One thing I think many fans can agree on is that FlashLight and TimberLight are two of the most controversial ships in the fandom. Some fans think they're adorable and have cute chemistry. Others think Twilight's crushes on them are forced and they have little to no personality.

With that mind, suppose Twilight did end up in a solid relationship with a stallion (or mare), what do you think she would like in terms of personality, looks and interests?

I am torn between Sunlight and Flashlight!!! Sunlight because Twilight helped Sunset Shimmer and Flashlight because Flash Sentry seemed to be lost without pony Twilight. But I don't know which is better? Help me!!! I can't decide!!!

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Twilight first and foremost needs somepony intelligent, but luckily there are a lot of smart characters in the show.

Now, first off my personal OTP is TwiShining. I know, I know, incest is gross and he's taken, but come on, that BBFF song is SO SAD. Leaving that alone as an impossible, forbidden love, and taking for granted my headcanon is Twi is a Kinsey 2, who'd prefer a stallion but is open minded:

Sunburst: He's an adorable nerd! Just like her! They'd just sit there with their books and NERD OUT FOREVER! Plus it would piss Glimmy off, which would make a good story.
Pinkie: The second smartest of the mane 6, and a good foil for Twi's over-serious nature.
Discord: A jerk, but a fun jerk. Also, super uper duper smart.
Older Spike: He's currently too young, but he's only, what, 7-10 years younger than Twi, which stops being a big deal really fast as the decades mount. And they're both immortal, or nearly so. If they're still single when Twi's 40, or when all the other love interests die off, I can see them having a very companionable, very long-lasting love.
Dashie: Not smart. Arguably the stupidest of the mane 6. But opposites attract, right? And they share common tastes in fiction.

There are a lot of other plausibles I'm leaving out (Tia, Glimmy, Luna, Trixie) for the simple reason that I like those best.

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One thing to remember is that Princess Twilight and Sci-Twi are distinctly different individuals, and this probably includes both their attitude toward love, and with whom in particular they are likely to fall in love.

Princess Twilight has been raised as a dominant member of the gentry: even before she was a national heroine or Alicorn Princess, she was Princess Celestia's special student. This meant that other members of the gentry and even nobility saw her as somepony of fairly high status.

To Pony Twilight Sparkle, the question was never "Will others accept me?" because others did accept her and desire her presence from fillyhood. The questions were "Can I live up to the high potential everypony sees in me?" and "Can I trust professions of friendship toward me, when others may simply be trying to use me to get closer to Celestia?"

In terms of romance, Pony Twilight would have had no problem finding stallions who were interested in her. Her problem would have been making sure that they were interested in her for herself, rather than for her status. And this problem would have gotten worse the more famous and successful she became.

Princess Twilight seems to have "solved" the problem, essentially, by showing no interest in romance with other Ponies. She's an Alicorn, possibly immortal or at least longer-lived than a mere Unicorn; she's only 25 by my count and probably younger by the Show's: she is under very liittle pressure to get married any time soon.

In the Shadow Wars Story Verse, mares Cycle for 3 days out of 21, and usually take Suppressors to mask and partially shut down their Cycle unless they are married and attempting to conceive foals. The homonal pressure on-Cycle is present but bearable: Pony Twilight has had her Cycles for more than half her life now, and is used to it as a recurrent annoyance, much as Human women are menstruation.

It is significant that the only time we see Princess Twilight display what looks like potentially-serious interest in making love with anyone, it's with Human Flash Sentry. And it happens when Princess Twilight is in Human form, and subject to Human always-on sexuality. And when she's Pony again, she shows little interest in pursuing this attraction, even though she has free access to the Humanoid world.

Emotionally, Princess Twilight would probably like to have a mate; socially, she comes of a highly-respectable family and probably envisions this mating as being within a marriage. (This is certainly true in the SWSV, in which the Realm of Equestria is on average a more sexually-moral culture than is the North Amareican Federation). But Princess Twilight is a highly-disciplined Pony, with a strong sense of honor, and is perfectly-capable of sexual self-denial given that she is currently in love with no stallion.

She's probably a virgin. She's also probably a bit old to be a virgin, even in my Realm of Equestria, but neither she nor anypony else would perceive this as a particular problem, given her extremely high status and excellent health, which mean that she has plenty of time to find a stallion, get married and have children.

She is certainly not socially lonely. She has Spike, and her herd of Companions, and Pony friendships can be very emotionally-intense (I think she's closest in that regard to Applejack, who is something of a Kindred Spirit to Twilight emotionally, in that both of them are honor-driven mares with a tendency to get lost in their work).

Sci-Twi is different.

Humanoid Twilight Sparkle was born to her world's equivalent of "gentry" (upper middle-class or higher, which is obvious from her school and her ready access to expensive equipment). But she was never seen by her peers as a specially-high status person: the evidence is that her social awkwardness led to her being essentially friendless, and not by choice.

Sci-Twi is younger than Princess Twilight Sparkle. She seems to be around 17 when we first meet her: given her intelligence, she might be even younger than that (having been advanced one or several grades). She is notably a small and as far as we can tell through the stylized animation, a slim girl -- both wouuld be consistent with her actually being around 15-16 instead of 17-18.

