‘KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!’
Sunset shot up in her bed from the knocking that was loud enough to wake the dead. “The… the hell?” she uttered to herself as she blearily looked around. The massive rectangular window the foot of her bed was pointed at let her know that it was still clearly night, on account of all the darkness outside punctuated by starlight and street light. The window above the head of her bed told her much the same thing. Blearily, she attempted to read her ‘not-so-gently’ used analog clock, but had trouble on account of the almost no light in the room.
Her thoughts went back to her not-so-legal detective work. She had gotten a hold of Twinkle Shine’s autopsy report, but hadn’t had time to piece everything together. A broken neck… high BAC… Maybe some light bruises other than that… She wanted to piece it together but her body had demanded sleep, and she wasn’t going to crack the case drooling out one side of her mouth as she worried if her new roommate would kill her in her sleep.
She looked around again, her eyes mostly only able to make out shapes… Christmas lights… she thought. Christmas lights would really bring this place together… Along the bars, maybe down the sides a bit… That'd look cool… ‘Cause, I mean… Fuck lamps in general…”
‘KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!’
“Ugh… Alright, alright!” Sunset called out as she threw off her nice, warm covers and made her way to the stairs, silently cursing to herself as her bare feet touched cold hardwood floor. She walked forward with her arms outstretched until she found the bar at the edge of her loft. Shimmying to her left until she reached the end, she felt with her left foot for her stairwell, then reaches for the handrail… only to discover there was none.
Sunset’s eyes shot open as a number of facts suddenly came into focus. She leaned to her left and placed her shoulder against the wall as she made her way down to her ‘office’ area. Finally, she made her way to her door and opened it.
Her new roomy was on the other side, panic written all over her face. “Sunset, oh thank God!”
Sunset frowned heavily. “Yes. It’s me… The only person it could be on account of me living here!” Sunset rubbed her eyes. “The hell do you want?”
Seemingly momentarily set a back from Sunset’s sarcastic and rude response. Chrysi quickly regained her complete lack of composure. “I need your help!”
“Is the toilet overflowing?”
“Look, I’m not going to lie, something bad… What?” The panicked look broke once more as Chrysis seemingly couldn’t help but look at Sunset in complete confusion.
Sunset leaned against her doorway and flipped a hand upwards. “Because you see… That’s the only reason that you, as my roommate, would have to bug me at—”
Chrysi cringed suddenly. “Please don’t use that word.”
“… What, ‘roommate?’”
“What? No! Why would I have a problem with that?”
Sunset shrugged. “I don’t know! I thought maybe you wanted to establish some bullshit sense of distance between us to trick me into thinking you’re some sort of aloof bad-ass!”
Chrysi suddenly looked a bit hurt. “You… You don’t think I’m a bad-ass?”
Sunset sighed. “What was the word?”
“Hmm?” Chrysi hummed in genuine confusion.
“The word you didn’t want me to say!” Sunset said, her eyes, and patience, narrowing.
“Oh, ‘bug’… I don’t care much for the connotation.”
“Okay, fine… So… is it the toilet?”
“I wouldn’t bug you this late if it was the damn toilet!” Chrysi hissed out.
Sunset raised an eyebrow.
Chrysi brought a hand up to her mouth as if she was a child who had just said a naughty word except for she followed this up by whispering the word ‘fuck’ under her breath.
“Well, then… What is it?”
Chrysi closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath, seemingly to center herself. Staring at Sunset with her jade eyes that started out a hazy chartreuse at the edges before turning into a piercing green amongst iris’s that looked not quite human, Chrysi reached behind her back into her leather jacket and produced a black, rectangular item, flipped it in her hand presented what could only be a pistol handle first to Sunset. “I need you to hold onto this for a bit.”
Sunset stifled a yawn. “No. Fuck that and fuck you for waking me up with this inanity. Go cold-clock a hobo and rub his mitts all over that if you need a fall-person.” Taking one moment to soak in the priceless look of shock on Chrysi’s face, Sunset slammed the door.
And then she waited.
1
2
3
‘KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!’
Sunset opened the door to see Chrysi absolutely fuming on the other side. “Is that really what you think I wanted?!” She exclaimed as she waved the firearm around, her index finger notably not on the trigger. “To fucking frame you?! Bitch, I barely just MET you!”
“Okay, but, I mean… This is clearly a grift.”
Chrysi frowned heavily. “A what?”
“You know… A con? A scam? Fake? Complete bullshit? You’re trying to get something from me through lies and deception?”
