Home again, home again, jiggi- ...the heck?
Sunset slipped out of the boxcar carefully. It probably wasn't necessary, both the line and the yard had a good reputation. Word was that they gave precisely zero shits about freight hoppers. Even so, it never hurt to be careful.
It wasn't hard to slip through the train-yard unnoticed given how light Sunset traveled. Everything she owned fit into an ordinary backpack with room to spare. No bulk to move, nothing to slow her down.
As promised, the freight yard hadn't changed much. No fence, no security to speak of. Nothing to hinder her on her way back to Canterlot.
There wasn't much to do as she walked but think about the past.
The last time she'd been here she'd been a kid, a nine year old who thought she was an adult. She'd wanted to prove to the world --and herself-- that she didn't need anything from anyone, so of course she set about doing that by begging someone --anyone-- to take her with them.
Some teenagers had taken her in, probably because they were worried for what might become of her if she kept asking random strangers to take her away with them.
Sunset smiled to herself at how stupid she'd been back then, and thanked the universe for the people she did end up with. Things could have been unspeakably bad for her if it had been someone else, but she got them. They'd taken her with them, they'd taught her how to survive on the move, they'd shown her an entire world that had been beyond her reach before then. Cities and countryside and everything between.
By the time she was fourteen she really was self-sufficient, but didn't care as much about that anymore. She'd made friends, made family, and liked traveling in the company of others.
Things had happened, though, and she'd been on her own for about a year.
She shook her head, cleared her thoughts and looked around. She was going to run out of things to think about long before she got to downtown Canterlot. It barely seemed any closer than when she'd left the train yard.
For some reason she'd decided to come back here. She didn't know what, if anything, she really expected to find here, but here she was.
Granted Sunset didn't have the clearest memories of what Canterlot had been like, people were often nicer to a child than a teen, and her clothing screamed, “Homeless person!” which was off-putting to a lot of the moneyed classes, but the death-glares she kept getting didn't feel like they belonged in the Canterlot she remembered. They seemed out of place and felt downright disconcerting.
Most of them were coming from kids her age, who, while not necessarily the nicest demographic in history, weren't usually the ones Sunset expected to be angered by her very existence. That kind of outrage took time and effort to cultivate and was usually the province of people who were old enough to have graduated from student to workforce.
Sunset had long ago learned that nothing got you more calories for your money than fast food.
Ideally you didn't use money at all, but that kind of scavenging was best done after dark and she was hungry now. She had a five, three ones, and enough change to stick in a sock and use as a pretty devastating defensive weapon. Thus: burgers.
Some things didn't change no matter where you went. There was a certain comfort in that, she thought, as she walked into a burger place indistinguishable from restaurants in the same franchise she'd visited more than two thousand miles away. The comfort went away when the silence that had accompanied all the glares finally broke.
“Go away!” some boy Sunset had never seen before shouted.
Sunset wasn't quite prepared for that and responded with, “What?” more or less without thinking.
“No one wants you here anonymous,” a girl, sitting with the boy, said.
Sunset was confused and asked, “Anonymous?”
“Everyone knows it's you, Sunset,” someone else said.
Sunset spun to face the new voice, it was a mauve girl with teal hair sitting alone in a booth.
“How do you know my name?” Sunset asked.
The girl laughed. It was not a kind laugh.
“I was wondering about the getup. Is that outfit supposed to be a disguise?” she asked in the most mocking way possible.
Sunset looked at her clothes. Yeah, they were an obvious sign of her poverty, but as far as she was concerned there was nothing worth mocking about them, and given they did nothing to hide her features there was no way they'd be mistaken for a disguise.
The girl kept talking, “Trying to go incognito so you can steal more secrets?”
For a moment there was blissful silence and Sunset was back to just being glared at. She had no idea what was going on, she wondered if she could be losing her sanity, and she had one of those headaches that meant she really did need to ingest some kind of fuel in the near future. She made a decision. No matter was happening, no matter what had happened or would happen --even if it turned out she'd been transported directly into The Twilight Zone-- she wasn't going to play along with this shit.
“You seem to be confusing me with someone who knows what the Hell you're talking about,” Sunset said the mauve girl, then she turned back toward the counter and went to get food.
Things were worse after she'd eaten. More than a few people “accidentally” bumped her with a shoulder as she walked the sidewalks. Once she came dangerously close to being tripped, and had had to break into a run just to keep her feet under her. That got jeers, but she was happy to leave the group doing it behind. She cut off into an alley after that one and decided to stay away from well traveled streets.
She'd known that coming back to Canterlot in the winter was stupid (though she hadn't really expected there to be snow yet) but she'd done it anyway for some silly reason or other. She didn't even remember what put the damned idea into her head.
