Shipping Rant/Explaining AppleBoat

Anyone who's seen my profile probably knows I ship my MLP OC Long Boat with AppleJack. And anyone who knows me relatively well should also know this isn't about a silly ship also with AppleJack that pees me off. It's about art and creativity, as it is with most things in my life. Being honest, my favourite MLP ship is PinkieDash.

So what this is, is a rant. Just letting off some steam about the sheer lack of creativity put into some OCxCanon pairings. It's split into two sections: The Rant, and Explaining AppleBoat. Majorly inspired by one person in particular, but because I'm nice I'm not gonna name names and just be pleased that there is in fact a chance they'll see this. (And if you do, for Celestia's sake, make your pairing MAKE SENSE.) Here we go.

     The Rant
I'm still not naming names, but there's this one account out there who's OCxCanon pairing really gets on my nerves because the OC can hardly be called an OC. It's more of a genderbend of the canon. Especially bad when the canon is your favourite canon. I'm not a victim of this. I pair my OC with A.J. MY favourite character is Pinkie. Now, let me get this straight. A relationship works best when you aren't too different, but also not too similar. Genderbending a canon, then paring this so-called 'OC' with that canon means they're practically identical. And when it comes to the world of fan creation, aesthetics also applies as 'too similar'. For example, your 'OC' is the exact opposite of Twilight in personality? Yeah, but they're still a purple alicorn; get out of here. And the reason it doesn't work like this is because most of the time you are creating the 'OC' for the SOLE REASON of being paired with that canon. So don't do it. Referring back to they-who-shall-not-be-named, instead if it being a good balance between similarities and differences between the two characters, they look like they should be siblings. I had a conversation with this person once. It went like this (It's this point you'll know it's you I'm talking about): 

'Everything about this character makes them look like siblings. Even the name.'
'Yeah, I know. I was actually going to name them ... but my friends liked their current name better.'
'AND? It's your OC, not your friends. ... is, actually, a MUCH better name!'

Anyway, this person really gets on my nerves, and that in itself annoys me, because I'm mad at the PERSON, simply because they refuse to see how bad the OC is. Now, I, for one don't like throwing around the term Mary Sue, because I believe strongly that the stereotypical 'Mary Sue' for each fandom can still be a good character if played right. A good example would be my LOTR OC, but that's a rant for another day. Back to shipping. As I just said, I don't like throwing around the term Mary Sue, and believe that with work ANY OC can be spared from Sue-ness. And during the above conversation all I did was try and help the account get rid of all the OC's Sue-ness. They thanked me for the advice...and ignored it all. And I WASN'T the only one trying to help them this way! I'm guessing most of you know who Mad Munchkin is. She's just, like, my MLP fan IDOL, and it was her OC that gave me enough inspiration for mine in the first place. Because of this, her catchphrase 'Stay creative' has a large impact on me whenever I'm creating something. BUT, whenever I see one of these CanonXGenderbent!Canons, I tend to get mad because you're NOT being creative. You're changing the name and a few shapes.

Wow. Such art. So inspiring. Not.

As the above stamp says, I ship OCxCanon IF it makes sense. But this ship that forced this rant does NOT make sense. I know I took bloody ages to but out my OC's bio, but the bio for whom I speak of doesn't tell me anything of use as to what this character is! So it's paired with that canon character...yes I can tell what gender it is just by looking...I know what it's name is, since most of your art is entitled either '[Name of OC]x[Name of Canon]' or '[Ship name]'. The character has NOTHING to their identity EXCEPT being in a relationship with that canon character and that is what makes it, being frank, one of the WORST OCs I've ever seen. Where did your character come from? What's their special talent? Hell, if you're so about your pairing, try giving us a GOOD story about how they got together! THEN I might like your pairing. But right now I REALLY, REALLY DON'T, and I'm honestly tired of trying to be NICE. I really am. Just be thankful I'm not posting who you are all over dA and UGH!!

