Sam's Shipping Rants

My literal only complaint is that their proposal and marriage happened in the background and you had to look for it to see it.

Oh yeah, considering I’ve not heard anything negative about the pairing, I imagine the show did their pairing just fine. I also haven’t really heard anything positive either, just that it exists rofl

And honestly having a lack of things to complain about is still better at the end of the day than having things to complain about, like with AppleDash.

Princess Twilight x Sunset Shimmer

Princess Twilight x Sunburst

Seasons 1 - 3 Twilight x Big Macintosh

Princess Twilight x Chancellor Neighsay

Princess Twilight x Sombra

Look, I actually don’t have that many Twilight ships and I’m incredibly biased okay lol

A lot of people I’m friends with absolutely adore Tuna thanks to Silfoe’s content, but I’ve never been a big fan of the two personally. Absolutely nothing wrong with the ship, I just don’t really get into it myself. I ‘jokingly’ hate it just to see them react sometimes, but I don’t actually.

If I ever write a story with Twilight being romanced, it’s going to be Sunset, nine times out of ten. I love the IDEA of Sunburst and Twilight together, but for some reason the show didn’t think the two adorkable nerds who nerd out together would be good interactions to have on screen often, so they never gave me enough fuel to burn that fire.

I LOVED the idea of Librarian Twilight getting together with the local hunky Farmer, and them having a mutual passion for each other and things developing naturally. Plus who doesn’t love the bulky farmer with the fair, lithe maiden at his side?

I like the idea of Twilight teaching Neighsay to be kinder to the other species in Equestria, and then from there developing a relationship based on their mutual passions for education. You don’t get to be the head of the EEA without having SOME passion for your craft, and I could easily see the two having a long-term bond built out by wanting to make Equestria a better place for everyone, and ensuring that the children of Equestria have a brighter future ahead of them.

And then my own guilty-pleasure ship of Twilight either being put into an forced arranged marriage with Sombra, him enslaving her and forcing her to be his wife, or even possibly a ‘reformed’ Sombra needing to be taught the ways of friendship and getting together with him based on physical and emotional passion. Plenty of possibilities!

Oh, and FlutterCord?

Oh I’m sure I could go on and on about all the things I do and don’t dislike about the finale and everything they did with their characters and ships in the end.

Fortunately none of the shipping discourse is covered in my MLP Review video I’m currently working on, so I’m definitely free to go at them in length here!

Let’s just go in order as I think that’s the easiest way to handle this, and start with CheesePie.

CheesePie gets the 100% Sam Rose seal of approval! CheesePie is wholesome goodness that just makes absolute sense, and anyone who disagrees with these two making a happy couple honestly don’t really know what makes a good couple.

You can dislike it for several reasons, including having other ships you much prefer one or the other to be in, but to say anything along the lines of “They would be bad for each other” would just be straight up false and a gross misunderstanding of their characters.

I honestly don’t have much to say outside of that, they’re just absolutely solid. I’m glad Weird Al got to canonically steal a Waifu, its honestly perfect. If anyone deserved to get away with it, it was him for sure lol

Also Lil Cheese is adorable, though I wish she didn’t have Fluttershy’s colors straight up stolen. Like, just tweak the colors a bit and she’s honestly perfect. It wasn’t difficult lol

SugarMac.

I have mixed feelings about SugarMac. On one hand I think they’re mostly harmless? But at the same time the show never really did a good job of ‘selling’ them.

Like the only times we ever saw SugarMac was when they were having issues with their relationship, and they were really tropey relationship issues too. Love-Triangle battle to get the girl, and then miscommunication twice (I haven’t seen Big Mac Question but I was told it was awfully rehashy of Break Up, Break Down. Feel free to correct me if that’s not the case).

So not only did we never see them develop as a couple, see why they worked out aside from liking how each other looked, we never really had a reason to get invested in them. 

I would’ve loved more background appearances of them, or maybe at least a full on explanation of how they’re doing as a couple outside of their super awkward get together and their issues before just, jumping to getting married.

A harmless ship in my mind, but I always got the feeling people would’ve preferred Mac to get with any number of other more well suited choices. And I can at least agree with that. I like Sugar Belle, but I’m not sure if SugarMac was the best ship for either of them.

