It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #105 · 7:40pm Mar 22nd, 2023
So to start year three, I figure I gotta lead with Best Human/Best Pony and talk Sunset Shimmer. Particularly two stories that are real favorites of mine.
The first is one I actually had pegged originally for the last few weeks' worth before deciding to hold it for this. Fallowsthorn's Time is, well. It's special.
From the outside, the time between when the rainbow came crashing down on Sunset Shimmer and when she crawled out of the crater was a few seconds. Thirty at most. And some couldn't understand how in that small space of time she went from a raging demon to a repentant soul. The answer is that, for her, it was a lot longer than thirty seconds. When the rainbow struck her, the Elements themselves took Sunset aside and had a little chat about who she was and what she had done. And in that lies the difference.
Right. Okay. So y'all know I loves me some Sunset Shimmer. A lot. She's also got a ton of amazing stories, including some of the site's biggest guns. I could just list titles of top-tier Sunset stories and take up an entire blog. So with that in mind, I am going to make a bold statement: Time is the best Sunset Shimmer story on this site.
Now don't take that as a slight to the other stories out there - I'm not kidding when I say there's a lot that are amazing. But Time is something that's just stunning to me, and it fits snugly into the list of stories that, for the purposes of my works, are a canon event. I cannot state how strongly I love this one.
Those thirty seconds of time are so utterly critical to Sunset's character but they're almost never touched on. How Sunset Shimmer changes isn't just a good/bad switch to flip, and this story finally goes into the how. She's confronted by the Elements themselves and walked through the process slowly. She's shown not just what she did wrong but why - and headstrong as Sunset Shimmer is, she's not stupid. She fights and rages and knows the truth as much as she hates it. And over time, she leads herself to the sensible conclusion.
This is pure, raw, wonderful character development in a package that takes something that canon skips over and beats it into top tier internal drama. It's also great for extending beyond Sunset, too - just for starters, you gotta think about how Luna got hit by the ol' rainbow laser, too. Is something like this what she went through? It certainly makes her own change of heart deeper. This depiction of the Elements also strongly impacts my writing in how I use the Tree of Harmony - that just slightly alien quality's hard to capture but oh so fun to play with. Even when its representing the Bearers, it's still not quite… right. And that's delightful.
Also I feel I gotta bring it up: Rainbow Dash gets the short end of the characterization stick in a lot of EqG stuff. I suspect it's because she's too jock and a lot of writers are inherent nerds. Time does such an amazing and pivotal Loyalty-As-Rainbow-Dash, though, that's it's just… Mm! I mean, really. Her section is just so damn perfect. I wish I could come up with likes like 'Rainbow Dash is barely a person in your head and she's still smarter than you'.
The other 'must' when it comes to Sunset Shimmer is the pit of Anon-A-Miss. It's the HiE of Equestria Girls: a huge subgenre that is, putting it mildly, mostly bad.
But like my opinions of HiE, there's some real gems in the mix. It's a storyline that has real potential to it and some writers have turned it into amazing stuff. (Also I've joked before that writing an Anon-A-Miss story is contractually obligated for all EqG writers and it really is kind of a rite of passage.)
Today's second story is probably my favorite because it treats the subject intelligently: Role Reversal by SamRose.
Anon-A-Miss has happened, and Susnet is obviously broken up about it. And then she remembers: wait. She's Sunset Celestiadamned Shimmer. She ruled Canterlot High for years. She's not going to just let Anon-A-Miss win. She's going to fix this her way, even if it means burning everything to do it.
And that's why I love this story. See Anon-A-Miss stories are very same-y and one of their biggest problems as a subgenre is that they repeat those same points over and over again, usually poorly. Probably the most common is that Sunset Is Sad. Anon-A-Miss stories usually plunge Sunset into depression and self-harm - often into full on suicide. And she's almost always helpless until someone comes by to save her. Here? Not a chance. Sunset remembers that she's a brilliant savant trained by (basically) God, and that she held CHS under her thumb for three years. She's a horse woman of action, and she's entirely capable of putting together a plan to fix everything the same way she broke it all in the first place. Proactive Sunset Shimmer is a delight.
