Sunny Flare: The Anti-Rarity · 7:40pm Jan 24th, 2021
Blog Number 131: Solar Flair Edition
One thing I find disappointing about Friendship Games is the depiction of the Shadowbolts. True, it's Sci-Twi's movie, not really "theirs". But if you're giving us an Anti-Main Six, you could at least do something with them.
So let's do it!
Cards on the table: part of this is an offshoot of my general interest in obscure or underused character tags on FIMFiction as well (Sunny Flare as a standalone tag at the last count had only 70 stories to her name). Partly, it's a desire to do something unconventional. Generally, when you want something more varied and unusual, better to steer clear of the overused and familiar stuff in favour of smaller niches.
Also, as to what methodology I'm going to use, it's the same one I described in this Equestria Daily post from a while back, in which I applied it to a particular background pony (White Lightning, as it happens). The methodology isn't a strict list of criteria: it's more a guiding hint as to places to look.
So yeah, today's blog post is mostly about general character-construction, with Sunny Flare as an example of my point.
To clarify, the general pointers are:
Notable show appearances:
A pretty obvious one, since it's the most likely starting point. Note the adjective "notable": some character appearances don't add much to our understanding or attempts at understanding their personality, lifestyle, social context, and so on. You want to be smart rather than obsessive.
mlp.fandom.com details:
Two major reasons why you'll want to consult this. The first is that there's no point reinventing the wheel; someone else might have collected all the information you need, so it's quicker and more efficient to take a look there for reference. The second is that you get a bigger catch: not just show appearances, but other media and merchandise, specially selected quotations, and even screenshots for collaboration.
Appearance, cutie mark, names:
You won't always have helpful or inspirational intel available, but every character has these as a basic starting point. Names can point you to associations and double-meanings. Cutie marks (not necessarily for Equestria Girls characters, but they might have useful proxies) are badges that clue us in as to their main occupation/calling, as well as being the source of symbolism and clues hidden in their specific iconography and arrangement. And everyone's appearance can leave tantalizing clues as to which direction to take their deeper character; you might not judge a book by its cover, but sometimes the cover can indicate what kind of book would match.
Outside franchises and influences:
It's easy for waters to become stagnant if they're only fed by one river source. Other non-pony media and even real-life trivia, mythology, history, and other facts can add new life to an interpretation.
With that in mind, let's take our kit and apply it to one character: Sunny Flare!
Notable show appearances
I won't go through a pedantic description of every one of her show appearances. This is chiefly for illustrative purposes, after all. Plus, I'd prefer to make more out of the "Anti-Rarity" angle promised by the Shadowbolts' very concept.
Example Number One: Friendship Games
Rule Number One: Everything is Ammunition
First thing to take: character parallels (although it doesn't have to be this eerily perfect). The Shadowbolts have an advantage in that respect, since they're already an explicit antithesis to the Main Six.
Even if they weren't, though, one character can be treated as a "type species" against which other characters can be treated as a "subspecies" or "cousin species". Not only do Sunny Flare and Lemon Zest correspond with Rarity and Pinkie Pie, they're almost mirror images here, with Lemon and Pinkie focused on the track (task-oriented, oblivious), while Sunny and Rarity focus on each other (person-oriented, highly self-aware). That can be inferred as a starting point for building a compare-and-contrast dynamic: think of some Rarity-Pinkie interactions ("Putting Your Hoof Down", "Gift of the Maud Pie", "Spice Up Your Life").
Now think how Sunny Flare and Lemon Zest might handle the same. Would they take an interest if one of their friends had a weakness? How would they impress a relative they'd been competing with? Given a favourite restaurant in danger of going out of business, which would be the conformist and which the trailblazer?
Another thing to take: incidental details to blow out of proportion. Skating at first doesn't automatically fit into a fashionista mould, but that could be taken two ways. One: deliberate subversion. She does have a sporty side, perhaps encouraged (or a sort of "price paid") by associating with the likes of Lemon or Indigo? Two: played straight, just not as you'd think. She isn't normally sporty, as you'd expect, but figure-skating is considered an elegant or "high-cultured" enough activity that she'd take an interest in it as part of her image?
Heck, overinterpret the lightning insignia on their helmets, if you want (I know it's a school symbol, but go along with me anyway). An association with Indigo Zap, the sporty one who might have nudged both Lemon and Sunny towards more outgoing activities in the first place? Could be a story there on its own.
A final and most obvious thing to take: character associations. The mere pairing of Sunny with Lemon (note in an early scene, they high-five each other) could be used as a starting point for a particular relationship. Say, Sunny has an "odd friendship" with Lemon, simultaneously enjoying her energetic fun side and wanting to strangle it when it gets particularly crass for her class.
Example Number Two: Dance Magic
Rule Number Two: Trends Over Time
In this case, it's worth paying attention to the actual storylines they feature in.
