The sun sets on the Sunset Shipping Project · 11:03pm Sep 28th, 2016
Well, it's been 10 days now since I posted the first story, and the last has finally fallen out of the feature box. It was a fun time. Dominated the featurebox, at one point had 4 stories in there at once, gained almost 200 new followers. I hope all of you enjoyed reading them as much as I did writing them. Not bad for 7 months worth of writing and editing.
Story breakdowns and future plans after the break.
So this all started with The Sun Sets Over the Apple Orchard. I actually wrote a prototype of the story in the October Original Short Story writeoff "Eye of the Storm." It contained some farmgirl lesbians who were somewhat obvious expys of our favorite humans, and I fully intended to retool the story to fit the AppleShimmer I'd had in mind for awhile.
Fast forward to February, three weeks after Fractured Sunlight ended. The story was ready, and I was all set to post it. But Dubs couldn't get around to editing it in time, and it didn't feel quite right, so I ended up not posting. Then, I had this idea for a Rarity story, so I figured I might as well wait a bit...
The genesis of A Suit With Sincerity was pretty much entirely the picture. Sunset looks damn fine in that suit, I had the crossdressing pretend boyfriend thought, and it all sort of unfolded from there. In general, when approaching a lot of these stories, I wanted to find some sort of conflict and something for the characters to be doing that isn't just their stereotypical "thing." Doing something with dresses or fashion when it comes to Rarity is easy, and tad on the boring side at this point. Crossdressing wedding shenanigans and misguided ideas about romance? Much more interesting. Since this story ended up being the most popular, I think I hit the mark. (Although that's probably mostly because Sunset looks damn fine in that suit.)
A Heartfelt Goal was one I struggled with a bunch. The core idea I wanted to harp on was that Rainbow Dash is jealous of Sunset's multidisciplinary talent. And is also a total tsundere about it. My first draft actually had Sunset and RD ponying up to win that soccer game, and RD freaking out because magic meant she couldn't count on her own talent anymore. It was a neat idea, but it kind of overshadowed everything else and stole the wind out of any romantic relationship, so it ended up getting changed to what you see now, where the focus is more centered around jealousy, especially about Sunset's interest in Fluttershy.
At this point, I was keen on going the distance with these stories. But I had no idea what to do with Pinkie Pie at first. I mean, who does? Nobody has written a Pinkie/Sunset shipfic before this, and I suspect nobody else will for quite some time. (Feel free to prove me wrong.) Eventually I stumbled across the trope page for Bottle Episode, and it all kind of clicked into place. The only way for Pinkie Pie to do anything romantic is to force her to sit still in one place for a long time. So Pinkie Pie and Sunset Shimmer Get Stuck In An Elevator was born. I'm rather proud of the fact that I took a premise and title like that and wrote a fic that wasn't a comedy.
Originally, I had thoughts of just releasing Love Twiangles 2 as my Fluttershy story, but as that sequel petered out and wasn't working in my writing, I figured I'd stick with the oneshot theme I'd been developing, thus "Sunset Isn't Your Color. Fluttershy was another hard one to figure out. I wanted it to be the only one where Sunset was the main initiator, that out of all of her friends, Sunset has the hots for Fluttershy the most, even if she's dtf with everyone else. But I needed conflict, and animals are boring and easy. Then in a discussion with my brother, we talked about the model thing, and how nobody ever really utilizes that aspect of Fluttershy's character. I thought of how that could fit into the EQG universe. I'm not certain if it's clear in the story, but because Sunset bullied her out of it, Fluttershy and Rarity never came to an understanding over it themselves. Out of all the stories, I think this one is my favorite on the relationship note.
I already wrote Fractured Sunlight. Enter A Sunlit Journey That's a lot of words about Sci-Twi and Sunset. There's also a shitton of SunLight fics all over this site. They're quite a popular couple. But that means all the low hanging fruit has already been picked, all the easy stories and the cute fluff have already been told. Plus, I'd been formulaing pretty hard at this point, so it was time for something completely different. A lot of people noticed the inspiration from Chrono Trigger, which was pretty blatant. Those scenes were fun as hell to write, and its amazing how many more words adventure scenes eat up compared to scenes where its just two characters talking to each other.
And the big, grand finale. For the Love of Sunset A better comedy writer could have done it more justice, I think. A part of me just wants to take everything too seriously, a with a bent of realism, in something clearly so absurd. An early thought I had of the ending would've pulled back to show Princess Twilight writing this crazy story and someone calling her out on it. But I think Octo-Sunset ended up being a lot better. How will this reality turn out in the future? It's a comedy, don't think too hard about it. But even if you want to take it seriously, they're all strong people, and can handle what authors like me throw at them.
