Reviews of Sad Sunset Stories—It's Not Fine by Inky Shades · 5:05am Jan 21st, 2019
Sunset Shimmer is such a fascinating character to me. She’s undoubtedly had the most difficult life of any canonical character, and her proclivity for pain follows her into the fanfiction world. As some whorl-toothed people will tell you, however, the quality in Sad Sunny Stories can vary greatly.
Seeing as a few people in comments sections of my own stories have told me that I did a less-bad-job-than-usual with Sad Sunny, I consider myself nothing less than the Absolute Arbiter of Depressed Redheads. As such, I figured I’d milk my pseudo-popularity in the misery market to talk about why I like Sad Sunny stuff, and what Sad Sunny stuff I like. Cuz despite how much junky SadSunny may be out there, I have good news—if you enjoy Last Light and Passed On, there's waaaay better stories that will blow your tear ducts away.
by RMariansJ
What I’d like to do with this blog, and others like it, is talk about the stories that I believe go above and beyond when it comes to using the most interesting aspects of Sunset to tell a heartbreaking story. In line with this goal, I’m excluding the following genres.
- I will avoid reviewing stories where Sunset is subjected to self-harm and/or suicide as cheap plot device to force The Feels™. If it's included in the story without really meaning anything to the story beyond "So Sad Wow Omg," then it's a no-no.
- There will be no mention of horribly forced shipping narratives where making out with Trixie or Fluttershy or whoever suddenly solves all of Sunset’s emotional crises and sets her on the path to contentment and aggressively hot lesbian sex scenes.
- God help you if you think I'm gonna discuss a single of those oh-so-fetishized Anon-a-miss revenge porn stories. You know the ones, where like, the Crusaders are captured in an FBI raid and strung up at the Super Bowl halftime show whereupon their dangling corpses are fired upon by fans wielding T-shirt cannons loaded with fireworks and rock salt, only for them to be magically resurrected every year by a murder-crazed Princess Celestia so that they may be re-executed annually for the entertainment of thousands upon thousands of FimFic comment sections roaring for blood.
Actually, if someone writes that last one I may have to talk about it. Anyway, in stories focusing on what makes Sunset unique, she has more potential than nearly any other character to create truly sad stories. She’s emotionally intelligent, she struggles with abandonment issues and good golly gosh is there some good art of her crying.
But when writing a story that takes advantage of these aspects, what works, and why? To start, let’s look at a really sad story about a tear on the cheek of the girl on her own cuz the rain on the bump on a branch on a log tripped her friend off bridge down a hole to the bottom of the sea—er, river.
Oh yeah, and this blog will have spoilers, though I’ll do my best to either tag them or memeify them beyond recognition. Possibly both.
This story is not a tragedy—it’s the aftermath of a tragedy. Following SciTwi’s death in a frequently-alluded-to accident, Sunset is completely broken. She blames herself for her friend’s death due to her role in the event, and every aspect of her life is suffering as a result.
The story thrusts you right into the suffering, but it’s a hazy sort of suffering. The specifics of Twilight’s death and the events that followed are unknown to the reader until much later, but that’s okay because you don’t need to know the specifics to get that Sunset is absolutely miserable. Something so many SadSunny fics I’ve read get wrong is forcing sadness on Sunset through excessively brutal treatment and suffering. I don’t need some ludicrous chapter where the Rainbooms declare Sunset to be president of the “Total Frickin’ Nerd Club lmao," or where Principal Celestia pays Gilda a dollar and half-eaten chocolate bar to have her smash Sunset's cranium with a spiked club, for me to understand that Sunset is justifiably upset.
I don’t need that, y’know? I’m a simple kinda gal, I just wanna read about tears and maybe cry a few myself. Gratuitous, over-the-top dramatic stuff almost never works in sad stories, simply because it shifts the focus from why a character is sad to what they're sad about. Once that's happened, you've lost the forest for the trees, and it's especially noticeable in Sad Sunny Stories. The appeal of Sunset compared to say, this fuckin' guy, is that her sadness in the show—and how she deals with it—is so damn relatable. Which isn't to say sad stories with Sunset are somehow better than ones with other characters, but they definitely have an advantage when exploring deeply sorrowful themes, simply because Sunset's sadness and suffering can have a canonical foundation to stand on.
