The Prof on shipping, Part 2: Pony Canon shipping?
<<< best Guest Stallion. Best Stallion right after Big Mac. Seriously, they'd better bring Cheese Sandwich back, or I'll --- nothing that Hasbro really will care about, so it won't matter. How about this? I hope very much he makes a re-appearance, and doubly so in the new Equestria Girls movie (and yes, it's been confirmed now.) EDIT: Link to article and actual clip.
Here's my thoughts about shipping ponies:
It's very cruel unless you put little holes in the boxes. I'm going to keep using that line from Ask Big Mac until I die.
No, seriously:
In fandom terms, what are you going to do? Stop it? Seriously. I saw someone on FiMFiction actually suggest that everything that wasn't canon should be removed. They are out of their skulls. Not only would that get rid of pretty much 90% of the shipfics--and you may or may not consider this to be a good thing--it would also take in everything ELSE that wasn't canon, like the post-apocalyptic fics that Bronies seem so fond of. Don't get me wrong: I would be just as happy if a whole lot of the porn and all of the gore just flat out disappeared, but I'm realistic. It isn't going to happen, and I'm satisfied if it doesn't show up in Safe Search. Speaking of which! #SafeSearchWrapUp. Deets here. Basically, on the 7th and 20th of every month, people will go through an image search on Google or what have you with Safe Search enabled, and tag everything that isn't really safe. Not to nuke it off the face of the earth, but to put it away somewhere kids and other people won't just fall over it. I'm seeing a lot of buy-in to this idea. If it works, the filters will get smarter and it will be a win-win.
In canon -- I think they're going there. In the actual show, not just in Equestria Girls. Whether I want them to or not. Let's consider the evidence, Watson.
I think it's not an exaggeration to say that Equestria Girls, specifically Flash Sentry (aka "Brad") really started a fandom manurestorm. I know some people were all upset because Twilight was their waifu, but I think some of us liked MLP as a romance-free zone. It was the one place on television that love interests weren't in my face, dammit! Am I stuck with Cake Boss and Antiques Road Show now?
[More than you ever wanted to know about my thoughts on Season 4, canon shipping, and my dark suspicions.]Is shipping age-inappropriate? I don't think so. I watched cartoons as a kid, and I went to preschool with NOAH, and I dutifully cheered on the canon ships, just as I was meant to. Underdog has a love interest going with Sweet Polly Purebred, and it's supposed to, because it's a parody of Superman. (Note also that MLP did not invent the Pop Culture Reference.) I shipped Bernard and Miss Bianca in the Miss Bianca books like crazy, even though I didn't know that's what it was. Speculation about Fred, Daphne, Shaggy and Velma was rife in discussions over peanut butter sandwiches. My two best friends and I argued over which was cuter: Spock, Kirk, or McCoy. When we were seven. (I'm almost positive that I was for McCoy. Dammit, Jim!) In other words, romantic but basically non-sexual and often unfulfilled emotions were part of the territory. So it isn't age-inappropriate. I just kinda wished it wasn't there in MLP, especially since that wasn't part of the original plan..
Flash Sentry, in any case, was really unimpressive. I didn't love him, I didn't hate him, I didn't feel anything about him. He was much too generic for that, although he did have an electric guitar. I writhed internally when Applejack teased Twilight, in pony form, about her "crush on the new guy." BLARRRGH. Meghan McCarthy swore that Flash Sentry wasn't going to be a character in Season Four. And I believed her.
The first two episodes didn't really have anything that looked like ships or romance, possibly because we were dealing with potentially world-destroying forces. Also, stallion guards are really, really dumb. "OHAI, we are guards. We must be told exactly what to do. WHAT TO DOOOOO."