So, what's next? I've conquered the featurebox, joined the fimfiction elite. What next shall I slay with my mighty pen?
Well, original fiction is the obvious answer.
That's right folks, I'm abandoning all of you to cash out and write my own novel.
Well, that's not entirely true. I'm going to write a novel, and it's going to be awesome. But I still plan to stick around, and may occasionally write a oneshot or two when an idea grips me. I plan to continue participating in writeoffs, some of which eventually make it to fimfiction. But at the moment at least, no more big projects like this or novel length fanfics. I also might break into erotica at some point. If I can ever get my brother to edit it.
So. Questions? Comments? What was your favorite story in the Sunset Shipping Project? Did you like any ship better in particular, regardless of the storytelling involved? Beyond the humane 6, who else do you think Sunset should fall in love with? There's a lot of girls and a big multiverse out there.
Best of luck with writing the novel! Whatever it is.
...Also Sunset does look damn fine in a suit.
I loved the Aj and shimmer story the most
holy damn and three-quarters, that image @_@
Hard to say which my favorite was, but I have a loose top 3.: "A Suit With Sincerity" was just really fun because the premise was silly and Sunset was just fantastic in it. "Pinkie Pie and Sunset Shimmer Get Stuck In An Elevator" was great because it explored a more serious side of Pinkie and Sunset's complete lack of shame at the end topped the whole thing off. And "A Sunlit Journey" was just....I don't know. I like adventure stories like that, and Twilight being really obvious about her crush on Sunset was cute, and the whole thing just was a perfectly crafted scenario. Hell, I would have loved to see a whole story about that world.
As far as magnum opuses go, a Sunset shipping septology is definitely way up there. I know I said this with every entry in the saga, but thank you for this strange and wondrous journey.
As for Bacon Horse shipping preferences, I'm kind of locked in with Sunlight. I have very few deep shipping convictions in this fandom, but for whatever reason, that's one of them. It's just too darn cute. That said, I will need to see if I can find an idea for Sunpie now that I've noticed it...
Best of luck with your novel.
Good luck on original fiction, dude! We all believe in you!
Wish you luck with your novel.
My favourite story from this shipping week was A Sunlit Journey.
Beyond the main six, I do like the Sunset shipping between Trixie and Adagio. Though I really would like to see one with vice-principal Luna, seeing Sunset attract more to an elder figure since she's herself older than the mirror transform her.
A Suit with Sincerity and A Sunlight Journey would have to be my favorite, but I enjoyed them all!
I wish you luck on your novel!
im sad you wont be doing any more big stories i wish you luck in your novel thoe but yea i had allways been eager for your next big sunlight novel oh well
I've yet to read them, but I shall as soon as I can.
You know what I just realized? These stories were just like The Combinatorics Project. Separate stories revolving around shipping, with the final story linking them all together.
4231667 Gunsmoke has VP Luna and Sunset shipping in it, though it comes in later and is the primary focus of the story.
Glad it went over so good, the stories really were awesome, still sorry I didn't get to go through all of them before they went up... stil working on commentary for them.. just going slow stupid IRL shit keeps getting in the way.
But yeah awesome stories all around, just like all your stuff more or less.
Thanks for all the fish, Oro. Each and every one of your stories has been great, so I'm sad that it sounds like there probably won't be more, but your reasons are justified and not without precedent.
Good luck with the future endeavors!
There is still Sun-Sun and Sun-Moon.
Both in horse and human versions.
And Glimmering Sunset as well!
Also are you doing Ciderfest again this year?
4232128 Yeah, will be there with my brother, got tickets and a hotel lined up.
4232231
Oi shall be thar again as well doing staffly things!
So no Fractured Sunlight sequel?
MY DREAMS HAVE BEEN CRUSHED JUST LIKE THAT
*Edit
Oh, at least for the moment.
But still, watching and waiting.
I liked A Sunlit Journey quite well, but Fractured Sunlight is still my favorite thing on this site.
I'm sorry to hear we probably won't see more, but I wish you the best with your future plans.
Same, I had hoped that there will be another full-length novel like Fractured Sunlight. (Btw, It's soooo popular in Chinese fandom. It got more than 1k comments, which is really something) So, good luck with your original novel