I've been thinking long and hard about Sunset Shimmer. And I'm still unsure of exactly which of our two hats she belongs in.

On one hand, she did get an entire movie to antagonize Twilight. On the other she really is not a very fleshed out character, with the end of the movie resulting in her "redemption" she's a veritable tabula rasa.

So, I've decided to get the opinions of our wonderful members regarding this decision.

Which of the two Character hats, do you think that Sunset Shimmer should be placed in?

Current Hat Roster

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Probably the Cowboy hat, because, while she did get a whole movie, her character is very bland, and I'm certain that's going to be her only appearance. So yeah, that's my opinion.

2706636
I say throw her in the cowboy hat list. Having a big role in the movie isn't enough. I look at it from this perspective: all the characters in the top hat list have appeared in more than one episode, without exception. Now take a look at the cowboy hat list.

Just as an example: Spitfire. By now she's been in three or four episodes with speaking roles, and in some cases her roles were significant to the episode, but she's not in the top hat. If a character who gets that much attention doesn't warrant it, why should Sunset Shimmer, who only showed up in what could be considered one long episode?

Also, if you do add Sunset Shimmer to either list, make sure you update the paragraph above to note that she's also being considered an exception (alongside Trixie).

Also: considering that Discord's no longer a 'villain' (full time?), has received plenty of attention, and even has some decent repertoire with several characters...should we consider adding him to one of the lists? Or is that still too close to the 'crack shipping' domain?

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2706636

The most common Sunset Shimmer shipping are matches with Top Hat ponies: Twilight, Trixie, Shining Armor... and I've seen more than a few "Redemption in the EQG world" ships pairing her with another Mane Six.

Of course, there's also Flash Sentry, who also isn't in either hat yet. Cue the angst.

I'm going to suggest the Top Hat, not because of anything Sunset Shimmer has necessarily done to earn it, but based on the fact that it will produce a more random shipping pair that way. Unfortunately Rule 4 bars any "beyond the mirror" stories, because it would be a decent opportunity to ship her with Featherweight, Twist, Cloud Kicker, and the CMC without worrying (as much) about age since they're all in high school.

As far as Discord, there are some decent Fluttercords out there. Forever Young, although not tagged as a Romance, is friendshipping at it's... saddest, I suppose.

Get that pesky Shining Armor out of the picture somehow, and I could totally see a DiscoDance happening, considering the Love Princess' admission of boredom during the most recent episode. Pinkie Pie and Discord have a lot in common. Of course, Discord would seem destined for the Top Hat, so it would prevent him from being shipped with the ponies he'd be most suited for... That's probably where the cracked pairing problem comes in.

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I'm inclined to agree with Punzil. The Top Hat is a bit wanting, at the moment. I think that you'll get more random pairings if you include her in the Top Hat. To further substantiate this argument, I'm inclined to point out that Sunset Shimmer has had arguably more screen-time and characterization than Luna, Trixie, and Big Mac, who also sit in the Top Hat.

As for the Discord discussion, I think that one merits its own thread. That being said, I'll still chime in. Discord only feels prone to crackships because of his chaotic nature. I'd argue that Pinkie Pie has the same level of unpredictability that makes real, honest shipping very, very hard. That being said, I don't think that there's any reason why shipping him with, say, a background pony is really cause for concern.

One last note: Punzil, where do you get all those Beauty Brass avatars?

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I make my own avatars using Inkscape.

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Do you make your own vectors, or do you just recolor them?

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I make my own vectors, because more often than not I'm trying to turn one pony into another, like Twilight Sparkle makes a great base for Blossomforth, or Raindbow Dash for Daring Do.

For example, the Smarty Pants below was made from a Mayor Mare screenshot from Lesson Zero... I couldn't have gotten the Manes of Smarty and Twilight right without vectoring. Plus I was able to recycle the Twilight doll into a Derpy doll in a later work.

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I should be taking notes! I've recently tried to start doing custom manes and such to increase what I can accomplish with vectors. I think at this point, however, this is becoming a tangent. I'll move this over to a pm. Cheers!