SandbarYona

…

I legitimately know nothing about these characters rofl

I’m sitting here trying to think back to the interactions they had in the episodes I saw, and I barely remember them at all. I know Sandbar gets talked about a lot as the ‘boring’ member of the young six, and he’s essentially there to be the token ‘pony’ of the group and that’s it.

I’ve heard people like Yona, that she’s a sweetheart and all, but I never really saw any character defining moments for her.

For context, I didn’t watch every episode of Season 8, and only the Opener for 9, so I missed like 90% of the character episodes for the Young Six.

Judging ships for them is extremely difficult because I don’t have any kind of a grasp of who they are as characters or their importance in the show. I really, REALLY wish they had either been the solid focus of the show, or not been included at all.

So as far as SandbarYona goes, without any reason to truly say no, why not? From what I can tell it’s not toxic, no one has complained about it, but no one has really praised it either.

So I’m gonna assume it’s okay!

AppleDash

I know they made them re-appear talking about chores as a hint that they might be a couple now, and then leave the rest up to fan interpretation, but honestly I’m not a big fan of them as a couple.

Maybe early show it would’ve been fine, but even back then I was never a big fan of “Rivals who become love interests” plots, not unless you really, REALLY showed the chemistry and how their ‘shared passion’ truly became something that is a solid bond of their relationship.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash always kind of took things in the opposite direction, showing why their passions made them clash, instead of why it brought them together. And that only got worse and worse as the seasons went on, especially as Dash got boiled down into being nothing but a cocky, egotistical stereotype.

I’m afraid that CANON AppleDash does not get the Sam Rose seal of approval. The way they’re portrayed in canon just comes off far too toxic for me. It’s perfectly fine to ship it I suppose, since in AUs and headcanons you can strip away the toxicity the show kind of laced their friendship with, but keep in mind that it requires quite a bit of fixing or retconing to make work.

FlutterCord

FlutterCord is… Weird. I can see WHY people would like it, or WHY they would end up together? Fluttershy is practically the only person in Discord’s life that he ever actually cares about, and has a passion and dedication for her that rivals no other, and I can easily see that being interpreted into an actual relationship.

But this is also Discord we’re talking about.

I’m not sure he’s a character who was ever meant to be in any kind of relationship. Or at the very least, it’d be a relationship that would end up as chaotic as he is.

That one episode where Discord tries to change himself to fit Fluttershy was probably their best episode on why their relationship would work, because the things they like about each other is why they’re friends in the first place, and changing that isn’t what either of them wants.

But Discord is a prankster troll who whines for attention and demands to be given things and opportunities he hasn’t earned or deserves, and makes a fuss and mess about all of it if not gotten his way.

I just have a hard time not sitting down and seeing down the road so many small issues piling up until there was this big break because Discord is TERRIBLE about dealing with his emotions, and it’d practically always be on Fluttershy to fix HIS issues for them to be a couple.

Who knows. Maybe they’d work better then I’m giving them credit for? Because I’ve also stated I can totally see why they’d end up a couple, and it makes sense.

But Discord is just a specific type of character that I hesitate to pull the trigger on their relationship, or give it a seal of approval.

Hoooonestly I’ve pretty much forgotten they exist actually haha

I mean, the only character development they’ve had was in the opener, since then all we’ve seen of them is as background characters. We got some more development for the family of one of them, but not them themselves.

And literally I only remember Smoulder’s name because it’s easy to remember and she’s ScootaDragon.

Well, as we all know, the only CORRECT ship for Subaru is Emilia

I mean there’s an argument to be made for Rem but-

Ooooooh, this is one of those phone typos! That makes sense!

Anyway, I know we both love this ship to pieces but let me explain for everyone ELSE why that’s the case!

Aria Blaze is a tough girl, but let’sface it, she’s obviously lazy. 

Throughout the movie if you’rewatching her in the background, she’s leaning or sitting, armscrossed, just taking any kind of ‘relaxed’ pose she can. She givessass and takes no guff, but if she doesn’t have to be doing somethingshe often doesn’t.

She follows in Adagio’s footsteps of leadership, and even if she has some notions of being center of attention,it’s a lot of work to come up with plans and execute them. This iswhy she’s better suited to following Adagio’s orders rather thangiving them.