The third episode, or second, if you're counting that way, did send the ponies in pairs, but I didn't think there was anything particularly shippy there. In fact, it was fun, because Josh Haber likes writing Rarity and matching off characters who haven't been done in a long time. But before the episode, Meghan McCarthy tweeted:
Wait, what? Why did she do that? ZOMG the rage I saw on fanboards. I did think to myself, "oh, blech," partly because I do not ship ponies (but when I do, I ship FlutterDash), but I actually SAID, hey, chill out. There's going to be little ship teases and stuff, and none of it is ever going to be canon, so c'mon, let the AppleDash shippers have their fun. Next week, it'll be someone else's turn. And the shipping thing--that's not going to be canon. Right? Right?
Uh-huh.
Next episode:
What in Hades was THAT? Because that looked like. . . like . . . like Dash ships Daring with Ahuizotl? Or she doesn't? Or I don't even know! Just . . . what?
And we ended with this thing:
which looked a hell of a lot like DaringDash to me which is another sorta guilty pleasure which I totally do not think will be canon, and I don't know whether that was on purpose or what, but we've just had shipping go "peekaboo!" at us TWICE in one episode.
Oh, whatever, I thought, I'm probably on drugs or I'm reading some people's blogs and borrowing their shipping goggles or something, because this is simply not happening.
Flight to the Finish: No. Thank Gosh. And since that was the CMC, there had better not be. I may or may not get around to stuff I do and don't care for in MLP ships, but the CMC are basically out (except maybe, just MAYBE, Sweetie Belle and Button Mash, but that's 100% cute and harmless). And as we can see, they have plenty else on their plates.
Power Ponies: Which was fun! And a quick reminder that Spike totally has a crush on Rarity! But he always has had, so whatever, and she has functional accessories. Still, the Spike/Rarity thing has always made me more than a little uncomfortable and thank GOSH he is a puppy in the world of Equestria Girls and that better not change.
Bats? It was all about the bats. YAY. I think. I'm pretty much just remembering Flutterbat and Pinkie Pie's mane. In the fandom, the smackdowns are all about environmentalism vs. farming, and temporarily, at least, shipping has disappeared off the radar, and I am breathing a sigh of relief and beginning to forget about it.
. . . rumblings of EG 2 on the horizon?
Rarity Takes Manhattan plays the Spike/Rarity angle down a lot. I mean, he's carrying a metric ton of luggage for her, as per usual, but when I think back on it, there is a surprising LACK of stallions getting into traffic jams because she is so cute. I can remember episodes where Rarity got huge favors just by walking up and paying a lot of insincere compliments to the accompaniment of the Habanera, so at least she's getting returns for being NICE and GENEROUS. Plus, she does not flirt with Spike; she buys him a hot dog.
Pinkie Apple Pie is so focused on family that people would have to be actively LOOKING for shipping to find it. Frankly, it was one of my favorites, too.
Rainbow Falls! And I am getting complacent! Until --
wait, what?
Oooooog where is the cider. I need the hard stuff. I mean, I hope to heck I am wrong here. Bulk Biceps is awfully funny, but -- anyway, I have convinced myself that Fluttershy sees him as the equine equivalent of Harry the Bear.
Rainbow Dash and Soarin', I've always thought, is what people ship when they are desperate to prove she is not a lesbian. I know, I know, hurtful stereotypes, but whatever, I simply could not see it, since Soarin has always been all about the pie.
***WHAMWHAMWHAM***
Thanks a ton. Thanks a ton for NOTHING. Gawd. That's some serious Ship Fuel up there guys, and it's starting to look almost . . . well, INTENTIONAL.
But thank goodness, we're on to Cadance, and Discord, and I'm sure there won't be any shippiness this week, right? Rrrrrrright?
-
-wait, what?
WHAT? Brad? I mean Flash Sentry, is that you? Flash Sentry giving Twilight the Big Eye? What?
Uh, uh. . . . it's the animator's fault! Yeah! Because we, um, ran out of assets! And anyway, it was a gag! And Meghan McCarthy didn't know about it!
OK. Moving on.
Pinkie Pride:
--I think I'm on record as saying that I think of Pinkie as the *least* shippable of the Mane Six. She comes across as so childish, and she's the only one who still lives with surrogate parents-- but I guess while she's retained her basic kookiness, she's now able to babysit and to dial it down for her friends, and, --ok. Right.
