My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Live Reactions & Discussion)

Adventure Time and Regular Show (which came out the same year as MLP) still have active fandoms to this day, why are we surprised this show's fandom hasn't died?

It's not just that the fandom hasn't outright died, but that it still has its own dedicated conventions. Even Star Trek only has the one in Las Vegas.

There's also Twilight's academic background in both magic and non-magical science, which pretty much fell to the wayside after she sprouted wings.

Also, anyone wonder what the appeal of Rainbow Dash/Soarin is? Rainbow Falls is the only episode where they interact together substantially, other than that Soarin usually tends to be Spitfire's right hand man most of the time and doesn't really have any closer of a bond with Rainbow Dash than Spitfire does.

Like, I get the appeal of shipping Rainbow Dash with Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie since we get a lot of moments of her close bonds with them both for the pony and human counterparts. Soarin in comparison doesn't really get as much interaction with Rainbow Dash as the Soarindash shippers would lead one to believe.

Kinda wonder if part of Soarin Dash's appeal comes from Soarin being the most prominent interaction Rainbow Dash has with a male (outside Spike and Discord for obvious reasons).

Edited by SpongeGuy11 on Apr 14th 2024 at 12:57:56 PM

Well, some people will take the tiniest bit of chemistry between characters and run with it, I guess.

"A Canterlot Wedding" had them dancing to romantic music, but that's the one time and it also had Rarity x Fancy Pants and Spike x Sweetie Belle which I believe were not to be taken seriously. I asked if that was legit Ship Tease with Soarin or just Shipping Goggles but didn't hear anything back.

But that they have common interests and substantial interactions is more chemistry than 90% of the fanon ships.

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Apr 15th 2024 at 8:52:24 AM

Spike/Sweetie Belle? Now there's a crack ship.

Do these two ever even talk to each other?

They've never interacted in significant capacity before or since. Sweetie was too young for legit romance (her interest only came late series when she was effectively a teen). Spike still has his crush on Rarity. That's why I question/doubt Rainbow x Soarin being "teased" in the same scene is intentional Ship Tease. (However, that scene still gives Spike x Sweetie far more basis than a vast majority of crack ships.)

I'm more curious where Applejack x Caramel came from. I get there weren't much other candidates, but why him out of all the background stallions?

And as for the Fandom Life Cycle thing, 6a doesn't mean the fandom's dead, it means it's still popular and active even if the lack of new content is causing it to slowly wane. Granted FLC has fundamental issues.

Well, Spike is generally depicted as a preteen until he explicitly starts puberty in one episode, so age-wise that could still work. It's definitely less squicky than Spike/Rarity, and that's ironically the one the show went with...

Eh, I don't think Spike and Rarity ever *went anywhere* romantically speaking. By Season 9 Spike was over her (and apparently spent a good chunk of his time hanging out with Gabby?)

It apparently went far enough for there to be a breakup in the first place. Rarity certainly behaved that way. And it certainly got a lot more attention and confirmation than any other ship on the show.

It got the most attention yes. But do you think a kids show would have a romance between a at-most young teen and young adult if it was supposed to be treated as serious/having any chance of becoming legit?

Apparently, yes, they did just that, until they definitely shot it down in season 9.

They've been teasing that ship for nine years. Don't tell me it was never "serious".

Just for fun, I asked Chat GPT the question "What is the appeal of the Rainbow Dash/Soarin ship?". This was the answer:

Follow up questions:

"Who would be the most interesting pairing with Rainbow Dash?"

Yes, Discord. And indeed, there is a Discodash ship out there, too.

It also suggested Rainbow Dash/Sonic as an interesting crossover pairing. And yes, there is a Sonicdash ship, too.

Edited by Redmess on Apr 16th 2024 at 3:03:40 PM

It wasn't "serious" in the sense that it was just a Precocious Crush as opposed to anything that had a real chance of becoming a real romance. "Dragon Dropped" showed how unhealthy it was for her to string him along as opposed to return or decline his feelings.

It if came of as serious for whatever reasons (vagaries of their ages/dragon aging, being the closest thing to a actual romance arc it had), that was not the intent or wouldn't have if they thought it would go this far.

