Saturday Nov 23rd/Part 8 Chapter One Up! (Unmarked Spoilers) · 11:47am Nov 21st, 2020
Part eight is up! This is the final part of Chapter One, so we'll be moving on to Chapter Two next Saturday.
I will be honest. When they were first introduced, I did not like Flash Sentry nor Timber Spruce. Both characters were created to be a pointless love interest, and I don't like forced love interests in my fiction, especially not ones created to force a heterosexual relationship, when FIM is rife with chemistry for lesbian relationships. Relationships only work when the people involved have chemistry. The more they're able to be friends, the better they are as lovers.
Flash Sentry eventually grew on me, though, because he was never a bad guy. He was just there, supportive, kind of silly and dumb, but never a jerk, not when he was in his right mind at least. He finally endeared himself to me in Legend of Everfree when he "cool story bro"'d himself while trying to talk to Twilight, and I've liked him ever since.
Timber, however... no. He was skeevy with the way he acted towards Twilight in that movie. I know he's supposed to be the same age as them, not actually older, but when I first watched the movie, I didn't know that. What I saw was some guy who was twenty-one or something hitting on a seventeen year old, using his position of authority to bully her into being interested. The fact that Twilight fell for his "charms" was the result of bad storytelling. And he was full of himself, and just... I never liked him. I still don't. I can tolerate his existence, because he's a canonical character, but it's my belief that he and Twilight stopped dating not long after she graduated high school, and they just stayed friends after that.
So I will freely admit that, as soon as I decided he'd be in the story, he'd have to be the first blackened. Like the first victim, someone has to do it. It helped that my husband put the image of his execution into my head from the get-go and the thought was too hilarious, in a very dark way, to not implement. He likes Timber even less than I do. Timber gives off too many vibes similar to Leon Kuwata not to be the first blackened. It's no surprise just about all of you guessed him. 
And speaking of chemistry, yes, Sunset and Adagio. I didn't originally intend to do this when I planned out the story, but as with a lot of writing, characters take on a life of their own. They do things you don't expect. This was one of them. I wanted Adagio to become friends with Sunset, as part of her character arc I plan through this story, but Adagio had other intentions. And it works even better for what I intend for the future, so I went with it. Don't expect this relationship to be easy for them. It won't be.
Honestly, my feelings for Timber are exactly opposite for my feelings for Flash.
Unlike many others, when Flash was first introduced I loved him immediately. He was a very nice guy and I loved his “relationship” with Twilight. I wanted to get more of him and we did slowly get that as the movies continued. I honestly don’t mind which version of Flash gets with which version of Twilight, since I found them that cute together.
Timber however, it was hate at first sight for me. I hated that he was introduced and was stealing all of Flash’s thunder. I thought it made no sense for why Sci-Twi would fall for him, or why all the Rainbooms would like him when he did nothing to earn their respect. I know that it was tweeted he was the same age as the students, if only one or two years older, but I don’t believe that at all since he is apparently running the camp himself with his sister, which is a grown up’s job. He is really just a creep and an asshole who prioritized flirting with an underaged client instead of getting his sister some mental help.
He also caused some of the events of the film when you think about it. He lied to the campers to cover for his sister, which let her run wild with magic, causing more problems and slowly getting more corrupted on their power. If he really wanted to help he should have tried to keep her away from the geodes, or tried to destroy them. But he took the laziest approach ever, and then has the nerve to act like he saved everyone.
I guess all I can say is thanks for getting rid of him first. I will not miss him. He was actually at the top of my list for characters I hope don’t survive.
I am a bit surprised by Adagio and Sunset’s new relationship. Unlike most of the fandom I am not big on same-sex couples. I hold absolutely nothing against them, and there are a few exceptions that I completely enjoy, but most of the time they just aren’t my personal preference. Maybe it is because most of the time it feels like people just put two people of the same sex together for the sake of having a same sex couple. But I’m still interested in seeing how this works out in your story.
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Sounds like we have pretty similar feelings regarding Flash and Timber for the most part. Trust me, I was very happy to get rid of Timber. Is it a bit cruel to get rid of a character I dislike first? Maybe. But was it fun? You better believe it.
Regarding same-sex relationships in general, the thing with them being so prevalent in this fandom (apart from the fact that almost all of the characters with any actual character development are female, and most of the male ones are either related to or far too young for the other characters) has to do with what I addressed above: chemistry. My husband and I became friends long before we became lovers, and our relationship is all the better for it. Being friends with your lover is not only good, I'd argue it's necessary to be able to have long-lasting relationship. There's so much good friendship in this show and so much good chemistry between characters it's very easy to ship so many of them.
I will also be honest and admit that, as a woman who likes other women and has dated many in the past, I wanted at least one lesbian relationship in my story. So there is some author appeal going on with my inclusion, even though this particular ship wasn't my original plan. I'll detail what was in another blog post.