Still Not *extra*
One week had passed since the mall, there had been no sign of Sunset Shimmer, the five had taken to their own business with chatter kept to a minimum.
However, the blonde cowgirl of the group had been completely off the radar. Text messages unanswered, phone calls going to voice mail, calling the home itself had been fruitless as both Granny Smith and Big Mac had said she'd been holed up in the old barn.
Applejack could often disappear for one reason or another, but the apple harvest had passed and the chores weren't as numerous this time of year. It was worrying enough that at the end of the week, a car pulled up and a certain rainbow haired young woman stepped out. Rainbow Dash ran a hand through her hair as she skipped the homestead and headed for the barn, as nice as Granny Smith could be, that was a time sink she didn't want to get caught in right now when she had a friend to check up on.
It seemed that food and drink wasn't a problem if the recently cleared glass and plate outside the door was anything to go by. Geez, had she been sleeping out there too?
Slowly opening the door a smidge, Dash peeked inside and saw Applejack working at a table near the back. A glance over to the truck that transported their crop showed the hood was open and parts here and there. Obviously Applejack was fiddling with it again, Dash always figured they put in way more time and money into fixing it up than just buying a new engine, but that was a thought for another day.
Opening the door more, the natural light and squeak of the hinges gave her away but Applejack didn't turn to look "Big Mac? Granny?" she called, waiting for an answer before speaking up again "If'n that's you Applebloom, jes' set the plate down n' Ah'll get to it."
"Nah. Just me AJ." Rainbow finally responded, closing the door behind her as the blonde looked up from her work. "You've been in here a week and we haven't heard from you. Guess you've been keeping busy?"
"Guess so..." said Applejack, reaching for a rag on the bench to clean off her hands.
"So I get that you sleep out here, but don't tell me you've been sleeping out here too." teased Rainbow Dash, the mirth falling some when it wasn't denied. "Really?"
"Yeah. So?"
"Geez. You really feel bad about shooting your mouth off at Sunset, huh?"
"Kinda... jes' had a lot to think 'bout."
"Must be heavy if you've been cooped up in here a week." said Dash, having crossed the way to stand next to the country girl. "Anything you wanna talk about?"
"Ah dunno." said Applejack, giving a sullen shrug as she looked over the car pieces before her.
"Come on. Even after a week you have to have some thought." joked Dash, earning an un-amused look from Applejack before the cowgirl sighed and seemed to collect herself.
"Ah'm a might sorry for some of the things Ah said. But not all of it. Still ticks me off when Ah think to what Sunset said." mumbled Applejack.
"Are you serious?" said Dash, looking shocked and then angry herself "We were already screwed after Sunset said her peace, but you didn't have to burn the damn bridge down!"
"Well s'cuse me if seein' y'all devastated like that ticked me off!" Applejack retorted, picking up a piece of engine truck and looking it over. "We've all been beatin' ourselves up this last year. She didn't have ta' come 'round n' rub salt in the wound like that."
"Yeah well... that thing was for her, wasn't it?" Rainbow Dash put up in reply "Closure right?" she added, rubbing the back of her head.
"Ah'm sure it was..." Applejack said softly before looking up to Dash "Way Ah sees it... ain't nothin' been right. We couldn't be what the princess wanted us to be... now Sunset's in a way." Then with a soft scowl, she moved on to another engine piece "But Ah'm sick of it beatin' on me. If this is it. It's it."
What followed was a long, heavy sort of silence. Applejack quietly working, Rainbow Dash trying to think of a good response.
Nothing really came to mind.
"... Ah'm gonna be gone fer a bit in the near future." said Applejack, drawing Dash's attention to her "There's this place further south, Cherry Hill Ranch. They're offerin' work, n' Ah think Ah need some space."
"... whatever." said Dash, giving a light shrug as she headed for the door "Just call more, alright?"
"Mm-hm." AJ said absentmindedly, the door closing and leaving her to her work.
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yeah AJ, Cherry Hill is a good place to stay, seeing as how you love cherrypicking so much
9094175
True we don't know much about what life she left behind, but would it not be worth going back to now that she has no real merits to stay. Yea Snips and Snails could be friends now, but the way she acts makes it seem she has a genuine distrust of everyone in that school, and it seems unfitting that if she is still wanting friendship that she would not at the very least give her original friends a chance to make up. Also didn't Snips and Snails help out Sunset only because they were terrified about what the others were doing to her. I mean, I have not read the story for a while, so my memory is not as clear, but wasn't Snips and Snails originally against Sunset, and a part of the group that kidnapped Sunset to begin with? Only changing their minds once they learned they were trying to kill Sunset. So if my memory is right, she should be just as upset with Snips and Snails as she is with everyone else in Canterlot High, otherwise it sets a president that the only way she will forgive you is if you save her life.
