Can someone explain this to me?

Flashlight seems to be an incredibly hated ship because it pairs the adorkable Twilight Sparkle with the macho Flash Sentry.

Now I can understand not wanting to pair a nerd with a stereotypical jock, but what about the TwiDash shippers? They're doing the same thing, aren't they?

And another thing, people also hate Flash cuz he isn't very developed...well, we're fanfic writers, let's develop him!

CometSparkle's my main Twilight ship, but I REALLY feel for Flashlighters. There are some good Flashlight fics out there, but they're down voted several times cuz of the haters, it's sad.

Comments

[Darkryt Orbinautz]

Not only he is undeveloped, he's also uncharismatic. Nothing is appealing about him. He's a jock who plays guitar and is nice to girls. Okay. So What? What else? What are his goals? What he does strive for? And most importantly: why should we care?

As for TwiRainbow shippings, Rainbow Dash is a main character, who has plenty of opportunity in the main show to develop her character, go into her background, and show more insights into the way she thinks.

Also note: Rainbow Dash had more character personality and nuances revealed in the 30-minute premiere than Flash Sentry did in the hour-and-some-change movie! Same with Gilda! And Lightning Dust! And every other oneshot character! We can list off traits for Dash, Pinkie. Mrs. Cake, The Flim Flams, Chrysalis, but if we list the things we know about Flash we have "He's nice." and if we say "Yes, but what else about him?" we have "He's nice and he plays a guitar."

He's a canon love interest, which means that whatever shipping people prefer for Twilight can't happen, and people really don't like canon messin' with their ships like that. He, basically vetos an entire genre of fanfiction by merely existing as a love interest for Twilight. And he's not even developed, like Dash or Pinkie or Fluttershy! Those three, people can come up with all kinds of great romance stories about how Twilight and X work together to have a functional relationship despite how at-odds their personalities may be. Flash Sentry prevents these stories from happening and doesn't offer enough personality for a new kind of story to replace these ones that his existence destroys.

Edit: to rephrase, it's not that its pairing the jock Flash Sentry with the nerdy Twilight. Its that accepting his existence in canon prevents any Twilight shipping at all. And this fandom really, really likes its ships.