Hell Patrol

Took the words out of my mouth. If I can elaborate upon what you've wrote here, I feel that even the default artistic style of the show can lend itself to sexy, take it from someone with a 15 gigabyte clop collection that's been being amassed ever since late 2010, I've seen every single artistic style done both wonderfully and poorly. The show however obviously takes strides to avoid lending its present artistic style to being sexy. It does always lean cute in art style, even in clop pictures, but there are ways to make the show art style sexy. Most certainly though and easily the most sexually appealing aspect of them would have to be their personalities. Taken as the default, they're a bit stereotypical, (though that's an intended part of the show so they can best represent a single emotional trait extremely well) but they do their stereotype so well that they're just generally nice (people? beings? ponies? Not a clue what to put here) as a result of it since the emotions they represent are generally positive. Not to mention the vocal cords on Applejack and Rarity (or their voice actors, which makes everything a bit creepy) which are quite sexy for their own reasons (the other characters have this too, but they just don't compare to Applejack or Rarity).

I request the addition of a "I wish the best for it but from the trend the show has taken I'm scared to all hell for it" option.

Going into it blind, because I've lost the ability to care. It's probably going to be awful, everything we've seen indicates that. But hey, whatever. Just a television show.

This was originally a post of mine, but appearently too many topics and I was told to direct myself somewhere else. Too lazy to edit it to be a small post, but it's basically what I don't want. " I want it to cease this overwhelming trend of contrivance that has been the sole rationale for most actions in S3, EqG, and even parts of S2. It seems that ever since the tail end of the second season this show has been hell bent on becoming the most generic and contrived piece of media ever, only saved by its rather creative roots and trunk which are rapidly being crushed to the point of collapse under the weight of recent decisions. You can like Twilicorn, and even Brad. But there's one thing you can't deny, and that's the reason for their existance is such a contrived idea. It's this obvious trend in the story development of the show, a trend which I express genuine surprise at the fact that it has not been pointed out more even by the standards of the fanboy echochamber that is brony discussion, a trend of profligate business practice more transparent than the cranial cavities of the simpering dickbags who brought forth the very idea, and that's to make the show more of a little girl princess fantasy. Twilicorn needs no explanation, it showed all the foundational buildings of making a character who little girls would want to be, hence in the vain hopes of the corporate children who populate Hasbro, attracting more viewership. "But surely you jest Hell Patrol? That was at worst a toy decision!" I can hear you chortling now from your recliner while ordering blind bags off of ebay for your shrine to Hasbro. Well look no further than Equestria girls, all of it. Specifically Brad, if the entire movie only being around Twilight wasn't enough, it expands upon the pretty princess little girl fantasy by incorporating tweens into the mix. As I mentioned a moment ago, if you like Brad, and even Twilicorn that's fine. But don't come telling me that giving Twilight every tween girls dream of having a wealthy personality free jock who drives a Camaro dance with her (who is a royal princess) and bring her to prom queen isn't exactly the definition of a contrived tween girl fantasy. Say what you will about "the show is for girls". But that can't excuse this moronic set of "creative" (and I use that word at loosely as tween girls use the word swag) ideas which have been forced upon a show that clearly never had any need for them."

1. Alright, if we're being fair here. What actually happened from what we know is pretty much that she wanted more creative control, hasbro wanted more, they conflicted. Hasbro owns the IP so they won, she jumped ship . 2. "Is where things begin to suck". How do you get this to mean "is where the character begins to suck". It just means the state of the situation begins to suck. 3. Any plot-hole can be explained away, there's always a leap or a bound you can do. Even if it was a bluff, it's a balls out retarded one. 4. So basically, by effectively saying that she has learned SO MUCH about friendship and social etiquette that she qualifies to be a princess isn't saying she's reached near-perfection? Hah, you're right. Flash is even more of a shit heel than originally presented. The problem is he isn't cool in the say... Big Mac sort of way where he's just quiet but capable. He's cool in that obnoxious SANIC HEGEHOG sort of way. Leaked footage of Flash Sentry's new video game. Yeah man, adding flavor to the show. By covering it in salt. Who's that stupid woman named Lauren Faust anyways? Not like she said anything about this. Also, if you think giving her a Gary Stu is going to make her more mature, let me present an argument. http://youtu.be/9xdbwvdX9LE?t=18m24s