This already gives us plenty to workoff of, because while she’s clearly enjoying the ‘evil’ nature ofwhat the sirens are getting up to in the movie, it’s still work. Ifshe could feed or gain power easily, I’m sure she’d prefer that. Assuch, take away her ability to gain power and getting nothing frombeing evil, and you’ve got a laid back tough girl with sass.

And naturally this mixture of laid-backsass would mix well with everyone’s favorite former bad girl withsass as well! Sunset would initially approach Aria, likely with theintent of ensuring the sirens aren’t a threat anymore or up toanything evil. While the sass might come off abrasive at firstbetween the two of them, there’s still a part of Sunset thatobviously hasn’t quite let go of her 'bad girl’ days and thus it’s apoint for them to start bonding.

Add on top of that Aria’s likelywillingness to bend the rules on things, I could easily see themforming a bond around just having fun together. Because let’s behonest, who couldn’t see Sunset sneaking some booze every now andagain? And Aria would only join in on something like that for fun~

Add in the fact that Aria is the mostbeautiful of the sirens (sorry, you can’t fight with facts!) and thatjust makes it easy for a natural attraction to start to form. I cantotally see Aria having a soft side underneath her tough demeanortoo, one she only lets out on rare occasions or with the rightpeople. It’s just a natural side effect of laziness after all, whenyou’re lazy sometimes it’s just easier to be soft than tough!

So what you end up is having a couplethat just has natural chemistry based on a familiar history andfamiliar personalities! A girl who is tough with a soft side meetinga girl who used to be tough but got in touch with her soft side (butwill still throw hands if you mess with her friends), and you havethe natural bond of a relationship just worming it’s way into yourheart~

It’s one of those ships that you don’tsee much, because Aria and Sunset really had little to no interactionin the movie itself, nor is she a fan-favorite like Sonata is. Butwhen you break down the characters, it’s super easy to see what awonderful couple the two of them could be~

Oh Twilight, don’t you see this ship? Open up your EEEEEEEEEEYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSS

*Ahem*

Honestly I never really got super onboard the Twempest ship, I just never really felt the chemistry during the movie lol. And as far as I can tell the main reasoning for the ship is that Twilight gives her the ‘eyes’ towards the end of the movie? But I mean, Twilight canonicaly crushes on a boy and everyone hates it, but apparently she gives some smokey eyes here accidentally and HOT DAMN THE SHIP MUST SAIL!

That said i don’t have anything against it either. When you have a villain turned good guy its pretty easy and common to have them end up falling for the person that rescued them *coughsunsetshimmercough* so I think it’s perfectly alright to ship them. Any dislike I have for the ship is honestly more just a personal pet peeve level of dislike over the fandom being so nit-picky about their ships lol

As for how it’d work? Hrm... I imagine it’d go along the usual lines of Twilight being the main pillar in the relationship, helping Tempest to life outside of the Storm King’s rule, and the two of them bonding as friendship and life develops. Tempest has had a long life without proper interactions with those around her, living basically for herself and only her own self interest, yet also has a strange sense of loyalty despite it. I can only imagine the Storm King must’ve been manipulating her behind the scene for all these years, cause he didn’t really give much of a reason for her to be loyal to him in the movie, especially with her knowing what he’s like lol

Once Tempest has a hold of things in her life it’d be time for her to repay the kindness Twilight has given her, and then the two of them would be on equal footing and a truly proper romance could blossom between them. Tempest is a strong mare so she wouldn’t need to rely on Twilight for terribly long, but it’d be easy for their relationship to become something so long as it doesn’t stay her relying on Twilight.

Hadn’t actually watched it yet when you asked, but I have now!

My immediate reaction to the episode kind of went “Oh wow Sunburst, you’re crushing really, REALLY hard on Twilight, aren’t you?” Like he couldn’t shut up about her like he was a schoolboy in heat! He barely had any interest in hanging out with Starlight the entire trip too, and they pretty much had to dress up in silly dragon outfits to even have anything in common.

Honestly if my Starburst ship hadn’t sunk well before this episode, this episode would have most definitely sunk it lol

I did find it hilarious that Trixie showed up and kind of immediately saw her mare eyeing up a stallion and had to assert dominance. She even pulled out the chains! Trixie wasn’t about to let some 2-bit loser steal her mare from her haha. Sunburst and Trixie do seem to make good magic practice pals, but I don’t see anything romantic coming out of it.

