ship war

plural ship wars

1. slanglifestyleAn intense and sometimes hostile disagreement between shippers of rival ships in a fandom.

   Oh, no, not another ship war between members of Team Edward and Team Jacob.

   3 more examples

   They seemed fascinated by my and Meg's absorption in the Harry Potter culture, so we told them stories of the ship wars […]

   2008, Melissa Anelli, Harry, A History, Pocket Books, →ISBN, page 236

   'Ship wars' are discussions, usually between female fans, about who the best partner would be for their favourite character or artist, a classic example being the debates over whether Yoko Ono was good for John Lennon.

   2013, Mark Duffet, Understanding Fandom: An Introduction to the Study of Media Fan Culture, Bloomsbury Academic, →ISBN, page 248

   Habermas may not have imagined ship wars as a context for practical discourse, but fandom is in fact an excellent space in which to engage in the forms of contestation he describes.

   2013, Emily Regan Wills, “Fannish discourse communities and the construction of gender in The X-Files”, in Transformative Works and Cultures, volume 14