So you want me to go through my past two months of search history to find all the forums, videos, and pages that I've seen these arguments on? You know what, I think I'll do just that. The title was hyperbole, I figured that'd be pretty obvious but there you go. Also, this thread was not telling you all to stop making arguments, it was a collection of arguments I've run across that I wanted to refute for the sake of discussion BY people who are indifferent, against, and for. However it seems as per standard any conflict of opinion within the brony fandom is usually resolved by calling the person with the minority opinion butthurt, a hater, and complaining that they're generalizing while subsequently making leaping assumptions about what they think. I said from the getgo that this was a small collection of arguments that I had run across, not that everyone who is pro-Brad uses these or thinks this way. "If the post isn't addressed to just anyone who likes Flash Sentry then who in the world is this thread addressed to? Sure the points that you rebutted do exist among fans, but as far as I am aware no one who makes these points makes them as arguments in a logical debate about his character. And if there is anyone who does, those people are rare and not very vocal. I see more animosity against Flash Sentry than blind devotion." People who want him in Season 4 and make use of these arguments is who this is addressed to. The main purpose being to present my experiences with the pro-Brad side and then to see what everyone else here thought. 1. Ignoring the fact that in all chance she was probably fired from the show, there's still some things you don't do. (and allow me to make an insanely overextended metaphor here) Like it or not these characters and the general plot was built by her. It's like having a skyscraper, Lauren builds the structure (plot), walls (setting), window slots (side characters), and floors (characters). The other writers put in decorations (added settings), furniture (added characters), wiring (added story arcs), window panes (side characters), and piping (secondary story arcs like the CMC getting babs seed). A skyscraper has a load limit before it will suffer structural failure. In this case Lauren said that MLP will suffer structural failure if you add romance. Just because there's new writers adding the furniture does not mean the internals are any different, if you add romance it will still potentially cause the show to fail because the show was designed not to handle romance, it was designed to avoid it. 2. I didn't say they sucked, I said there was too many of them. 3. In my opinion these were some extreme plotholes, I'm sorry but the fact that appearently she can smash the portal with a sledgehammer and the sledgehammer wont just go through the portal is so laughably broken that it can't even be fixed. 4. You're right, elevating them to the status of princess and essentially saying they're superior to all their friends and that they've become so perfect they now qualify to be a princess is what makes them a mary sue.

Nobody expects you to suddenly think Flash Sentry sucks. Just like I'm sure you don't expect me to say he's good either, it's just sharing opinions. As for if this thread causes people to be butthurt, that is none of my concern. If they get angry so be it, I will not censor myself because someone might be offended. As for 222 members meaning people are warming up to him, 222 members out of a fanbase with even on a conservative estimate about 300k-400k people, let's say 300k. That's 0.074%, sure the entire fanbase likely wasn't exposed to it but chances are the people who found that group went out of their way to look for it. The fanbase was never warming to this character, nor becoming cold to him either. The vast majority really doesn't hate or like him, most either say "I don't want him in season 4 I guess" or "I guess it would be alright if he was in season 4". No matter what you say people like you and me are a minority, and don't try to play the majority card.

