Cozy Glow: (with scratches and bruises all over her small filly body after being defeated once again) Come on. I was just kidding. (two unicorn guards pick her up with their magic) Come on. You guys knew that, didn’t you? (is thrown into the back of an armored police vehicle) With the helmets and the robots and the statues and the wedding-crashing assault. Wasn’t that hilarious, everypony? (vehicle drives away) I WILL DESTROY ALL OF YOOOOUUUU!!! (voice fades)

Flash Sentry and Twilight Sparkle getting married. There’s drama in the comments… about creationism. I love this place.

@Background Pony #9048  
It’s not. No one is discussing the content of creationism or of atheistic materialism here. Those positions are merely an adornment to a conversation about discussion itself, more or less.

Why is this a creationism thread on a flashlight image?

@Poptard  
I take it back man, you’re not so nice after all. :P
 
It’s true that most of the people pictured there evidenced a slightly cringe-inducing lack of information, a poor grasp of English, or stated something that was basically irrelevant, but I think I saw at least one or two who had a somewhat reasonable question, even if they were worded poorly.
 
The thing is, ignorance is common to everyone in some measure. I’m not at all fond of picking on an entire belief system because some of its adherents lack a high level of education. Every election season, they do this. Round up some random pedestrians and ask them political questions, and you can get some pretty nutty answers. Then those answers are used to make an entire party appear absurd.
 
At any rate, I will agree that ignorance is not as aggravating as blind stubbornness, and leave it at that.

@Millennial Dan  
Yeah, I meant these creationists when I meant creationists. Apart from people like that, no one’s opinion is necessarily better than another’s, so keeping that in mind goes a long way towards getting people to agree with you.

@Poptard  
I hope you realize that Creationism is a broad blanket that covers a wide variety of ideas, and is not limited to only the young-earth view, which is what I assume you’re disparaging here.
 
I would say you’d be surprised how mulish people can be over stuff, even where something as trivial as a guy pal for Twilight is concerned, but surely you must have seen it by now for yourself.

@Millennial Dan
 
Ahh, the devolution into accusing the other side of ‘babble’. There there. You can keep telling yourself that the same flaws that a bunch of people point out is just some guy on the internet trying to impose his opinions on you.
 
It won’t make Flash into an actual character, though.

@Millennial Dan  
I like giving serious answers for silly questions and silly answers for serious questions. Like when a friend came to me to for advice about picking between two guys to date, I started beatboxing and moonwalked out the door (she ended up picking neither).
 
I used creationists as an example, as even though they’re ridiculed and on the defensive, writing off undeniable facts that disprove their beliefs is simply stupidity, and they deserve a solid palm-thump to the back of the head so they stop being so dense. I’m hoping that most anti-shippers aren’t creationist levels of zealotry towards accepting anyhitng that makes Flashlight more acceptable in their eyes.

@Poptard  
That was basically a joke.
 
You and I differ in our style of delivery, but I agree with you that a yelling match accomplishes little. However, when people start to get downright obnoxious, my bluntness button is officially pressed.
 
On the side, what’s the deal with taking a potshot at creationists, anyway? Totally unrelated.

@Millennial Dan  
Yelling at people, no matter what for, will always get them on the defensive and closely guard whatever beliefs are in question. Usually (but not always, like most creationists), only cold facts can convince them to change their mind at this point, which is impossible for subjective topics like shipping.
 
The best way to handle things like this is to remain polite so yelling and name-calling and stuff that gets people defensive become unwarranted, and perhaps vitriol and revulsion give way to at least acceptance, which is always better than before. We’re all guys sitting about talking about the logic of a purple pastel pony smooching an orange pastel pony, so nobody ought to get worked up about this for srs bsnss.

@Lathius
 
Statements like that, judging general ideas by the worst subject material, easily apply to whatever ship you don’t like. I can find plenty of Scratchtavia, Appledash, Twilestia, Soarindash, or whatever other bad ship fics you can think of. Believe me,there are a lot of bad shipfics about good pairings out there.
 
Also, seems like you’re cherry-picking. I can do that too.

@Poptard  
And you! Why do you have to be so dang nice about it?!

@Lathius  
No, I wouldn’t say it was a good series at all, but I sure wouldn’t be arrogant enough to tell other people they didn’t really like what they liked for what it is. So what if people like Twilight? I think it’s a terrible story, but it’s not a crime to have differing tastes.
 
And don’t be a goon, you can’t even compare FlashLight to the Twilight novels. Flash and Twilight have done almost nothing except meet, say a few words to each other, and dance. It’s barely a little crush between them, and you guys act like it’s supposed to be a full-blown romance already.

@Lathius
 
Romance was so far from the point of EQG that only a sex-starved maniac would make a big deal out of it.

