On "Forgotten Friendship" · 1:34am Feb 20th, 2018
It's been too long with the most recent message being notice of my concussion. Especially given that I've recovered. (Less quickly than I would have liked, but it's over now.)
That said, this is basically just one of those, "I needed to get all this crap out of my head," rants.
So, back in December A Friendship to Remember came out. I read it. I didn't read the meta bit that pointed out that the vast majority of the story (twenty of the twenty three chapters) was the novelization of the then-unaired special Forgotten Friendship. I did think that the there was a good story to be had, it just needed different treatment. For the past two and a half months I've been toying, off and on, with the idea of doing a retelling.
Obviously I eventually decided to do it, as the existence of Down the Memory Hole attests. And the long description has what could sort of be rephrased into my mission statement for the project with a bit of imagination: I remember being extremely underwhelmed. This is my attempt at taking the basic story and making it whelming.
But this post isn't about my retelling, it's about the canonical special and the deuterocanonical novelization thereof.
This is about where the spoilers start, you have been warned.
In some way's it's Anon-a-Miss all over again, in others it's different. What's stayed the same is that the Rainbooms other than Sunset come out of it looking like utter jerks.
Before we touch the villian, the evil plot, the magic, or any of that, just consider everything from the Rainbooms' perspective.
They know that Sunset used to be a horrible jerk, a bully, and even a monster. Since the Fall Formal, however, they can't remember much of anything she's done. In fact, there are probably only two incidents that remain in their memories beyond general vagueness.* Neither of them really paints Sunset in a negative light. Someone who doesn't react well to stress or magic or whatnot perhaps, but not someone who is bad, mean, or otherwise despicable.
Outside of being less than perfect when faced with apocalyptic magic, something that can be said of the rest of the school including the Rainbooms themselves, Sunset hasn't done anything they've considered worth remembering. It seems to them like she's been keeping her head down and bothering no one. They might not remember when or how she reformed, but their memories conclusively tell them that she's acting in a way consistent with reformation to the point that she's basically interchangeable with anyone other student who is neither their friend nor their enemy.
So, what do they do? They pick on her. The encounters are very one sided. She acts in a way that seems bizarre to them. They're mean to her in return. They've forgotten she's their friend, sure. She's saying things that don't make sense, given. But none of that changes that the way they react to someone in the category of "not-friend" is, basically, bullying.
That's really craptastic before you realize that the most reasonable explanation for Sunset's behavior, from their perspective, is mental illness. I mean, if it's hot enough she could be suffering from heat induced impaired cognition, and if she's ingested the wrong things that could be messing with her thinking, but whether a temporary result of circumstance or an expression of an underlying mental problem, Sunset doesn't come off as being "not nice" she comes off as delusional.
Now delusions can be downright scary. I know. I've been there when someone who has clearly lost touch with reality tells you what they think is happening and asserts it forcefully (way more force than Sunset had behind her.) Not everyone can react with aplomb and kindness, I didn't. (I wish I had.) But no matter how afraid or confused you might be in the face of the person who has lost touch with reality, no matter how badly you may handle the situation when your chance comes up, it is not the case that "She's delusional" implies "We ought to tear down her self image."
But that's what the Rainbooms do. Confronted with someone who appears to be mentally ill, their response is, "Let's antagonize her," and their excuse is non-existent. The memory stone takes, not gives. They don't have false memories of Sunset doing bad things or trying to gaslight them. As far as they know Sunset turned into an utter recluse after the Fall Formal, this may well be her first public outing where magic didn't compel her actions in one way or another, and now that she's finally turned up instead of doing something hurtful or evil, she seems to have completely lost it.
Always remember, kids, bullying people with mental illness is what Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Applejack would do. Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle don't get a free pass either. They stood by and did nothing to stop the "Let's poke the mentally ill girl with a figurative stick" fest.
Pinkie is holding a rather old grudge, and Twilight is shunning Sunset for no actual reason. Did Sunset yell at her at the games? Sure. When Twilight almost killed everyone. Twilight almost killing everything wasn't a good thing that Sunset did. It wouldn't be taken by the stone. Twilight will remember that she almost killed everyone, even if certain details are hazy.
Yelling may not have been an ideal response, but it hardly places Sunset into "better shun her" territory.
Twilight's either playing along with "Let's all pick on the girl who appears to be mentally ill," because, hey, all the cool kids are doing it OR because it's just the sort of person she is. Neither of those options make Twilight look good.
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Then we come to the plot. The digital pictures are dismissed because Sunset can "flawlessly" edit with scissors and glue. Right. Solid logic there everyone.
Then there's Watsonian vs Doyalistic. Sunset decides to bring up Pinkie Pie's sleepover, which she has precisely zero reason to do, instead of contacting Princess Twilight, which she has every reason to do, because it's easier to gloss over.
It's much easier for the writers to have the characters dismiss, "I was at that sleepover," when they remember it but not her being there, than it is for the writers to get around the fact that everything that happened in the movie Rainbow Rocks other than the Sirens showing up was entirely contingent upon Sunset using her journal to contact Princess Twilight.