And look! She has left behind her insecurities and fear of abandonment!
But still, not ship material. Not atall. And thus I am utterly blindsided by what occurs next. I mean, hey, Pinkie and Cheese have a lot in common--
--Including the ability to do whatever the hell this is.
and it's nice to see Pinkie not fold like a card table under pressure.
But still, stuff gets a weeny bit antagonistic.
Just a teeny, weeny bit. I mean, he did steal her "Smile" song and pretend he had no idea what she was talking about, but still, this seems a little excessive.
Except, except, except--wait, what?
He was -- a shy, miserable colt?
-until he wandered into a party one day and pushed up a jester's hat --
-
-and saw Pinkie? Like, Pinkie as a filly? Seriously?
And she gave him that rubber chicken?
And he's kept it all this time?
She's his Muse?
OH MY GOD IT IS LIKE DANTE AND BEATRICE BUT WITH PARTY PONIES
AUGH, DROWN ME IN THE FEELS
Snf. Well played, Hasbro. Well played. And thus, an OTP is born.
Happy Valentines/Hearts and Hooves Day~ by KakashisChika on deviantART
I WILL GO DOWN FIGHTING WITH THIS SHIP. Man, even people who don't ship, ship CheesePie.
So---ok. You haven't sold me on FlashLight, I am lining up to buy CheesePie, and--
Oh no no no no.
Did they actually USE the "C" word? As in --- crush?
NO. NO. NO. DO NOT WANT.
Ah, bugger. Too late.
Not that it wasn't fun to watch Applejack and Rarity play Betty and Veronica, but we're going on thin ice here.
Goddammit. Seriously. Enough is too much. This is NO LONGER A COINCIDENCE. A merciful deity/Hasbro/the writing staff hath decreed that in Equestria Girls, Spike shall be a puppy. That makes this just a tiny bit more tolerable.
The show is clearly Going There. As I said--not just Equestria Girls, the show. And I don't really know for sure if I will like it once it's Gone There.
--if I can have more CheesePie, I may, just MAY, forgive them.
WELP, THAT SURE WAS LONG! --and I am probably the only one who will read it, and I should have been commenting on stuff, but I enjoyed it!
Here's my thoughts about shipping ponies:
It's very cruel unless you put little holes in the boxes. I'm going to keep using that line from Ask Big Mac until I die.
No, seriously:
In fandom terms, what are you going to do? Stop it? Seriously. I saw someone on FiMFiction actually suggest that everything that wasn't canon should be removed. They are out of their skulls. Not only would that get rid of pretty much 90% of the shipfics--and you may or may not consider this to be a good thing--it would also take in everything ELSE that wasn't canon, like the post-apocalyptic fics that Bronies seem so fond of. Don't get me wrong: I would be just as happy if a whole lot of the porn and all of the gore just flat out disappeared, but I'm realistic. It isn't going to happen, and I'm satisfied if it doesn't show up in Safe Search. Speaking of which! #SafeSearchWrapUp. Deets here. Basically, on the 7th and 20th of every month, people will go through an image search on Google or what have you with Safe Search enabled, and tag everything that isn't really safe. Not to nuke it off the face of the earth, but to put it away somewhere kids and other people won't just fall over it. I'm seeing a lot of buy-in to this idea. If it works, the filters will get smarter and it will be a win-win.
In canon -- I think they're going there. In the actual show, not just in Equestria Girls. Whether I want them to or not. Let's consider the evidence, Watson.
I think it's not an exaggeration to say that Equestria Girls, specifically Flash Sentry (aka "Brad") really started a fandom manurestorm. I know some people were all upset because Twilight was their waifu, but I think some of us liked MLP as a romance-free zone. It was the one place on television that love interests weren't in my face, dammit! Am I stuck with Cake Boss and Antiques Road Show now?