See how miserable she is?
Going back to It’s Not Fine, there's no need for gratuitous emotional sequences. Sunset’s emotions speak for themselves—literally—and the way these feelings are portrayed is simple but remarkably effective. Throughout the story, Sunset’s “inner voice” guides her and talks with her, almost as if her emotions are an entirely separate character. While it seems strange at first, you realize soon enough that such a disconnect between her thoughts and emotions is the entire point. Sunset split her mind in two in the hopes of quarantining the guilt and pain of losing her friend, but emotions left untempered by reason are dangerous things.
There is a point in the story where Sunset’s feelings turn on her, and a vicious tug-of-war between her logic and emotion begins. The whole thing is written brilliantly, to the point where I couldn’t tell who the "real" Sunset was anymore, something Sunset herself was probably struggling to figure out. The author, Inky Shades, must have done their homework, because holy moly do they know how to write internal conflict. Sunset seamlessly drifts between panic and apathy, and with each flip, both grow in intensity. By the end of the story, Sunset can’t reconcile the split between emotion and logic that she herself caused. It’s only with the help of someone willing to sit with Sunset in the darkness of her own mind that she has a chance to bridge the gap between what she’s feeling and what she’ll do about it.
It’s Not Fine works because it’s deceptively simple. Big emotions don’t have to come from big words, and Inky Shades did a wonderful job of taking a basic narrative—a protagonist mourning the loss of a friend—and using Sunset’s unique flavor of solitary sadness to create something truly special. If you’re looking for a powerful and high-quality Sad Sunset Story, this is for you.
"Okay wow, my fingers hurt."
Thanks for reading my incoherently ramblings about a better fic by a better author. If you’ve got a good Sad Sunny Story you’d like to recommend me (please don’t just recommend your own, c’mon now), comment or whatever.
Something Something Sad Sunny,
~Scampy
Hey, you should do my totally sad Anon-a-Miss fic where the CMC get beaten to a pulp by brass knuckles-wielding Sunset Shimmer next time!
5000188
me too :3
Ooh, I'll be looking forward to this series. I haven't checked out the story yet, but the analysis looks solid. Thank you for the recommendation
As far as Sad Sunny recs go, try out Our World is Suffused With Sound by Cynewulf. It's been a while since I read it, but I'm fond of it and the title is sick.
Also it's C2 ApprovedTM!
Moar.
I think I’m going to like this series as much as I like your writing.... which is a lot so please don’t get offended. Plus it’ll help me find some sad sunset stories I haven’t found yet.
Thank you for this lovely, in-depth review. It made my evening! This story is near and dear to me. It came after an almost year long writing dry patch, and a lot of effort went into research as I wanted to make the portrayal of Sunset's depression as accurate as I could. To know my story affected someone is one of the highest compliments I could ever receive. Thank you again. I appreciate all the effort and time you put into this.
I also look forward to seeing more of these blog posts. Sunset is one of my favorite characters, so I can't wait to add more stories to my list!
As soon as I saw what this blog was going to be about, I dropped what I was doing (not that I was doing anything productive) and went and read the entire story in one sitting and I have to say, it did not disappoint.
never seen one with Trixie, but Ive seen PLENTY with Fluttershy... Why? I honestly dont see those two getting together... like, ever...
and I agree 100% especially with my story when I screwed up and forced a shipping into it pissing off enough people to go back and edit the chapter taking the shipping mostly out
Im actually really glad you're doing something like this! Its hard finding good sad sunny stories in all honesty, not impossible, but a bit hard, and i enjoy your reviewing style, plus you start with a favorite of mine personally, i think im gonna love this series of yours if you continue it.
Oh, and if you want a shorty but a goodie, check out "Pain demands to be felt" by ssunsxt. I swear you won't be disappointed.