rdfs:comment
| - Bob, Charlie, Dave etc. have been chasing Alice. Now it's time for Alice to choose Bob as her one and only. What a happy couple (hopefully). The audience should also feel happy for them, even though this very act has crushed the hearts of Charlie and Dave. So, the writers tend to quickly whip up some contrivances to deal with this. Given the romantic resolution occurs late in the series, this has to be applied rather quickly, as there isn't much time left. This can create a subset of moderate shippers, who aren't bothered so much at being unfulfilled as it being done in a silly manner.
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abstract
| - Bob, Charlie, Dave etc. have been chasing Alice. Now it's time for Alice to choose Bob as her one and only. What a happy couple (hopefully). The audience should also feel happy for them, even though this very act has crushed the hearts of Charlie and Dave. This is awkward, especially if Alice was being foolish in stretching this situation for most of the series. The audience is supposed to support the final couple completely, but this is difficult if the pairing has "casualties" (or competition that's still floating around). This is especially problematic if the show has fallen victim to a lot of Shipping. It's especially bad if the writer-preferred pairing cannot compete with the other possibilities due to a lack of communication and relationship building. So, the writers tend to quickly whip up some contrivances to deal with this. Given the romantic resolution occurs late in the series, this has to be applied rather quickly, as there isn't much time left. This can create a subset of moderate shippers, who aren't bothered so much at being unfulfilled as it being done in a silly manner. Common variations have former competitors:
* Revealing that they weren't really in love that much with Alice.
* Deciding that what they want the most is to have Alice be happy, and that Alice can only be happy with Bob.
* Quickly falling in love with someone else, sometimes even with Charlie going for Dave or a character pining over a now-taken Bob; two birds with one stone!
* Going insane (or flatout evil) or turning out to be a jerk, so they are no longer worthy of Alice's love.
* Getting killed off.
* Eventually being paired off with Alice, Jr. (even if aging would make that rather creepy.) Often the fate of Schoolgirl Lesbians. As a type of backlash, sympathetic Fanfic will often get rid of the heterosexual competition in this fashion as well. Often the fate of the "second" father when First Father Wins. Some ways of making it so that cleaning up loose ends doesn't have to happen are for all characters to be paired up from the very beginning or reach a mutual Tenchi Solution. Or, of course, simply accepting that they lost and moving on with their life. Examples of Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends include:
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