[More than you ever wanted to know about my thoughts on Season 4, canon shipping, and my dark suspicions.]Is shipping age-inappropriate? I don't think so. I watched cartoons as a kid, and I went to preschool with NOAH, and I dutifully cheered on the canon ships, just as I was meant to. Underdog has a love interest going with Sweet Polly Purebred, and it's supposed to, because it's a parody of Superman. (Note also that MLP did not invent the Pop Culture Reference.) I shipped Bernard and Miss Bianca in the Miss Bianca books like crazy, even though I didn't know that's what it was. Speculation about Fred, Daphne, Shaggy and Velma was rife in discussions over peanut butter sandwiches. My two best friends and I argued over which was cuter: Spock, Kirk, or McCoy. When we were seven. (I'm almost positive that I was for McCoy. Dammit, Jim!) In other words, romantic but basically non-sexual and often unfulfilled emotions were part of the territory. So it isn't age-inappropriate. I just kinda wished it wasn't there in MLP, especially since that wasn't part of the original plan..
Flash Sentry, in any case, was really unimpressive. I didn't love him, I didn't hate him, I didn't feel anything about him. He was much too generic for that, although he did have an electric guitar. I writhed internally when Applejack teased Twilight, in pony form, about her "crush on the new guy." BLARRRGH. Meghan McCarthy swore that Flash Sentry wasn't going to be a character in Season Four. And I believed her.
The first two episodes didn't really have anything that looked like ships or romance, possibly because we were dealing with potentially world-destroying forces. Also, stallion guards are really, really dumb. "OHAI, we are guards. We must be told exactly what to do. WHAT TO DOOOOO."
The third episode, or second, if you're counting that way, did send the ponies in pairs, but I didn't think there was anything particularly shippy there. In fact, it was fun, because Josh Haber likes writing Rarity and matching off characters who haven't been done in a long time. But before the episode, Meghan McCarthy tweeted:
Wait, what? Why did she do that? ZOMG the rage I saw on fanboards. I did think to myself, "oh, blech," partly because I do not ship ponies (but when I do, I ship FlutterDash), but I actually SAID, hey, chill out. There's going to be little ship teases and stuff, and none of it is ever going to be canon, so c'mon, let the AppleDash shippers have their fun. Next week, it'll be someone else's turn. And the shipping thing--that's not going to be canon. Right? Right?
Uh-huh.
Next episode:
Click to viewWhat in Hades was THAT? Because that looked like. . . like . . . like Dash ships Daring with Ahuizotl? Or she doesn't? Or I don't even know! Just . . . what?
And we ended with this thing:
which looked a hell of a lot like DaringDash to me which is another sorta guilty pleasure which I totally do not think will be canon, and I don't know whether that was on purpose or what, but we've just had shipping go "peekaboo!" at us TWICE in one episode.
Oh, whatever, I thought, I'm probably on drugs or I'm reading some people's blogs and borrowing their shipping goggles or something, because this is simply not happening.
Flight to the Finish: No. Thank Gosh. And since that was the CMC, there had better not be. I may or may not get around to stuff I do and don't care for in MLP ships, but the CMC are basically out (except maybe, just MAYBE, Sweetie Belle and Button Mash, but that's 100% cute and harmless). And as we can see, they have plenty else on their plates.
Power Ponies: Which was fun! And a quick reminder that Spike totally has a crush on Rarity! But he always has had, so whatever, and she has functional accessories. Still, the Spike/Rarity thing has always made me more than a little uncomfortable and thank GOSH he is a puppy in the world of Equestria Girls and that better not change.
Bats? It was all about the bats. YAY. I think. I'm pretty much just remembering Flutterbat and Pinkie Pie's mane. In the fandom, the smackdowns are all about environmentalism vs. farming, and temporarily, at least, shipping has disappeared off the radar, and I am breathing a sigh of relief and beginning to forget about it.
. . . rumblings of EG 2 on the horizon?
Rarity Takes Manhattan plays the Spike/Rarity angle down a lot. I mean, he's carrying a metric ton of luggage for her, as per usual, but when I think back on it, there is a surprising LACK of stallions getting into traffic jams because she is so cute. I can remember episodes where Rarity got huge favors just by walking up and paying a lot of insincere compliments to the accompaniment of the Habanera, so at least she's getting returns for being NICE and GENEROUS. Plus, she does not flirt with Spike; she buys him a hot dog.
