TLittle Shop Down Canterlot Road

• MLP: FiM
• Equestria Girls
• Romance
• Drama
• Slice of Life

In a quiet little flower shop down a Canterlot street, Sunset Shimmer finds an unexpected face from her past. One who'd rather not be forgotten, twice over.

• Sunset Shimmer
• Wallflower Blush

Sledge115 · 5.6k words  ·  122  7 · 1.6k views

Description

Fresh off her graduation, Sunset Shimmer wanted nothing more than a break from the troubles and anxiety that plague her mind. And of course, through the Mirror lies the land she once called home, a retreat away from, well, everything.

Unfortunately, in a quiet little flower shop down a Canterlot street, who else should she meet, but a face from her past. One who'd rather not be forgotten, twice over.

Initial Thoughts

I must admit that I fell somewhat out of the EqG phase of my fandom love some time ago, probably just after the 2017 MLP movie came out. I did watch the first Equestria Girls, though, to be honest, I did so after watching Rainbow Rocks, which has always had a soft spot in my heart. In terms of being “caught up” with the series, I watched the third movie, plus some of the specials, but due to life getting in the way, it ended up falling off the radar for me. 

Sometime ago (I don’t even know really when – this might have been just as my interest in the show as a whole threatened to wane, once college began), I was told about the Forgotten Friendship movie. I went to watch it, but oddly remember little about it. I believe I enjoyed it, but in the sense that I was still working from a detached angle. I can’t say I became enamored with Wallflower Blush as, it seems, fans of EqG have, but I can’t say I was bored by her, either. If anything, the movie reaffirmed my belief that Sunset Shimmer is one of the best characters in the series. 

Still, I’ve been aware of the many shipfics written about the two. I don’t really remember if, in the movie, there was any indication that there was anything between them, but evidently the fandom has latched onto these two characters as one of the primary EqG ships. This story promises to explore that, at least in part, and given my rather lackluster knowledge of the ship, I suppose it must do two important things: convince me that this ship is applicable, and convince me that this ship works. 

Onto the story. Spoilers ahead.

Summary

Sunset Shimmer’s return trip to Canterlot ends up with her confronting a hauntingly familiar face.

Plot

It’s possible to classify the story as starting in medias res, a technique which means “starting in the middle.” Indeed, we have several indications: Sunset is back in Equestria, she’s graduated from high school, and Twilight is now the sole princess. Enough time has passed that Sunset’s trip to Equestria no longer feels furtive or secretive. 

Even so, this is not to say that everything’s changed. The story practically opens with a counter-theme, a longing for the way things were due to the consistent illusion of the present:

Canterlot hadn’t changed much, Sunset thought. In the years that went by, it still had the same sort of people – ponies, Sunset corrected herself – the same paved streets, the same uniform rows of opulent homes and the shops that lined them.

In some strange way, perhaps that’s why it was, and always would be, home to her.

‘Because you’d like it that way, wouldn’t you? Everything to be the way it used to be… ’

That longing informs the majority of the plot’s progression. It becomes, in many ways, the theme of the story—how often we continue our lives without looking back and wondering whatever happened to those we met before, and wouldn’t it all be easier for things to be as they were back then? 

The story’s sole chapter, as well, also provides this theme. You probably can’t get much more obvious than titling a chapter, “Those We Leave Behind.” 

So who is it that’s been left behind, and what is it that Sunset Shimmer is longing for?

The answer, as the story details, is Wallflower Blush. More specifically, the pony version of her. She and Sunset’s chance meeting in a little shop down Canterlot road (ha) leads to the discovery that, once upon a time, before the events of the first EqG movie, the two were almost friends—almost, in the sense that Sunset made Wallflower feel as though she had a friend in the first place. That kind of warped perception no doubt leads to Wallflower’s confusion over Sunset’s sudden vanishing (which we know as part of the EqG lore side of things). She was left behind by Sunset Shimmer, and as the meeting in the shop continues, that kind of pent-up emotion wells up until Wallflower can’t contain her confused resentment anymore.

Of course, she could not have known how much Sunset has changed since her vanishing. The arrogant, self-important filly of yesteryear has been replaced by a highly emphatic individual. More than that, to make the encounter even more awkward, it’s revealed that Sunset and the human world’s version of Wallflower were a couple. And emphasis on that “were;” before the events of the story, the two broke things off.

So it becomes apparent that we’re dealing with more than just the awkward, “I’m meeting my ex’s doppelganger.” In some ways, this is a story about meeting our own ghosts, specters we wanted to forget, but which we never could. I believe that particular analogy, of ghosts, is even more appropriate, especially after the story heavily implies that following the break-up, the human Wallflower Blush committed suicide.

