Sunset Shimmer is Princess Celestia's most faithful student, and an incredibly powerful unicorn. She has her own room in the castle, her own assistant, who happens to be a dragon she hatched during her school exams, a large room for practicing new spells, and a huge library of books. The only thing Sunset lacks is friends.
After reading the signs of Nightmare Moon's return, Princess Celestia decides that her student is ready to embrace her destiny, but needs to make friends first. Princess Celestia sends Sunset Shimmer to a small town called Ponyville, where she meets an odd assortment of ponies who end up becoming her friends and helping her find the Elements and bring about the Summer Sun Celebration she'd wanted for so long.
OBVIOUSLY AU! Teen is just for possible future language.
More characters than those listed, but can only choose five. The ONLY OC is Scarlet, my dragon OC that was mentioned in a previous story.
No idea who the cover art belongs to. If it's yours, tell me and I'll take it down.
Also, feel perfectly free to tell me what you dislike about the story, and I'll try and work on it in future chapters. If you just don't like the Sunset AU or my choices for the Elements, sorry.
My first Sunset Shimmer story! Hopefully I got her characterization (as a good pony, not a villain) okay. If you think the dragon is a Mary Sure...oh well. She's a dragon!
6775075 I assure you, Scarlet is not a Mary Sue. In fact, I don't think I've actually ever seen a Mary Sue that wasn't created as a joke. Also, Sunset Shimmer seems to be well characterized given the fact this is her non-reformed and not a villain.
I just stumbled onto this and decided to give it a read. I am curious to see how you take the tale of Friendship is Magic and make it Sunset's own. Changing the Mane 6 should set them off in a somewhat different direction than what Twilight took the story. Hopefully, It won't be a retelling of Twilight's story with different characters.
Speaking of Twilight, is she going to make an appearance in this version? She was a powerful unicorn in the original. Her potential was set off by the Sonic Rainboom in the original tale. Will she take the place of Moondancer?
I'd give a thumbs up but I don't think the counter is high enough.
6775281 Twilight will appear in Canterlot, but not as a main character. Just a studious unicorn student in Celestia's school, but not her personal student. If I make it to the Canterlot Wedding thing, obviously Twilight will play a large part in that. And no, it's not just a retelling of Friendship is Magic with Sunset instead. I hate those, which is why I made the characters so different. Sunset's there to help with the Celebration, but she didn't get into a tizzy about Nightmare Moon like Twilight did. She just read the legend, assumed Celestia would handle it, then went to do as she was told in Ponyville. We all know Sunset isn't as studious as Twilight and prefers a more hands-on approach to magic, so she'll be doing less reading and studying and more actually casting spells and checking out local legends and such.
I really like the idea of this story. I dobt have the time to read it at this moment, but I'll get the time later this week. Writing my own story and working full time. I hope to see this one do well!
Interesting. My advice would be to see the Ask Sunset Shimmer blog on thumblr. It follows the same idea you have though hasn't been updated in a while. What is there though can be the basis for your next few chapters.
I like how you choose to not follow the Mlp episodes completely. But maybe the morals learnt can still be there somewhere.
It's kind of sad though that Twilight never met her new friends or threat her old ones better.
Maybe Sunset can take Twilight on as her student?
A good story so far, but I would like to learn the details of how Sunset stayed Celestia's student or how Lightning Dust (who is the head weather pony and more considerate of others, for some reason) and Cheese Sandwich (one of my personal faves) came to live in Ponyville.
6807757 Second chapter, where most of them talk about their past (at least a little, the Doctor's past is...well, too big to cover in a story). Mostly it was just some small changes in things that didn't happen in the normal timeline (yes the Rainboom happened, but at a different point in Rainbow's life, which led to some ponies being places they shouldn't).
Dead already?
7205443 No, I'm just having some pretty big family problems. Daughter was in an accident. Haven't had time to write anything.
7205593 Oh, sorry
Hey there. Sorry I haven't read this story sooner. This DOES actually seem like a good start to this series. The exchanges, emotional content, humor, information and future chapter set-up are all well done in all the right places. And, yeah, I'm especially glad that you are making Sunset's differences from Twilight as obvious as her similarities (and, hopefully, without the pressure of living up to being Celestia's personal student, Twilight MIGHT, at the very least, make an honest effort to be a better friend to Moondancer [who could very well be her only real friend other than her big brother]). And, yeah, I'll definitely be looking forward to more of this as soon as time and inspiration will allow.
Good work on this first chapter.
7712069 I've finally started working on the second chapter again. Kids going back to school, financial issues, and family deaths have led to zero time and inspiration for any story. I plan on actually including Twilight AND Moondancer eventually (probably during a chapter where they or at least Sunset alone, go to Canterlot). Twilight just isn't going to be the main character. She passed her test, but didn't have the magic burst that hatched Spike, because the Rainboom didn't happen. I guess...think of this as a GOOD AU that Starlight created. Twilight and Moondancer are just going to be students near the top of Celestia's school, not her personal students. Trixie will appear as well, but unlike Twilight, Sunset will jump up on that stage and show her who's boss, not resulting in the whole Ursa problem and immediately humiliating Trixie. She's just that kind of girl.
7713491 Yeah. I could see that. Thanks for the response back.
oh man.... do I love AU's with my #1 and My All Time Favorite Character Ever in the Entire Series in it or what?!! <3
anyways.... really good first episode!
now what I want to talk about is this: I in fact have a Sunset Shimmer AU on Microsoft Word 2010 on my laptop, and this one is really special: it has the same premise as your AU, but in this case, the only two characters whose roles are swapped are Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle. for example:
Sunset Shimmer's role is Twilight Sparkle's role
Twilight Sparkle's role is Sunset Shimmer's role
those are the ONLY characters whose roles are swapped. everyone else's roles remain the same
8016561 I left Rarity's role the same, and Twilight is still just a student in Magic School with Moondancer. I felt I wanted to explore other characters, but I honestly couldn't find a character that fit Generosity/Inspiration as well as Rarity does. The Doctor is obviously Loyalty, Derpy is definitely Kindness, Cheese is quite obviously Laughter, Lightning Dust (who I feel was just misunderstood) is Honesty. At first I considered the possibility of making RARITY the Element of Magic, since she's a skilled unicorn as well, and making Sunset the Element of Generosity (this is a kinder, gentler Sunset who helps people of her own accord and doesn't think she's better than them) but I just like the thought of eventual alicorn Sunset too much.
8016931 okay.
btw, this AU will defiantly go all the way, right? because I would so look forward for more updates!! <3 <3
8018764 I have finished chapter 2, but I'm trying to clean it up a little. Right now, there's a lot of tell and hardly any show of what's happening. I realized I don't like that very much.
8018863 aw... okay. but still.... I do love AU's <3