To quote the veritable archive of knowledge that is Tv Tropes, a crack ship is a romantic pairing that makes you go "HOOBA JOOBA WHAAAA?!"

In truth, a crack ship can be highly subjective. After all, what reason is there for the D&B obsessed Vinyl Scratch and the reserved cellist Octavia to be in love? And yet they are one of the fandoms favorite parings, to the point where it is not a crack ship, but a One True Pair—and Celestia help anyone who disagrees.

And how about Spike and Rarity? A baby dragon scribe and an adult unicorn fashionista?

Next to popular ships like these, ships like DiscoJack and SweetieDash are hardly unusual. Just...uncommon.

And thats what this group is about, really. Helping the uncommon ships get the limelight.

What about Pinkie/Mr &Mrs Cake?

Makes sense to me, but I ship 'em, so that's to be expected.

854783
Well, the cakes are not only married; but much older than pinkie, so yeah, I'd say that counts. Also, there are not dozens of fics about it.

855378
I don't think ANY ship makes anyone go HOOBA anything in this fandom anymore.

How about expanding it and making and official concrete accepted pairing list so that we all know what to strive for or what is acceptable? I think that plainly not knowing what's alright or not might be a detriment to people adding fics because as you mentioned, everyone has their own thoughts and ideas of what is or what isn't a crack fic. Since there's no industry standard, you need to set one.

Furthermore, and this isn't for now, but in the future you might have to think about folders for specific characters. too bad nested folders aren't possible yet!

Anyway, I bring this up for the simple reason that I'm writing something now I think I mentioned to you before, but something that isn't too common but at the same time very accepted by the fandom. Not knowing where it stands in relation to this group is making me unsure about submission. A list would help tremendously.

Peace~

907195

official concrete accepted pairing list

Well, I'm not really sure where to start with this. There are so many different variables to take into acount, let alone opinions. For a start, do gay and lesbian ships count as crack, because in most fandoms hetrosexual relationships are the norm, but here it's lesbian ships. Do ponies who have similar characteristics count as normal ships (Applejack and Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Big Mac)? How about ponies with opposite characteristics (Pinkie and Twilight)? Ships that are socially taboo (Twilight and Shining, Applejack and Braeburn, Foalcon)? Polyamorous ships? Human, OC and cross-species ships?

And that's all before throwing in my philosophy that any ship can make sense as long as it is well written.

I suppose we could start by excluding any mane 6Xmane 6 ship, but then we lose gems like ApplePie, TwiJack and FlutterJack.

And once we've cut out mane 6 shiping, it's only a logical step to take out those they are regulary shiped with. TwiLuna, and Rainfire for example.

And yes, I considered seperate folders for characters, but I wanted to avoid making the mess that is prevalent in the Shipping group. I might throw one up for certain groups (Mane 6, Royalty, Apple family, Ponyville Ponies, Canterlot Ponies etc).

907489
That's the point. If the CREATOR of the group can't figure it out, how do you expect anyone else of us to?

First thing's first, get a gdoc spreadsheet open, start listing all the CHARACTERS you want to include (and exclude). List a set of rules. Once again, I point out that this is your group, so you get to make the rules. If anyone else isn't happy about it, they'll probably find another group. For example, yes, you WILL be neglecting 'gems' such as TwiPie or what have you, but that's what all the other TwiPie groups are for, aren't they? Last I counted, there were three.

Focus on the reason you made this group for. What is the point of the group? What were you trying to achieve? And let that direction state the rules. Because as it is, the group is a little bit lacking in direction at the moment. The monthly competition thing is great, no doubt, but it doesn't help the off-peak without a clear-cut set of pairings that the average reader can work off.

You are the one, as the group leader, who has to draw those lines, unfortunately. You should set up that spreadsheet, definitely.

907497
No! Leadership! My one weakness!

Yeah, I see what your saying. I'll go set up that spead sheet as soon as possible.

Lets see, the main purpose of this group is to let the lesser ships shine. All the common ships are reapeated endlessly over and over again, and it's getting dull. So first, I need to narrow down the most common ships, and then exclude them.

Yay, research project!

907510
I'm not entirely sure why we're talking here either... You know where to get me.

Since we're on the discussion of what should and should not be in this group, what about cargoships/itemships? (yeah I know, I PM'ed ProfCharles about this earlier but other people's input on this could be good).
As far as I know, there isn't/aren't specific groups for this type of shipping already (if there are, please point me to them!), but aside from that these ships are more or less crack/very uncommon anyway.

Most of these stories are quite random though, and I only haven't begun adding some because I don't know whether you want such things in the group, and a separate (or possibly two: one for non-clop and one for clop (does that even exist? probably)) folder for such ships might be an idea too because otherwise people can't find them when the group gets bigger.

907510
Wait, if the only difference between a Crack Ship and an Uncommon Ship is prevalence, then why does this group exist at all? It's just a repeat of the Uncommon Shipping Pairs group (and I note they have a very defined list of exclusions).

I think I would go back to the trope definition; a Crack Ship is any ship which doesn't make sense. Sure you can write sense into it, but if the premise is confusing then it's a crack ship.

This isn't something you can just set rules for, obviously; it's really a case-by-case thing based on context and initial reactions.

Is Pinkity () a crack ship? No, because they could logically end up together: they're friends, they enjoy each others company, and they spend a lot of time together.
Is TrixiMac () a crack pairing? Possibly. They have very little contact with each other and have highly conflicting personalities. But they did encounter each other a few times in passing in canon, so it would depend on the setting of the story.
Is DitzyBelle () a crack pairing? I'd say yes: they never interact, have a huge age difference, and have absolutely nothing in common. The default initial reaction is "say what?" and while good writing or fan interpretations may change the former attributes they don't do much for the latter.

TL;DR--you can't measure crack pairings, because it's subjective. The reaction to it is the main definition.

907918
A seperate folder for cargoships, hm? I'll take it into consideration.

910196
And hence the crux of the problem. If I start defining what is and isn't a crack ship, then really I'm just endorsing uncommon parings, as you pointed out, but to do it on a case by case thing is awkward—especially when some of the common parings in this fandom are leaning towards cracky anyway.

I think it's best if we try to locate, create and promote ships whose premise make as little sense as possible, rather than focusing on rare and uncommon ships.