Still, it wasn't like she had a way of knowing it would be like this. No one warned her that Canterlot would be like this. And she had asked around. Apparently it was a good thing she'd gotten out of this cesspool as a child. She couldn't imagine growing up in a place where everyone was so cruel to a total stranger.
A total stranger whose name they somehow knew.
That part was weird.
It didn't change the frustration and outrage she felt at the idea that she'd come to Canterlot, in the snow no less, for this.
“What's a matter, Sunset?”
Sunset was immediately alert. The voice was cruel; the voice had used her name. That was not a good sign. She looked around frantically, trying to figure out where it had come from.
“Not as brave offline?”
She still couldn't figure out where it was coming from, and now it was spewing non-sequiturs. Could she be-- no. She'd never heard voices. She'd never--
“Can't look your victims in the eyes?”
That's when it hit her: the voice was an echo. She couldn't find it because she she'd been looking to the walls it had been bouncing off of. There was definitely someone saying these things somewhere, she just had to work out where the echo was coming from.
She ignored the words and just listened for volume. It took a sentence and a half to tell her the direction she needed to go. Another two sentences to get there. It was farther than she had expected because, it turned out, the owner of the voice was yelling.
Angry, angry yelling.
Maybe it wasn't the wisest thing in the world to rush toward a voice that clearly belonged to someone who was belligerent and upset with, if not her, her name, but it was also a possibility of getting answers. What she found were a group of kids her age. All she saw were backs. Whatever was going on, it wasn't directed at her this time, and that might be what was needed to--
“I swear I didn't do it!”
Twilight Zone it was; she knew that voice. It wasn't the voice she heard when she spoke, but it was what she heard when a recording was played back to her. It was what she heard in her own echo. It was her voice, the way it sounded when it was coming from outside her head.
Sunset shook her head. She was imagining things. She had to be.
“What would I have to gain!?” the voice that sounded too much like her own cried out, “People finally forgave me; you think I'd--”
“No more lies,” the original yeller shouted then walked away.
Sunset hid herself, to the best of her ability, but kept her eyes on the group.
“If you wanted to restore your bad girl image,” another said, “it worked.”
More left. Sunset could see a girl on her knees. She was crying.
One spat in the girl's general direction, whether by luck or intention it missed. Mercifully.
When they were gone all that remained was the girl on her knees. Now sobbing.
Sunset didn't care what was going on anymore. She didn't care about the mystery of people knowing her name, or the voice that sounded like hers but was probably --had to be-- her mind playing tricks on her. She didn't care about how she'd been treated or the strangeness of it all. She had something else to care about right now.
She took one last look around.
She and the sobbing girl were alone.
She walked to her.
Knelt down in front of her.
She said, “It's ok.”
The sobbing girl didn't seem to notice, so she said, “It's ok,” again. No response. Well, what had she expected? It obviously wasn't ok. Why would the girl dignify the lies of a total stranger with a response?
“Ok,” Sunset said. She sighed. “It's clearly not ok.” She closed her eyes and thought. “But I promise you,” she opened her eyes, “that whatever is going on I'll try to help you. Maybe we can make it ok.” The girl hadn't stopped crying, but the sobs were more controlled now. She was clearly listening to Sunset. “Ok?” Sunset asked.
Sunset was going to reach out to the girl, but she stopped herself. You never knew how people felt about being touched. Still, she wished she could see the girl's face. Look the girl in her eyes.
The girl got her breathing more under control. A moment later she spoke, “Who are you?” she asked while lifting her head.
“I'm--” Sunset got a look at the girl's face, “What the fuck!” she shouted as she fell backwards and scrambled until she was stopped by a wall.
The crying girl had her face.
Her exact face.
Not a similar face; not an uncanny resemblance. Not anything that could possibly make sense. Her face. Her eyes. Her hair. Her mouth. Her nose. Her God-damned ears. Everything.
The girl dropped her head back down, looked away, then muttered, “Well this is just great.”
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Why not call it The Sunset Zone instead? Seems reasonable. Also, that line made me laugh.
Wait, a comic? What comic?
I love it when human Sunset meets pony Sunset
8592739
I should have made that more clear, I'll edit the description.
There have been two tie-in comics made for the Equestria Girls universe. The second comic, which was known as "My Little Pony: Equestria Girls Holiday Special", is the comic in question. If I do my job right as a writer, it won't be required reading, but if you'd like to know what happens in it:
It is a story in which Sunset Shimmer is framed as being an online personality known as "Anon-a-Miss". All that Anon-a-Miss does is share secrets. (Usually embarrassing ones.) Some of them are secrets that just cause teasing, some break up friendships, some damage families, and through it all Sunset gets the blame.
Sunset gets the blame in large part because Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy accuse her and denounce her in a school hallway while other students look on. (This leaves Sunset on the floor in tears.) With the people who know Sunset best and defend her most convinced she's guilty, most of the rest of the student body just falls in line and gets on the "Blame Sunset" train.
