Flash Sentry and Brony Gender?

[hawkflame 3,308]

Male, and mostly indifferent here.  He was an OK character who fufilled his role in the movie but was otherwise very bland.  And that's why I don't get the hatred for him that comes out of some parts of the fandom.  Why waste so much energy hating a character that really at worst is just bland and forgettable?

[SomariFeyWright 776]

I'm male, and I'm rather indifferent to Flash Sentry. On one hand, he was a very bland and uninteresting character who didn't really play too much of a role in the story or get much of a personality. He was forced, through and through.

 

... But on the other hand, he's a harmless character. He did nothing to hinder the plot any, and had the POTENTIAL to work. He was nice, considerate, and supposedly saw through Sunset Shimmer and her cruelty, at least after a while. He wasn't despicable or even a "bad boy" which is something I appreciated greatly.

 

He was a bland character, but he was by no means a bad one. If he came back in the future, I wouldn't complain.

[Dolphanatic 298]

To be fair, the only people who really hate him are bronies who have a hard time accepting Twilight is not a fillyfooler.

No! I do not think Twilight is a lesbian! I hate it when people treat their lame slash pairings as headcanon! Get over it, shippers! Your sappy fanfics do not qualify as official canon!

 

Idiotic fanon aside, I'm honestly not totally against adding romantic interests to the show, even if it involves Twilight. But Flash Sentry? I don't have any reason to like him. His very existence in Equestria Girls was to be that "cute guy". And while I'm thankful that the stereotypical high school romance didn't take over the movie, that also meant that any character development Flash could have had was reduced a handful of instances in which they bumped into each other, which served no purpose in progressing the storyline, making him a useless character.

 

There were only two instances in which the writers attempted to incorporate him into the main storyline. Neither of these were convincing. In the first instance, Twilight got sent to the principal's office because apparently everyone in the movie was too stupid to realize that the "evidence" was nothing more than a bunch of random photos that were cut out with scissors. Anybody could have realized that this was a fraud. As a result, I wasn't convinced that Flash Sentry was the only one who could have figured that out. Instead it just made everybody else look dumber rather than making Flash look smarter. The only other instance in which Flash was involved in the main storyline was the dance which served no purpose except to be a critical point in Sunset Shimmer's idiotic scheme. There was no reason why Sunset had to wait until the night of the dance to unleash "crown"'s power. If she had any sense knocked into her, she would've transformed herself the moment she obtained the "crown".

 

Then there were moments where the writers didn't even try to develop Flash's character. For example, there was one brief mentioning of Flash Sentry being Sunset Shimmer's ex. There was no reason for this to be brought up at all, and as a result, it was never brought up again. Come on, writers! You're better than that! If you want to develop a character's personality and backstory, you do it through giving us opportunities to see how he or she handles a given situation related to the storyline. Flash Sentry had little to none of this. Almost all of his screentime was wasted with pointless, irrelevant subplots that often revolved around boring, forgettable clichés that you'd expect in any high school chick flick.

 

One of the best things about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is that it's an adventure. You can't always be sure about what's going to happen next. Oftentimes the show takes what would normally be a boring, predictable storyline and turns it into something else. A lot of the the fandom's favorite episodes (such as Mare in the Moon, Winter Wrap Up, Green Isn't Your Color, Lesson Zero, and A Canterlot Wedding, to name a few) are all great examples of this. They turn an otherwise bland, cliché synopsis into something new and refreshing. The biggest problem with Flash Sentry, Sunset Shimmer, and the rest of Equestria Girls in general is that there's hardly any originality or noticeable effort to make it substantial and memorable. As a result, we're left with nothing but a mess of predictable clichés and forgettable characters that simply doesn't hold a candle to the show's roots.

 

If Flash Sentry (or any other pointless and unrelatable character) were to become canon, that character's existence would be out of place as it would go against many of the things that make Friendship is Magic a great show.

