Hold on a Second Wait Wait · 10:49pm May 11th, 2021
I was going through some EqG trying to get some idea how the journal works for a story, and I found a scene in Sunset's room in Forgotten Friendship and... wait, what?
HOW DOES SHE AFFORD THIS? I mean like sure there's the sitcom thing where people with normal jobs have palatial apartments in Manhattan, but this goes beyond that. We're talking about someone who's essentially an orphaned teenager. Stellar Flare is in another universe; she might as well be dead. Does she know where her daughter is? Has she been sending her gems1 through the mirror on the sly, somehow?
At this point I guess she could be getting a stipend from the Principality. Gems are so common in Equestria as to be nearly valueless but AFIK don't seem common in the human world; if the Principality's accountants don't understand that they could be giving Sunset a small fortune and not realizing it. Also Humantown or whatever seems pretty small; rents there might be very reasonable. I guess I'll go with that.
But... now we have a very young woman living a luxurious life with no visible means of support. Do you think... you know... the police have questions?
1 Bits look like they might be made out of gold and have some innate value, but gems at the pawn shop would generate fewer questions than alien currency at the bank.
Simple: it’s fiction
5517012
You’re no fun at all.
5517012
Bad fiction. And bad excuse. The Watsonian ALWAYS takes precedence over the Doylist.
Wow, I shock
Yeah, it's one of the bigger questions of the series. I've seen a number of proposals: Pawning Equestrian currency, inheriting from one of the local Sunset's relatives (possibly the local Sunset herself!), Sunset's pre-rainbow-to-the-face extortion and blackmail going far beyond the school, unseen differences in culture and/or the real estate market...
There are satisfying answers to the question, and enough of them that it can vary from story to story.
5517023
Here I am, partially agreeing with my troll.
In this case I believe (absolutely without evidence except that the show is very silly) that the Watson is Pinkie Pie, specifically in the memoirs she wrote at the age of 400, which are the Gospel of John to the Book of Friendship’s Synoptics and not generally considered to have more than a nodding acquaintance with historical reality.
This gives the fanfic writer a great deal of leeway in interpreting canon.
5517057
No, that was definitely a troll. Not biting. Enjoy being blocked.
5517039
Was hoping you'd weigh in. This story idea weighs heavily on Sunset's ties with the community in general. I must think about what those are. There are several interesting possibilities.
5517019
My family says the same thing!
Guess it sounded like a better joke in my head. Didn’t mean to sound condescending or anything, just that Equestria is usually depicted as a harmonious utopia of sorts so I figured it’s human counterpart would be similar, with society being fictionally perfect for all, thus Sunset as a teenager being able to afford such a place.
5517080
I just enjoy trying to make the silly toy commercial show consistent and sort of realistic.
5517061
Charles Murray shit gets blocked here? Good.
Anyway, human Canterlot probably just has a decent public or subsidized housing program (this fits with what we know of its largesse - its public school is at least plausibly competitive with a tony prep school), and we know Sunset's a forger, she probably has a good fake ID to access municipal government benefits.
Minor thing, but it is revealed that she works at a sushi restaurant in the mall.
Maybe the EQG world suffered a housing crisis similar to what happened in 2008-10 and lots of people lost their homes due to bad faith loans. Combine that with Sunset's resourcefulness and maybe she's squatting in an abandoned housing division or apartment block/tenement. We lack a map of Canterlot City and a general world map that EQG is based in, so we don't know what country it's in. I think I came across a story once, though I could be wrong and my brain just cobbled together something and then told me it was a story, that the country/continent/world is called Pedestria.
5517181
Sunset Squatter. I like it.
5517169
I see no reason to love and tolerate cartoonish racism and transphobia yeah. Especially when it comes out of fucking nowhere and is grossly off-topic.
And yeaaaah I sort of like 'Sunset is a criminal leaching off the system'. Would be relatively easy with... wait did they ever deal with what happened to human world Sunset?
Maybe her whole family died in an accident and Sunset just... stepped in. An accident Upset Sugar Sunset DID NOT cause I'm not prepared to go that dark.
5517178
Neat!
Yeah, if a service worker can live that kind of like Pedestria is a fucking paradise.
5517226
Nope! That was gonna be in the EqG finale, but, well, EqG never got a finale and never will, because the studio's downsized and the team's scattered about in other companies (many of the assets have likely been deleted too).
Part of it is simply perspective and the animated lens cheating to get the whole room in view. In other words it looks like the door is like 50 feet away, but looking at the actual objects that’s an optical illusion.
To me she’s making good use of the space but what have we actually got? One room, one bathroom, one loft bed by the door with workspace under it, and a couch with her tv. That’s pretty cheap if you have income. The most expensive stuff is probably her tv, game system, and guitars.