I really hate that whenever Rainbow Dash gets shipped with another female character, the shipper gets accused of stereotyping and homophobia.

I ship Appledash because those two characters have several cartfuls of sexual tension, not because I like to speculate on their sexuality based on secondary traits about them.

The cast is 90% female, so of course most character-pairings that have some kind of friction which fans can interpret as romantic or sexual are going to be F/F.

Let's be self-aware here: most of "the fans" are little girls. Don't get on a high horse about why slash fic should be embraced.

Honestly, to me it seems unseemly to write that stuff when children could Google it,

And your point is...

^^ "Fans" doesn't have to mean "every fan ever". Lots of older fans don't ship, either.

I don't see why "F/F shipping" has to mean "unsuitable for children". Granted I don't know what goes on in most of these fics and I have no doubts that a lot of them aren't suitable, but kids who want to avoid that shouldn't be online without supervision anyway.

I ship a little bit for the show, but it's mostly friendshipping. Personally, if I have to go with a romance type, I prefer to ship one of the "Mane cast" with Doctor Whoof (admittedly something of a crack pairing, I just find it fun to think about).

@Rottweiler: Do you really think the target demographic for this show is more numerous than the Periphery Demographic?

I doubt it. I have a feeling the bronies are in fact the majority of this show's fanbase.

edited 28th Oct '11 3:10:38 AM by Sporkaganza

To be fair, if I'm not misreading, Rott was talking about the writers' intent when making a show with limited shipping possibilities (and it's true, shipping probably didn't concern them when they designed the cast), whereas Kerrah was just explaining fan behaviour, not accusing the writers of anything.

The question of who the target demographic were has always been a little fuzzy. I mean, presumably references to things like The Benny Hill Show and David Bowie were intended for parents watching with their kids, because they certainly won't have been aimed at the children. Then you have Derpy, the commercial openly targeting bronies, and even My Little Pony clothes for men, all of which represent a recognition of, and attempt to market to, an older demographic comprising both male and female fans of the show. "The Return of Harmony" had some pretty geeky allusions in it, both to Star Trek and Star Wars. Who was the target audience of those?

I have a feeling that the target audience really consists of two groups:

1) Young girls

2) The writers.

I feel like the writers just write whatever they would want to watch, and if that happens to include certain groups of people, so be it.

That's the best approach, I guess.

Fact remains that they have directly acknowledged bronies, and included content which is clearly meant to entertain people outside the show's supposed target audience.

Lots of people still claim (if indirectly) the show is aimed at young girls, period.

But if I recall, the producers' idea of their target demographic was much wider than that, even though certain aspects of the show would appeal to different portions of their audience.

The idea, even from the beginning, was that it was aimed at young girls, and there parents.

I'm a NINJA!

edited 28th Oct '11 5:16:12 AM by deathpigeon

Lauren said that she wanted to make a show where the parents could watch and enjoy along with their kids.

She succeeded, it seems.

A) Wut?

B) I never spoke of fanfiction in my post.

C) I never spoke of porn/rule34.

D) Slash fiction is more "harmful" to a child's psyche than het fiction?

E) Wut?

edit: F) I never said that "slashfiction should be embraced" (whatever you mean by that). I said that shipping Rainbow Dash with a female character doesn't always have homophobic or stereotyping motivations behind it.

G) To quote my friend:
"Don't make something because someone it's not meant for might google it" is probably one of the worst arguments I've ever seen on the internet

In summation: Wut?

edited 28th Oct '11 11:05:56 AM by Kerrah

Well, I'd be more concerned that some little girl may end up reading Cupcakes or something gory like that...

Oh, by the way, Kegisak, I have read your fiction now. Interesting. My only criticism, perhaps, is that it did not really feel like a "pony story" — it was about a young adult coming to terms with his sexuality, and the fact that this adult was a pony did not seem especially relevant to the story. Also, I got the impression that the protagonist came to terms with the "big reveal" a bit too quickly, I'd have expected him to agonize over it for a bit longer. But I never had any experience of this sort myself, so I have no idea if this was realistic or not.

Oh, and I am fairly sure that you could not set fire to anything while cooking with wine, the alcohol content is just too low. I do it relatively often — it fizzles a little, sure, but it's not brandy or something like that.

edited 28th Oct '11 6:26:09 AM by Carciofus

What I do love about this fandom regarding shipping is that the Homestuck fans brought their shipping mentality with them. Meaning that everyone ships everyone. So even if you have OTP's there won't be fights over them. <3

There's a curious notion. Does an MLP fanfic necessarily have to be a "pony story", as you call it?

Not necessarily. It's not like there is some sort of Pony Police going around and beating up the authors whose stories are not pony enough (is there? ).

It was not even a true criticism, perhaps. It's just that, well, the story could have worked almost verbatim if the protagonists had been human living on Earth — the fact that they were ponies did not seem all that important for the purposes of the story.

edited 28th Oct '11 6:50:42 AM by Carciofus

Well, except for Lyra/Bon-Bon. Those two are so consistently paired off with each other that it causes raised eyebrows to see them with anyone else.

Most of the children this one knew would Google such things deliberately

Although personally, this one is very annoyed by shipping, triply so as far as this show is concerned

Yes. Shipping is already annoying, writing about the sexuality of cartoon characters doubles it, and that they're animals triples it.

@ Carciofus: Well, that tends to be something all of my stuff has in common - I don't give much credence to the fact that they're ponies. Most of my work is very heavily character-based, so it isn't important.

As for the wine thing, I'm almost certain I've seen someone pour wine into a hot pan and have it catch fire - but it may have been brandy, now that I think of it.

All the MLP shipping I've seen has been harmless fun, nothing to get worked up about. I know some fandoms can get quite strident, even aggressive with their ships; bronies, to their credit, seem to have avoided that.

...this entire page of the thread is a train wreck.◊

The reason why people tend to imagine characters from a mostly chaste story to have romantic lives and sexualities is the same reason why they like to imagine them watching TV shows from our world, surfing the internet or partaking in any other pastime that is never depicted in the show itself. It gives the viewers more ground to identify with the characters.

Only, you know, romance and sexuality are very central themes of human condition, so shipping fics will remain more popular than Equestrian Hockey League.

Also, Rottweiler, I couldn't help but notice that you skipped my previous reply to your post.

edited 28th Oct '11 11:23:37 AM by Kerrah

Aww, Giraffe Sparkle!