 

Not to mention, it would be extremely awkward having a character from outside the TV series become canon. Their only alternative to a mindless, nonsensical retcon would be to awkwardly reintroduce him or her despite that character's debut most likely becoming established canon as a result (which would be a big upset for me, as I would much rather acknowledge Equestria Girls as a non-canon spinoff due to the reasons I stated earlier).

 

Like I've said before, I'm not against having romance in the series, as we already have a good amount of it with Spike and Rarity, Macintosh and Cheerilee, and obviously Shining Armor and Cadance. The problem I have with Flash Sentry is that there's no reason for his existence other than to introduce even more romance, with we already have plenty of. We don't need another romantic interest, especially when there's no plausible way to introduce him without messing so many things up. Besides, we're still trying to adjust to another radical change that took place not even one season ago (I'm looking at you, Twilicorn   ). Throwing in another giant game changer this soon would be overkill. If it ain't broke, it don't need fixing.

[Nerdy Luigi 2,064]

My "gender" is really a complicated concept. But I'd really say bigender.

I answered as my sex: male. I dislike Flash Sentry greatly. I never liked shipping. Particularly by Hasbro with MY FAVORITE PONY!

Really, don't try to add that, it's pointless. "Bigender and like/(dislike) Flash Sentry" really would confuse people on the definition of a conceived gender. I'm saddened that the mistake is even made on official documents. But it's really okay, I don't take offense on that. Im just saying that you made a mistake, that many make. Just trying to make my statement as accurate as it can be, and really really bizarre people (NOPE! We are just normal people) that fit in a combination of both or neither gender.

Edited January 22, 2014 by Twilight Sniper

[Magpie 621]

Male and not a fan, although I don't see how they're related. He doesn't have a personality, he's just "generic cool guy."

Edited January 23, 2014 by Brosparkles

[Singe 2,109]

An in-depth character like Twilight doesn't need to be with a one-sided character like Flash.

 

I've never been a fan of integrating a side romance as part of the main story plot, unless the main theme of the story is actually romance.

Edited January 23, 2014 by Singe

[RockinRarity 1,605]

My "gender" is really a complicated concept. But I'd really say bigender.

I answered as my sex: male. I dislike Flash Sentry greatly. I never liked shipping. Particularly by Hasbro with MY FAVORITE PONY!

Really, don't try to add that, it's pointless. "Bigender and like/(dislike) Flash Sentry" really would confuse people on the definition of a conceived gender. I'm saddened that the mistake is even made on official documents. But it's really okay, I don't take offense on that. Im just saying that you made a mistake, that many make. Just trying to make my statement as accurate as it can be, and really really bizarre people (NOPE! We are just normal people) that fit in a combination of both or neither gender.

To be fair, having a "bigender" or androgenous while not a bad idea would probably not have very many results, and I think that having any bigender or transgender answers would still need to be separated by sex. It didn't occur to me to add anything like that to the poll because I actually have never really heard of bigender - usually even androgenous people lean a little one way, and transgender people would probably pick the gender that doesn't match the sex they were born with. There was also a None of the Above choice, which until now I couldn't think of what other choices there could be, but decided to have that option there in case I was missing something.

 

Point is that I wanted to keep the poll as simple and easy to answer as possible. Having 3 more answers per nontraditional gender would take up a lot of space. Upon making this poll I wasn't really looking for answers to specific gender groups as, like I said, even transgendered people would probably gravitate towards one gender over another.

 

My knowledge/understanding of trans/bigender is extremely limited so I do apologize if it wasn't easy for you to pick a result. But at the end of the day it is just a poll about a cartoon horse and I think the way you answered will give me the results I am looking for. Thanks for taking part.

Male and not a fan, although I don't see how they're related. He doesn't have a personality, he's just "generic cool guy."

My goal here is to try and see if more women gravitate toward liking Flash Sentry than men do.

 

I have tons of male votes, which is fantastic. But the lack of female votes makes this poll a tad bit inconclusive.

 

If any of you know any ladies on the forum... point them this direction... thanks