While the gaps are unclear, the gaps between the First movie and Forgotten Friends is definitely longer then the gap between the first movie and Rainbow Rock and even Anon-A-Miss. It is more likely her old actions were still somewhat fresh and her friends were still adjusting to her not bullying them anymore verse to when they reach Forgotten Friends were, minus the whole memory erasing plot, they seem to have complete trust in Sunset. Also I don't deny the comic story was not well written but for their to even have been a story, Sunsets friends had to buy into Anon-A-Miss, if they didn't there would have been no story. Does that mean the story in itself is flawed, perhaps but it does not change the fact that the CMC had to achieve their goal for the event's of the story to move forward. Also the CMC are not stupid, they may not have thought their plan through, but they are not stupid and were hell bent on framing Sunset so even if her friends did not buy into Anon-A-Miss immediately their is no reason to believe they would not have just kept it up until they either succeeded or got caught.
What was she testing though? It was clear her intention from the beginning was to tell them to leave her alone, and if she believes whole heartenly that they don't deserve atonement, then why even give them a final goodbye, just leave that up to a text message. In the end the whole thing felt like Sunset wanted to give them a chance but had second thoughts at the last second. Also Apple Jack I admit came off as a little arrogant, but if they could forgive Sunset, for all the torment she put them through then why could she not atleast forgive Pinkie, Fluttershy, AJ and Rarity?
9094539
Damn, someone said it.
You lost your chance Applejack. All of that anger you felt, that's on you.
9095050
I'm assuming that you're talking about the story I wrote.
If that's the case, then no, that's not how it happened.
Basically, Snips and Snails were out minding their own business when Gilda, Rainbow, and possibly a few other students cornered them in a hallway when no one else was around and more or less told them, "You will help us beat up Sunset, or else."
Snips and Snails didn't want anything to do with the attack, but they got pulled in by force.
When the attack happened, they stood off to the side, too scared to run, and trying to pull the crowd off of Sunset would've been stupid. So they waited until everyone had started to go home to try and sneak over to Sunset and help her escape.
By the time Sunset got back to CHS the next morning she was fed up with most of the people around her, including the humane 5.
9098107
Welp, my bad, I did say it has been a while so I likely confused them helping as being a action that they willingly did rather then something they were forced to.
9097159
I’m sorry, but no. She isn’t wrong to say that if Sunset was through with them, she shouldn’t have dangled false hope in front of their faces like that. She should have just left them a text saying “we’re done” and simply left. Move on.
It’s understandable why she did so, for sure, and nowhere near as shitty a thing to do as what they did to her, but it was still shitty.
9101318
But Applejack was the Element of Honesty. In my opinion, when someone betrays you the way they betrayed Sunset, you never let those forget it... And you don't forgive them. The CMC should've been arrested, and everyone knows it.
9101510
Pony!Applejack is the Element of Honesty. . . but we've also seen that she is canonically extremely stubborn and also harbors considerable arrogance -- she's not loudly arrogant the way Dash is, she's quietly arrogant in always thinking she's better than everyone else and has the capability to always succeed on her own, or "at least" solely with help only in the form she dictates.
We know a lot less about EG!Applejack, but the EG counterparts are generally cut from the same cloth as their pony counterparts. So yes, it is exactly like Applejack to completely ignore the fact that she's in the wrong and start getting aggressively self-righteous at Sunset for not reconciling the way Applejack thinks she should.
9110633
See, this guy gets it.
9110633
Actually I'm a girl, but thanks for agreeing with me.
I don't think Applejack is a bad person overall, but the situation here is really bringing out the most negative aspects of her character and she just won't back down. Even knowing and admitting to herself that bthey were in the wrong, she'll focus on how Sunset is "making things worse" by standing up for herself instead of being willing to just swallow everything they did to her in order to restore their honestly superficial fair-weather friendship.
???
jackie: Dont talk to me and my wife again.
9158373
XD
9158563
funny thing is
half the people are laughing
the other half are scratching their heads at this :P
9158726
Yeah, I dunno what I expected when I started this... but I dunno if it was this. XD
9132660
We're savages, more so than Ratcliffe.