"Dance Magic" makes the case that, since their antagonistic days in the third movie, the Shadowbolts (minus Indigo, who's not present for some reason) have indeed tried to improve, though not very hard. They might have turned on their more ruthless Principal Cinch last time, and be much happier with Principal Cadence in charge, but they're still not above stealing concepts if it gives them an advantage (even if it's tenuously for good reasons... tenuously).
That right there suggests a long-term arc off-screen: they might be trying to be better, but they're not necessarily good at it, and still in lockstep with each other up to a point (well, more Sunny Flare and Sour Sweet, since Sugarcoat apathetically blurts out awkward details and Lemon isn't portrayed as that much in sync as these two non-verbally). Think of the potential you could have, with a group of jerks who struggle to be better and still retain old bad habits despite that...
Also, apparently she's a flamenco dancer. ¡Que elegante!
mlp.fandom.com details
As you've probably gathered by now, I'm using mlp.fandom.com as an aid. The screenshots alone are far more economical than rewatching the DVDs, snapping screenshots myself, and going through the laborious process of getting them in position for this blog's formatting. But there's more to the place than a handy bucket of free images.
Sunny Flare's page can be viewed here.
This is where being "smart" is more important than being comprehensive: most of the article simply reiterates what we'd have already guessed for ourselves based on rudimentary knowledge of the films. Seriously, you can skip that part. It's unlikely to be anything but redundant.
Nor is all the information immediately suggestive beyond yet more associations. The "Design" subsection, for instance, only notes that "Sunny Flare's color scheme vaguely resembles that of 'Mystery Mint'." Click on the link, and you find they mean this background character:
Not much to go on, for a physical similarity. You could take an interest in the details for that character in turn (not least of which is that, according to a Twitter post, Mystery Mint was "Modeled after a young Joan Jett."), but you're straying quite far off the original track by this point.
It's not that you couldn't make much of details and unexpected connections like this, but the corollary of "Everything is Ammunition" is that not all ammo is that strong or penetrating. The other thing to keep in mind is that we're not, figuratively speaking, omnivorous: sooner or later, you'll want to discipline these details into a coherent character, likely for a coherent story. You're not going to win with everything.
Further down, though, is where we find further inspiration from other media, and here we have some more pertinent starting points:
In the novel Twilight's Sparkly Sleepover Surprise, Sunny Flare is depicted as the de facto leader of the Shadowbolts. She claims to know a lot about real friendship, but in reality, she does not, since she keeps bickering with Sour Sweet and Sugarcoat.
It's not just that we have a blunt detail to use in its own right (Sunny Flare being treated as a "leader"). It's that this can be brought to bear on other depictions too. In the movie and the "Dance Magic" special, for instance, you could make the better case that Sour Sweet is the actual leader. Yet we can also generate a lot of drama in rectifying this apparent contradiction.
Is it that Sunny is delegating, preferring to let Sour Sweet steer? Is there a conflict between two members trying to be leaders, and what we're seeing are just two checkpoints in an ongoing "power struggle"? Or are they so unusually close compared to their fellow Shadowbolts that they're happy being co-leaders (you could at this point also make a cute parallel between their relationship and that between Rarity and Fluttershy, a la "Green Isn't Your Colour", where it seems surprisingly close in some respects)?
Not only do we have extra details that conflict/raise interesting light on Sunny depicted elsewhere, we also receive completely new stuff that was never shown anyway. According to the section under the Hasbro.com "Friendship Games description":
Sunny Flare can be a bit of a tattletale and a stickler for making sure everyone is following the rules.[1]
This is turning the gem around and spotting a new facet, rather than considering one facet and how its edge meets a neighbouring one. "Sunny Flare the Tattletale" can be the seed for yet another storyline, in which she annoys her friends with it (comedy/drama?), or tries to hide it at all costs (mystery story?), or is pushed into a very uncomfortable situation if she has to tattle something that could ruin what friendships she has, yet can't resist old habits anyway (let's say... tragedy?).
Once you tune your mental radar, stories start popping up all over the place.
Appearance, cutie mark, names
Appearance
While you might end up dipping into stereotypes a bit, depending on how you get from clue to conclusion, for the most part it's a good idea to judge a book by its cover when it comes to character construction. After all, you're trying to write the book. Appearances can determine which audience you aim at. And the other advantage is that, in nearly all cases, you're guaranteed at least one appearance to work with.
For instance:
I'm not gonna lie: the eye-shadow and general air of cool class was why I depicted her as a bit of a goth. Possibly a vampire fan.
I also like the weird device clamped to her arm. Expensive high-tech? She's always the first to get custom-made new tech? Which also suggests a wealthy background (a notable contrast to Rarity's more rural upbringing, perhaps).