And how she does it is just as important. One of the other major themes Anon-A-Miss stories lean into is petty, brutal revenge. Like seriously, it is amazing how much power writers seem to think a high school principal has, or what constitutes reasonable punishment. The sheer brutality is shocking. (And the poor CMCs regularly take the worst of it. What kind of people are these writers who think that a reasonable punishment for a 13 year old posting a mean thing on the internet is - just to pick one memorable one - selling them into slavery in a different dimension?) No, in Role Reversal, Sunset's smart about it. She doesn't hold stupid grudges and doesn't inflict pain just to inflict pain. She's still the reformed Sunset and is far more eager to take the trouble onto her own shoulders than harm others, and she even actively goes out of her way to shield others from the situation.
And that's why this one's my favorite. Anon-A-Miss as a plot is interesting; as a subgenre it's largely trash. This is one of the few stories that makes it work because it both uses Sunset as an intelligent character with a backbone, and that it approaches the situation within the boundaries of canon's base purpose and message. It's a supportive and enhancing work, rather than thinly disguised revenge porn.
New or catching up? Try Recommendsday: The Index for your story needs!
Just in time, I needed some perspective to get a grip on character. Thank you, very relevant
Time is one of those stories I always recognise around the site both for its cover art and striking concept. And I have read this one, and even favourited it, though I sadly don't remember a thing about it! I don't doubt all of what you've said though is true, though, and look even more forward to revisiting it now.
As for Role Reversal, since I tend to be selective about what EqG I read in the first place, I have read precious little Anon-A-Miss stories, though I've always aligned it with being a rather trash genre and thus largely don't bother. Sunset being a passive wobbie is one of the key reasons, so hearing this doesn't do that is certainly positive. I do think it's possible to go too far the other way in having such a thing just turn into a detective/mystery story with her in full "on" mode all the time, though (even "Forgotten Friendship" is victim to this to a degree, and is one reason why, while clearly the best EqG thing in the 2017-19 corridor give or take the odd short, I don't rate it as highly as others; its replay value is rather low). So hearing this also balances that and keeps the introspection and character is promising too.
End result is, despite being an EqG novella, you've convinced me to bookmark it for the future, buddy.
Read both of these before I started tackling my own work. Both are excellent choices!
Having read and bookshelved both of todayʼs suggestions, I can second that yes, they are masterpieces. Originally, Time was in my ‘Heartstringsʼ collection, which consists of heart-punching, beautiful pieces. And Role Reversal is in my ‘Best of Anon-a-Missʼ list.
These are some incredible recommendations~
But sorry for the off top comment, but I'm morbidly curious about that briefly mentioned CMC being sold into slavery in another dimension story.
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No need to apologize! And that one is slight hyperbole. I'm trying to remember the name of it, but the gist was that the CMCs were punished by being sent to Equestria and sentenced to be maids and staff around the Palace in Canterlot. While not quite slavery, it's still exporting literal children to another dimension to be used for menial labor against their will (and if I remember correctly, their parents as well.)
If my memory's right, the rest of the story wasn't bad, but that's one of those elements where if you step back for half a second it's obvious how absolutely messed up it is.
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While that's still pretty extreme for what they did, I will say that's a LOT better then what I was expecting. Do to the fact there's a lot of Anon-A-Miss fan fiction that are cross-overs as well as HOW severely punished they get sometimes, I was half assuming they ended up getting sold into slavery for some demonic warlord or something
Ah, alright~
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I mean, there's probably one where that happens and I just haven't read it. Anon-A-Miss authors really like extreme punishments.
I love both of these, I read them a while ago and both earned a spot on my Favorites shelf
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With that clarification, I gotta say I recognize that too, but can't place it because the story only managed to be alright at best.