@Pagan  
It’s not the shipping that kills the show. It’s the way the shipping is handled. If the romance is only portrayed as “love from the first sight” with no development or if it create confusing and tiresome love triangles, then it is not very enjoyable. But i don’t see a problem with two good friends getting even closer. I think it have more sense storywise for them to hook up than live separately and alone for the rest of their life. Forming a family shoudn’t be seen by the audience as something negative. Beside, how are we going to follow next generation if none of Mane6 get to have kids? Who is going to befriend Cadance’s foal? :)  
I don’t think that is fair to demand from the witers to keep them single and turn them into old maidens. They should write the story as if they were unaware of the fandom opinion. And catering to anti-shippers is as much a bad thing as catering to a certain group of shippers. For me, Discord may as well get shipped with Spike in the canon. As long as it make me care and it make sense. I don’t want it to be canon because MUH SHIPPING or because Larson made “HEY GUYS< NICE REFERNCE TO YOUR FANDOM SHIPS EH?”. I want Discord to be relatable, and having feeling for someone is relatable to both kids and adults. Having such a big cast developing no relationships at all is not only illogical but unrealistic.

@ice1517  
Well it didn’t really kill the shows directly as much as it killed the fandoms of them which led to people no longer watching the show the original digimon was one the other was an anime.

@Pagan  
What were those series if you don’t mind me asking?

@Background Pony #DF81  
Well seeing as how shipping literally killed two series I liked because the shows shipped main characters I doubt DHX will make the same mistake.

@lunafan22  
Spike getting older no longer make him a kid. And there is nothing wrong with age difference relationships. Is just your personal preference. But so is every other pairing.
 
 
@Pagan  
That is not something that we as a fanbase decide on. These characters have their own lives and future. It’s not us who will decide if they will remain single forever. Just like we can’t decide when a character will turn into an Alicorn or become pregnant.

@Background Pony #DF81  
I like shipping but keep it out of the show between main characters.

@Background Pony #DF81  
two problems with that
 
spike is a kid and discord is an old man

I think out of the every ship from the shipping community, Sparity and FlutterCord have the highest chance of becoming canon later in the series. Both Spike and Discord are the only recurring and focused characters and both are related to the second half of the ship (Big Mac for example may get some more focus in the story but still lacks in connection to anyone except his family members). Other ships are either between the same sex couples(which will never get any screentime, especially if they are the main characters) or involve bg characters or one shot character that will never get enough development to match them with Mane6.
 
Spike and Discord are the only male characters who pass the tests of being a main character and sharing multiply episodes with their possible mate. And both of them have only one obstacle that need to be dealth with before their ships can go any further. Both of them need one status quo breaking episode like CMC had with their Cutie Marks.
 
Spike: Need one episode about his growth spurt. Turning him into a teenage dragon can open the door to official Sparity. Rarity’s age was never officially established. If she was considered to be 19 then teenage Spike is old enough for her.
 
Discord: His status quo changing experience need to be about him proving to be a capable and supportive ally and have an episode where he save something or someone out of his own free will. As long as he is a jerk, he will be off-limit to any sort of relationship. It would convey a negative message.

@Scrounge  
Eh, is that her keeping him around for manual labor, or him throwing himself at any opportunity to help? I mean, we’ve definitely seen Rarity use others that way - up to and including her kid sister - so it’s not like she’s singling Spike out, and Spike is both often on hand and quick to offer to do anything and everything for her, so who’s really to blame for Spike’s often filling that role?
 
it’s spike, spike’s putting himself in that position, for all rarity’s faults if he ever didn’t put himself in that position, refused to do something sometime, i’m sure she’d accept it, that just seems like her, but spike never gives even the slightest resistance. Another reason the Sparity ship is unhealthy, when Spike does follow his motherly nature he takes it too far!
 
And I’m not going to bring up Twilight. I like Spike and Twilight’s relationship. For all she sometimes takes him for granted, she’s a healthy outlet for his supportive tendencies, one that both needs him in a lot of ways, and that he’s not afraid to speak up to when she’s going too far in any direction. One where he doesn’t support to the complete detriment of himself. Best whatever-the-hell-they-are.

@Background Pony #F91A  
You’re only now just realizing how shitty this fandom can be?

@Princess♠Molestia  
You’re saying it wrong.

@Princess♠Molestia  
Potato?
 
Potato.
 
POTATO!
 
POTATOOOOOOOOO!
 