On the subject, would you say "Dragon Dropped" caused Abandon Shipping for Sparity, or did not enough do so to count? Or is it more Fanon Discontinuity as they reject the episode over hurting the ship?

To be honest, I thought the ship, such as it was, was way beyond stale at that point, and I really don't know why they even bothered. They could have just as easily dropped the whole thing quietly, it hardly needed an entire episode, and giving it an episode just ended up highlighting the discomfort in the relationship, especially in how possessive and creepy Rarity suddenly became.

Isn't Spike and Rarity supposed to be similar to that of Dipper and Wendy, 2012 Donatello and April, Lori and Clyde, and Finn and Bubblegum in the sense of being a child crushing on an older person and having no shot of ending up together?

Hmm, a little, but the age gap is much bigger here.

Dipper and Wendy are 12 and 15. That's only three years apart, and they are both young teenagers.

April and Donatello are about 15 and 16 years old, so practically the same age. Lori and Clyde are also the same age.

Finn is depicted as 14 to 16 years old, while Bubblegum is late teens to early adult.

Spike is anywhere from a baby to a pre-teen, while Rarity is a young adult. That is a much bigger age gap. And the connotation of two pubescent children having a relationship is very different from a prepubescent one having a relationship with a child.

Can you see how these situations are different from Spike and Rarity?

Edited by Redmess on Apr 16th 2024 at 11:53:46 AM

Lori is 6 years older than Clyde (17 - 18 vs 11 - 12) and felt grosser than sparity because Clyde got nosebleeds around here and hated her actual teenage boyfriend. But yes I see your point.

Technically it's not entirely specified how old Rarity is, especially with her human counterpart being a teenager.

Also, Spike's probably at least a decade old since he was hatched when Twilight got her cutie mark as a filly and Rarity was also a filly at that time. So maybe Spike is about 10-ish and Rarity is around 17-20 in the start of the show.

And for the ones I mentioned, Lori's 17-18 and Clyde is 11-12 and Finn started off as 12 in season 1 of Adventure Time when crushing on Bubblegum and Bubblegum is confirmed to be several centuries old (at least over 800 years old) so technically Finn and Bubblegum have a WAY large age gap than Rarity and Spike.

Well, then those are problematic too. And that's a bit concerning, to be honest, that writers are writing more and more child-adult romances into their cartoons.

And lets not even start on the whole teenage-elf/vampire/whatever-who-is-really-700-years-old-so-its-okay-for-adults-to-perv-on-them thing...

Edited by Redmess on Apr 17th 2024 at 10:58:09 AM

To be fair, those are purely one-sided on the younger person's end and the older person as no romantic interest in the younger person, much like Rarity showing no romantic interest in Spike.

Yeah, but Rarity still takes advantage of his interest at points, and especially in that final episode, she really loses her head when trying to maintain that relationship.

This is just one of those things that looks worse and worse for an adult the longer they let it go on after becoming aware of it.

And yes, Rarity is an adult. Lets not be ambiguous about that. She is clearly written as one.

Kinda wonder why Rarity interrupted Spike when he tried to confess his feelings for her in Secrets of My Excess? Did she think he was gonna confess something else or was she already aware of his crush on her but didn't want him to make what could've been their last moments awkward?

It's a pretty common romance trope, where one lover is about to confess their love, and the other stops them because they already know, and it doesn't need to be said out loud.

The writers knew exactly what they were doing with this one. This is Applejack's dead parents all over again.

Rarity is an adult by the standards of the setting, and the one thing suggesting otherwise, her interest in sleep-overs, was early in S1 and in and out of universe she grew out of quickly. But personality wise she's identical to her teenage EG counterpart.

Pony aging/cultural standards for adulthood is a separate discussion, but if there's a reason the writers didn't see the age gap as problematic, that could be it.

The teasing of the relationship was 100% intentional, but was it something that could ever realistically lead to them becoming an official couple?

And has "Dragon Dropped" lead to enough turning against if to qualify for Abandon Shipping? Or at least warrant a Character Perception Evolution entry?