This takes place after Rainbow Rocks (explicitly so), which means that she's left to watch as all of the goodwill she earned by saving the school (and the world) goes up in smoke. Without any friends to turn to . . . well, it's not pretty.
If you want to read the comic, you can either buy it, or visit youtube where someone made a video that shows the comic's pages.
It was a good first chapter but I always have one major concern when it comes to these kinds of stories. Will Sunset's friends be demonized to "out of character" levels? Or will they be a complete non-presence in the story considering the lack of tags?
That made me fucking snort aloud.
I might be missing something, but could human!Sunset not tell who pony!Sunset looked like based on the hair? The bacon gene is not widely shared...as far as we know.
Either way, I certainly intend to keep an eye on this. Call me enthused, curious. Two Sunsets. Who doesn't like fireworks?
So, this is set DURING the Anona-miss incident?
Feels strange that I get mentioned now in other stories
I can already see that this goes another way than my own, time will show how much different. Now I'm curious where you are going with this
8592908
Maybe not the bacon gene in particular, but this is EQG we're talking about. Traveling as much as she does she's probably seen all kinds of weird hair colorations, and between the snow and everything else it was probably nothing more than somewhat similar.
Besides, Sunny's hair color changes occasionally, too. You of all people should know that.
8593151
Yes.
There's a period during which we don't see Sunset where first "Days Pass" and then there's an eight-bit montage covering an unspecified amount of time. This takes place during that no-Sunset gap.
So it's after this:
4.bp.blogspot.com/-aUlbQrvaIoM/WigCArYS6UI/AAAAAAAADn0/GhhT5CEgJvUBOiNzxQYnW1G2bbfusFGRACLcBGAs/s1600/Sunset%2Bon%2BFloor.png
And before the next time she appears in the comic.
8593433
I think there was some sort of bleach incident. Maybe a failed dye-job attempt. I think 2000 or so words could come of that
Hm. This is interesting to me.
0.0'
I can imagine EG Pinkie Pie asking, "So Sunset, you gonna go back to your Equestria now never to return in spite of the friendships you've made here, and human you will just slip into your role and we all pretend pony you never existed after telling Flash Sentry never to think of you again?"
You have my full attention
That title,
Wait, is this the story where pony Sunset meets human Sunset?
Yes. More. Please!
ooh Sunset meets Sunset. I'm eager for more.
Er...Dainn?
8595455
Not the dwarf from Norse mythology, not the hart from Norse mythology, nor the Shadow Immortal named after the hart. Instead the Fimfiction writer named after the Shadow Immortal named after the hart from Norse mythology.
(The rutting caribou who befouled the name in certain works of fiction need not be spoken of as a caribou is neither hart nor dwarf.)
8594865
It's always a good day when one hears Bill Withers.
8595023
I don't know if it's the story where that happens, but it's certainly a story where that happens.
8595679
I have read... *starts counting all stories where Dainn is mention or included* ...about 6, 7, or more stories with that a**hat in it.
s6.postimg.org/5ul2jmext/continue_Monkey.jpg
Okay this got my interest. I'm just imagining what happens when they both walk into somewhere together. They are so gonna confuse the hell out of everyone
8592777 Oh, I thought Anon-a-miss was an "Anon in X" thing, which had me a tad... well, I like the idea of an Everyman, but straight calling them Anon always rubbed me the wrong way.
8595679 Wait, what about Caribou? Why is this writer coming up?
8602157
Honestly, stories with "Anon" as a character have always rubbed me the wrong way too. I'd probably be more comfortable calling a character "[redacted]" since that, at least, makes a degree of sense: they do have a name, you're just not allowed to know it. Not that I'd recommend that, there are better ways.
It's not like stories can't be written that just sidestep the issue of a character's name. The narrator in Fight Club never has a name mentioned. Doctor Who, which seems to have stories in every possible fictional format, has existed for 54 years (and 18 days) now and we've never learned the name of the Doctor. (And never will.)
(part you can skip if you want to get straight to the point)
To your second point, as I said Dainn is a name the originated in Norse myth where there are two entities who share the name. (Hardly unusual, I have met so damned many "Chris"s.) For our purposes the character that matters is one of the four harts that feed on the branches of the world tree, Yggdrasil.
(Hart is a word that refers to male red deer.)
The Boktai game series (apparently, I have not played) uses a lot of motifs from Norse mythology in the first three games, one of them is the name of the character (Black) Dainn, whom the author Dainn uses as an avatar.
(you can skip this too, if you want to get straight to the meat of the point without the context surrounding it.)
Once upon a time there weren't that many Fimfiction stories that related to the holiday special comic (just a handful, really), and the ones that there were all took things in directions Dainn wasn't enamored with, so Dainn wrote Anon-a-Miss, and that changed everything. Part of why is because Dainn gave permission for people to use or remix as they saw fit provided credit and notice were given.