@Scrounge  
Of course I can say Potato and nobody gets riled up.
 
Potato.
 
…
 
No! No! Get away from me with those knives!
 
NOOOOOOOOOOO!

@Keith Mowz  
I was being hyperbolic, but since the subject was brought up…
 
I’ve seen enough images that I liked with tags that I would have filtered that I try to use my filters sparingly (mostly to block spoilers). Someone might someday do something that makes Trenderjack work for me. I can’t imagine how, but if I could imagine how, I wouldn’t need someone else to show me, would I?
 
 
@Princess♠Molestia  
There are things that don’t rile up the booru?

 
This ones a hoot.
 
I am not convinced this wasn’t made specifically to rile up the booru.

Man, I wish I’d seen comment threads like this before getting involved in the fandom; would’ve been nice to be warned of just how unwelcome I would be…

@Ksardes
 
But hey like the mods say, feel free to filter the straight tag. The less pictures I see you on, the happier I’ll be.

@Scrounge  
Pssst
 
Psst hey
 
If something ‘gets an automatic downvote’ that exists as a tag?
 
Filter it.
 
I mean yeah, its a garbage ship IMO, but still.

Trenderjack gets an automatic downvote from me.
 
@Marvelous TK  
Is keeping a kid with a crush on her hanging around to use as a beast of burden any better?
 
(Before you say anything, Twilight is a very diffferent case. She’s almost certainly his legal guardian, which would mean she’s within her rights to essentially give him chores.)

Oh dear, the drama. xD  
1 I know the artist, she is a good friend of mine and she is in no way homophobic.  
2 English is not her native language, hence the spelling mistake.

@G.S.  
I’m just gonna add that, if the artist wanted to polish up that bit a little, it might be worth replacing the hyphen with a “n”. The term “nonhomo” makes use of a more appropriate prefix and probably wouldn’t be quite as easy to misread as “no-homo”. But that’s just a little thing.

@G.S.  
You’re a little late to the party, bud.

Guys guys guys.
 
“No-homo” is being used as an adjective here. Note the presence of the hyphen. The hyphen coloquially makes it an adjective. Learn2english.
 
i.e; these are just a collection of ships that are not homo.
 
No-homo ships.
 
Understand?

@Alara Rogers  
hooooooonestly I have some problem with a bunch of that, too. Like… what kind of person keeps a kid who’s interested in them around, being just interested enough in them to keep them hanging on, so as they can hook up with them once they’re older? That’s… super creepy. And also doesn’t really mesh well with how rarity actively pursues other stallions (eg Trenderhoof) so the idea that she’s waiting for spike to get older doesn’t actually… work? But mostly it’s creepy. Mostly it is the creepiest.
 
And I mean come on. Bringing their fantasies into it? Let’s… let’s even ignore that fantasy is a very dangerous thing to build a relationship on. Let’s put that aside completely right now. If you look beyond their fantasies, their realities don’t mesh with them. Rarity is a self-sufficient go-getter who never waits around to be saved, whatever her situation. She’s in love with the romantic idea of being rescued by a knight in shining armor, but in practice, she’ll probably have saved herself before a knight gets anywhere near her. Spike, on the other hand, is very much the caregiver type. He’s a support, and he’s damn good at it, too. He’ll help you with anything you need, but will also tell you when you need to shelve something for a while and take a break. He doesn’t seek praise or glory for this - for him, it’s just doing the obvious, and that’s what’s the most admirable about it. But it doesn’t lend itself into being the dashing hero - and tellingly, whenever he tries to fulfill that role, he doesn’t. Because it’s not his role. He’s the motherly type, and it’s all he needs to be.
 
or, in short, Rarity is not a damsel and Spike is not a knight, and if they built a relationship around fulfilling these fantasy roles, that relationship would be crushed under the weight of reality.
 
Granted, their two personality types could make a decent couple under the right circumstances, but honestly I think their fantasy ideals work against that in this case. There are a lot of relationship options that wouldn’t be crushed via fantasy-expectation, but theirs isn’t one. In part because their fantasies are so compatible, it would only lead to them putting more stock in them than should ever be given. Also in part because Rarity trying to damsel it up wouldn’t mesh with Spike’s supportive nature, and Spike trying to knight it up wouldn’t mesh with Rarity’s independent nature. Complete fantasy-reality disconnect.
 
i could go on but right now i need to step back and process that i have way more feelings on this matter than i realized holy crap

@Deserter
 
Basically humanity in a nutshell?