Without the memory of Sunset the events don't make sense. They recognized magic, couldn't get the administration to do anything about it, thought that they should contact Twilight, made no efforts in that direction whatsoever, decided to wait around the statue for no reason, and then Twilight popped out already aware of what was going on in spite of never having been told.
Unless they believe that they're the sort of people who would stand by and let the world burn, there's a problem with that narrative. Even moreso given that Sunset, evil or not, was a resource they know they could have at least tried to tap. "I'd rather doom the world than talk to her," is not a position good people generally take. The characters would have to grapple with their memories not making sense, something that using the sleepover instead doesn't force them to do.
Watsonianly it's perfectly reasonable that Sunset did not choose the best thing to bring up But here in the real world someone had to think about exactly what to have her bring up. There were probably multiple drafts. They chose very specifically to go with something that would allow them to avoid addressing gaping plotholes. That kind of dodge is a problem unless you honestly believe that the animation is a direct recording of events that actually happened.
This is, it must be said, not about salvaging an idea that would otherwise fall apart. Sunset could have chosen good examples but had it backfire. Have them all suspect her as the cause of the inconsistencies in their memories when those inconsistencies were brought up. Or had well chosen examples go nowhere because, "Just because that don't make sense, doesn't mean we're friends and we all just up and forgot you."
Or something.
If that were the only example it would be one thing, but the entire story is full of, "This reeks of a lack of effort."
Consider that you can find thousands (hyperbole) of better Sunset-Celestia reunions here on Fimfiction. Yet, when it's finally done officially it comes off as so stilted it's hard to imagine the people behind it trying at all. Instead it feels like someone just going through the motions.
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Then we have Wallflower. What a waste of good material.
A memory stealer could be deepest evil, or deeply broken. At the end it seems like they were going for the second, where she started with little things, escalated over time to the point of erasing everything she ever said in public, and then, having written herself out of everyone's memories . . . wait, that's where it stopped.
Ideally the explanation at the end of how it started would have bridged into how we found her at the beginning. Instead what we see using Shimmer-mind-vision seems to flatly contradict what we're told and the expository beginning cannot be reconciled with the on screen/on the page ending.
That's a shame because either version would have made for a decent story, but shoving them both in when they contradict one another just makes shoddy craftsmanship.
Even the basic details are so . . . lacking.
Wallflower is someone who no one ever remembers who has been on the yearbook committee for the whole year. There is a backstory there that almost writes itself, yet that "almost" was apparently too much effort for those making the actual store.
And I think I've probably ranted enough for now.
So the Rainboom’s fault was not believing someone who they only remember treating them like shit and one of her standard practices was to fake being nice to people in order to back stab them. She wasn’t acting mentally ill, she was using an old tactic, something which they bring up. Plus when we see the stone used against Sunset later, it takes her having active knowledge of the memory stone and suddenly being locked in a room with no possible way for it to have happened and having been hit by a timeskip (something Trixie just ignored after noticing even though she knew about the stone). It seems like the stone makes the victim not question inconsistencies in memories. Plus, in the end, they did side with Sunset before getting their memories back. Sure it was obvious she was telling the truth at that point, but they still sided with someone who they should have every reason to still despise. Plus, they were all willing to forgive Wallflower in the end.
As for Wallflower, what do you want? Her to be competent? She’d be completely unstoppable without an anti memory loss method, which would hurt the story. As it is, she’s a high schooler lacking in self awareness with a bone to pick against Sunset. Sure she’s not the most compelling villain, but she had a decent enough motivation and did what she was meant to.
There are definitely things the special could’ve handled better. Harder evidence could’ve been used, the mane six could’ve been shown struggling trying to remember (maybe showing lingering magic making them dismiss the evidence). SciTwi definitely could’ve used some work (I heard an interesting theory in that she forgot most of her character development as a lot of it was just her an Sunset, though that seems to be just headcanon). It was still a really good special.
4800999
Ok, first off:
Way to go and ignore Every Single Word that I wrote.
I never even implied that they should believe her. Just lay off the insults and bullying.
That's not true and you know it. The Rainbooms don't think it's the day after the Fall Formal and no time has passed. They remember going to the same school as Sunset for an extended period of time with Sunset doing absolutely nothing wrong either in general or to them in particular.
When Sunset ruled the school it was completely unmissable and there was no way to not notice and remember. The Rainbooms know beyond a shadow of a doubt that that's that has not been not happening. They know she's changed. Because of memory loss they're wrong about how she's changed, but they now for absolutely certain that she has changed.
The memory stone didn't give them false memories, so they don't believe that Sunset is just like she was in the bad old days.
Citation needed. Unless you're making reference to the comic, which the special flat out contradicts, we've never heard of Sunset doing that. (Not even third hand.) The only time we've ever seen her pretending to be nice is when she's doing it to the school administration, and she definitely wasn't doing it to backstab them.
Given that she was voted "Biggest Meanie" via a school wide campaign in her freshman year suggests that she was never big into pretending to be nice to other students.