@Millennial Dan  
“Your ideas about what makes a decent romantic interest” You know people enjoy Twilight the book series right? Have you read it? Would you claim it is a good romantic series?  
You see people use comparisons to determine quality
 
Funnily enough even the Twilight book series is a better romance then FlashLight though hahaha.  
In FlashLight both in the movie and fanworks there is never any conflict, the characters don’t learn anything about themselves or their romantic interest, and their romantic interest comes completely out of nowhere, it is so stale, uninspiring, fake.

@Dale  
Well, if that’s your opinion, that’s your opinion. I’m actually glad you’re explaining it plainly and logically rather than generic hate. The only thing I take issue with is that you’ve viewing FlashLight shippers as a hive mind with one clear consensus why they ship what they ship. Like, some people vote Republican because they believe in more fiscally-oriented government agenda, a tougher foreign policy, and more tax cuts to promote business, and some people are rabid racists who don’t want a black president or gay people to kiss. Many people ship FlashLight for different reasons; the homophobic guys looking for a straight pairing are definitely existent, but more shippers are those who think it’s adorable or want to use the potential offered by a character in Flash’s position. Although I give one point of concession to the homophobes: Hasbro was the kind who wiped Derpy from existence for 2 years over a handful of upset parents, so there’s no chance anytime soon that a main character will be in a gay relationship. As they might shove in your face, this is going to be the closest thing to a canon romance for a long time.
 
Those are all valid points, and usually something most FlashLighters consider as well. It’s rare that you find a FlashLighter who refutes that Flash Sentry lacks in characterization and is perfect just the way he is. The shippers explain that as the simple fact that Flash was created for a movie running 70 minutes that he wasn’t even a main character in, and getting a good introduction was an SOL premise. What makes us shippers is that we’re interested in exploring the potential offered: Twilight showed a crush on another pony and it’ll be nice seeing her start a relationship, this guy seemed like a gentleman and was in the royal guard and there’s surely more we haven’t seen, or how adorable they’d look when cuddling. You’re right in that we’re projecting a little on the guy, but isn’t that the basis of all fanon and fanfics for all the background ponies? Why is that inherently bad?
 
However, we’re not crazy (most of us, anyway). We keep it mostly to oursevles and try to improve it. Like you, we acknowledge that suddenly including him next season and be smooch-smoochy would be a terrible idea. If he (or any other love interest) come on the show, he’s going to need more build up and development appropriate for a late-comer with a huge impact, probably with actually getting together for the final few episodes of a season. For now, we’re content keeping it as harmless fanon just shared with our pictures and stories. Unless if you’re the kind of person who’s offended by this ship’s mere existence, you shouldn’t do more than shake your head and move onto the next picture.
 
tl;dr We’re mostly harmless. Mostly.

@Dale  
What are you babbling about? This has nothing to do with your ideas about what makes a character a decent romantic, or even semi-romantic interest. As I said before, what makes you a jerk is your presuming to declare what OTHER people’s criteria for that are.
 
In short, get over yourself.

@Tythen
 
Now where do you get the idea that I don’t like straight shipping? I just think Flash is so much of a nonentity that I can’t see a reason for anyone to be a ‘fan’ of the ship except a) they were desperate for a straight ship, or b) they’ve projected a bunch of stuff onto Flash and become a fan of that.
 
There’s nothing there to be a fan of, but some people were fans immediately, way before anyone had any chance to start building the fanon that surrounds other background ponies. That looks suspicious to me, especially when I keep seeing ‘not another gay ship’ comments on fimfiction. Those people do exist, man.
 
@Millennial Dan
 
No, it wouldn’t, because Flash is a nonentity. If their genders were reversed, Flash would actually fit to a ‘T’ the most common traditional complaint about female leads–being a trophy for the main character with no actual characterization, and no motivations or desires of his own.
 
They need to take actual time up front to give him episodes that establish an actual personality with actual motivations in his own right if they’re going to use him in the future. I don’t care if it’s a he or a she–a romantic interest for a long-running lead character needs way more work than they put into Flash. If Twilight started making eyes at Octavia in the next episode, it would be just as bad, in the exact same way.

@Background Pony #5384  
Oh I can :3

@Tythen
 
My mistake. The “twisted, immoral, and unholy” part made me think that you WERE one of those people. I apologize.

@Jarkes  
Call me homophobic if you want, but I’ve got nothing wrong with homosexual people and I do respect them, I have homosexual friends in real life. But if someone starts to throw in an offence to about heterosexuality or any hint about it like Dale did, then you know what happens.

@Tythen
 
Oh, look, a homophobe.

@Dale  
Remember that this show does not endorse or support any non-straight shipping. If you think straight shipping in this show is bad, then you’ve completely lost it. You clearly know that un-straight shipping is worse. It is immoral, twisted and unholy (you heard me, unholy).

What it comes down to is Flash can make Twilight happy; you, the viewer, can’t. Let Twilight be happy and be happy for her please. Good night.