I am what YOU made me (A commentary about Sundagio) · 6:29am Jan 20th, 2023
Hello, everyone.
So, I'm going to say this right off the bat. This blog will be slightly different than the others I've done. It will be more emotional and perhaps too open for some readers. Regardless, I wanted to talk a bit about why I took on the role of the Emperor of Sundagio.
A little more than a year and a half ago, I was in my freshman-sophomore year of my undergraduate degree in university. I am still in uni right now, but it was different back then. At the time, I had a couple of friends and a significant other, but not many people in my life. I was constantly drained from school and I didn't have much energy when it came to my hobbies. Most of my free time went to doing nothing but watching useless YouTube videos or playing mind-numbing video games. All the while, I got more and more depressed.
You could say it was a dark spiral. Nothing seemed to stop it and as much as I tried to be happy and spend time with my loved ones, it didn't work. It was hard to keep up contact with my friends since I had no motivation to actually message someone or make plans. I just had this never-ending sense of doom when it came to the future and it felt like nothing was worth it in the end. Nothing I did was productive. Even school seemed like a temporary productivity and it didn't really matter much to me personally other than giving me more of a chance to get a job in the future. I could only really put on a smile and act happy with the ones I cared about because I knew it would only hurt them to know I had no intrinsic value in myself or the life I was leading. In fact, I kept thinking "When will it be over?" wishing that life would stop being so hard or cease all together.
Growing up, I had a lot of expectations from those around me to excel. I had a 4.0 GPA and I still have a 3.98 GPA. But keeping that up constantly while worrying that you might be seen as a failure for anything below an A was draining. The only escape I had was ignoring it by doing useless things like watching YouTube. Or I could have called with friends. But since they hardly ever had time, it was usually the things I called useless before. I was so worried about the future and my prospects of meeting new people and having a happy life that I just dug myself further into this depression, making me do poorly on assignments and almost failing a semester of university as a result.
One day, my best friend at that time actually challenged me to write a fanfiction off of an anime series we were both watching. We would both write a fanfic based off of ships we hadn't shipped before and to be honest, I was nervous since I hadn't written much in the last five to six years. But I gave it a shot and I enjoyed it a bit.
But it wasn't enough to make me feel happy.
I wanted something that I felt more invested in since this anime series was something I liked, but didn't LOVE. So, I stopped writing again. But I remembered how it was a bit fun while I did it and I thought about writing something more in line with something I loved. Something I would feel invested in. I had a lot of choices. Spider-Man. Marvel. DC. Star Wars. Left 4 Dead. Barbie. Disney properties. Street Fighter. All of these were viable contenders for what would be my next writing project. Nothing big. Just a small story with more... personal storylines. Something slice-of-life.
I ended up choosing My Little Pony since I've grown up with it ever since MLP Generation 1. My sister had DVDs of MLP from that era and I still remember it fondly. I was fully prepared to start writing a project and abandon it shortly after due to my depression at that point. I mean, I seriously had no direction in life and felt like I was a failure. So, abandoning a project wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
So, I wanted to make a short, slice-of-life story about MLP and I decided to set it in Equestria Girls. Being a hopeless romantic, I knew I would probably write a romance story. The only thing left to do was decide what ship to write about. I wanted to challenge myself to write something... different. Something I had never thought of before. What was a ship I didn't think twice about before?
Then it hit me. Sunset Shimmer was a REALLY popular character. I remember as soon as Adagio was introduced, she was shipped with Sunset HARD by a small part of the fandom. When I was younger, I didn't even like the ship. So, I decided that this story would be about Sundagio. A ship I hadn't thought about in YEARS. I was actually excited in something for the first time in a couple of years. I was excited to try and think of how I would write this story. "It's going to be five chapters long," I told myself constantly. I told myself that it would ONLY feature the two of them and no one else from Equestria Girls. In October, I actually wrote the prologue of the story, trying my damned best to inhabit Adagio's evil attitude while showing Sunset coming back to give her old foe advice.
And then... I didn't write anymore until December. That semester was hard on me and honestly, I wasn't sure if I was still living at that point. If I was, I don't think I wanted to. Regardless, winter break gave me more time to think about writing. I finally came back to it and I could NOT stop writing for DAYS. Actual days... I kept writing. More and more words flowed from my fingers and I couldn't stop thinking about what to put in the next chapter. I incorporated Apple Bloom and Rainbow Dash. Five chapters increased to eight, twelve and eventually sixteen. Before I knew it, it was February and I had completed the story, still thirsty for more. Craving more.
I finally felt productive... I felt like I was doing something worthwhile and I loved every second of it. Uni didn't seem like a problem anymore as long as I had this story to write. Ideas swirled in my head for sequels, alternate universes and spinoffs, all centered on Sundagio. This ship that I had spent so long engaging with through fanart and writing my own fanfiction. It felt different. Life felt different. I was happy. I felt like I could be who I wanted to be. I could express myself how I wanted and I didn't have to be trapped to what society said I should be. I didn't watch YouTube nearly as much as before other than to listen to music while I wrote.
Writing made me feel comfortable with who I am. It made me realize that I'm not a failure. I'm not some useless person. Instead, I had the potential to bring dozens of people happiness by showing them the Sundagio stories I thought of. So, I kept writing. I made more stories. I participated in competitions and I embraced the moniker "Emperor of Sundagio" since I seemed to be one of the only people writing it at the time. There has never been a piece of media that has affected me this much before and it let me be happy about myself. It let me be happy about where I was going in uni, happy about my choices in life. In no way do I think it's my destiny to write Sundagio for decades to come, but it helped me out of a dark place and I definitely want to write it for more years to come.
So, to quote Kenobi.
Sundagio: What have you become?
Spyder27: I am what YOU made ME.
Don't feel bad for me~ I do feel much better about my direction in life and I've made many new friends recently! I have a direction and purpose and I no longer feel that dread that the future is going to doom me. I just wanted to share what made this ship so special to me and why I love it so much~ How it helped me get back on the right track~
Whatever makes you happy. Carry on!
5709750
Especially since I have like hundreds of Sundagio ideas
Will do~
This sure reminds me of how I became a fimfict writer as a part of the story is related to mine.
5709775
That's what happened with my story too~ Incorporated parts of my real world experience into the story
5709776
Yeah, except for me, it was mainly about family and the pandemic changing things entirely.
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Love this serious
I can’t wait to see what other ideas you have for sunny and dagi.
Will see your past, present and future Sundagio stories!
I actually first encountered this ship in this story by another author and the dynamic in there got me interested. (it's pretty dark and the ship didn't last but it was fun before while they were developing) I found out about your stories in a group next, and it was such a great ride so far.
Keep up the good work!
5710425
It's definitely an interesting pair and I can't wait to write more with different dynamics between the two~
I'm glad you like my stories thus far~ I have pretty much made a big splash in the Sundagio scene since most people don't write as much as me, so I'm not surprised that you found my stories in a group