Sci-Twi seems to have been shunned as something of a weirdo intellectual, even in an environment like Crystal Prep (which by its nature would have no shortage of extremely strange upper-to-upper-middle-class people). In Friendship Games some of the Shadowbolts actually try to make friends with her, but she doesn't seem to know how to respond to it.

She's almost certainly a virgin, and one who hasn't even had a boyfriend, before she meets Timber Spruce. She may or may not have had sex with Timber Spruce: my guess is 'probably not, unless this turns out to be a long-term affair.'

On the one hand, Sci-Twi grew up in what is in the SWSV a less prudish society than the Realm of Equestria. On the other hand, the North Amareican Federation is a more prudish society than is the modern United States of America. Sci-Twi is also under the effects of Humanoid always-on sexuality: unlike Princess Twilight, however, this is her normal condition, so she would have developed the normal Humanoid female techniques of self-control (such as far greater physical reticence and modesty than Pony mares display) to avoid sexual exploitation.

The interesting thing is that Sci-Twi is entirely indifferent to, or even slightly creeped out by, Flash Sentry; in the Show she only displays sexual attraction to Timber Spruce. This is despite the fact that Flash actually seems to be more similar to Sci-Twi in terms of skill sets than is Timber, and tries to treat her with the same kindness he showed Princess Twilight (at first, because he thinks she is Princess Twilight.

There are two obvious possible reasons here, both of which may be true.

The first is that Flash's mistaken assumption that Sci-Twi is Princess Twilight leads him to treat her with greater familiarity upon first meeting her than he did Princess Twilight. What's more, while Princess Twilight's sexual defensiveness would probably be triggered mostly when in Cycle, Sci-Twi has grown up aware that males might want to have sex with her month-round, and that consequently she must maintain reserve with them at all times. So Sci-Twi would be more put off by an unwarranted assumption of familiarity.

(The reason why females must show self-defensive sexual reserve with males is identical between Ponies and Humans. Their offspring both have long gestation times and childhoods: consequently, the female must attract a true mate rather than merely a sperm donor in order to enjoy reproductive success).

The second reason is that Sci-Twi may very well have a stronger natural libido than Princess Twilight. This may be a personal, cultural or biological thing: in any case, the effect is that Sci-Twi is more readily drawn to more 'masculine' males than is Princess Twilight.

We've discussed personal and biological reasons. Let's get into cultural ones.

Equestria is a matriarchal society headed by a strong, intelligent and immortal female autocrat. Hence, there is a steady cultural pressure for its ideals to conform to those favorable to females in the long-term. In particular, its ideal for masculine sexuality would be a virile but honorable male willing to show affection and caring toward his beloved.

In contrast, the Humanoid culture (in the SWSV the North Amareican Federation) is more male-dominated. While the female ideal of masculine sexuality would have some influence, it would compete with the male ideal of a stronger, more brutal and dominant, and less affectionate and caring indvidual.

It does not escape my attention that Humanoid Flash Sentry is closer to the Equestrian and Timber Spruce the NAF masculine ideals. Flash Sentry is a dreamy poet and singer: Timber is a muscular outdoorsman.

We even have some confirmation of this in-story. Flash Sentry is known to have been beloved by two characters: Sunset Shimmer and Princess Twilight Sparkle.

Both of whom are, in fact, Equestrian Unicorn gentlemares.

(In the SWSV this correspondence is even stronger, because before Sunset, SWSV Flash dated Lyra Heartstrings, whose consciousness was switched in childhood with that of Pony Lyra -- so the entity inhabiting Humanoid Lyra's body is also that of an Equestrian gentlemare).

The interesting thing about this is that Flash also seems attracted to Equestrian Unicorn gentlemares as a "type" -- even though he doesn't really grasp what it is to which he is attracted.

In any case, it's important to remember that Princess Twilight and Sci-Twi are two different people, even if they are facts of some greater whole (in the SWSV, they are both Avatars of Magic). And as different women, they may well be attracted to different men, and respond to this attraction in different ways.

It comes with being different people.

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Dashie: Not smart. Arguably the stupidest of the mane 6.

Excuse you?

Testing... testing... 1, 2, 3 shows she's got a photographic memory and can multitask while in mid-flight, something Twilight herself has trouble doing.

RD may not be a super genius, but she is NOT. STUPID.

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Fine. Fine. LEAST CONVENTIONALLY INTELLIGENT.

I think a stallion with a kind personality should be the perfect fit for her, to me.

I like twilight and sunset, twilight and big mac, twilight and blood blue [where blood blue is not a jerk]

5969365 To be fair, I do sort of agree with you in that I think RD plays a sort of game of chicken with how long she can go before she has to think hard about something. As if there's a record to be beaten or something.

But, well, you don't play with turbulence unless you're up for some pretty gritty S C I E N C E. And weather and flying at the level she does kinda implies that, photographic memory aside. Or maybe magic. Who knows. I'm no magical pony, I sure don't.

I do know turbulence tho. It's actually one of the few mechanical phenomenon we don't understand still! Being based on random behaviour will d that.

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Express support for an incest ship? No problem. Question a pony's intelligence? Everybody loses their minds!

I approve, actually. I should have said "least intelligent". Rainbow is not reflective, or wise, but is in no way stupid. I only meant relative to the Mane 6. Who are generally a fairly sharp crew.