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spottoI hate shipping.
Well okay that's not completely accurate, but lately it's a kind of subject matter that has been a bit too frequent. I went into a sad story, it had no other tags, the story's tag was merely "sad" and was greeted with unexpected shipping. You read half the story and find it SO AMAZING and suddenly...SHIPPING and the building you've been constructing tumbles over.
It just felt so unnecessary too! The story was fine. It had the essence of friendship and rainbows MLP is known for, except everyone is dead and then SHIPPING suddenly. I then found out it was a story meant to be some sort of epilogue-of-sorts to another story...which is completely fine...except they thought it'd work standalone as well and submitted it as a standalone story. So the shipping just felt jarring and out of place and my enjoyment of the story got kicked in the gut.
And as much as it might seem so, no it's not because "oh well if the ship was a ship you liked you probably would've liked it". No, if I wanted to read shipping I would read shipping. It would have a tag called shipping to signify that there is shipping so if I want to read it I'd read it. In fact I was looking for Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie FRIENDSHIP stories and ran into shipping that I did not expect. Of course this time it was my fault because I forgot to look at the genre (Romance) and it just came out of nowhere. I was okay with it later, as a shipping story since I do like PinkieShy but my friendship story-searching self was obviously not satisfied. (By the way I didn't find a good story involving those two, shipping or not. I'll have to settle with generic-cute and heartwarming stuff for now, sigh. Well the more I cannot find something I'd like to read, the more likely I am to write it myself)
I forgot to mention I never read shipping stories anyway, so... I mean I try finding some and taking a look, but they're never good...and if there are good ones, I don't ship the ship in them so. I also heard Hearts and Hooves is going to be a CMC story where they try to hook up Mac and Cheerilee, so my worst fears did not come to light as I had thought it might! Thank Celestia! I wonder if the story will be similar to the PPG episode where the girls attempted to hook up the Professor and Ms. Keane? Of course even if the synopsis of that episode turns out not to bother me, something like that will always bother someone out there...and it did.
The most popular het ship is Fluttermac, so you can see where I'm going with that. This being a Dreamwidth and former Livejournal....I am obviously here to complain! I don't think I'm going to be one of those people who will get these types of blogs out of that reputation sadly, lol.
And there were a lot of people out there rather upset that Fluttermac is potentially being sunk by this episode. I think they're silly, obviously. Now of course someone out there might assume "Why, if it WERE Fluttermac being supported by the episode instead of this, Spotto would be upset because it'd sink PinkieShy!" and I am clearly a scumbag hypocritical bastard! And you know what?
Maybe I would be upset, but probably for totally different reasons. Okay I can't guarantee it won't partly be because of that, but ultimately if it were FlutterMac and not CheeriMac (these portmanteaus lol) I'd be upset due to introducing romance into the mane six....which means if PinkieShy were canon (and that would never happen in a million years anyway) I too would be upset because again, it introduces romance into the mane six. We are here to watch about Friendship is Magic....you know what, maybe there could be a lesson about tolerating a friend suddenly spending all their time with a colt, and the ramifications of all the drama resulting from that, but this is a kids show. Kids will not be able to understand such a lesson seeing as their friends shouldn't really be in relationships at that age, and since it is a kids show any serious romance really has no place in the show. And in that sense, I don't think CheeriMac will be successful just like Professor Utonium and Ms. Keane didn't work out either...because it's a kids show. They will not stay together. The only ounce of potential "love" that exists is Spike's crush on Rarity. Even if that got developed further to my utter surprise, nothing really implied that Rarity returned any feelings and that it was any more than a puppy-dog crush. End of story.
So I reiterate, SILLY.
Which could explain why I'm not quite as fond of the UFO crew as I once was.
