Little Sunny Chapter 5 Follow-Up · 4:24am Mar 16th, 2016
Yes, I know it's been over a week since the chapter came out. I've been busy getting constant reminders that I am ruining people's lives because they're too damn lazy to pick up a phone and report they moved to Kansas or whatever, so things have been a tad chaotic.
Anyway, this chapter was originally planned entirely around Sunset getting drafted into doing modelling for Rarity - because regardless of her current species, Rarity is Rarity. The original intent was that it was actually a paying gig, and Sunset took the job not because Rarity guilt-tripped her into doing so, but because she thought she could help raise funds to get the parts they needed to build the new magic storage device. This was primarily changed because something where children actually get paid would require a lot more buildup and management than what could be allowed, plus there would be questions about the legality of it all, and it was just funnier to have Rarity beg and plead in her dramatic way.
(And in case you were wondering if the original made Rarity any better...no. She had neglected to tell Sunset that the "payment" was a gift certificate for the boutique, making it useless for what she actually wants. Sunset would then have settled for sizing up what bones to break first.)
If the scene with the kids seems rushed and hackneyed, that's because it is. I really don't have much more to say other than that it will lead to something.
The stuff with the bike is also something I can't get into just yet, but it will be important. And I know Sunset having a motorcyle and being cool and all that is cliche, but...she did motocross, so I guess it kind of fits. The scene at the not-Walmart was also going to include Sunset getting separated from Twilight and lost, but it felt out of place given her current age, so I cut that part out.
You also may have been noticing that the story has focused a lot on Sunset and Twilight, and not so much on the others. Part of it is just the ease, since it makes it easier to repeat the last three fics I wrote because I'm a damn hack. (Well, two...we know what happened to the third.) The other part...well, what will be going down starting next chapter. Remember when I posted that pic where the two Twilights were yanking on Sunset's arms? Imagine that, but with an eight-year-old Sunset, and instead of implied shipping, it's over friendship and Sunset's future. Yep...things will be getting a little dark later.
(Not "I skinned my best friend" dark, but still dimly-lit.)
Also, just in case anyone had any questions about Twilight's little flashback, I imagined she and the Humane 5 sounding normal, but her family sounding like they came out of a Godfrey Ho movie. I don't know why, but it amused me, so that's how the scene played in my head.
Next time, it's Twilight in stereo! And...Sunset will be there, too. (The next chapter will likely end up focusing mostly on the Twilights, if out of necessity. Just a head's up.)
Speaking from experience of writing a fic where two characters with the same name and basic personalities were in the same scenes, I advise coming up with some kind of literary shortcut to distinguish the two, like I did in Crisis with the Twilight and Sparkle thing. Eventually. After people pointed out that it was confusing.
Dunno who gets dibs on "Twilight" and who on "Sparkle", though, if you go that route.