@Scrounge  
Pretty much. It’s hard-coded into his being, and any opportunity there was to make him a real character was instead used to further these clichés.

@Background Pony #54C4  
He does have a history with Sunset that gets brought up once per movie and then ignored. Which says it all, really, he’s the way he is on purpose.

@Background Pony #12A2  
Not exactly. The background and supporting characters of MLP can carry stories, heck, entire adventures on their own. They are colorful, spirited, and fascinating characters. Applebloom doesn’t need Applejack to be interesting, she’s interesting on her own. Derpy doesn’t need Rainbow Dash to be fun - heck, she was entertaining just for appearing.
 
Flash doesn’t have this though. His reality begins and ends at his interactions Twilight, as I said before. He lacks autonomy, and is incapable of carrying a story himself. This isn’t from a lack of character development; he has character, it’s just that character has nothing to offer or promise other than the shallow prospect of Twilight having a boyfriend.

@thps48  
I’d argue that Spike is in an uneasy middle ground between secondary character and main character, which at least partly accounts for some of the arguments and mud-slinging that goes on in the fandom over his depictions (or lack thereof). And Zecora, since the fourth season, has slipped into a supporting character role; I’d say the CMC and Granny Smith are better examples of secondary characters.
 
@Background Pony #54C4  
That’s pretty much the definition of a background or a supporting character: they’re defined by interactions with main or secondary characters. And if Dreamy Cutebottom is given scenes of his own to try to develop his character, most of his critics will fly into a rage over wasting screen time on a hopeless character. (I’d be willing to give him a chance, but I’m not optimistic; Hasbro has too strong an incentive to keep him bland and generic.)

@Background Pony #54C4  
I don’t disagree. The thing Whozits said where they should give Flash MPD for no reason I doubt will redeem his character at all, lol.
 
I will not stop suggesting he have a temporary death. Should upgrade him to “bad” from “terrible”. Any improvement at this point will probably be an achievement, sad to say. XD

@thps48  
It’s not just that, but it’s also how painfully Flash fills his role as a supporting character. Most background ponies are more memorable than Flash, who is only memorable because of his interactions with Twilight Sparkle. After one movie, he’s cemented into this personality enough that it’d be hard for him to break away from.

@Background Pony #50AD  
Incidentally, had Flash Sentry not said a word in the first Equestria Girls movie, it would have actually helped him as a character. He has just enough characterization to do him harm.

@Background Pony #50AD  
A background character and a supporting character are two different roles. There’s nothing that can prove Flash isn’t a supporting character. That’s just the definition of the term. What makes his character not very well received is how that supporting role amounts to about five minutes of actual worth.
 
Coincidentally, there are also secondary characters and/or guest characters. They’re names and actors are more noticeable in credits and documents and have more presence. Spike and Zecora are secondary characters. Celestia and Luna are supporting characters.
 
A publicist could explain it better and give better reasons why. Plus, if there’s definitive evidence against my claims on roles and credits, I’ll accept them. I’m just stating what I’ve observed. :3

@Background Pony #50AD
 
The writing staff literally consider them along the lines of “incidental pony #3” and the animators have open season on whatever they are depicted, so any characterization you assign them is extremely tenuous at best.

@thps48  
so background characters arent characters?

@thps48  
I should’ve said Principal Star. Eh, whatever. X3

@OptimusPrimevil  
Not really, because Twilight’s potential wasn’t crippled from the starting gate. While said potential is not as vast as it once was (what with her being a princess, thus eliminating the wonder of ‘what might be’), it’s still greater than that of Flash, even if they do actually manage to ‘rescue’ him, for the sole fact that her role is still a broad and expansive one, and her character is still three dimensional and well-constructed, as compared to Flash’s two dimensional cardboard cutout personality.
 
 
@Background Pony #12A2  
And that is? (Incidentally it was your post I was trying to reply to with that last one - how I ended up responding to my own post I will never know… )

@Background Pony #54C4  
Yep, I think I’ve read enough to answer any other questions I may have had; thanks.

