A bored delinquent and an exiled prodigy. When a MyStable profile called Anon-A-Miss sabotages all of Sunset's hard work and leaves her friendless Sunset finds herself exiled not just from Equestria, but from all of her social circles as well. Finding herself in the less walked corners of the school, she has a chance encounter with Gilda Grimfeather.

Rather than suffering under the imposing girl, Sunset and Gilda find themselves striking up an unusual friendship and more. Both outcasts, this is their story.

- Featherfall by I-A-M

When I started this whole story, I wanted to work with a series I REALLY liked, but also was really close multiverse-wise to what Sunset would expect to encounter initially. Besides very familiar and plausible, it also needed to be different in significant ways, and to my mind, no fic out there met the criteria like I-A-M's Featherfall.

There are many stories out there that start with Anon-A-Miss, and plenty of them about self-harm and drastic things happening, but Featherfall is unique. Besides it having its own, very distinct voice, the story is not defined by the violence and revenge-porn that happens in many other attempts with a similar start.

The consequences and choices of the characters define every single step of the story, and they are not taken lightly, nor done just for the heck of it. Every choice weighs on our heroines, and the story progresses at its own pace, building up slowly as friendships are destroyed, reformed, transformed, evolved and tried. So much of the story is pure, unadulterated character development that it's a crime to let I-A-M get away with calling it "a simple crackfic".

I loved it all, and I loved especially Sunset's decision and her reasons as we explore in the Isekai conversation.

The title of the chapter is a reference to "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens, and in honor of one Sydney Carton from the same story, who wasn't great at being good even at the best of times (or worst of times), but who ultimately learns to be better (like Sunset!) and chooses a ultimate fate on behalf of others (like Featherfall Sunset!).

So, what are your thoughts on this first of chapters? Was it the right story to begin with, do you think? Let me know!

I don't know if I can comment on whether or not it was the 'right' chapter to start with given that the story in question is mine, but I definitely think the content of Featherfall's narrative gave you a lot to work with in terms of crossing over. Ultimately, that's kind of the meat of crossovers, when the characters have a lot to talk about. Or are given a unique way to interact with one another. In this case, Sunset meeting a version of herself that was disabled gave a huge amount of potential story fodder.

That said, the inception of the story was definitely seated in spite because I was tired of seeing Gilda cast as a one-dimensional villain with no character development and even less reason to be the way she is. That meant writing a story that was as much Sunset's as it was Gilda's, and hopefully I pulled it off.

Either way, it was a sincere honor being the one to inaugurate your mammoth storyline of Isekai.