Immediately after her banishment, Sunset Shimmer is alone in a strange bipedal world, with no money and no home. A chance meeting gives her an unexpected opportunity, but she must take a great risk to seize that opportunity.
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Admiral Biscuit
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Admiral Biscuit
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How does this already have a downvote?
Also, is EqG Joe played by Pierce Brosnan or Roger Moore?
5202970
It's probably my usual stalker. I bet he's had a busy month.
Brosnan.
Lovely.
5202992
Horrifying. And yet somehow less so than Mamma Mia.
However much I can't actually see Sunset killing anyone, I enjoyed the story. And I love the shit-eating grin she has in the cover pic.
5203001
Thanks!
5203013
To be honest, I can't see her murdering anyone either--heck, Rainbow Rocks has her being redeemed, which is unlikely if she's a murderer. But, it made for a great story premise.
Well, that got dark fast...
5203062
Heh. That's kind of a trend with my darkfics, I guess.
Dark, and I can't see it really happening, but it's pretty well-written and I like the sense of location to it - I don't know exactly what it is, but this fic does a great job of giving off the feel that there really is a whole town beyond Canterlot High.
Very dark ... but some scneario just this has always occurred to me as a possibility.
5203109
I suppose I should get reading then, I need some inspiration. My mind is borderline on writing block and I'm struggling to keep my turbines turning so I can keep writing... it's like dying.
Be honest, ladies; how many of you do and/or would do that to your boyfriend?
5203126
Me, either, honestly. That's why I decided I ought to include the AU tag.
Thanks!
5203137
You know, I wasn't really thinking about it until Syzygy, and then I found out that in the movie there was an EqG native Twilight and that just got me to thinking....
5203140
One of my exes would do that sometimes, or nose-to-nose in an "Eskimo" kiss.
5203139
You might try some of the prompt groups, like Prompt A Day. Sometimes, they're a great source of inspiration.
5202970
George Lazenby.
5203238 I'll give it a whirl! Thanks!~
Now do a sequel where native Sunset's ghost starts haunting pony Sunset ala Juon: The Grudge.
5203230
Incidentally, if this is true, Sunset would be even more insane. Killing your direct analogue -- someone very similar to you in terms of personality -- has to be one of the more mentally-damaging forms of cold-blooded murder. I think even a true sociopath would have some qualms about that.
5203140
My wife does.
5203473
It would be interesting to know the psychology of a twin who deliberately killed his or her identical twin--if that has ever happened. I can't imagine it would be an easy psychological barrier to cross.
That's a pretty dark take on what happened to the alter-Sunset. I like it.
Also, it's 10/29! October's almost over, you can do it Admiral!
5203529
I'm sure Rainbow Rocks pretty much josses the whole story, but whatever.
I'll finish this thing. I've got another in the submission queue, one in need of major edits, and two new ones to write, and right now I'm finishing up Braiding. My current word count for the month, if you're curious, is 45k.
This story explains where the native SunSetShimmer is, but it has another problem:
In My Little Pony: Equestrian Girls # Ⅰ, SunSetShimmer could not bring herself to hurt Spike and released him. Her coup could even be bloodless:
She zombieified the entire school, including the 2 Sisters Principle Celestia and Vice Principle Luna. Have the 2 sisters target the horns of their counterparts, thus discombobulating them. Have every other zombie go after everypony else in the palace, with emphasis on the guards. Within less than 5 minutes, everypony in the palace is forced through the mirror. Then, destroy the mirror. Nopony outside the palace will know that anything even happened. SunSetShimmer will through the 2 Royal PonySisters with them as her puppets and she as the puppetmistress. ¡A totally bloodless coup!
5203584
Rainbow Rocks MIGHT joss the story, because I'm not sure that if Sunset did something that evil, she could ever come back from it. On the other hand, it might be one of the long list of evil things of which she now repents.
If she did that, and Flash already liked the (native) Sunset, that would make her taking Flash as her boyfriend a truly dark deed.
5203718
That's a good point. On the other hand, it's possible that Sunset murdered her analogue, and after doing that was so horrified at what she'd done that she swore to use less bloody methods in the future.
