I made an attempt to do a Shining Armor sadness · 3:17am Sep 20th, 2019
There aren’t enough words to publish as a story to fimfic, so I might as well post them here. It’s not really “sad” in the obvious ways you would think, but fuck you. It was going to be about all the times Shining Armor succeeded and was immediately overshadowed by Twilight. I didn’t want to be very descriptive of the events, so it was pretty much impossible to stretch it to 1k words without completely fabricating scenarios for Twilight. I wanted to give a bare bones layout of what happened and let the reader imagine what Shiny may have felt. Anyway, with that pretentious bullshit out of the way, here are my artsy fartsy fun time words.
Even as a filly, Twilight Sparkle possessed an uncanny knack for magic. A prodigy, they called her. She could simply watch someone cast a spell, and then work it out on her own in mere minutes.
For a very brief period of time, Shining Armor was the youngest unicorn to successfully create a magic barrier.
Shining Armor’s first day in the Royal Guard Academy was unforgettable. He aced the preliminary evaluations, went undefeated in sparring, and was personally complimented on his talent and work ethic by the Captain of the Guard herself.
Before he could tell his parents, he learned that Twilight had not only passed her own entrance exam, she did so by harnessing an unprecedented volume of magic, far exceeding levels that would disintegrate most unicorns. To top it off, she got her cutie mark and was given the privilege of being the personal student of Princess Celestia herself.
Shining Armor was set to graduate as a fully fledged Royal Guard on the very day Nightmare Moon returned. The ceremony was understandably cancelled.
His medal arrived later in the mail, accompanied by a letter praising his family for raising two highly accomplished children—the personal student of Princess Celestia, bearer of the Element of Magic, and savior of Equestria; and a guard.
Shining Armor's first year as a prince had its ups and downs. He became co-ruler of the newly revived Crystal Empire, but was rendered nearly useless in the fight to protect it from Sombra. The Crystal Empire was later chosen for the honor of hosting the Equestria Games, but preparations were halted in order to celebrate Twilight's ascension and subsequent coronation as an alicorn princess.
I just wish we had more Shiny in canon so I could have a stronger base to write from. The dynamic of being the older brother of one of the most powerful beings on the planet is fascinating to me. No matter what he achieves, he’ll always be in her shadow.
(Adding more sadness into it, the one crowned with the title of the crystal empire's savior wasn't shinning nor her wife, but her sister's little assistant.)
Where is the freaking like button?!
Oh, and there's the bit where his wife, daughter, and sister will live some absurdly long time. Him, not so much.
Wouldn't be too hard to create scenarios besides the canon ones like you did, but damn it would be soul-crushing for anyone to get upstaged so hard.
10/10 would read it as black comedy.