Chrysi took a moment to think as she scratched the back of her head with the pistol handle. “ ‘Gerr-ifft…” she said, unnecessarily stretching out the unfamiliar word into two syllables as she seemingly tried it for the first time. She smiled. “I like it…” She turned towards Sunset. “But I’m not trying to frame you! That’s stupid!”
Sunset nodded. “Right. So it’d be pretty risky to frame me for a crime you, yourself could have been involved in! I mean… If you had brain cell 1 in that pretty little head of yours—”
Chrysi’s face lit up. “You think I’m pretty?!”
“—you’d know that there’s a near certain chance I’d either be so scared of the situation, I’d rat you out in a hot second, or be smart enough to figure out I don’t know you and a turn you in if questioned. So, actually, ‘No!’ I don’t think you were trying to frame me. I think you were trying to give me a gun, unloaded because you’re not a moron, and then I slowly let the fear and paranoia of your ‘secret life of crime’ get to me, and then, if I haven’t gone to the cops with the gun that’s presumably… I dunno… just fresh from the local pawn shop or whatever—”
Chrysi’s eyelids dropped slightly. “You wound me. The local pawn shop is a dive.”
“— you come back in a few days and ask me ‘if I still have that gun!’ and, like, start some increasingly elaborate game where I’m pulled into your web of crime or maybe just a bunch of normal stuff where I’m freaking out because I’m carrying a gun and you think it’s hilarious to fuck with me!” Sunset frowned heavily. “Or am I not allowed to say ‘web’ either?”
“‘Web’ is fine… Preferable, even.”
“Anyhow, you then tell me you need me for something really important, and I don’t know there’s money involved and excitement away from my doldrum existence as a high schooler… Maybe you think you’ll have me figured out by then to appeal to either a need for funds or a sense of boredom and some excitement in my life. Hell, maybe you’ll try both.”
“…”
“So? Did I guess right…?”
“…”
“Yeah, so… Look. I don’t need money and I don’t need any more excitement in my life. I’m already eyeball deep in unwanted adventures, no need for that particular level of crazy to be over my head entirely. You can keep your stupid gun and keep your stupid criminal activities to yourself and we’ll go on our merry way as roommates who barely talk to each other.” Sunset shook her head. “I mean… That’s just common courtesy.”
Chrysi’s body language suddenly shifted. She was still silent but it was as if Sunset had suddenly struck a chord. Hopefully, it wasn’t the ‘murder’ chord Sunset had just plucked.
“So, yeah…” Sunset said nonchalantly. “See you tomorrow, or maybe not. I don’t give a fuck.” And that’s where Sunset Shimmer would have slammed the door in Chrysi’s face again had there not been a black platform boot in the way.
As the door slowly opened back up Sunset met Chrysi’s irate glare with one of her own. “Kindly get your Hot-Topic brand boot out of my door.”
Surprisingly, Chrysi’s expression suddenly changed to an icepick smile. “Aren’t you the least bit curious as to what happened to your room’s former occupant?”
“No, because I know that already.”
Chrysi’s smile suddenly dropped into a disappointed frown. “You do?”
Sunset nodded and glanced behind her. “He fell off the stairs and broke his neck in the fall. His toxicology report showed he must have been quite drunk at the time.” Sunset turned back to Chrysi. “I mean, I’ll buy that having you for a roommate might have driven him to drink, but… considering this whole ‘mysterious and dangerous World of Darkness’ masquerade you have going, I’d figure if you wanted Twinkle Shine dead, they’d never find his body.”
Chrysi was silent once more, but there were the barest hints of a joyous smile on her face.
Sunset began to close her door. “Okay, if that’s it, good—” Sunset was cut off as an ashen hand grabbed the edge of her doorway. Snarling, she opened the door once more. “Look, I’m tired as balls here, so either let me get some sleep or shoot me! Just stop wasting my ti—”
“Would you like a Turkish coffee?”
It was Sunset’s turn to be surprised. “Okay… Just… What…?”
Her expression finally settling on something besides ‘up to no good’, panicked, surprised, or pissed, Chrysi nodded towards the hallway stairs. “Yeah look… I’m sorry about the whole… gun thing… Just… I’ve had a lot of coke—” Chrysi’s eyes shot open wide “—a-colta!”
“Huh…” Sunset uttered to herself. “Pinkie might have had a point earlier…”
Chrysi continued, “And uh… I’m kinda wired… And… It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I just want to unwind… Watch a movie, maybe?” Chrysi ended this question with an oddly hopeful smile.
