom. Symptoms of a ship war include:
- rants, both of the "we're obviously right" and "why can't we all write our porn and get along" kinds
- long-winded essays trying to prove canonicity or superiority of the preferred ship (sometimes going overboard and claiming every scene with one or both of the characters as proof, in a very convoluted, Dan Brown fashion) or pointing the flaws in similar essays by rival shippers
- a refusal to quiet down till well after the canon is closed
Ship wars often aggravate other fannish behavior such as flames ("if you like X/Y, you're Z!") and character bashing.
Examples
For historical ship wars, see the Harmonians incident in Harry Potter and the Ray Wars in due South. The TV Tropes article on Ship to Ship Combat provides many more examples.