The crew of UFO are not...well, they are not popular. They have their fans and I am one of them. There are plenty of talented people out there throwing their ideas and headcanon out via their artwork or animation of some kind that could bring in even more fans of said group of characters and that's great! I think Captain Murasa in particular, though a little stretched for depth at first (but with tons of potential) is getting a lot of attention lately, even if it's only from a few people...but luckily these few people are very talented and have awesome imaginations. Then Ten Desires comes around. I've mentioned this before, but I had a particular headcanon about the ship's crew...Ten Desires amended it greatly, throwing two new characters into the collective group when it was already the largest of any other game before. I already had a hard time trying to do anything with Ichirin without just not caring about her because it is really hard to care about a character with barely any substance! Then they throw in a moeblob which I guess is okay because the crew technically didn't have a moeblob yet, but Shou kind of counts already anyway...and Nue 2.0 except with old people jokes.
It gets old, people.
I think that's why to me, Tamers from Digimon trumps over Adventure, just slightly. Adventure just had too many characters...and you could say "Well, there was only seven...then eight" and that's okay. You can use fifty-two episodes to describe and develop eight characters...but there are MORE than eight characters...their Digimon partners too, they need some spotlight as well! Most of them were pretty much the same as their human counterparts, or if they weren't, were sweet and nice and well-meaning. They didn't have much going for them except as an extension of the kids as characters. The few exceptions were arguably Gabumon and Tailmon/Gatomon. Seriously Tailmon is like the Ken of Season 1 in comparison to her Digimon brethren. She had lots of development, and her best friend had more development than some of the main Digimon, and she's even more interesting than her own partner who although kind of cute and nice is too unrealistically pure and mature for a seven-year-old girl or however old Hikari was.
I mean yes, Tamers had a bunch of side-kids that didn't get enough spotlight and don't get me started on Ryo! (Even if he did have a bunch of games to develop him, yes) But in the end you saw all the promotional posters, all the advertising, any official image or trademark of Tamers at all...always emphasized the main three characters, their Digimon, and Impmon. They were the main characters. They were the ones we KNEW would get development and spotlight, the rest were a crapshoot. When I think of Tamers, it's the power trio and that one sixth ranger...the rest are there for comedy relief or to take up time when they can't think of anything else to fill an episode. Nowhere were we told that they'd have just as much substance as the rest. I am fine with that. They weren't designed to be interesting anyway, so most people aren't curious to know more.
(Which of course will always lead me to question the choice of singers for Biggest Dreamer/one of the EDs of Tamers....There's a tradition for each series where the boys sing the main theme and the girls since the ending theme. Tamers decided to include EVERY FREAKIN' MALE KID and their Digimon so Biggest Dreamers sounded like a rookie choir! And why would I want to hear a 4-year-old girl sing in the ED? (Jenrya's sister) All these extra side characters didn't contribute THAT much to the plot, so they shouldn't even BE singing! Takato/Jenrya/Ryo and their Digimon for Biggest Dreamer, Ruki/Juri + their Digimon (yes that includes Leomon lol) for the ED! That would've sounded amazing and NOT terribly cluttered. Bleh)
That makes Frontier look worse actually. They did away with Digimon partners, so more time for the kids, right? Wrong! Give all spotlight to Takuya and Koji and the new sixth ranger! Forget the other three even if they're in the opening and looking just as important as them! Even if we have plenty of time to develop them all we won't! How sad it is.
But I suppose my original point was shipping and in Touhou, my main ship was MuraNue. That ship also floats rather precariously in my headcanon as the make-up of the crew did before Ten Desires. It depended on how I view Nue mostly, that she did all her jerkass annoying things because she's lonely. But wait, she has an old friend, a trickster just like her living outside of Gensokyo she can call in during emergencies! And that friend decides to stick around as if the outside of Gensokyo missing a tanuki is of no consequence! That tells me the crew probably isn't as close as I thought it was. (The dynamic was the weakest of the entire series' cast herds anyway, the UFO characters only gathered up together recently to free Hijiri, they weren't close at all! One reason why I think it's a less popular game besides the annoying UFO mechanic)
So the crew already is treading on thin water with having too many characters and my brain span obviously too small to make up all the potential dynamics they have. Then they threw in two more characters and it's less of a "group of awesome friends" and more of a "WE LOVE HIJIRI FANCLUB YAAAY" or like, the guy you sit next to in Church because you both believe in God. That's all the similarities you have because these characters have no similarities at all,and are not related or a family like the Chireiden guys, nor are they mysteriously loyal like SDM nor are they servants or shinigami to a yama or shikigami to a troll, or a dysfunctional family of rabbits, nope. They're all just part of a fanclub because Hijiri is so great.