Sunset examined Chrysi’s face closely. She was tempted to blurt out ‘you’re joking’, but something about Chrysi’s face suggested that she was being more sincere with Sunset then anytime she had been since she first met Sunset. “I don’t… I don’t know what Turkish coffee is…”
“Er… It’s like western coffee but prepared differently, see… You boil water in a cezva… Uh… It’s like…” Chrysi glanced upwards, her eyes darting one way or the other as if searching for a word as if she mimed holding something in a handle in her right hand kinda motioned in a curved/oblong fashion with her other hand.
“No, like… Are their drugs in it?”
Chrysi flashed Sunset a befuddled look. “Why would I boil drugs?!”
“I don’t know! Why would you drink coffee to unwind?!”
Chrysi’s face tightened. “Do you want to have some stupid roommate bonding time or do you want me to think you’re putting up an aloof front so I think you’re a fake bad-ass?”
“Touché,” Sunset replied. “Look… What time is it?”
“Uh…” Chrysi moved back her leather sleeve from her left wrist. “3:42”
Sunset nodded. “100 dollars.”
“Ex-excuse me?!”
“I will hang out with you for 100 dollars,” Sunset answered. “And no, that’s not a sex thing. That’s for waking me up in the middle of the night! Or rather 50 was going to be enough to cover it, but then I saw your watch and just… what is that? Is that a Rolex?”
Chrysi gave Sunset a look as if she was legitimately offended. “This so happens to be a Titanic DNA Tourbillon!”
Sunset rolled her eyes. “So… What? It’s worth more than the duplex we’re in right now?”
“…”
“Holy shit, it is, isn’t it?!”
Chrysi responded by reaching into her coat, pulling out a massive wad of bills held neatly in a clip, peeled one off, and handed Sunset a nice, crisp $100 bill. Sunset frowned down as looked at the bill, unsure if she was more upset that Chrysi called her bluff or that she hadn’t asked for more.
“Do you like baba ganoush?” Chrysi asked.
Sunset looked up from her quasi-ill-gotten gains with a deeper frown. “I don’t know what that is…”
Chrysi turned and practically skipped down the hallway. “You’ll find out~!” she warbled happily. “See you downstairs, roomy!”
Sunset sighed and shook her head. “Am… am I a magnet for this shit? Or do I somehow run headlong into it without even trying?!”
I have no idea what is happening, and the last chapter needs some editing, but it was enjoyable.
This is hilarious and i love Chrisy
How sweet, they're friends.
8603293
Word.
I keep thinking that this is the Chrysalis from Equestria... and then changing my mind... then changing it back!
This chick is weird!
I love it!
What for?
Interesting...
Eh?
... Not even sure how to react to that.
I love how self aware she is.
Oh my god she's fucking great!
...
I adore this Sunset so much.
YES.
I love this story and also the art for human Chrysalis. Also the cold-cock a hobo line is probably going to have me chortling long past where it would be considered appropriate. Looking forward to more.
Now why can I suddenly see a scene where Sunset bumps into Adagio somewhere, who puts on her usual haughty-obnoxious attitude... until Chrysi shows up, casually greets Adagio, and tells Sunset she'll see her back at home later. And Adagio is suddenly acting like being anywhere but around them is the best idea she's heard all day. Leaving Sunset with a "Wait... what?" expression on her face.
THIS.......THIS RIGHT THE FUCK HERE.......IS WHY YOU SIR ARE MY FAVORITE GOD DAMN WRITER ON THIS SITE
p.s NEED MORE DANXPINKIE!!!
P.p.s sorry for the caps i did a shit ton of coke
8603352
I need more of this!!
MOAR!!!
if that's ok with you
Started out well, but then you had to go and get all edgy by throwing in unnecessary cusses everywhere as well as trying to be meta-clever by subverting the story arcs set up in the previous chapters like, "Hurr-durr it's pure crack now! LOL, aren't I random!? Truly I am a master of the written word for I write only that which does not matter. Yes, so avant-garde."
Here, have a biscuit.
thumbs.gfycat.com/PaltryVariableAcornweevil-max-1mb.gif
...Sigh, this is why comedy is my least favorite genre. So few people know how to do it right.
OK, worth the trip so far.
What the bloody fuck even happened in this chapter? This is such a fucking whiplash not just in mood but in character too. Chrysalis is all over the place, Sunset has turned edgy and... okay what the fuck happened with the weapon and how does Chrysalis just flip the script and decide to just "hang out" with Sunset after giving her a weapon that we don't even know the reason why? And no Sunset's comments don't count.
