Thrond

To me, the problem with calling any My Little Pony shipping "basically canon" - i.e., close enough to hypothesize that those characters would be in a relationship if the suits permitted it - is that almost all friendships in the show are highly affectionate in ways which inevitably contradict each other. I'd say a few episodes lean more heavily into that than others - "Fall Weather Friends," "Hurricane Fluttershy," "Rarity Investigates!" and "Discordant Harmony" being great examples - but simply because friends in this show tend to regard each other so fondly, it's easy to find ammunition for anything. Which is part of why the LyraBon part of "Slice of Life" wasn't enough, even beyond it being a compromise at best: with romance in this show, there's plausible deniability unless you say it out loud. Do Lyra and Bon Bon really act that differently from other character pairings in this show? I don't think so. And the same is true of any other ship in the show, aside from the hetero pairings which are explicitly stated to have a romantic attraction. We wouldn't have shipping without people using moments in the show to justify themselves, but I think it's silly to suggest your ship of choice is "canon."