5203855
You could be right. We still have no idea where SunSetShimmer lives and how she learns her money. Writing that sentance just gave me an idea for an half-crack/half-clop fic:
Sonata Dusk shows up at the residence of SunSetShimmer, filthy, half-starved and desperate. After being depowered, Aria Blaze and Adagio Dazzle abandoned Sonata Dusk as useless deadweight. Out of desperation, she went to SunSetShimmer. SunStShimmer says:
Sonata Dusk just looks confused.
Sonata Dusk looks utterly baffled.
I call it:
“¡Sunata!”
On 2nd thought, I shall not write this story.
I still wonder how SunSetShimmer makes a living. I doubt that Hasbro will show her working as a prostitute; but then again, I never believed that Hasbro would show Twilight Sparkle commit genocide before S03E03 “Too Many Pinkie Pies” by Dave “ProGenocide AntiScience” Polsky.
5204058
I don't think Sunset Shimmer's a prostitute. Her clothing style is meant to suggest a 1980's "big hair" rocker, not a prostitute. Though, admittedly, the two fashions are close.
Damn, Biscuit, I guess when you upload like five stories a day it was inevitable that you would steal a decent headcanon from me. I sort of thought you were gonna go for a double twist and have them hatch an actual "each twin goes to the class they're good at" plan, or maybe make out or something, but I like that you saw it through.
5204068
It is not her clothes that made me make the suggestion —— prostitutes working their way through school do not go to class in lingerie. It is just that she has to earn a living somehow, maybe:
The whole EGVerse does seem to be a nonsensical version of the ManeVerse. It is like a movi-version of Around the Bend:
Around The Bend
If the mirror distorts enough, maybe SunSetShimmer does not have to make a living.
5204157
Well yeah, but between her brains, her charisma and her drive, she has other options. Even assuming that she's not being actively subsidized by Principal Celestia -- if the Humanoid Celestia knows who she is.
It's also quite possible that the Humanoidverse does not have the insane labor laws that make it impossible in our world for minors to support themselves.
I like it! She was prepared to turn a bunch of innocents into mindless zombies to do her bidding and take over a country, murdering one person (even if it is herself) for her own gains is hardly a stretch.
5204176
If the EGVerse does not have the “Insane LaborLaws” and SunSetShimmer has a full-time job, she would not have enough time to be a full-time student. Indeed, that is the point of the “insane laborlaws” when combined with “Support-Your-Foals Laws” and “Truancy-Laws”:
In the late 19th century, it became obvious that a complete basic education really helps ponies later in life. To this end, we passed 3 interlocking laws:
Truancy-Laws:
The foals have to go to school.
FoalLaborLaws:
Foals cannot be in school and at work at the same time.
Laws requiring that parents support your foals until they are over the age of 18 years and either graduate from or drop out of school:
Since FoalLaborLaws dictate that foals cannot work full-time, parents must support their foals until their foals are both over the age of majority and finish, in 1 way or another, education.
You touch on this tangentially when you wrote about the age of consent for ponies.
5204266
Yes. Combined, these laws are very appreciated by pimps looking for underaged prostitutes, as they make it difficult for minors to legally earn a living. They are also much appreciated by abusive parents for the same reasons.
Nevertheless, I think they would prove a fairly minor obstacle to someone as smart, driven and ruthless as Sunset Shimmer.
5204266
(*sigh*) I am, perhaps, being too sarcastic. I know a lot about social history, the motives of the Progressives of a century ago who first pushed for these laws, and the way in which childhood was simultaneously extended and sexualized over the last century, resulting in the appearance of whole generations of extremely-immature and yet extremely-promiscuous teenagers of the last half century or so, which has caused all sorts of social problems (mostly, an explosion of teenage out-of-wedlock births).
The public education system has entirely collapsed, while the truancy and labor laws combined make the only legal option for many poor children remaining in public school, learning nothing fitting them for any employment, while denying them any opportunity to get serious work experience. This of course has little effect on the children of the wealthy, who write the laws -- they get to go to good schools and get a meaningful education. And it's okay -- in point of fact, there are massive dropout rates for poor kids, who can begin their meaningful careers as petty criminals (because legal employment is closed to them).
Yes, I know this wasn't the intent of the laws. But that matters less than their outcome.
What Sunset Shimmer would do if she needed money is learn what papers were required to legally work as a minor, forge the papers or steal money to pay for a forgery, and then work part-time and go to school, conning, stealing or trading for additional moneys as needed for particular projects. She would never do anything as degrading as have sex with hairless apes for money; she's basically an evil (or ruthless) Twilight Sparkle, and Twilight wouldn't do that either.