Maud and Sunburst felt a liiiiiiittle hokey, as it required a very coincidental level of combined genuine interest in rocks, of which I’m sure Maud is still the more knowledge about, but I have a hard time feeling the chemistry there. It really felt more like a need of chemistry was required from the writers rather than it coming off naturally between the two. Starlight and Maud was definitely far more natural, as Maud put it herself. They’re just comfortable around each other.

So, uh, yeah! My conclusion is I came out of this, kiiiiiind of shipping Twilight and Sunburst. Like, they were very natural and flirtatious towards each other, their common shared interests and history gives them a loooooot of room to work with as far as enjoyable time together, they’re INCREDIBLY natural together (like Starlight and Trixie levels of comfortable), and I actually think they’d be really super cute together.

...Crap, I think this episode made me TwiBurst shipper. I wasn’t going in expecting to come out with a ship for TWILIGHT of all people this episode! I haven’t had a ship I like for her since Sunset, but the show’s been insistent on keeping the two apart! 

I’m honestly surprised Twilight and Tempest are as popular a pairing as they are, considering I really didn’t feel that ‘spark’ of a ship between them. Maybe I need to re-watch the ending of the movie again, but something didn’t really sell me on the ship like it seems to do for everyone else.

From what I can gather, without being too spoilery, there are two main things that seem to fuel the ship. The first is that Tempest has a song in the movie that she sings to Twilight, and it’s a really good song too! Definitely one of the highlights, if not the best song in the movie. The other is their scene towards the end of the movie together.

Honestly, this ship is REALLY hard to talk about without feeling like I’m spoiling things in the movie for it, because the way I talk about ships is that I use everything that is known about said ship in canon first, and then use that to try and reverse engineer why a long-lasting and loving relationship would work between the two of them.

As Tempest is now, she needs a friend more than she needs a love interest, and I feel the show covers that perfectly. Tempest has a long road ahead of her before I can truly see her being ready to settle down and commit to something like a relationship with Twilight.

Friends, for sure! Lovers? Eh, I’m still on the fence of it being a thing or not. I’d need to see a lot more of tempest to get a feeling for it.

All those reasons based on personality, and also, for whatever reason, it’s the first ship I’ve seen where I feel like the colors really, REALLY clash? Like, anytime I see art of Twilight and Tempest together their coats kind of blend together and make it harder on my eyes to enjoy just seeing the technicolor ponies together. I haven’t seen a TempestTwi picture that didn’t make me go “Oh, those two really don’t belong cuddling together based on colors, do they?”

Hrrrmmm… While this is true, I’ve still yet to feel anything remotely ‘shippy’ about the two. There is ALWAYS a case for two friends to fall in love together, especially considering that the best person to fall in love with is your best friend, but I never get that feeling from Twilight and Starlight.

Their relationship is more based on the NEED to become a better person, and Twilight was the only one willing to put up with her to do that. After all, even now Starlight shows sociopathic tendencies, with the right stimuli and enough bad events happening in a row, she’s still a hop, skip, and a jump away from going back to being either a villain or at the very least an anti-hero.

There’s always this natural chemistry I feel when it comes to making a ship work, or at the very least there’s a good basis for two personalities that are likely to have a lot in common come together (hence why I’ve indulged in TwiMac in the past despite their very few and very brief interactions).

But Starlight’s reactions around Twilight always feel… Guarded, anxious, almost fearful of her mentor. She uses Twilight as an emotional crutch on moving forward in society, rather than as someone she loves in this sort of way. She of course thinks of Twilight as a friend, but they’re most certainly more akin to roommates and student/teacher than anything lovey dovey.

I could see people taking the student/teacher thing into the loving direction, but they’d REALLY have to sell it to me since I just don’t personally see it. 

With Starlight making her own friends now in Season 7, her chemistry with them is many times better than it ever was with any of the mane 6. I mean, there’s a REASON Starxie is so popular in the fandom. Trixie basically outright said she was in lesbians with Starlight and she reciprocated, and if I’m going with a ship I’m usually going to lean towards the ones that are actually canon. 