*long sigh*

Right. I feel a bit better now.

     Explaining AppleBoat
Up above, I mentioned three things that make a good OCxCanon pairing.
1. Don't make the OC JUST to pair with the canon.
2. Don't have them too different.
3. Don't make them too similar. This includes aesthetics. 

Now it's time for the timeline of L.B. pairings and how I faced all THREE of these problems while deciding on a good ship.

Problem One.
I didn't make L.B. JUST for pairing with a canon character. In fact, this problem isn't just for OCxCanon, but OCxOC too. Once I had created Long Boat, I set about creating first, her sister Patchwork, and then, a stallion named Timber. Who's Timber? Well, he WAS going to be Long Boat's boyfriend. But then, I realized he didn't have much to him apart from his aesthetics and his romantic life. So I tried and tried again, getting a bit better each time, but still never getting him quite right. And THEN once while reading through some tips to making a good OC to try once more, I saw the following: 'If you are going to ship them with a canon character, decide that character LATER, and create the OC first.' And that's when it hit me. Timber was never any good because he had been created simply to ship with my OC. Sure, maybe now he was a fully-fleshed out character, with a backstory and personality and everything. But at the end of the day...he was still a lumberjack, to go with her carpentry skills. So I first thought 'Great. Now I've got to scrap him.' Which I did, but then later brought him back into Long Boat's backstory just as a point: 'Creating OCs for shipping is BAD.' So, I realized I was going to have to find an already-made character to ship L.B with. But the thought of going up to someone and asking to pair my OC with theirs made me  , I was going to have to go into the murky waters of OCxCanon.

Problem Two.
It was going to be one of the Mane 6 who I paired her with from the off. Yes, yes, Sue-ish, yes, but again, read above about my views on that. I chose to ship her with one of the Mane Six because they are the most fleshed-out characters on the show. There's less of headcanons and everything and more straight-up facts. And I decided that was easier to work with. And my first choice was...Fluttershy. And this is where problem 2 comes into play. Everyone seems to ship RariJack, yet I am strongly against it because of how different they are. ANY Rarity and AppleJack episode with show you that. They seem to be incapable of NOT arguing when they're mostly alone. If it was a good ship, it would be 'Oh, Rarity, you're so beautiful' and not 'APPLEJACK I HATE YOU SO MUCH.' And I faced this problem with FlutterBoat, as it was called. Fluttershy is kind, gentle and a scaredy-cat. Longboat is blunt, forceful and rarely scared of anything. Just like RariJack, FlutterBoat would never have worked because the differences are too great and too many.

Problem Three.
Very little needs to be said here. After FlutterBoat came LongLight. Yup, I went to pair her with the purple alicorn. This didn't work not because their personalities were too similar, but because Twilight had been my aesthetic inspiration for Long Boat. And the Twilicorn came about, so that was a BIG nope.

And then came AppleBoat. And I stuck with this. Why? Because they are similar, yet also different. AppleJack is greatly loyal to her family and would kick herself for letting them down. And this is why L.B. started liking her in the first place. Long Boat is a magic-user trying to provide for herself and her sister. AppleJack can't use magic, and manages to provide for not two but four. Long Boat found great admiration and inspiration from this loyalty to her family, which is why Long Boat fell in love with AppleJack. And I like to imagine that Long Boat's creativity and ideas is what caused A.J. to like her. See? Both trying to help their family, both loyal and hard-working. But one is very down-to-earth (Geddit? Down-to-earth? Earth pony? Oh, forget it.) and the other has her heads in the clouds and likes to dream and imagine.

See? A good, or rather, a good-in-my-opinion OCxCanon pairing. If you want to pair your OC with a canon, or really even another OC, try and do what I did. Try different pairings until you find one that you like, and works. Just don't, I am begging you, DON'T change the OC to match it's partner.

That's all for now. If you made it all the way down here,  I might not have. And thank you for reading my hissy fit.