5204288
I know perfectly well that Progressives are not perfect:
Progressives persecuted prostitutes and sexually mutilated the genitals of their foals.
I am not aware of any evidence that the 3 Interlocking Laws (truancy, support foals until they are over the age of majority and leave school, and foallaborlaws) have increased foalprostitution. [citaion-needed]
Out-of-wedlock births is complicated:
Teenaged pregnancy has declined, but out-of-wedlock births increased. The former is a good thing but the latter is a bad thing:
In the olden days, it used to be that a foals had 2 married parents responsible for them and 2 godparents too. 4 parents was still nowhere near enough (the proverb that it takes a village to raise a foal is correct) but it was a start.
We should teach fillies that bearing foals out-of-wedlock is a terrible idea and to watch out for sweet-talking irresponsible stallions.
We should teach colts responsibility. A good paragon to emulate is Big MacIntosh. Colts should ask themselves “¿What would Big MacIntosh do?”. If a stallion insists on being irresponsible, we can always geld him —— ¡If you do not use your testicles responsibly, we shall take them away! ¡That will learn him!
¡Eeyup!
5203243
First rule of George Lazenby: we don't talk about George Lazenby.
I always suspected this was how Sunset got her idensity and means of support. If she doesn't have a duplicate, I figured she was squatting in an abandoned warehouse or something. One thing to remember: The magic book that Sunset can't convince herself to give up that is her last connection to Celestia? She keeps it in her locker, so apparently that's more secure than wherever Sunset is living.
I figured Sunset was supporting herself by shaking down students for lunch money and petty theft. I don't think she would have some fundamental problem with being a prostitute, she is ruthless and would do whatever it takes to easily earn a lot of money. However, like
5204288 said, she's basically an evil Twilight, so she's smart enough to know the risks, legal and otherwise, of prostitution, especially when you don't have ID or citizenship.
5203126
Yes. This. This is whats good about this story.
5204288
The favorite theory that I've seen was that when Sunset went through the mirror she brought some bits and gems with her. These suddenly turned out to be a lot more valuable than they used to be. The story purported that that starting cash is what she's been living off of, but I personally find it more likely that she invested most of that in stocks or something.
5203230
Yes, that raised so many question. I'm hoping that EqG Twilight comes along investigating and drags her best friend EqG Sunset Shimmer with her.
5205625
Actually, I think that she would have a "fundamental problem with being a prostitute." Sunset is a megalomaniac. She has delusions of grandeur, not squalor. She probably came from an upper-class family just like Twilight Sparkle, and has all (or most of) the revulsion that most Ponies would have against having casual sex. Said casual sex being for money, with hairless ape-things would just make it all the worse.
There is a tendency to assume that if a character is villainous, or bad in any way, that she must have absolutely no morals, and not even any preferences in areas where most characters have morals. This does not follow: a character can be bad in one sense yet not particularly bad, or even good, in other senses.
In canon, Sunset dated Flash Sentry. We have no idea how sexually-intimate they were, but even if they did have full physical intercourse, this was in the context of an acknowledged love affair with a locally high-status person. Also, as her reaction in Rainbow Rocks makes plain, she later regrets having used him in this fashion. There's a big difference between this sort of thing, emotionlly from her POV, and Sunset simply hanging around seedy bars and trading blowjobs for cash.
They probably do have prostitution in Equestria -- not that I think it's as big as it was in Victorian England or late 19th / early 20th century America, but we see in canon a society with enough sexual inhibitions that there would be horny stallions willing to trade bits for sex. (Why not? Our society has less inhibitions, and there are horny men willing to do the same). And prostitutes -- even if the Equestrians are hyper-civilized enough not to abuse them -- are probably not as respected as "honest mares." This is a natural outgrowth of the fact that the stallions are probably a bit ashamed of having patronized them, after the fact, and that said "honest mares" probably resent the competition driving down the emotional price of sex for everypony, hence villify them (this would be even [i[more the case in a matriarchy, the difference here is that they would also villify the johns and possibly more lonely mares would be willing to patronize male prostitutes).