Like Lyra and Bon Bon being the ‘BESTEST’ of friends. Cause television for six year olds is not allowed to have gays lol. (I still don’t ship Octavia and Vinyl though)

Honestly, I think part of my only issue with Ember is that she FEELS like she was added specifically to be a romantic interest to Spike? I dunno, I just really strongly get that vibe from her. Like they couldn’t make the Spike/Rarity dynamic work in the long run so rather than dealing with the ramifications of that first, let’s introduce a love interest NOW so we can just have that work out in the long run and not deal with it.

But beyond that I really have no issues with her as a romantic partner for Spike. They had good chemistry in the episode, and while we haven’t seen much of her since then, I could see them developing into something more than friends and having a good relationship in the long run. And being of the same species would allow them to easily overcome any inter-species/racial issues they could tackle with a pony x dragon relationship, and would be natural for Spike to return to the dragons and truly teach them pony ways in the far future.

I honestly think both are good matches for Sunset, and it’s more a matter ‘what flavor do you want that ship to hold’ as far as SunLight goes.

With Princess Twilight, you have a relationship where one side helped reform the other, and as a result become that reformed person’s best friend, even a dimension away. Princess Twilight and Sunset also have a bit of that natural chemistry, which you see in Rainbow Rocks, where the two of them just have this natural ‘spark’ to them that makes it easy to see it developing into something more. Their relationship is basically a long distance one, which can help make it relatable (at least for me it does), and help make it more of a ‘We will get through our struggles and make this work’ kind of relationship, which is nice to romanticize. 

With SciTwi, you have a relationship where Sunset came into her life and helped bring her friendship and happiness in a way she never had before. It’s easy to see how protective and caring of SciTwi Sunset is, so you could see their relationship as a far more like a ‘Knight and her Princess’ than you would with the actual Princess of the two. Sunset is a pillar of support for SciTwi, and in return SciTwi is a pillar of happiness for Sunset. The two are in the ‘awkward adorkable teenagers’ group together.

So it’s really a matter of which side of the coin you feel like looking at. Are you more interested in a ‘mature young-adults kindling a slow love over distance and time’ or ‘Teenagers discovering their awkward love together’. Both are great, both work really well for Sunset, and both are certainly capable of telling great stories.

I personally prefer Princess Twilight with Sunset, as I just felt that the chemistry was there way more than with SciTwi, and also an issue with SciTwi is that because she’s a ‘second Twilight’ there’s always that ‘You’re borrowing the connections I made with someone else causing me to be with you’ issue that while you’re able to get around it, is always something I’ve been a bit of a stickler about. It’s why I don’t like Sweetie Belle as a Rarity replacement.

Or of course you could just have Sunset end up with both. That’s always a wild ride too heh.

Well, I usually try to think of if a ship could work despite my preference for shipping, so it shouldn’t be too hard to put my preference for FlutterDash aside heh

As for Dash and Quibble... Honestly I don’t see much hope in an extended relationship for the two. I could see a flash in the pan sort of deal, where the two see a spark early on and handle it with as much grace as two cannonballs rolling around in the cargo hold, but something would eventually give between the two.

They have kind of a similar situation to what Twilight and Rainbow Dash would have if they were a couple, only a bit more extreme. A LOT of fighting based on disagreement of ideas which would go into heated arguments that I don’t think either of them would be very happy about in the end. Also like TwiDash, they only started having a communal relationship once third parties entered the picture and sorted things out for both of them. And a healthy, long lasting relationship needs to be able to stand on the people in the relationship, not people outside fixing it constantly for them.

And it really isn’t that they have different opinions on the fandom and that’s the reason they can’t get along, but rather it’s HOW they treat those disagreements. Rather than trying to see things from each others point of view, they get into a seriously heated debate, and then basically break off a newfound friendship they had just formed over it. And then it takes BASICALLY an entire life or death situation to even remotely start bringing them closer together, which situations like that would bring damn near anyone together. It’s a trope for a reason.

Which does kind of make me a little sad, not because I wanted to like this ship or for it to replace FlutterDash (nothing could), but that we get so very few males in the show and the ones we do get are notoriously hard to ship together with the mane 6 or even any of the side characters. And with my preference for M/F shipping in the fandom of basically all F/F, it’s rough to have to shoot down a ship of it heh

But as he is now, Quibble is not a great candidate for ‘true love’ with Rainbow Dash. One or both of them would need very significant character growth or character change to better fit together in a way that really shows what a relationship is supposed to be about.