This chapter seems like it's happening a month later or whatever after the 2nd.
When everyone around you is insane, maybe you are the weirdo.
Not gonna lie, I wasn't a fan of this chapter. It basically undermines everything you set up in the first two chapters for no real pay off. There wasn't enough build up for the subversion of Chrysalis's perceived character to really have any impact, and having the whole thing be just Sunset ranting about... something, I don't even really know, wasn't all that funny in its own right, either. You had a good premise with a good set up and then just sort of didn't do anything with it.
Normally I really enjoy your stories, but this one I'm not fond of so far.
I can't really follow what is going on. Is Chrissi on meds? Bored with life so acting weird on purpose? What?
Could use some Flufflepuff.
8603487
The comedy seems fine to me, but then I really like absurdist humor, and I know that's not for everyone.
8603692
This is exactly the same Sunset that Justice always writes, from what I can see.
8603804
I'm curious as to what you felt the build-up in the previous chapters was? Like, legitimately curious: What's your take on the story so far? What did it seem like things were leading up to?
8603881
My problem isn't how it's written but rather how abrupt it is.
I haven't read any of his other stories and I shouldn't have to.
8603940
Alright, that I can certainly understand: I expect that my take on things would be different if I didn't know what to expect walking in. All else I can say is give it one more chapter and see how the next one works out?
8603487
Comedy is subjective. What's funny to one person won't necessarily be funny to someone else. That's the real problem.
8603487
I usually avoid cussing but considering Chrysi's background and the situation, there's no reason for either character to watch there P's and Q's. I'm also not entirely certain what story arcs you had assumed I had set up then subverted in the brief two chapters of the fic. This IS the story arc, Sunset is now roommates with someone who is legit bonkers. This is one of the reasons I released the first three chapters all at once as these three communicate what this story is going to be about where's the first two are more setting up Sunset's move and brief encounters with Chrysi before they "properly" are introduced and get a feel for what the other is really like.
Also, I wrote an Equestria Daily article pointing out the approach to humor you mentioned is not how I operate at all, though I understand the misconception as 'random comedy' is usually labeled as writers doing whatever they feel like with little regards to an over-arching story. Truth be told, I could count on one hand how many of my stories are just for pure silliness. Usually, I have some idea or thought I'm attempting to communicate even through an obtuse mean. I have this tagged as "random" because of Chrysi's desire to flip the script at a moment's notice. Basically, there's going to be plenty of mundane, if over the top, adventures with these two. Slice of life covers the mundane and Random covers the over the top. Comedy, of course, shows the basic tone of this 'Odd Couple' approach to the idea.
This whole chapter seems the the plain antithesis of the first two. Honestly, I can’t even tell what’s happening.
Doesn’t Chrysalis know that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar? Or wait, is that offensive too?
chrisy got that rich girl money coke and blow and nat
8603352
My guess, it is A Chrysalis from AN Equestria! Just one where Changeling were more... spidery perhaps? Anywho, this is a delightful story so far!
Hey, I just met you
And this is crazy
But here’s a gun now
So hold it maybe?
8603692
As for Sunset being edgier than usual... She did spend many years as a self-obsessed drama queen, you know. While she's in a better place now, she can undoubtedly still "walk the walk" when she has to. And it might be something of a self-defence mechanism when confronted with someone who's Adagio-level evil. Channel her inner demoness to keep the other girl at bay.
Of course, it's still hard to tell if this is Chrysalis, or the human version, which I'm sure is intentional. She's so random and edgy that she's hard to pin down. On one hand, she seems to have the human world nailed, but is caught off-guard by words like grift, which she's never heard of before. On the other hand, she could be just a very goth teen who happened to have been born (in that world,) with dark gray skin, teal eyes, and dark blue hair. This colour scheme lends itself to only one dress and emotional style, and if she chose to embrace it, that would make her all sorts of edgy, just by trading on her looks and dress style. Also, some people would find that attractive, which would feed her ego.
All in all, she's a very interesting character, whichever world she's from, and I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.
god i hope thats equstrias Chrysalis
8603961
Sure I guess. It's still in my favorites.
Huh, the third chapter offered a very interesting new angle. Trying to work out if I like it more or less than that sort of offered by the first two. On the one hand, as Sunset points out in this chapter, the direction they seemed to be going in was kind of predictable and teenage edgy. On the other, Sunset did pull out a lot of sass when plonked without warning into a potentially dangerous situation. Twinkle Shine's fate was nicely set up and revealed, too.
