Crack Ships and you, and me. And some other guy who we have nothing in common with. · 10:56pm Mar 13th, 2014
What is a crack ship?
It's a sailing vessel with a fissure.
But enough hilarity.
I don't know exactly what possessed me to write this blog, but I just felt overcome with the need to talk about crack ships, because they're some of my favorite ships around.
A lot of people don't seem to understand them. They sit on their computer chairs/ivory towers/toilets? (I don't judge) and say things like, "Pfeh! These two characters have nothing in common/no screen time together!" To this, I first say, "Nice usage of pfeh, it's quite a handy utterance of dismissal." And then I say, "Why does that matter?"
Here's a little tidbit that very few people know (because nobody asks. WHERE'S MY INTERVIEW, FIMFIC?): I wrote Appleshy because it was a pair I'd never seen before. At the time, it was legitimately the first Appleshy story written. Even EqD's post for it said "Has this been done before?" Sure, since then it's legitimately become my OTP, but at the time, I just wrote it because I liked the two ponies and had never seen it before.
So is it a crack ship?
I guess we have to go into what a crack ship is to figure that out.
Some people have some different definitions of it, but my personal view is that it's a pairing of two (or more! Which I guess would no longer be a pairing) characters who:
1) Don't get much screentime together
2) Might not have much in common
3) Have little to nothing written about them
Some people might debate one or two of those, but from the way I see it, those are the key points to having yourself a nice, cracky ship.
So some might ask, "Why write crack ships? Why not go with a commonly-accepted ship like Twidash or Appledash?"
Let me stress that there's NOTHING wrong with common ships! There's a reason they're common, after all. But I personally prefer to dabble in those that are less common.
"BUT YOU STILL HAVEN'T ANSWERED WHY!" you may bellow. Please stop yelling at me 
There's a certain aspect of both challenge and uniqueness to writing an uncommon pairing. When dealing with a Rarijack or a Pinkiedash, you know pretty much how the characters are going to be with each other. If not, there are lots of examples up to read for inspiration on their dynamic. It's territory that has been trodden before, and while it is absolutely more than possible to write something unique and creative with these common pairs, there's the chance of doing something that's already been done. Which, again, is not a bad thing! It's just sometimes more fun, in my opinion, to try a pairing that hasn't been done, or has been done very sparsely.
Some people might not be too crazy about a crack ship because it doesn't seem to them like there should be any reason for the two characters to be together. To that, I say: who are we to judge what characters should and should not be together? In real life, people from all walks of life get together with each other. Yes, it may debatably be more likely for someone to find love close to them, but love can also bloom in the most unexpected places.
I have a friend whose parents were high school sweethearts and have been together ever since. They met through a common interest of being in band together. My parents, meanwhile, would never have met if my mom didn't happen to go to college 10 hours away from home, and while they did share one or two interests, they also had their differences.
So yes, Applejack and Rainbow Dash are close friends who spend a lot of time around each other and are both into competition and athletics. That's a fine basis for a relationship. But what if Applejack, while helping Rainbow get some things ready for working that tornado together to send water to Cloudsdale, happened to catch sight of a sweet white pegasus named Blossomforth and become enamored with her? Or perhaps Rainbow was helping AJ on her farm one day and happened to reach for a packet of grass seeds at the same time as Caramel, leading to an awkward, but much-enjoyed conversation between the two?
Just because it doesn't have a preexisting basis doesn't mean it's not worth writing. Sure, the audience for a Twidash might be significantly larger than the audience for that Rarity/Flitter story you've had in mind. That shouldn't stop you from writing it! Who knows? Maybe it'll catch on! Correct me if I'm wrong, but OctaScratch could probably have been seen as a crack pairing before the stories and art that made it popular. I mean, they've never been seen together on the show, right? And if it was just based on the fact that they are both musical ponies, then why not LyraScratch or LyraTavia? She's got that harp right on her rump!
Again, I don't know exactly why I decided to write this big ol' blog. I guess putting out a Cadence/Angel story and having a number of other stories with crack pairings just kinda put me in the mood to talk about them.
If you find yourself interested in more uncommon ships, then might I suggest checking out Crack Ships Inc. or Uncommon Shipping Pairs? Or Random Romance if you're looking to be given a nice random pair suggestion? Both Crack Ships Inc. and Random Romance do monthly prompts. I promise that all three groups have a large number of quality stories to sink your teeth into.
That's about it from me. Wow, that turned out pretty long, didn't it? Thanks for sticking around to listen to me ramble if you did!
I've tagged Appleshy in this blog. It might not be a crack ship now, but back when I first wrote it, the most interaction the two had on the show was their bits in Dragonshy. It was fairly cracky at the time! It's also the first fanfic I ever wrote, and while I don't think it's amazing, it still holds a special place in my heart.
Octavia x Princess Luna = OTP.
Spike x Zecora =
Lyra x Twilight.
Where Earth Meets Sky?Edit: Oh, wait, you said you wrote this in 2011. Nevermind.
As I understand it, the term 'crack ship' was invented to describe ships that made you go 'wtf, what kind of drugs is this author on!?' So a crack ship isn't just an uncommon one, it's an implausible (or even impossible) one. It's a ship with some element of the bizarre or absurd, or one that's flat-out contradicted by canon. Twilight x Davenport isn't a crack ship, because there's no reason why it couldn't happen; but Twilight x S2 Discord is.
I love reading crack ships because its almost a challenge to the author. Prove to me that these two belong together and it will make for a great story. Common shops are great too like my otp appledash, but sometimes you just need something fresh, different or completely off the wall. This is where crack ships fit.
You like crackships, right? Would you like to contribute a 100-word one to my anthology of Fifty Extremely Short, Incredibly Horrible, and Shamelessly Bizarre Slashfics, Plus One That's Just Plain Insane, Not to Mention a Character Uprising, Also a Bomb Threat, With a Few Optional Stable Time Loops Too, and Additionally a Foalnapping? It's currently guest author week!