What's worse is that that didn't even have to happen. The introduction of both those characters feel so unnecessary. Kyouko less so I guess, if knowing how popular the Myouren Temple has become is important enough to warrant a whole new boss character, but the tanuki is so utterly pointless, unoriginal, and nothing new at all. The only thing she brings to the table is the possibility of youkai living outside of Gensokyo, but that's it. I have so much hate for that character and so many reasons to hate, to the point that she led to me to love MokouKeine far more, to absorb the Chireiden crew more, and enabled me to look into ponies for some collective group dynamics that kind of shrank away here.
One more thing...there is a very obvious reason why heterosexual shipping isn't as popular as its gay counterpart. The reason is incredibly simple actually...most TV shows and series have a cast that tends to be mostly girls or mostly guys. Now it would seem silly to ship basically all the guys with that one token girl character or visa versa, especially if some of them have little to do with her, like actually talking to her or anything like that. So it's only natural for shippers to see interaction between two characters, whatever gender they might be, and want to watch it go further into a romantic conclusion. After all, I ship MaxMariam because they talk to each other, fight each other, and have a funny chemistry going on with each other. I don't ship Fluttermac because they've never spoken to each other. (They're also too similar, seems like a pretty boring couple anyway) Both of these pairings are het. I don't think the sex of the participants in a couple even matter, one just happens to be more common.
Thus the end of this terrible rant, which I hate due being so awkwardly written/worded. I like my points too much to just scrap it as usual. Remind Spotto never to rant while half-asleep again. This has been Spotto, good nighto!
Well okay that's not completely accurate, but lately it's a kind of subject matter that has been a bit too frequent. I went into a sad story, it had no other tags, the story's tag was merely "sad" and was greeted with unexpected shipping. You read half the story and find it SO AMAZING and suddenly...SHIPPING and the building you've been constructing tumbles over.
It just felt so unnecessary too! The story was fine. It had the essence of friendship and rainbows MLP is known for, except everyone is dead and then SHIPPING suddenly. I then found out it was a story meant to be some sort of epilogue-of-sorts to another story...which is completely fine...except they thought it'd work standalone as well and submitted it as a standalone story. So the shipping just felt jarring and out of place and my enjoyment of the story got kicked in the gut.
And as much as it might seem so, no it's not because "oh well if the ship was a ship you liked you probably would've liked it". No, if I wanted to read shipping I would read shipping. It would have a tag called shipping to signify that there is shipping so if I want to read it I'd read it. In fact I was looking for Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie FRIENDSHIP stories and ran into shipping that I did not expect. Of course this time it was my fault because I forgot to look at the genre (Romance) and it just came out of nowhere. I was okay with it later, as a shipping story since I do like PinkieShy but my friendship story-searching self was obviously not satisfied. (By the way I didn't find a good story involving those two, shipping or not. I'll have to settle with generic-cute and heartwarming stuff for now, sigh. Well the more I cannot find something I'd like to read, the more likely I am to write it myself)
I forgot to mention I never read shipping stories anyway, so... I mean I try finding some and taking a look, but they're never good...and if there are good ones, I don't ship the ship in them so. I also heard Hearts and Hooves is going to be a CMC story where they try to hook up Mac and Cheerilee, so my worst fears did not come to light as I had thought it might! Thank Celestia! I wonder if the story will be similar to the PPG episode where the girls attempted to hook up the Professor and Ms. Keane? Of course even if the synopsis of that episode turns out not to bother me, something like that will always bother someone out there...and it did.