In this way, tragedy accentuates the drama already present. And I must say that Sledge has done a nice thing with it. They haven’t tacked tragedy on in order to superficially construct a complicated dramatic moment. Rather, the tragedy, told mostly through implication, doesn’t call too much attention to itself as to come off as melodramatic. (Plus, the ambiguity, even as it leans definitely towards the tragic element discussed, aids in such an endeavor, however conscious it was.) 

As a whole, the story’s plot is complete, but there is a sense on my part that something is ever so slightly missing. It may that the slow build-up and great dramatic reveal were excellent in the first section, but the second half felt a bit rushed, as though the story needed to throw the characters back together again—not in the romantic sense, but in the sense that, clearly things are unresolved and must be re-solved. 

This, to me, is what Sunset’s return to Wallflower by the second half of the story represents. But a curious thing happens: a lack of Wallflower’s perspective in all this that isn’t told through the filtered lens of Sunset’s view. The emotional intent suggests that this is more than just Sunset’s story: it is both Sunset and Wallflower’s story, and if we are to go a bit further, it’s also both Wallflowers’ story. We certainly get Sunset’s emotional journey here, for sure, but both Wallflowers feel inadequate by comparison. 

In part this is the fault of simply the devices that the story uses—which is to say, it isn’t necessarily bad, just a limitation of the story itself. The close third-person perspective, filtered through Sunset, naturally limits through how many characters we see the story. And given that one character is at least implied to be dead, it’s impossible to have that character’s perspective—we can only see things through the haunting memory of her as it afflicts Sunset. But is the pony Wallflower just as haunted? Or is that single build-up the only indication we have of that kind of emotion?

I almost feel that the story would have benefited from being a thousand words or so longer, if only to explore in some sort of space Wallflower’s own emotions regarding the now-returned Sunset. For just as Sunset must reflect on old messages—on the past—so could Wallflower the pony. A parallel story structure—was not the story heading in that direction anyway?

Let me be clear, the story works well without such an addition. It is complete. But for it to feel full, that would be the main thing I would recommend.

Score – 8 / 10 

Characterization

Knowing one character fairly well and another not very well put me in a bit of a quandary with this story. Would Sledge be able to “perform” Sunset reasonably, and would they be able to “perform” Wallflower in such a way as to make me believe this is her? 

Generally, yes—but there are a few hiccups.

Let me start with the positives. It’s clear that Sledge wants to write these characters as foils for one another—both are wracked with self-loathing, guilt, and confusion about who they were and how that impacts who they are now. And given Sunset’s own relationship with Wallflower, this adds further to such complicated emotions. 

When these emotions come to blows—when Sunset and Wallflower talk after Sunset comes to—the emotional drama of the moment carries great narrative momentum. I enjoyed their exchanged, and I also enjoyed how Wallflower didn’t pussyfoot around getting Sunset to talk, no matter how many deflections either performed. It suggests maturity on part of the character, and if this is how Wallflower is generally depicted, I’m all for it. (Of course, there’s also the sense that these characters have matured off the page, so this added layer of maturity is definitely believable.)

During this talk, though, one gets the feeling that there was a bit of uncertainty as to how well translated these emotions were. Interspersed throughout the exchange are acts of assonance and repetition—phrases such as “forget” and “useless” are emphasized repeatedly in many of Sunset’s inner comments as well as the narrative of the story itself. While this certainly makes sense in terms of a reaction to such a complicated barrel of emotions, at the same time I don’t think Sunset obsessing over such terms necessarily accentuated them any more than the dialogue itself did.

Put another way, the exchange works because the tension between two characters is apparent in how they talk and how they don’t talk. For instance:

“And then you had to be there, you stood there in my shop like nothing’s changed and-and fainted like it was you who had to wait years for you to come back or just, just tell me where you even went! I thought you remembered, that you wanted to catch up because you'd missed out on so much. But now you just told me you could've come back this whole time and… And that you… forgot about me. Like I didn’t matter...”

Even out of context, this is enough to tell the reader what’s really on Wallflower’s mind, and subsequently what’s on Sunset. Both are wrestling with the ramifications of forgetting and being forgotten. Wallflower even says it. The ellipses carry enough emotive weight to demonstrate just how much she’s been wrestling with it. Presumably, the exchange being one of dialogue, Sunset’s mirroring that kind of wrestling in her own measured responses—even in her line of dialogue that occurs before this one. 

