"Shipping" in My Little Pony fanfictions is ...

There is no intention here of gaining anything on my part, and as you said in your closing paragraph, I do not seek to win so much as discuss. However, you are correct; we are on a debate site, and so we shall debate! Fun, indeed! So, on with my spew. This shall be a bit less professional--if that's possible--than my statements in previous rounds. As IX knows, I've listed shipping as one of my dislikes. (My own user page, FiMFiction.net, biography segment.) It is just that; a dislike backed mostly by personal factors and my pragmatic form of reasoning. I had also listed there that I enjoy debates, though I had never planned on debating such a thing as this until he asked me to. Since he asked, I have agreed to do so, and here we are. Now, IX makes the point of my indicating certain things without proving them 'problematic.' However, I have not argued that the illogicality of shipping stories makes them bad--artistic license is often excusable on an author's part if one really wants to tell a story--or is a problem in and of itself, I have simply argued that they are. This is what puts me off about them, along with the repetitivity of seeing the same pairing with the same story description that comes with the commonplace nature of this type of story. Of course, if some is good, more is better, which can certainly apply here to those who enjoy such material. Personally, however, seeing this repetitivity is tiresome, and indicative of unoriginality, something I dislike. Ah, but my opponent has wisely pointed out that successful formulae are often replicated, because they work. This is completely true. As a writer, however, I believe that all authors should strive to keep their works from following these formulae as it stimulates the growth of literature as a whole, rather than feeding stagnation of it by writing another generic story, which, while it may help the author's want for expression, this expression often ends up very similar to another person's, creating repetitivity, which I personally find undesirable, though others--such as you, IX--are welcome to disagree. Do not get me wrong, I do not mean that stories that closely follow other stories are bad; unique spins can be very interesting indeed. Such an example within this very fandom being The Conversion Bureau universe, in which the world portrayed in the TV show appears out of nowhere, as an island, on our Earth in a dystopian, cynical future. The ponies' lands exude a potent and rampantly-expanding magical aura that is lethal to humans--and only humans--because they're somehow more evil than the beings around them. So the ponies deduce that the only way of saving humanity is to cleanse them of their evil and turn them into ponies via the titular Conversion Bureaus. Many stories, like the original, portray the little ponies of the show as morally supreme beings when compared to humans, while others portray them on around the same level as humanity, and deconstruct such things, making for a very different read, despite the premise being extremely similar to the original. However, with this example there are two vague 'sides,' if you will, those being ponies and humans. There is a demand for stories of both types, those portraying ponies as humanity's saviors, and those portraying humanity as able to prove the ponies' perceptions wrong or even, capable and willing to fight them off. This may not be true in the case of shipping stories, however. After all, when one reads a shipping story, they expect the characters to fall in love and for this relationship to go through turbulence and conflict, for added excitement! This is the basic goal of a story such as this, the core concept, and the concept that draws the most attention, is simply the development of a romantic relationship between at least two characters. This is what the target audience expects of a story, and thus, they only extremely rarely, if at all, deviate in regards to the end result. The entire story is often based around this relationship, and while certain parts of the development of these relationships can take different amounts of prose, dialogue, and in-story time, be skipped altogether, interrupted by conflict, etc., the end result is almost always the same, and thus, the stories are predictable, which I find unappealing. That is my reasoning. But one can very easily say, snidely, 'But isn't the hero winning a predictable outcome? Should we not have that happen either?' and to that, I say, there are many more things that one can do with a story in which a hero wins or a goal is attained. With a story with a goal or a hero, you can never know if the goal will be achieved or that the hero will win, and if they do, will it be a bittersweet ending, or a phyrric victory? Of course, one can do this with a romantic story just as easily, but it's far less common for stories such as that to be set in a setting in which the characters are in danger, or have something really important on the line, as the objective and premise is simply to put two characters together romantically. One or more parties in a relationship may meet their end at the climax or falling action of a tale, but in a pure romance story, this is often detrimental to any story's eventual intent: a happy ending. I'm not saying happy endings are bad, but where's the fun in reading the same story, with a few different twists and the same ending? In my humble opinion, not a whole lot. It's entertaining to many, as IX has, again, wisely stated, but it is not very much so, to me. Again, not all stories end the same way and all that, but the thing is, most of them seem to. When this repetitivity is combined with unoriginality and illogicality, they present to me a genre that is not one I enjoy reading. So my own argument is entirely based upon the weakest proof one can have in a debate; a personal judgement, and little more. To pick up the points I believe I have missed, I shall start on expression of one's creativity. Such is an excellent reason to start writing, and indeed, my very own first writing project was based upon an idea that I wanted to put my own spin on. I will say that authors should do this; once said first project is complete, one may be comfortable enough to write something that deviates from the formula. I hope I'm not confusing; I have just finished saying that similar stories have little benefit to literature as a whole, and now I'm saying that it's a fine idea? You may say, 'Perhaps your name is warranted, IncoherentOrange!' but it's the learning that counts, the development of skills, that makes a successful writer, and success is often a gateway to happiness. There's no reason not to try a shipping story inspired by your favorite shipfic, but one should always try to deviate, to use one's imagination and not follow a cookie-cutter format, after all. I could make an analogy that one usually finds a recipe for cake before deciding to make one up. In this way, writing fiction is like baking a cake. Once you've baked one, and put it out for people to see, you'll receive feedback and experience on how to, well, bake another cake. So I say that while I do not like, uh... cheesecake (which is a lie), people should still make cheesecake, but should try to avoid baking the same cheesecake as everyone else, as it gets tiresome after awhile, and this is even true if you do mix up your cheesecake recipe often; some people will just be sick of cheesecake, and think, 'another cheesecake? Ugh.' So, I don't like all the cheesecakes because I don't like the consistent addition of an ingredient--shipping with character that logically wouldn't 'be shipped,' in this example--that other people like, such as pecans. What's one to do if all of the cheesecakes have pecans? Pick 'em off. You can't do that very well, however, if it's the featured ingredient. Stories too. There ends my ramble, as I am running low on characters now. I await your response, IX!