The most popular het ship is Fluttermac, so you can see where I'm going with that. This being a Dreamwidth and former Livejournal....I am obviously here to complain! I don't think I'm going to be one of those people who will get these types of blogs out of that reputation sadly, lol.
And there were a lot of people out there rather upset that Fluttermac is potentially being sunk by this episode. I think they're silly, obviously. Now of course someone out there might assume "Why, if it WERE Fluttermac being supported by the episode instead of this, Spotto would be upset because it'd sink PinkieShy!" and I am clearly a scumbag hypocritical bastard! And you know what?
Maybe I would be upset, but probably for totally different reasons. Okay I can't guarantee it won't partly be because of that, but ultimately if it were FlutterMac and not CheeriMac (these portmanteaus lol) I'd be upset due to introducing romance into the mane six....which means if PinkieShy were canon (and that would never happen in a million years anyway) I too would be upset because again, it introduces romance into the mane six. We are here to watch about Friendship is Magic....you know what, maybe there could be a lesson about tolerating a friend suddenly spending all their time with a colt, and the ramifications of all the drama resulting from that, but this is a kids show. Kids will not be able to understand such a lesson seeing as their friends shouldn't really be in relationships at that age, and since it is a kids show any serious romance really has no place in the show. And in that sense, I don't think CheeriMac will be successful just like Professor Utonium and Ms. Keane didn't work out either...because it's a kids show. They will not stay together. The only ounce of potential "love" that exists is Spike's crush on Rarity. Even if that got developed further to my utter surprise, nothing really implied that Rarity returned any feelings and that it was any more than a puppy-dog crush. End of story.
So I reiterate, SILLY.
Which could explain why I'm not quite as fond of the UFO crew as I once was.
The crew of UFO are not...well, they are not popular. They have their fans and I am one of them. There are plenty of talented people out there throwing their ideas and headcanon out via their artwork or animation of some kind that could bring in even more fans of said group of characters and that's great! I think Captain Murasa in particular, though a little stretched for depth at first (but with tons of potential) is getting a lot of attention lately, even if it's only from a few people...but luckily these few people are very talented and have awesome imaginations. Then Ten Desires comes around. I've mentioned this before, but I had a particular headcanon about the ship's crew...Ten Desires amended it greatly, throwing two new characters into the collective group when it was already the largest of any other game before. I already had a hard time trying to do anything with Ichirin without just not caring about her because it is really hard to care about a character with barely any substance! Then they throw in a moeblob which I guess is okay because the crew technically didn't have a moeblob yet, but Shou kind of counts already anyway...and Nue 2.0 except with old people jokes.
It gets old, people.
I think that's why to me, Tamers from Digimon trumps over Adventure, just slightly. Adventure just had too many characters...and you could say "Well, there was only seven...then eight" and that's okay. You can use fifty-two episodes to describe and develop eight characters...but there are MORE than eight characters...their Digimon partners too, they need some spotlight as well! Most of them were pretty much the same as their human counterparts, or if they weren't, were sweet and nice and well-meaning. They didn't have much going for them except as an extension of the kids as characters. The few exceptions were arguably Gabumon and Tailmon/Gatomon. Seriously Tailmon is like the Ken of Season 1 in comparison to her Digimon brethren. She had lots of development, and her best friend had more development than some of the main Digimon, and she's even more interesting than her own partner who although kind of cute and nice is too unrealistically pure and mature for a seven-year-old girl or however old Hikari was.
I mean yes, Tamers had a bunch of side-kids that didn't get enough spotlight and don't get me started on Ryo! (Even if he did have a bunch of games to develop him, yes) But in the end you saw all the promotional posters, all the advertising, any official image or trademark of Tamers at all...always emphasized the main three characters, their Digimon, and Impmon. They were the main characters. They were the ones we KNEW would get development and spotlight, the rest were a crapshoot. When I think of Tamers, it's the power trio and that one sixth ranger...the rest are there for comedy relief or to take up time when they can't think of anything else to fill an episode. Nowhere were we told that they'd have just as much substance as the rest. I am fine with that. They weren't designed to be interesting anyway, so most people aren't curious to know more.