It’s followed with this:

Forgot, forgot, forgot… 

Forgotten twice, now.

Wallflower didn’t have to know that. But she’d know, of course. She’d know what a screw up she’d be to forget her so easily.

To me this weakens the emotional impact because it spells it out. And it’s told through Sunset’s POV, but in a way that weakens the implicit emotional subtext that’s threaded throughout the conversation. It’s a way of justifying the emotional drama, but it’s unnecessary because we already know that this is a moment of emotional drama. 

To be sure, key repetition helps develop the tonal strategy of a piece, and done well, it adds to the dramatic flavor. In retrospect, this observation of mine is little more than a nitpick, especially given the otherwise mostly complete sense that the story provides, regarding its own emotional journey. But given Sunset’s own subtextual history of self-loathing and the many nods to both her and Wallflower being foils for each other—down to the point of, clearly, sharing similar thoughts and feelings regarding guilt and self-worth—any additional layering through these kinds of character asides feels not just out-of-character in the moment, but taxing to the narrative.

The reason I place this in the Characterization category is because this particular narrative technique, as used in this story, feels distinctly character-driven. The theme that such repetition and justification develops relates strongly to the characters of Sunset and Wallflower. More than just a rhetorical strategy, it’s an emotional one, and characters are best written when their emotions are as true to themselves as can be. Anything else feels like flavor for the sake of flavor.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is: I’m there with you, and I’m there with these characters. Trust that the reader is, too, and cut back on trying to justify the emotional space that you’re trying to make resonant. The interaction is enough. Let it breathe rather than cramp it with hesitancy, in that sense.

Score – 8 / 10

Syntax

Funnily enough, a point I made earlier about the effectiveness of ellipses is something that I have to point out negatively here. Not necessarily because the quote above which uses ellipses misused them, but rather that I think the story uses them too much to achieve dramatic effect. At times the characters feel like they’re pausing every other sentence. It first works, but over time feels a bit like a null conversation—the progression of dialogue becomes interrupted with each character pausing in this same way. 

Of course, that’s something up to style than style-guide. I would point to the fact that the characters, by virtue of clearly starting off by hiding things from each other, would definitely have lulls in the conversation. But I got the impression that such lulls happened far too frequently to work fully with the emotional effect the story and prose as a whole are trying to convey. It may therefore be a matter of looking back over the dialogue and listening to see if the characters actually do pause here, or if some other manner of diction—or, I suppose, some other manner of a lack of diction—would suffice. Would more actions, or descriptions, benefit where words fall apart? It’s something, I believe, worth considering. 

But it’s a fickle point, I’ll admit that, and it hardly affects the rest of the story’s readability. 

Score – 9 / 10

Final Score – ( 8 + 8 + 9 ) / 3 = 8.3 / 10

Final Thoughts

I hope I haven’t been too nitpicky or anal about this story. For me, the story falters strangely where it succeeds initially: getting to the emotional crux of the whole narrative. It presents a strong conflict between our two characters and highlights the many similarities, differences, and consequences each must face for a past that’s long, long gone. There are many interesting themes present, too, all within the subtext of the conversation, and the story does a good job of trying to wrap itself up, leaving the reader with some satisfaction at an otherwise relatively unresolved ending.

At the same time, it falters from not going further with the plot or journeys of each, and also from not quite trusting itself to tell its own emotional journey. In a strange twist of fate, the two main pieces of advice I can give contradict one another: write more and say less. But I believe it’s a matter of fleshing out the big ideas—the big character moments—that require more to be written; consequently, it’s the smaller but no less impactful moments, the ones that examine and reveal who a character is, that could do with a bit of spring cleaning. 

Yet overall, the story has convinced me of one thing: a Sunset x Wallflower couple could work. It will likely not be my main Sunset ship, but this story does a good enough job of illuminating it. 

<For archive purposes: 8.3/10>

7459520

Hey, thanks for the review

Keeping it short but, you got it pretty much all covered. I do have somewhat of an ellipsis problem where I use it to simulate diction as how I see it, in real life. And the bits with emotions being told again, yeah, I do need to work on that somewhat. The intent was for it to be hammered in to Sunset, heh, but fair point on letting readers make their own conclusions.

Though conversely, it's also why I left it only on Sunset's POV, to really emphasise the uncanny feeling of this Wallflower in Sunset's eyes. I'm glad the underlying subtext worked, throughout the conversation, and all in all, glad you liked it enough to be convinced of these two working as a couple .

Cheers, and thanks for the review, again - it was really helpful.