The rest of why I'm not completely sure about. Definite'y Dainn's version had quality on its side, and it left a lot of people wanting more (I myself am writing a sequel with Dainn's permission) but not every story that has that and does that defines a genre.
The number of holiday special based stories exploded, and now there's an entire group devoted to collecting and cataloging them. Because Dainn's story was so central to creating the genre (they're called "Anon-a-Miss" fics, not "Equestria Girls Holiday Special" fics) a lot of things in Dainns story are found throughout the genre, even in stories that aren't directly Dainn's version at all.
For example, Dainn's version brought the Dazzlings into the story when there's no hint of them in the original comic. (In Dainn's version Sunset tracks them down and confronts them because she incorrectly thinks they're behind Anon-a-Miss, believing it is a petty but effective attempt to get revenge on her.) Now they're a fixture of Anon-a-Miss stories.
Another example is that in Dainn's version the violence against Sunset escalated beyond things seen in usual high school bullying (being tripped in the halls was an example from the comic.) Gilda, a character who doesn't even have a human version (yet) in any official stories or merchandise, was the ring leader of the group that escalated the violence against Sunset. She shows up in a lot of Anon-a-Miss fics even though she has precisely zero connections to the canonical Equestria Girls universe. Why? Because Dainn.
The point in me bringing up Dainn is that this story isn't going to be drawing on the narrative soup that surrounds Anon-a-Miss fics, a mixture that draws heavily on Dainn's story; it's instead going to take the original (official) comic as its jumping off point. And take that alone.
If anyone wants to see what I do with a Dainn inspired fic, I've got a direct sequel, and may later add to the Hell and High Water multiverse by doing a story that asks the question, "What if Rainbow went through the portal in chapter 4?". Hell or High Water is Dainn-inspired, so if I do ever make the story it'll be recursively Dainn inspired.
For this story, however, I'm not looking at any of the fan made additions whatsoever. This looking only at the comic, and the only change is the arrival of human Sunset. That one change will change everything, of course, but it won't be following into the established tropes of Anon-a-Miss fanfics because it won't change everything in such a way to mirror the things introduced by Dainn's fic that have since become standards.
Finally the caribou. The less said about it, the better, but since it's out there I felt like it was important to note: Not That "Dainn".
There is a genre in which Dainn the caribou (reindeer) king invades Equestria, trounces it in spite of that seeming unlikely in the extreme (Equestria is easy to knock down, but it always comes back up, usually in 40 minutes or less) and turns everything into a slavery, rape, and assorted misogyny fest.
So . . . that's a thing.
I'm guessing that the use of the name Dainn comes from someone who doesn't know the difference between reindeer and red deer taking the name from Norse myth. I'm guessing that because caribou-Dainn is a deer (thus probably based on the deer and not the dwarf/dark elf king of the same name) but doesn't (to my knowledge, I avoid stories he's in) do anything that relates to myth-deer-Dainn beyond being a deer who is male.
For whatever it's worth, there is another genre in which Dainn the caribou king gets the shit kicked out of him for doing the above. This second genre generally manages to be just as misogynistic as the first genre. So: yay.
Now you know about the caribou in question. Let us never speak of it again.
8603640 I have heard of the Caribou, mostly with a sense of disdain from those mentioning them. Honestly, considering the general mood and themes of the show, if taken at face value and not just because it's a kid's show, something like the caribou is almost inconceivable. Though the changelings in Fiendship is Magic come close with some of their past exploits.
Fanon is a pretty powerful self-sustaining force, for good or bad, so I'm not surprised at the perpetuation of certain fics' tropes and characterizations throughout the fandom.
8603640
:D
My attention has been caught.
8603927
The changelings?not the Umbrum?
8711295
I can't quite remember the specifics of what the Umbrum did, other than Sombra specifically. Apparently Stygian is also an umbra pony? So, not innately evil either? But yeah, the changeling special in the Fiendship series was literally a list of cities murdered or attempts at murdering them to stripmine the ponies of love/life essence a la The Mummy. Of course, some of these were legends and stories told by "Chrysalis", so their veracities are questionable.
8713510
Yeah...Heck no...stygian got some freaky alicorn shaped darkness that attached to him....And they banished that to limbo.
As for the Umbrum...think of the Lich King from Adventure Time....in pony form....And mass produced by the thousand.
mlpforums.com/uploads/post_images/sig-4647293.large.png
8713872
My mistake about Stygian, he was previously listed as an umbra pony on the wiki. Which I thought was weird, but they fixed that or whatever tripped me up before didn't trip me up this time.
The umbra kinda remind me of these guys, just pony-pixied.
8594150 Why not the other way around?
Ooooh, human Sunset. There aren't enough of these sorts of stories on the site.