@Background Pony #7181
 
A lot of the weakest episodes could have been greatly improved by being extended out to 33 minutes instead of 22. It seems like an ongoing problem. I mean, it’s often a symptom of trying to do stories that are too big, and I’d rather have that problem than the opposite, but.

@Dale  
Really, even as somebody who enjoyed EqG for what it was, the vast majority of its problems could’ve been fixed if Meghan & co. were able to extend to an hour and a half running time, Two hours even.
 
But you know, money, deadlines, and toy sales.
 
’Tis the nature of the beast.

@Background Pony #7181
 
That’s a distinct possibility. There’s really not enough time to actually flesh out an all-new supporting character enough in something the length of EQG.

He was very likely an afterthought or one of those corporate mandates like the Friendship Express or EG itself. (Although, I’m assuming the Friendship Express toy didn’t exist until after Over a Barrel was produced, so whatever. ^ . ^ )

@Dale  
Yeah, but I kinda get the feeling that the reason he has no character is because McCarthy & Co. knew that everyone was going to hate his guts and bitch about him stealing the spotlight no matter what they did with him, so they made him as harmless as possible.
 
There’s really just no winning with the poor bastard.

@Background Pony #7181
 
Yeah… messy process, though. Flash here seems to be attracting a certain number of people who want to use him as a vessel for their self-insert OCs, so they can waifu Twilight and claim that it’s canon. The female BGPs don’t get that problem quite as much, but the fanon still ends up emerging out of a sea of badly-done stuff–a bit of a monkeys-with-typewriters approach to generating fanon.
 
The real barrier to doing good pony-Flash fic is his human characterization. Because it was so bad. You can tell that the meeting or thought process behind him went,  
Q: “What makes a high school dude cool?”  
A: “This list of stereotypes, throw them all in.”
 
Cringe.
 
You’d hope they’d put more thought into a love interest for the series protagonist. Think about what would actually interest her as a character, what would make for entertaining interactions, good tension, and good rapport. The fact that they did that for all the Mane 6 in a non-romantic context is the reason you get so many compelling inter-mane-6 ships. A good romantic ship is built on compelling interactions between the characters in the show, and that’s built on compelling characters.
 
The starting point with Flash is like, the opposite of a compelling character. He’s just a token to be passed back and forth between Twilight and Sunset Shimmer, which is actually hilarious now that I think about it because that’s what people complain so many female love interests are.

@Dale  
Of course the upside to him not having any character is that you can make some yourself if you’re writing a fanfic or fancomic thing.

I don’t really like this ship either, but I’m going to try to justify myself.
 
Basically, it’s because there is nothing there for Flash Sentry’s characterization. There isn’t even an ‘I like pie!’, because Soarin at least has the fact that he’s a Wonderbolt for people to draw more characterization from. Flash in the human world of EQG was such a central casting cutout for Cool High School Dude that he’s paper thin as a character.
 
So Flash might as well be someone’s OC as far as that goes. But some folks jump on the ship so hard that they spent hundreds of dollars on plushes for it. Why? Maybe I’m being uncharitable, but I really have to wonder about people who jump so hard for the first available straight ship for Twilight they see. Does the lesbian shipping make them that uncomfortable?
 
I actually allllmost wish they’d bring him into the show. If they gave him even as much character development as, say, Trixie has he’d have enough depth to support a ship. As it is, the ship starts out run aground on shallow characterization, and I end up suspicious of people who love it so much anyway.

@Background Pony #EE39  
No one cares.

I hate this ship.

Awww, super cute!

Now that blushing/bedroom eyes Twilight - if that were alone, there would be dozens if not a hundred upvotes!

no wingboners,  
0/1

@soundtea  
I’ve never truly understood… Hm, well, any fandom, honestly. <.<;

Awww!

>13 up, 8 down
 
Do people still have this much hate for the guy?

God that’s cute.