You just made up that being her tactic because if I believed the lie then I might go with your point, except:
That's not what pretending to be nice in order to get close enough to backstab looks like. At all.
She was acting nice, sure, but talking about things that never happened and trying to convince people you're already their friend and you have a long history with them that they specifically remember not having does not, in fact, leave you in a position to backstab. It freaks them out at best.
If this is what the old Sunset had been like she'd never have ruled the school. She'd be a complete pariah who was named "Biggest Liar".
There is no way anyone who was there to see the old Sunset (so that covers everyone but Twilight) could possibly believe this is her going back to old tactics.
Again: never happened.
Nothing even close to that happened. The only old tactics that got brought up were photo editing (if you can call it that when it's just making a collage) and pretending to be mean while posing as someone else.
No one, even once, suggested that Sunset was using an old tactic.
After Wallflower flat out told them (via her conversation with Sunset right in front of them) that Sunset had been telling the truth and then Sunset took a mindwipe for them.
Someone shouldn't have to suffer just for you to show common decency to them.
There were any number of ways for them to dismiss Sunset's claims, they chose to be cruel. They only decided to stop being cruel when Sunset saved them. This in spite of the fact that they learned Sunset was telling the truth before that. They were quite content to be spectators until they saw the evil mind wipe ray aimed at them.
4800999
Split off because this is an entirely different subject
Short version: for her to be a character instead of a plot device.
As is we don't even know why she's mad at Sunset since literally everyone else has treated Wallflower the exact same way for at least the same amount of time (Some probably longer given that she would have gone to middle-school with at least some of the other students at the high school.)
We can speculate. We can head-canon. We can get to some pretty cool places with that, but that's all us. Not the special.
4801278
First movie, Applejack warns Twilight about it when they first meet. I was wrong on them bringing it up in Forgotten Friendship, my bad. Still, it is established behavior for pre reformation Sunset. As for their memories, we’ve seen the stone makes people not question any gaps. The last time anyone remembered seeing Sunset (besides the ones who saw her yell at Twilight) was turning into a demon, maybe the Battle of the Bands stopping the Rainbooms performance. It seems like the stone screws with their minds and they don’t comprehend Sunset was suddenly missing for weeks at a time. It’s consistent with how it acted the other times. Heck, they know Sunset was the yearbook president, so it’s fully possible they have little bits and pieces of her getting angry and accidentally screwing things up, that she’s not completely gone. We don’t know the details on how the stone works and we don’t know every single interaction Sunset had with the Rainbooms.
As for Wallflower, she does state why she targeted Sunset. She thought Sunset hadn’t changed and that it wasn’t fair that she was still alone while Sunset was now happy with friends. It’s a shallow motivation, but she is a lonely high schooler and they did say it.
Edit: Also, the Rainbooms did not bully her at any point. They wanted her gone and they were dicks about it, but none of it amounted to bullying.
4801320
No. You're making that up. And it's fine that you want to make up a better story. That's all well and good. The problem is that you're pretending the story you made up is the actual story. It's not. Absolutely nowhere does it even imply that that was the last they ever saw of Sunset.
And the thing is, you know, on at least some level, that you're making it up because:
They remember. They forgot she was a hero. They forgot that she was their friend. They pretty clearly remember the rest.
If you want to make a fanfic where that is the case that's fine, but it's not supported by the existing special. In the existing special Sunset didn't suddenly go missing. They're aware that Sunset has been around and doing things, like being the yearbook president, the part they're missing isn't that she's been around for the entire time, it's that she'd been their friend.
They know she was there (attending school and so forth.) If they didn't then they wouldn't know she was yearbook president. If they didn't then almost nothing they said or did would make sense. What they've forgotten is exactly what she was doing while she was there.
We see this especially with Twilight she may only remember one thing Sunset did, but she clearly clearly remembers that Sunset is a student who is involved in at least one extracurricular and has been there since Twilight transferred from crystal prep.
Sure, that's all incredibly vague, but that's the point. If Sunset were hadn't changed, then it wouldn't be vague. There would be clear memories of Sunset keeping up her misdeeds long after the Fall Formal. Since there aren't, they know she isn't.
Setting everything else aside, it makes it clear that there's a double standard going on. Sunset Shimmer the friend gets forgiven. Sunset Shimmer the non-friend schoolmate isn't allowed to move beyond her past, and judged exclusively on what she did way back when rather than her present behavior.
Applejack warns Twilight that Sunset will "probably" approach Twilight as an a rival who holds no animosity and looks forward to the competition. Not approach her and claim that they're already best friends and have been for quite some time.
Yes, they did. Go back and look at what they actually said. The only part that wasn't picking on an acceptable target whom they thought was friendless was, "And we ain't friends."
The rest of it (which came first) is just kicking an (in their minds) confused and friendless girl when she was down. How you count standing by and acting like Sunset is the kind of worthless trash who deserves it effects whether it was six on one or four on one, but they were definitely bullying her when they decided to tear down her sense of self worth instead of simply saying something along the lines of, "Sunset, we're not friends."