So Sunset would probably be aware of the concept of prostitution, and consider it a very degrading thing to do, even if we assume that she has no sense of personal shame whatsoever (which is not supported in canon -- her whole affect during most of Rainbow Rocks could be termed as "ashamed."). Thus it would be a choice of utter desparation -- she would probably be more willing to do robbery or even (as in the story) murder than resort to that.
Damn...
5204427
I can't think of any way to directly prove it, but simple economic logic suggests the likelihood of the scenario -- given that some children run away from home, and that they then require economic support to live, and that society closes off legal means of supporting themselves, prostitution becomes extremely likely. I have heard, anecdotally, that all save the luckiest runaway children generally wind up either choosing to sell sex for money, or being forced into it.
A hundred years and more ago, they had more options. There were legitimate jobs (cleaners, bootblacks, newsboys, and the like) available save in serious recessions, and there were no laws standing in the way of employers hiring them. Yes, they were paid very poorly for this work, but it was often enough to find a secure place to sleep, and they weren't whoring themselves out to have it.
5205877 I think that's a running jump of assumptions on sexual mores in Equestria, which hasn't really been clarified in canon. We see a few settled marriages, and some initial crushes, but not really anything in between. Certainly your version of basically human early 20th century attitudes could fit, but so could that whole Xenophile thing, or a lot in between.
You're absolutely right that Sunset was incredibly proud, and had an dislike of the apes around her. The thing about villains is, they will often do incredibly humiliating things if they can convince themselves it's the only way to move forward on their schemes, and simply suffer through it while mentally adding it to the "vengeance tab" towards their enemies (think Trixie working the rock farm to save up money to buy the alicorn amulet).
I think if Sunset would date and possibly sleep with one ape just to impress some other apes, she could sleep with other apes for food, although I'm sure she promised herself that this was one more humiliation that Celestia would pay for, once Sunset got her chance.
5205982
In most of the Stallion Dearth worlds, whoring oneself out would be disgusting, humiliating, and possibly sanity-damaging for the mare involved. It would amount to admitting "I'm one of the mares who is not going to fit into a herd, I'm not good enough" to oneself. There are very few possible Equestrias other than Free Love ones in which that would be perceived by the mare involved as okay, and as I stated, I do not believe in a Free Love Equestria -- and can support this with reference to canon.
Simply terming someone a "villain" doesn't exempt them from having normal emotions. Why would Sunset think that prostitution was her only option? She's a smart, determined girl with a tendency toward arrogance: most women who become prostitutes have very low self-esteem, including regarding their sexuality (they have often been raped in the past), and are rather lazy and weak-willed, hence are willing to make money in a way which a not-very-bright girl might imagine was easy.
As for Trixie, she was to begin with never a real villain, simply an "antagonist." She doesn't actually do anything evil until she's in the presence of the Alicorn Amulet; after a few minutes separated from it, she never does anything evil again either in show-canon or IDW-canon. She's arrogant, obnoxious and has the verbal tic of talking in her stage personality even when off the stage, but she never had any evil objective beyond "show up Twilight Sparkle."
And no, working on the Pie Rock Farm is not the equivalent of prostitution, not unless the Pies are a good deal kinkier than I imagine Pinkie's family as being. The work may have been hard and boring, but she was obviously well-paid and treated honorably by them. I know that from a story-fantasy POV prostitution sounds sexy, but what's going on here is that the prostitute is taking what in normal society is reserved only for loved ones and giving it to strangers -- often, strangers who despise her.
And, while we're on the topic, no, I don't think Trixie would whore herself out either. Save perhaps for some very specific and important purpose (more specific than "make money") -- and I think she'd feel horrible about it, if she did.
I think you are seriously underestimating the repulsiveness of prostitution to the woman involved. In real life, prostitutes often become suicidal from shame and self-loathing. And I don't think that it makes that much difference if the woman involved used to be a young Equestrian mare, and I see no reason to assume that young Canterlot aristocratic mares are more okay with being prostitutes than would be, say, young Riverdale or Beverley Hills women from our world.
There is a huge difference between going out on dates or even having sex with Flash Sentry -- someone who we know in canon to be caring, kind and honorable -- and having sex with complete strangers, many of whom would despise her. Her sense of guilt for having used him for status, expressed in Rainbow Rocks, implies that Flash was extremely nice to her -- indeed, some of her affect could be interpreted as her wishing that she'd been willing to love him BACK. This is not the attitude she would have had toward someone who insisted on sex with her as the price of dinner and a movie.