(Which of course will always lead me to question the choice of singers for Biggest Dreamer/one of the EDs of Tamers....There's a tradition for each series where the boys sing the main theme and the girls since the ending theme. Tamers decided to include EVERY FREAKIN' MALE KID and their Digimon so Biggest Dreamers sounded like a rookie choir! And why would I want to hear a 4-year-old girl sing in the ED? (Jenrya's sister) All these extra side characters didn't contribute THAT much to the plot, so they shouldn't even BE singing! Takato/Jenrya/Ryo and their Digimon for Biggest Dreamer, Ruki/Juri + their Digimon (yes that includes Leomon lol) for the ED! That would've sounded amazing and NOT terribly cluttered. Bleh)
That makes Frontier look worse actually. They did away with Digimon partners, so more time for the kids, right? Wrong! Give all spotlight to Takuya and Koji and the new sixth ranger! Forget the other three even if they're in the opening and looking just as important as them! Even if we have plenty of time to develop them all we won't! How sad it is.
But I suppose my original point was shipping and in Touhou, my main ship was MuraNue. That ship also floats rather precariously in my headcanon as the make-up of the crew did before Ten Desires. It depended on how I view Nue mostly, that she did all her jerkass annoying things because she's lonely. But wait, she has an old friend, a trickster just like her living outside of Gensokyo she can call in during emergencies! And that friend decides to stick around as if the outside of Gensokyo missing a tanuki is of no consequence! That tells me the crew probably isn't as close as I thought it was. (The dynamic was the weakest of the entire series' cast herds anyway, the UFO characters only gathered up together recently to free Hijiri, they weren't close at all! One reason why I think it's a less popular game besides the annoying UFO mechanic)
So the crew already is treading on thin water with having too many characters and my brain span obviously too small to make up all the potential dynamics they have. Then they threw in two more characters and it's less of a "group of awesome friends" and more of a "WE LOVE HIJIRI FANCLUB YAAAY" or like, the guy you sit next to in Church because you both believe in God. That's all the similarities you have because these characters have no similarities at all,and are not related or a family like the Chireiden guys, nor are they mysteriously loyal like SDM nor are they servants or shinigami to a yama or shikigami to a troll, or a dysfunctional family of rabbits, nope. They're all just part of a fanclub because Hijiri is so great.
What's worse is that that didn't even have to happen. The introduction of both those characters feel so unnecessary. Kyouko less so I guess, if knowing how popular the Myouren Temple has become is important enough to warrant a whole new boss character, but the tanuki is so utterly pointless, unoriginal, and nothing new at all. The only thing she brings to the table is the possibility of youkai living outside of Gensokyo, but that's it. I have so much hate for that character and so many reasons to hate, to the point that she led to me to love MokouKeine far more, to absorb the Chireiden crew more, and enabled me to look into ponies for some collective group dynamics that kind of shrank away here.
One more thing...there is a very obvious reason why heterosexual shipping isn't as popular as its gay counterpart. The reason is incredibly simple actually...most TV shows and series have a cast that tends to be mostly girls or mostly guys. Now it would seem silly to ship basically all the guys with that one token girl character or visa versa, especially if some of them have little to do with her, like actually talking to her or anything like that. So it's only natural for shippers to see interaction between two characters, whatever gender they might be, and want to watch it go further into a romantic conclusion. After all, I ship MaxMariam because they talk to each other, fight each other, and have a funny chemistry going on with each other. I don't ship Fluttermac because they've never spoken to each other. (They're also too similar, seems like a pretty boring couple anyway) Both of these pairings are het. I don't think the sex of the participants in a couple even matter, one just happens to be more common.
Thus the end of this terrible rant, which I hate due being so awkwardly written/worded. I like my points too much to just scrap it as usual. Remind Spotto never to rant while half-asleep again. This has been Spotto, good nighto!