Name
"Sunny" seems pretty obvious. Sun association (with Celestia, even?). Sunny disposition (ironically, I suppose). Sun's brightness, power, but also drought-causing, destructive intensity? Or perhaps you can get etymological, historical, or classical, and link her name to Sol and various sun gods like Apollo (god of poetry, among many other things) and Helios (pulled the sun through the sky with his four horses... see some pony potential there?).
"Flare" sounds close to "flair", which is appropriate. There's also reinforcement of the destructive aspect: a real solar flare can damage satellite and communications equipment, despite being a highly dramatic, even beautiful, event in its own right (see? more associations!).
Although appearances are almost always guaranteed as a useful starting point, occasionally characters are merely mentioned (such as Haycartes from "Amending Fences"). Still, it's highly unlikely you've got a character that is neither seen nor heard! Like appearances, names are incredibly useful for bridging gaps and starting your very own construction project.
Cutie Mark
This gets a bit confusing for Sunny Flare, though not because she's an Equestria Girls character. See, according to mlp.fandom.com, the Hasbro website depicts her cutie mark thus:
Yet the symbol most associated with her is this one, on what I think is her hairclip:
I suppose, in this case, it doesn't really matter, since the sun symbol is present either way. Especially with background characters, though, it's worth noting that cutie marks can be wildly inconsistent, so you might have to pick one and stick with it, come what may, in some especially obscure cases. For the purposes of this article, I'll go with the more obvious "cutie mark", the hairclip one.
Despite seeming a tad redundant (it's a sun symbol, and an ornate one that already fits the "classy" or "artistic" motif already seeded by other factors), I think it's also fair to say that corroboration can be good for you too. After all, the more evidence you've got for a case, the more secure you can feel about it too.
This seems as good a time as any to lead on to my final point. After all, we don't want to get too stagnant...
Outside franchises and influences
There are three aspects to consider here: Other media as inspiration. Real life as inspiration. And whether or not it'd fit into Equestria in some form.
"Other media" is an obvious one. We don't just watch ponies all day. This is where the pool of candidates truly explodes, though, because the sheer quantity of cartoons, live-action TV shows, films, anime, manga, books, literature, games, arts, and so on and so on is nigh-infinite.
Some connections are obvious. Students attend a school in a world where magic powers exist? Take your pick, people.
It's not even that you have to make a blunt crossover with them: it's more like learning from what others have done, maybe plucking particular elements without copying the whole thing, or giving a knowing nod here and there. So, instead of having the crude "Harry Potter meets Equestria Girls", have Equestria Girls, but maybe depict the Shadowbolts as the Crystal Prep equivalent of Slytherin House, or have the Sunny-Sour-Sugarcoat trio take cues from the Harry-Ron-Hermione trio. Loosey-goosey is your friend here, not rigid duplication.
Some connections are less obvious, but can work if you spot a common thread. Take that "Sunny Flare looks like a vampire" point I made earlier. Now think of an example of vampire media. Could you have a story in which she's literally a vampire? Meets one (maybe a regular kid corrupted by Equestrian magic in some way)? Drags the others into watching a movie, and gives them nightmares as a result? Dresses up as one for the Equestria Girls equivalent of Nightmare Night? Giggles at Twilight's name all day? The variations are endless!
"Real life" is better yet, because among other things, you don't risk plagiarism claims, ha!
Supposing, for instance, you looked up "solar flare" on Wikipedia, and found out how one could (or, in history, had) taken out a communications satellite. Now build a story after that triggering event. Sunny Flare's wrist-communicator goes caput while an astronomically inclined friend observes a solar flare? Or the opposite: most communication tech goes down, but her wrist-comm doesn't, and suddenly she's bombarded with requests from all her friends trying to use a rare and expensive proxy? Think of the strain it'd cause!
Hell, you can get as weird and tangential as you like with this. In real life, "Sunny Flare" is voiced by Britt Irvin, who also voices Lightning Dust. Bingo: have a tale in which they meet, and are weirded out (among other things) by how similar their voices sound. Or be less meta and just throw the two together in a project neither of them care about, then watch them step on each other's toes or find unexpected common ground.
Despite all this creativity, one thing you should keep in mind with this option is: does it fit into Equestria in some form?
I add the "in some form" part chiefly because you could adjust elements to make them fit. One example is magical systems. If your inspiration treats magic as a humorous stand-in for nuclear power, for instance, is that really going to translate well to an Equestria Girls setting? Nuclear power probably exists in its own right, and you have to remember Equestrian magic is actually unusual for the Equestria Girls setting too (something else to consider when, say, raiding something like Harry Potter for ideas, where magic is an accepted part of the setting for the students).
This isn't an iron-hard rule, not least of all because the show itself doesn't have a great track record, continuity-wise, but it can lend your story more credibility if you try to play fair than just "cheat" whenever it suits you.
Conclusion
Not a lot to add here: most of this has been about the journey than about any particular destination. But I hope you can see various incarnations of just one character - Sunny Flare - form as we go along.