So the question suggested is why Chrysalis has a roommate when she can clearly afford to live by herself? The story so far has suggested she doesn't really want one, but the ending of the third chapter hints otherwise, so we'll see I guess?
But it's definitely made the story more interesting, and I love your idea of a Chrysalis that's plain bonkers. And it's good to see a Sunset that can stand up for herself, and hopefully next time will be aiming alongside Chrysalis rather than against her. Very excited to see more of this, I was worried it would be a three-chapter one shot.
Thanks for writing!
8604382
Nope, nothing to worry about. I think the next TWO chapters are more or less ready to go minus maybe some last minute editing. Next should hit VERY late tonight or technically early morning tomorrow, probably. There's pieces of other stories already written as well, just need to find the time/mindset to get back to them and figure out if there are any other chapters that I need to get out before their release.
This will probably turn into a collection of shorts much like "The Dazzlings are Insane". So, at one point updates will become much more sporadic, but I'll get them out as ideas occur to me.
8603487
Are you this rude to everyone, or you just taking a piss?
It's cool if you don't like a style of comedy, or find something in specific funny, but don't be a jerk.
I feel the need to ask for this story in general:
...........What is happening?
(That's not a bad thing, I'm loving this.)
A Homestuck reference in the description of a Sunset Shimmer fic? I'm definitely going to start reading this.
8604400 That is great to hear; I'm excited! But I think you're in a timezone a few hours behind me, so if it comes out really late tonight I'm going to be very sleepy tomorrow
I'm afraid The Dazzlings Are Insane has been on my Read It Later list for at least a year, but it's buried so deeply there now that even when I try to trim the list down I don't reach it before it starts filling up again. Would you suggest reading that one or the Love Call Of The Sirens stories first?
8604469
This will have much more in common with The Dazzlings are Insane then Love Call
So uh, legitimate question.
Is the rather distinct tone for arabic food and coffee a shout out to the fact that MLP changelings are said to be inspired (design-wise at least) by the Shadhavar?
8604570
Huh. That's a pretty happy coincidence, but I'm tickled I stumbled into a connection there.
What about fluffle puff? Where does she fit into this?
24.media.tumblr.com/8ce3c9128dacae41eee5618cbef923e9/tumblr_n0ynar7Odp1s0sz7go1_1280.png
8603881
I'm honestly not really sure. Part of the problem, at least for me, was that we had seen so little of Chrysalis before this point. Based on the summary and the first two chapters, it felt like he was building her up to be a more "dangerous" character, and then having Sunset peel all of that away so early on kind of feels like when you're trying to tell a joke only to have someone else interrupt halfway through and spoil the punchline. It was just sort of a let down.
Not to say that going that route with Chrysalis would be a bad thing, because it's a totally legit way to develop her in a story like this, but having it happen so soon was anticlimactic. I mean, we've seen her for, what, maybe twelve hundred words so far? If that?
And I think that at least part of that is because of the way that Sunset did it. Her whole rant was a lot of assumption based on pretty much nothing. I've seen other people throw around the word "edgy" to describe her reaction, and it kind of fits. It just didn't feel real. She was too nonchalant about it, too sure of things she had no real reason to be sure of, and seemed to be utterly devoid of the healthy wariness that she had shown towards Chrysalis up to that point. It felt like she was either being hopelessly naive or a wannabe edgelord, neither or which really fits Sunset.
Of course, it's always possible that this is all a red herring and Chrysalis really is as criminally inclined as Sunset first believed, but since it feels like the tension was just shot and killed rather than resolved, even if that reveal does happen later it won't have any impact.
But that's just how it seemed to me. (...I need a shrugging emote for this, but I don't have one, so just sort of pretend that I put one here...)
this is fun, the characterizations are unique and interesting. Unlike a lot of interactions in stories on this website I don't really know what to expect.
8604493
"god"?
8604614
All I can say is to remember that Chrysalis is a manipulator and a liar. The only question is, how much is she lying about right now.
Sunset and Chrysalis feels like a powder keg ready to explode at any time because they're polar opposites of each other.
BABA GANOUSH
Mediocre @ best so boo.
Aww, Sunset, don't worry. It has a name. It's called Protagonist Syndrome.
Chrissy is quite random! You have my attention.
Yes, to both questions.
So, Chrysi is an actual Equestrian Changeling, maybe? Probably not Queen Chrysalis herself ...
Seems perfectly normal to me.