@Background Pony #54C4  
you’re giving twilight(hasbro) a chance but flash is unredeemable thanks to the first movie? isn’t that bias?

@Background Pony #54C4  
Normally, I would like to say no, but sometimes Twilight does seem to lose elements that make her unique and lovable as a character in favor of trying to make her more princess-ish, something I hope Hasbro realizes and corrects before it goes too far to recover from. Still, Twilight began with a lot of potential as a character who was a stand-in for the audience, with room to learn and grow. Flash doesn’t have that. He began with one purpose and one purpose only, and it was hammered so painfully in the first movie that he is restricted by it.

@CaptainGrumpy  
Oh, good, I was wanting to go back to the Batman stuff to be perfectly honest. X3
 
“You don’t get to bring your waifu.”  
“She’s not my waifu.”  
“She was trying to grab your prize. She works for the mercenary. The Masked Nightmare.”  
“Star?”

@Background Pony #12A2  

 
She’s a big princess

@Background Pony #54C4  
So, for you, this is Twilight Sparkle.

@thps48  
For all intents and purposes, both Flashes are the same character. It’s as a wise man once said; if pony Flash’s personality was any different from human Flash’s, he’d be out of character. Them switching places would, at most, offer a life difference neither was used to, but both would likely adjust as easily as Twilight did to the human world.

@OptimusPrimevil  
It ought to be incredibly obvious. Both switch worlds without their knowledges. Pony Flash awakens via strange advanced technology and Sunset gets a call from his parents asking her to help, the reasons for why they would are probably various, but I don’t feel like listing them, lol. Human-horse Flash awakens in the Crystal barracks and Cadance and/or Shining are getting trodden on trying to calm him down.
 
Both are susceptible to meme faces, falling down trying to stand, etc., and when I think of it, this concept will be rather long and requires a FiM episode which they might call a Special and give it a unique title card. Sort of like a Danny Phantom or FOP episode with their own unique title cards, but its length I imagine being a regular 22 minutes.
 
They can if they want because the phrase “Don’t Belieber her lies” is a direct result of including Flash in Three’s Company… Three’s a Crowd. One of those. Some joke about Mr. Roper. X3
 
Their stance on keeping FiM and EG separate never carried any weight for me, not at all because of Three’s a Compa-Crowd, but because Twilight in EG is the same damn Twilight in FiM. They already failed to keep that promise before they even made it. <3<

@thps48  
No, because Applebloom was already interesting by herself and adorable as a basket full of kittens. :O
 
 
@OptimusPrimevil  
Rescuing a terrible character concept is no easy task, and Flash has a lot working against him. He began life as a love interest and a fairly cliche’d one at that. Developing him properly would have to continue working both along the lines he has developed thus far while also working against them. That’s why I suggested Idiot Sentry - it’s not too uneblievable that he be not just ‘adorably clumsy’ but an actual idiot. Think that picture of him picking his teeth with a spear.

@Background Pony #54C4  
Evil whispers would be an eyeopener for him, telling how everyone hates him and in the end he’d discover that it’s his problem for being such a shallow dunce.

@Background Pony #54C4  
ok so you’re saying flash should be stuck in some environment that requires him to do something/anything all alone to be a character (no interactions with anyone or anything)? he’s not going to be someone’s relative/friend/love interest/student/teacher/follower/leader/enemy/slave/doppelganger for that characterization to matter?
 
and this is just human flash… poor pony flash does not have the luxury (he’s a guard so…)

@Background Pony #54C4  
Like Apple Bloom in the Holiday 2014? XD

@Background Pony #1F9C  
@OptimusPrimevil  
The problem is that that’s a cop-out, and it really doesn’t give Flash himself any characterization at all, it just makes a second character. Flash is still reliant on some other entity to be made interesting, it’s just it’s no longer (just) Twilight Sparkle. Not to mention then he just becomes a tormented woobie sort of character. If anything, that would possibly hurt him.
 
Flash can’t pull a reverse of Sunset Shimmer’s actions unless he becomes authentically evil, and it can’t be a sympathetic situation where he does one bad thing for good reasons, it has to be something that, of his own volition, is downright dastardly.