Character-construction can be an incredibly rewarding experience. There are plenty of angles from which to approach it, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. I wouldn't say this is an exhaustive methodology, neither a rigorous or mandatory one. If nothing else, it should give you an idea of the massive branching tree of possibilities, all from a single, simple seed.
As for Sunny Flare...
Perhaps, in another reality, she was the Element of Inspiration, and Rarity was the Shadowbolt? We won't know from the show, not canonically. But maybe a fanfic writer somewhere has just had a vision, waiting to be unleashed...
That's all for now! Impossible Numbers, out.
I'm always in favor of making more use of the Shadow Five. I admit, my own process for fleshing them out doesn't take into account quite as much data as yours, but it does follow a similar methodology. The discrepancy between "official" and character design cute marks is especially interesting. I've actually written a blog comparing and contrasting the two, and what they could imply about the girls. They really are in that sweet spot of just enough characterization where there's a good foundation, but they can still be taken in a number of directions.
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I'd like to write more for them myself. Even had ideas about their pony counterparts, because that opens up even more possibilities. Sunny Flare caught my attention the most precisely because there was so little official info for her specifically...
To be fair, I don't usually get this comprehensive myself. If anything, my methods were more informal before I made that blog post, but it turned out to be a case of defining something by naming it. I've used it as a handy framework ever since.
Hm, let's have a look at that blog, then...
This is super comprehensive! Thank you for sharing your method.
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To be fair, a lot of this is just common sense refined. "Show appearances" is hardly going to startle anyone as a starting point. Given how big the mlp.fandom.com wiki loomed, though, it seemed a natural followup to my last blog post (Sunny Flare as example was more due to personal interest, because the Shadowbolts really are surprisingly neglected, and she most of all).
I unironically love it when the fandom constructs a comprehensive personality out of three voice lines, fifteen seconds of screen time and two sentences from a chapter book, plus something we read on some packaging once.
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And occasionally, not even from that much.
I find it's a good middle ground: not a total OC (because there are clues to build on), but not a defined character set in stone either. It seems a flexible place to start.
Ah man, Sunny Flare is my favourite Shadow Bolt along with Sugarcoat and I so want to write about them, but no ideas are coming to me. At least not concrete ideas that could make for a real story.
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I have the opposite problem: plenty of ideas, some well-developed, but some mental blocks and worries keep me from just diving in and getting them done. Trying to figure them out is an exercise in patience.
As for the Shadow Five (I like FanOfMostEverything's term for them), I have to admit I like each of them for their own reasons (boo my wishy-washy tastes, I dare ya!), but Sunny is the favourite at the moment, probably because of the developing idea that she's the aloof, classy one who (might) like vampires. Or it might simply be because I've made more strides giving her a personality than with the others: fanfiction can be weird like that.
I like to think that she's a techie of sorts. Like that device on her arm isn't just some high-end stuff she got for being wealthy, but because she's genuinely into cool gadgets. (Possible bonding point with Sci-Twi?) I also like to think that her and Sugarcoat are besties, because they just share a sense of humour and they like to roast each-other mercilessly. It's like they tell each-other how much they suck and in good times it brings a laugh and in bad times it's exactly what they need to hear to get out. Their snark is a different breed though. Sugarcoat is brutally honest with everybody, but she talks the same way to herself as well, which constantly drives her to do better. On the other hand, Sunny Flare's snark is more a regular type of snark, that kind of masks her own insecurities. Funnily enough, Sugarcoat's snark actually helps her through some of those insecurities.
Uhh... I don't know where I was going with this.
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Huh. You single out Sugarcoat, whereas in my mind Sunny Flare's usually more closely associated with Sour Sweet and Lemon Zest.
Sour Sweet, because they seem canonically in sync a lot of the time, and because of that trivia I dug up about each acting like "the leader" (I assume they sort of share bullying duties amicably). Helps I cheat and steal from their Main Six opposites, Rarity and Fluttershy, who seemed to get along very well, very early (think "Green Isn't Your Color"). I could easily imagine these two hanging out at a spa together.
Lemon Zest, for the opposite reason. Take your techie point, for example. I see them both as taking an interest, but Sunny's in it for the status and wealth (she can afford it but doesn't care as much), while Lemon genuinely enthuses about all things new and interesting (she cares but can't always afford all the cool stuff). And they sort of recognize each other's emotional strengths and weaknesses (one cool and classy, one wild and common), even if it sometimes drives each of them crazy.
Where Sour Sweet's more about attitude similarity, Lemon Zest is more about complementing needs.
I do like your idea that Sunny's snark actively helps, rather than just being a symptom or even a problem. The weird thing about the Shadow Five is how you can strike a balance between them being like the Main Six and them being, well, jerks. Makes for some fun subversions and blending.