I’m kinda surprised no one think IzzyHitch’s some sort of crackship. I even expect some to downright thinking it’s straightwashing Izzy. According to my experience of the fandom less popular het ship like the one above are something that I only saw (just me) in mostly the Spanish part of the fandom.

@Fwelin
Multishippers exist, but they are not the majority. Most people have a preferred ship for one character, but as long as their headcanons/interpretations remain intact, plenty of people won’t mind other ships or might even like them. Which is my first point: conflicting headcanons.

Take Sunny/Hitch, for example. It matches two of the conditions you listed, and it was at its highest after the movie. It only competed against Izzyscout, but then also against Hitch/Pipp, and then after MYM ch 1, Zipp/Hitch. It started to lag behind, while Izzyscout and Hitch/princesses kept going because they are ‘allies’ of each other (meaning that they can co-exist in the same headcanon). Zipp and Pipp’s ships with Hitch compete against each other, but not against Izzyscout. It’s simply going to result in less pushback to compete against one popular ship than two or more (not to mention the most popular one), thus allowing ships/headcanons to ‘flourish’.

What you call the ‘orientation’ factor I think is basically the same thing. Go against the popular headcanon, and you’re not gonna have many people willing to subscribe to it. In this case, if you go against Izzyscout, and two other really popular ships, at the same time, you’re going to be unlucky.

And I completely agree with you that the things you listed help influence a ship’s popularity, but G5 is not G4. While they may overlap a little, G5 is a much, much smaller fandom, and relatively speaking, Izzy/Hitch is not that unpopular. It just seems that way, along with the rest of the less popular ships, because of the little amount of content in general. Izzyscout is not even close to the numbers juggernaut ships like Rarijack or Twidash got. Even the less popular ships of G4 have more content than Izzyscout.

By the way, I would argue that all Mane 5 ships match at least condition 2 for the sole reason that they’re designed to compliment each other as a group. Izzy/Hitch fall under the opposites attract trope, specifically the ‘Uptight Loves Wild’ type of trope. It’s extremely common in romantic comedies.

But in the end, my second point is that the series is still ongoing, which is good. New fans join, new content gets made, and the possibility for ships to get some love is still there.

@Background Pony #7154
I don’t think it’s a competition thing; there’s lots of people that are willing to ship multiple ships (especially stallion-focused ones, similar to how Big Mac used to be shipped), and the three other popular Hitch ships didn’t really keep each other from getting good amounts of support. I think it’s a combination of them not getting the in-show hints and what I like to call the orientation factor.

From what I’ve seen in the fandom over the years, shippings that become popular enough to get more than a handful of fandom pieces generally happen for one (or multiple) of three reasons.

First, something happens in the show that jumpstarts the ship. This can be from the show directly pushing a ship (Sugarmac), from two characters having good chemistry or cute moments together (Sunsetsparkle), or even just from being spicy enough to make people want to explore the idea (Zephdash).

Second, two characters can have character concepts that work well enough together that a good number of people in the fandom start shipping them without any input from the show. For example, Octascratch involves two musicians that are associated with stereotypically opposite types of music, leading to an interesting simultaneous similarity and contrast.

Third, a work in the fandom about two characters that ships them or gives them good chemistry together becomes very popular in the fandom and influences other people to also ship them. Sweetiemash is a good example of this.

Sunnyhitch and Hitchzipp match condition 1 as well as condition 2 (having the childhood friend angle for the former and the sheriff/detective dynamic for the latter), and Hitchpipp matches condition 1, but Izzyhitch hasn’t yet had much in the way of anything like this. Hitch and Izzy’s direct interactions in the shows are comparatively rare and generic, their characters don’t have much conceptual overlap, and the fandom is much less active than it was in its heyday so there isn’t much of a chance of a big fandom piece jumpstarting a ship these days.

Finally, there’s also an “orientation” factor, where ponies often get slotted into specific orientations by the fandom and pairings outside of that orientation become much rarer and less likely to become popular as a result, even in the presence of shipping triggers that would normally jump-start a ship. For example, Lyra and Bonbon were overwhelmingly seen as lesbians (even before the show confirmation), and as a result it’s quite rare for them to be portrayed in straight ships. The background interactions between Flash, Lyra, and Bon Bon in The Friendship Games usually would have caused a minor ship between them to form (either all three or two at a time), but it never took off because Lyra and Bon Bon being lesbians was a pretty significant part of their fandom interpretation (Flash being Flash didn’t help, but he still got several dozen non-porn shipping pictures with Derpy due to their interaction in that movie, while Lyra/Bon Bon and Lyra/Flash got like 2 non-porn pictures in total).

Starting with the very first trailer, Izzyscout exploded in popularity, resulting in the same effect on Izzy by slanting the fandom’s interpretation towards her being a lesbian. Sunny escaped this effect because her interactions and character relationship with Hitch were introduced nearly as early and she had a lot of interactions with a bunch of different ponies in the movie, but 90% of Izzy’s interactions in the movie were focused on Sunny.

First G5 moive coming out, Pitch is the most popular ship, but after the MYM and TYT coming, Suntch and Zitch become more popular, and Pitch still have something, Iztch? Not much as I remember, not to mention Misty also have the shipping fuel with Hitch now at the MV (･_･|

@Fwelin
I understand, but my point was that shipping is a subjective thing and entire fandoms have been created out of just an idea and literally no interaction whatsoever (crossover ships like Jack/Elsa). So I think it’s less that and more to do with the ‘competition’.

Obviously shipping fuel doesn’t hurt. Even if I would argue that Izzy and Hitch have had a few cute moments in both the movie and shows, I would lie if I said I didn’t want something like a duet. It would surely inspire more cute pieces like this one to be made.

@Background Pony #7154
Hitch had a few really cute segments with Pipp in TYT, and the initial movie showed him enjoying Pipp’s music and had that one scene where they were complaining about the journey together. It’s not a ton, but plenty for shipping to sprout from. He didn’t (and still hasn’t) really have any duo scenes with Izzy that lent itself to shipping.

@PuffyDearlySmith
I don’t think so. Pipp and Hitch barely interacted until recently and they were really popular. I think it’s more because both Hitch and Izzy had more popular ‘competing’ ships (Izzyscout and Hitch/either of the sisters), but who knows, things might change.

I gotta say these are pretty cute!

It could be because Hitch hasn’t had as many scenes together with Izzy as he’s had with the other 3 mares.

One of my favorite ships! This style is so cute!

@Miss Hoffmann
Cute, but seems to be less popular, than Hitch with other 3 mares.

Cute ship 🥰🥰🥰