5206090 I'm certainly not going to debate real life prostitution. I don't agree on the idea that Equestria is a hyper-sentimental society that is highly individualized, like a ponified early America, and I've always figured it was fairly commutarian (their highest values being group harmony instead of individual liberty) especially since a monarchy, however well intentioned and noble the ruler, is going to have less individual rights than a political system where the rulers, elected or not, are an endless parade of semi-trustworthy characters that individual liberties must be horded from. Extrapolating from "if men were angels, there would be no government" if an immortal angel ran the government there would be no bill of rights.
I suspect we differ fairly fundamentally on our interpretations of Equestrian society. So we may need to agree to disagree here.
5206305
Hyper-civilized. It's culturally something like a cross between an idealized Oriental despotism (as you find as good guys in a lot of Japanese anime and Western fairy tales) and the Industrial Age of around 100-150 years ago, but with much more sympathy for the weak and distressed.
Having said that, there is a lot of evidence in canon that they are also more sentimental than we are today: the slice of life episodes focus on the feelings of one or more characters, which are generally taken seriously by the other characters, in a way which they most definitely would not be in most Human cultures. So "hyper-sentimental" would also describe canon Equestria fairly well; in fact canon Equestria is probably more sentimental than mine (I compensate for the fact that the show focuses on a group of close friends, and ones who are pretty non-conformist to their surrounding culture).
I never claimed that the Equestrians are more, or even as individualistic as we are. In fact the Ponies appear to be herd creatures who are more naturally-gregarious than are humans. Having said that, a major part of their philosophy of Harmony is tolerance for harmless differences; this probably counteracts what would otherwise be a totalitarian tendency in their sociobiology.
Equestia is plainly and obviously in canon a less tightly regulated economy than that of the modern West, or even modern America. Business deals are done on a hoof-bump and with very little licensing required, and there is nary a union in sight. I'm guessing this is due to Celestia's wisdom; over many centuries she's probably become terribly familiar with the Law of Unintended Consequences. Benevolent despotism leading to a relatively libertarian economy is uncommon in Western history since the Renaissance, but it has been very common in the recent history of the Far East.
I have no idea what any of this has to do with prostitution, or Sunset Shimmer's willingness (or lack thereof) to whore herself out for money as opposed to seeking to obtain it by other, less emotionally-devastating means. At least one fanfic writer, someone whom I greatly respect, has pointed out to me that large Equestrian cities may have "Floating Worlds" of accepted and honored geisha-like courtesans -- this would make sense given Equestrian cultural assumptions (specifically, that it would contribute to the Harmony to have less sexually-frustrated lonely Ponies).
This is probably the case, but it's very unlikely that Sunset Shimmer was reared to join an Equestrian Floating World: those sorts of subcultures usually take girls in from a very young age. She'd be very bad at being a geisha: she's harsh and domineering, and even when friendly tends to be rather blunt. As I said, she's more like a ruthless Twilight Sparkle, and while she seduced at least one Human male (Flash) to be her minion, her normal mode of operation is anything but seductive.
5206929 I agree that Equestria is definitely similar to an Asian culture in several aspects, including putting the community ahead of the individual, and having a government that values stability over everything else, and a strong cultural belief in destiny, i.e. knowing one's place. They definitely don't have any kind of eastern or western tradition of stoicism though, and yes, ponies are definitely very emotional creatures, and they tolerate differences in others as long as those differences are minor and don't disrupt society. I'd say it's definitely a fairly isolationist society, though not xenophobic, resembling oriental cultures 200+ years ago.
That said, I don't know how free-wheeling the economy is, I think most of society relies on cutie marks in the aggregate to decide what businesses and industries should do, which allows for full employment and jobs for life across Equestria without heavy government intervention, albeit at a cost of much slower magical/technological progress and a slower rate of economic growth. (There's always a trade-off somewhere). If a pony wants to start a new business, nobody feels like they should argue with him or her, since they have the cutie mark for it and they know what they are doing. That also means most ponies are going to stick with one career, if not one job, the one they decided was their destiny when they were a kid, so labor mobility is not a big thing in Equestria.
5212955
The good news is that I don't have to. AU tag!
I haven't seen the movie yet. I've only read the summary on Wikipedia.