Well, yeah, she did go on to become a professional Buckball player, in addition to being a teacher. Still just fell into her lap, though.
Yeah, in addition to being waifu material, there’s also the things that made her inherently more popular on their own, like Flutterbat, and her personalities in Fake It Till You Make It. Bottom line, she’s had the deck stacked heavily in her favor, and that’s saying something for a character who was always one of the least-appearing of the mane six up until season 9.
I said I didn’t hate her. And it’s not as though I’m scapegoating her for AJ getting less art, it’s just that it’s hard not to notice. AJ’s general unpopularity has, for years, resulted in her getting less art than the rest of the mane six, as easily evidenced by the fact that her tag is well below everyone else’s, with Twilight having upwards of 100,000 more images (hell, actually, I think it’s more like 150,000 at this point). Good AJ art occurs maybe a few times a month. For Fluttershy, Dash, Twilight, even Sunset and Starlight, it’s practically daily.