Pinkie Apple Pie is so focused on family that people would have to be actively LOOKING for shipping to find it. Frankly, it was one of my favorites, too.
Rainbow Falls! And I am getting complacent! Until --
wait, what?
Oooooog where is the cider. I need the hard stuff. I mean, I hope to heck I am wrong here. Bulk Biceps is awfully funny, but -- anyway, I have convinced myself that Fluttershy sees him as the equine equivalent of Harry the Bear.
Rainbow Dash and Soarin', I've always thought, is what people ship when they are desperate to prove she is not a lesbian. I know, I know, hurtful stereotypes, but whatever, I simply could not see it, since Soarin has always been all about the pie.
***WHAMWHAMWHAM***
Thanks a ton. Thanks a ton for NOTHING. Gawd. That's some serious Ship Fuel up there guys, and it's starting to look almost . . . well, INTENTIONAL.
But thank goodness, we're on to Cadance, and Discord, and I'm sure there won't be any shippiness this week, right? Rrrrrrright?
-
-wait, what?
WHAT? Brad? I mean Flash Sentry, is that you? Flash Sentry giving Twilight the Big Eye? What?
Uh, uh. . . . it's the animator's fault! Yeah! Because we, um, ran out of assets! And anyway, it was a gag! And Meghan McCarthy didn't know about it!
OK. Moving on.
Pinkie Pride:
--I think I'm on record as saying that I think of Pinkie as the *least* shippable of the Mane Six. She comes across as so childish, and she's the only one who still lives with surrogate parents-- but I guess while she's retained her basic kookiness, she's now able to babysit and to dial it down for her friends, and, --ok. Right.
And look! She has left behind her insecurities and fear of abandonment!
But still, not ship material. Not atall. And thus I am utterly blindsided by what occurs next. I mean, hey, Pinkie and Cheese have a lot in common--
--Including the ability to do whatever the hell this is.
and it's nice to see Pinkie not fold like a card table under pressure.
But still, stuff gets a weeny bit antagonistic.
Just a teeny, weeny bit. I mean, he did steal her "Smile" song and pretend he had no idea what she was talking about, but still, this seems a little excessive.
Except, except, except--wait, what?
He was -- a shy, miserable colt?
-until he wandered into a party one day and pushed up a jester's hat --
-
-and saw Pinkie? Like, Pinkie as a filly? Seriously?
And she gave him that rubber chicken?
And he's kept it all this time?
She's his Muse?
OH MY GOD IT IS LIKE DANTE AND BEATRICE BUT WITH PARTY PONIES
AUGH, DROWN ME IN THE FEELS
Snf. Well played, Hasbro. Well played. And thus, an OTP is born.
Happy Valentines/Hearts and Hooves Day~ by KakashisChika on deviantART
I WILL GO DOWN FIGHTING WITH THIS SHIP. Man, even people who don't ship, ship CheesePie.
So---ok. You haven't sold me on FlashLight, I am lining up to buy CheesePie, and--
Oh no no no no.
Did they actually USE the "C" word? As in --- crush?
NO. NO. NO. DO NOT WANT.
Ah, bugger. Too late.
Not that it wasn't fun to watch Applejack and Rarity play Betty and Veronica, but we're going on thin ice here.
Goddammit. Seriously. Enough is too much. This is NO LONGER A COINCIDENCE. A merciful deity/Hasbro/the writing staff hath decreed that in Equestria Girls, Spike shall be a puppy. That makes this just a tiny bit more tolerable.
The show is clearly Going There. As I said--not just Equestria Girls, the show. And I don't really know for sure if I will like it once it's Gone There.
--if I can have more CheesePie, I may, just MAY, forgive them.
WELP, THAT SURE WAS LONG! --and I am probably the only one who will read it, and I should have been commenting on stuff, but I enjoyed it!