Where did I say these are the only arguments running through the heads of fans? My point was that these are the ones which in my time I've run into the most. Also, this post is not addressed at people who don't hate Flash Sentry, people who are indifferent to him and hell, people who simply like him a bit but do not demand he be added to Season 4 are mostly exempt from my criticisms. As for it being venomous, sure it's "venomous". It presents a viewpoint and advocates it, in direct opposition to another viewpoint. It would be weird if there was not some rock throwing. I did not discount it on the grounds of simply "romance doesn't belong". Rather the entire basis for that argument is simply- well if you want to bring TVtropes into this let's get one from Lauren Faust's TVtropes page shall we..... Straight off of the TVtropes Lauren Faust page. "No Hugging, No Kissing: She made sure that there was to be no romance among the main characters in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, as she considers it to be a major factor in bringing down thousands of girl's shows. Any romance shown, such as the wedding episode season finale, is for side characters only." As for your skim of my post, let's clarify here. No, I'm not making any attempt to be witty, metaphors and similes are one of my personal favorite ways to convey how I feel about a topic. No, characters do not suck because they get a significant quantity episodes (Twilight being my favorite character), but rather when they get so many episodes they eclipse other ponies is where things begin to suck. As for Season 3, I did think it sucked. End to end, almost no redeeming factors, came out stumbling and walked out limping. As for EqG, I did not like the movie. Flash Sentry aside it was ripe with plotholes, bad writing, poor continuity, no believable character motivation, and bad character design. No, I don't think everyone who is pro Flash Sentry is a "whiney fanboy". I think that those who want him in because "XOXO HE SO COOT, Y WRITURS NOT PUTTING HIM IN WTF" are fanboys (or mostly fangirls here really). No, old fans aren't superior but it seems we've been a hell of a lot more exposed to Hasbro's marketing drivel and have grown tired of their profligate behaviour, and lastly. Damn straight Twilicorn sucks, turning a character into a mary sue is a bad decision, bad writing, and bad storytelling in general. "He has a cool design- You have to admit, his design is pretty wicked awesome." Not really, his pony design is basically the definition of bad OC. You've got the "TOTALLY RADICAL" haircut, the eye hurting color scheme, and the "I'M NOT SHINING ARMOR, I'M MY ORIGINAL CHARACTER, FLASH SENTRY" cutie mark. "Awesome personality- I can sense some personality in him. He's pretty much a fleshed out Shining Armor!" Now this is just flat out insulting, Shining Armor is another broski sure, and I don't care for his character. But for one, saying that a guy with about 15 minutes of screentime is more fleshed out than a character with about triple that essentially relegates you to the position of being the laughing stock OF the laughing stock. But at least Shining Armor has never really proven himself to be a tool, and sure we didn't get to see a human Shining Armor but if you're making assumptions about seeing personality in him I'll go and make a fair point that I don't think Shining Armor would be that level of tool. Flash Sentry wouldn't be out of place in Home Depot. Also, before people go "Well then how do you dislike him you just said he has no screentime, wouldn't you rather him be developed more so he can be a love interest?". No, I think making a character for the express purpose of being a love interest when in context of the main cast is absurd. "Her plays the Electric Guitar- That's enough for me to like him." You sir have bad taste in people if the fact that they play an instrument automatically levels them to your personal status of "I like them". " They are a cute couple- No seriously. They are really cute together. I really like how they both have crushes on each other but are both too shy to admit it." NON-ARGUMENT BRIGADE TO THE BATTLEFIELD, BRINGING BLANKS AND AIRSOFT GUNS TO THE FIGHT. I don't think they're cute together, you do. Your opinion, go for it, take to the skies with the power of MS paint and fufill your fanart dreams. " I'm also going to say this right now; I'm a FlashSparkle shipper :3" Go for it, none of my business. Have you found a way to make the one with jaundice somehow do something besides play football and dress like Biff from back to the future?

Ah yes, the good old fallback of "but it's just for little girls so let's not have any in depth analysis into this". I'll pretend that didn't happen and address your main argument instead. Simply put, I very much expected the "but opposites attract" argument to come out of the hangar from the getgo, and I've had my crosshairs trained ready to nail it from the moment I posted this. The problem is, the idea of opposites attract is that people are just enough that their responses to individual situations are interesting and provide two solutions to pick from, but similar enough in that they wont have a massive conflict on every decision. The problem is, they are most certainly not this. I can not name a single characteristic that they do have in common aside from happening to possess wings. Something which one of them did not have until only several months ago. In fact, I'd imagine that in any real world sense these opposites would not even marginally attract. Especially in a high school setting, I think by now it's common knowledge that those on the meaningless ladder of high school hierarchy who happen to be high on it do not interact with those who are low on it, and it's most certainly the case that broskis really can't stand intelligent or worthwhile women either (Not as easy to get into their pants, have to actually demonstrate that you're not a chode), and it also stands to reason that there's a negative correlation between intelligence and how high you are on that ladder.

The problem isn't just minding him, look if I hated this stereotypical broski simply because he is a stereotypical broski then I would have to hate Shining Armor as well. The problem is that I hate him as a love interest for Twilight, look if you want to make this intellectual incompetent sports jock who drives a fast car and is a pegasus the love interest of Rainbow Dash, you might just have a case. I'll still be against it for many of my already stated reasons, but at the very least you'll be pairing two characters which emotionally make sense to have in a romantic situation. Because at that point, what you essentially say by making the nerdy bookworm fall in love with the jock who can't spell his own name is that "It doesn't matter if you have a good personality that holds up in comparison to the other person or are capable of maintaining an understanding of world events! As long as you drive a Camaro and dress like a generic 80's high school bully then you should be fine, even if the person you're going to date is a polar opposite of you." As an individual character without him being a candidate for Twilight's love interest, I have subtle dislike for him. As a candidate for Twilight's love interest however, I venture into the realm of flat out hateful opposition (for reasons stated in the first paragraph).

