@Daneasaur
Thats basically the entire show and almost every character. Reminder to everyone that the writers hardly kept with each other on what was actually canon or not it’s no wonder a lot of the characters are so inconsistent.
@WaynePonePone
Yeah, that’s a fair point. I’m personally a pretty big shipper but I’m not one to get worked up over my ships becoming canon…Mostly since I’m used to whatever I ship being done dirty by the canon :“D But also because I don’t really ship things for them to happen, I ship things just because I like the idea of two characters getting together.
At the end of the day what people should focus on is the story, the characters, the themes, the media for what it is. You shouldn’t say you love a piece of media if all you care about is its shippings. But, well, a lot of people do, and a lot of people ship things solely to advocate for that canon confirmation, like if shipping is a competition. And I think that’s precisely what makes shippers get real toxic.
Very good breakdowns on why there’s more controversy surrounding Spike ships than Hitch ships (though I’d still argue the difference isn’t much.) A lot of it really does go back to the fact that one is surrounded by peers his age and the other is a child mostly surrounded by older women, that for some reason got legitimately ship-teased at times with one of said older women.
@Daneasaur
So it’s easier to difference the ship tags from other tags. The ship tags existed even before “ship” got added to them. I approve it for clever searching. It’s good decision made by the administration.
@NicoThePinkUnicorn
Most of the canon couples are usually side characters, Shining Armor and Cadance, Big Mac and Sugar Belle, Haven and Alphabittle. Main cast romances are usually hinted or open for interpretation with the only exception being Pinkie Pie.
At the end of the days, I will never understand why people take shipping so seriously like they always want one to be canon instead of like enjoy seeing fictional characters being cute and stuff toward each other. Even with Discoshy like obviously I hate it and continue to pretend they’re just friends (or owner and pet) but I don’t care about that as much as Discord himself as a character because that’s more important than whether or not characters would end up together for me.
Honestly I just ship everyone with everyone because I just love these characters so much and they deserve to be happy.
The whole issue of Spike ships is rooted in the fact that the writers constantly flipflopped on Spike’s status, leading to all of these being things that actually happen in the show:
1: Spike is “just a kid” with a pointless crush.
2: Spike is young but not a kid and his affection is returned.
3: Spike is literally just a pet and needs to be sprayed with a water bottle and ignored.
Then you factor in fan headcanons and you get messy things like:
1: Spike doesn’t have a chance with Rarity because he’s too young so he could totally bag sweetie belle (ignoring that the two have virtually never interacted).
2: Spike totally has a thing going with Smolder since she teaches him about dragon stuff (they don’t, interactions between them lead to her abusing him every chance she gets and getting enjoyment from it).
3: Spike was vaguely in the same scene as [character] which is all the proof you need they are a couple (we’ve been through this).
Now you take all that and mix it up into a nearly 14 year old pot and you got a mess.
G5 has the positive of Hitch being a pony and being a peer to the others, so he doesn’t have as many crossed wires with his ships.
Spike x Rarity is the only single genuinely bad ship for him, but has the most canon support, even though the show staff are just as against it as the rest of us. They created a bad situation like they didn’t know cringe shippers existed and would jump at it. Some of the other Spike ships are not great, but none are so genuinely bad. Hitch does not have a similar problem. If Opaline had a line every episode where she talked about how handsome Hitch is though, as a joke, then G5 fans would be shipping that and calling it canon and being detestable. The show stuff are responsible for this fandom trashfire, and it took them forever to finally kill the ship off. They’ve thankfully learned from it.
Hitch and Spike are just such bad choices to compare. Big Mac makes more sense as a comparison in every way, and also has a ton of ships where fans are not getting into cringey arguments at all. Just stick an “E’yup” under that chad and you’re done.
But then this was probably never something we were really meant to think about or take seriously…
@WaynePonePone
To be fair, it’s not like FiM was completely devoid of canon ships, especially in the later seasons. The show was primarily about friendship, but as it went on it did have some romances. So I think it’s lead people to expect that G5 wouldn’t be afraid to have a romance, especially with a male character in the main cast.
..Despite the fact that G5 might be even more devoid of romance than FiM was. It took them about like, what, 50 Tell Your Tale episodes and four chapters to have a canon relationship in Haven and Alphabittle? And the only other romance I can think of is Hitch and Primrose in the game. FiM had Spike crushing on Rarity and Rarity longing for romance in its first season, and had a couple of parents. As opposed to G5 where the closest thing to a parent couple is Alphabittle and Haven, who just recently started dating and had their children with separate ponies we don’t know about.
My biggest confusion is when people talk about a ship being an endgame like MLP focuses on romance like SVTFOE. MLP is a friendship and magic focused fantasy show. A few fun shipping here and there is fine. The fanarts are either cute, funny, or even hot. But no one is gonna end up with anyone because that’s never what this show is about. I will never understand the whole war of shipping no matter which fandom I come from, Steven Universe, SVTFOE, or even the Avatar franchise which should literally be the show least related to shipping. It makes no sense.
@Spoonlol
FUCK yeah I don’t get those ships at all either. Outside of I guess the idea of either of those ships leading Chrysalis to a redemption arc through an enemies to lovers arc. Which is absolutely not at all what I’m into.
@CORDZ2000
Here’s a massive pill for people…. 50% of shipping drama on social media would cease to exist if people just stopped shipping kids so aggressively
@Background Pony #C46A
Yeah I’m with you. She seems to be a teenager which, even though there could be an age gap in comparison to Spike who had just hit puberty in season 8, it’s still one of the least weird age gaps in comparison to 90% of Spike’s ships.
In fairness, the fact that there isn’t such an obvious age difference between all of the potential candidates DOES roll heavily in Hitch’s favor quite a bit.
Not that has ever stopped the Spike shippers tho. :P