What the title says, this thread will be a compilation of the various arguments, reasons, ideas, fallacies, and flat out fanboy whining that has comprised the mass of the extremely vocal "Pro Flash Sentry" fanbase. It seems to me this fanbase is largely comprised of people who either decided to begin their trek into the show around season 3, or giddy teenage girls who like him for the exact reason Hasbro wanted the tweens to. But let's not go into that, let's destroy these arguments like hasdrones destroy pictures of Lauren Faust every night. (Note that this is directed namely at the kind who support him in Season 4 and future Seasons, but is not limited to those and applies to really everyone who makes these arguments) 1. "You only hate him because you're jealous" Ah yes, it seems the most common argument comes right off the bat as strawman infested pablum straight out of the internet fangirl handbook. Look, I'll give this argument some credibility as it's not entirely devoid of merit. But this argument fails to show anything, it doesn't argue against the points made by who it replies to, and it doesn't argue for any viewpoint. 2. "What was the point of having him in the movie if they're just going to throw him away" Nothing. Things don't have to have a point, but in fact one can logically deduce lots of points of why they would do that. Simply put, throwaway characters come and go, it's like latching on to every person who says hello to you at the supermarket. If you attempt to do so you'll effectively find yourself more emotionally crippled than the writers at Kotaku. 3. "They're such a cute couple!" So? I'm sure lots of people in terms of aesthetics make cute couples. Even attempting being entirely neutral on the personality we know that this is purely subjective. Simply put, this argument is not even slightly a reason to like this character pairing, especially when this character has all the characteristics of a self-insert OC. 4. "But Flash is so cool!" Ah, an argument dispensed almost exclusively by teenage girls (Not to say that all teenage girls like this twit, or that all teenage girls are stupid). Yes, I'm sure you're 15 and you lack a comprehensive understanding of the nature of love to even a baseline degree and any man who drives a Camaro, plays guitar, and wears a jacket will win you over easier than the Sonic fanbase. But in all honesty I can say that I'd have no doubts the same teenage girls who fire this argument like a heroin junkie working at a drug clinic would be hasty to express their disdain for a movie in which a male protagonist they liked fell for some large breasted woman with the personality of a pear and the intellect of of a walrus simply because "she's cool!". 5. "The writers need new ideas to make the show interesting" Ignoring the obvious implications that the writers came up with Flash Sentry in the first place, I seriously doubt that the writers need new ideas or that they need to make a main character have a romantic interest as their only hope for salvaging the show. Look, the writers are juggling enough (and in my opinion BAD) changes as it is. Alicorn Twilight is a pile of guano they already are likely going to need to pump a 13 episode stimulus package into in order to make any sense of it all, and hell let's not forget the great characters which have been relegated to the corner in favor of making Twilight Sparkle or Rainbow Dash episode #6,739. I'm still interested in seeing where Rarity's character goes, or Applejack's, and Fluttershy and Pinkie as well. 6. "Why do you care it isn't canon anyways" This is the last ditch argument made by pro Flash Sentry people when all else fails a significant portion of the time. I personally hold some other bones which must be picked with this argument, but for now even if I assume this will never be canon. Here's why I care, I care because I support competent writing and believable character motivation. I care because I care about the guidelines set by the very woman who played a massive role in the revitalization of this franchise nearly three years ago. I care because as someone who's watched this fanbase and franchise grow since December of 2010 I want what is the best for its continued propagation. But even so, the promise that it isn't canon is a Hasbro promise. The same people who promised us Twilicorn wouldn't happen because "surprises". Do you honestly think that this is a move they wouldn't do? Of course they would do this, where there's profit there's always someone ready to take the helm and receive that profit. 7. "But Twilight can't just be lonely! She needs love!" A cartoon character does not NEED anything, they are not living entities with a need to maintain homeostasis. By that logic we should show every scene where they're presumed to be eating in order to make sure that the viewer knows they're getting proper nutrition. Even so, giving a character a pairing (especially in a show created by a woman who specifically engineered the formula to AVOID character pairings) is a delicate process. That was all the arguments I have to address right now, there are probably more I can think of but this post is already quite long and these are just the ones I've run into the most (I will still likely add more as I . If anyone wishes to level any other arguments at me I would be more than up to a response. This also happens to be my first post on these forums and I'm looking forward to the experience of putting some time in around here to see what the current community thinks, as I've always been rather distant from the fanbase.