Yeah i can see why aj was mad at sunset there. After so many times trying to fix what happened and sunset sitting there twisting the old wounds like that i would of blew up at her too. They forgave her when she tried to quiet literally kill them at the fall formal (never mind the whole world domination and enslavement side dish as well). I understand sunset was wounded (quiet literally as well) too over this anonymous debacle. But the one thing that makes me not agree with sunset after so long is that in the end after sunsets (in my opinion) worse stuff she pulled, they forgave her for it. And now after some time after the rainbooms screw up she hasn't forgiven them. Part of me just thinks thats a bit unfair on her part. Can't really blame a.j for giving up on her after that.
She puts the "ass" in "class act".
10275103
Many times might be an exaggeration (I haven’t read Dainn’s fic in forever), but it was still at least three times. There was the initial confrontation, the Sweet Shoppe, and the Rainbow meeting (Dainn fic) at least. So she tried at least three times to get them to at least consider it might not be her (and in the first EqG movie, when they actually talked instead of instantly jumping to conclusions, they sorted things out super quickly).
The loss of control thing isn’t really speculative. Sure they never outright stated she lost control, she just had a complete behavior shift, and the other two similar transformations had the person lose control, with LoE outright stating Gloriosa isn’t in control. Why would Sunset’s transformation be different and never acknowledged as different, especially with the behavior change in the first movie?
As for the hypocrisy, the whole point is Sunset doesn’t believe they ever gave her a chance in the first place. They dumped her and wouldn’t listen (as opposed to just avoided and refused to talk like in EqG 1) when things got rough. They tolerated her because Twilight asked them to, not for Sunset’s sake. So why should Sunset tolerate them for their sake? It would be hypocritical if Sunset thought they were genuinely her friends, or that they really gave her a chance, but she doesn’t. Instead she believes they just want her around so they can feel better about themselves. Sure, she’s wrong, but she doesn’t have much reason to believe otherwise.
10275525
In the original comic they did give her a second chance and believed her. This is what troubles me, the fact that the AU stories change things around to make it more "realistic" to "teach them a lesson" makes it the fanfiction equivalent of a strawman argument.
If she's wrong, then she is still a hypocrite. And your the record she had no evidence to back up her claim that she uploaded the secrets and photos the girls trusted her with, and were used by the school to humiliate them. She should consider that weren't in a good mood to listen.
And that's why she is a hypocrite, they shared deep secrets with her, invited her into their homes, and you forget they were tricked into thinking they were being taken advantage off.
Again though I base this on the original comic, not Dainn's version where he goes out of the way to make the Rainbooms seem more in the wrong for the sake of "realism". Especially since if he says they should've listened to her or gave Sunset a chance, then the comic is more "realistic" since they were more logical there!
10278191
My comment you responded to was about this story, which is a sequel to Dainn’s. So the way the original comic went doesn’t really matter (and even then, she had to beg them to listen and invoke Twilight’s name, then she immediately solved who it was). As for the hypocrisy, she thought they actually cared for her as a friend, but found out they were fair weather friends at best, doing a favor for Twilight at worst, so she doesn’t want to go back to them for the sake of making them feel better about themselves (note that Twilight asked them to give Sunset a chance to help her learn to be better and because she believed Sunset changed, and that friendship was the answer to everything, Sunset no longer believes that). This Sunset was led into an ambush thanks to Rainbow Dash, then was tortured and left to die, only surviving thanks to Snips and Snails. Then she’s the one who solved who Anon-A-Miss was, with her friends still thinking it was her until the very end. It’s not hypocrisy since she doesn’t say they should’ve given her a chance, she says they shouldn’t have of pretended to have given her one (iirc, been forever since I read these).
10278576
Except they thought the same of her during the incident. The lack of empathy is the hypocrisy. Also, the only one who she should be mad at is Dash, not the other girls considering that it was her that kept pushing. She should at least forgive the others since being a better person and fixing mistakes is part of being a friend too.
You also mentioned before that she is obviously biased.
that isn’t how the story went: https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/My_Little_Pony:_Equestria_Girls_Holiday_Special
“Twilight everything that's been going on. She tells them they're more than her friends—they're her family—and to ask themselves if the Sunset Shimmer they know would do this to them. The five friends now believe that Sunset is not "Anon-a-Miss" and try to figure out who is.“
In short they were willing too listen
10278807
They didn’t think she was being a fair weather friend, they thought she faked everything since the Fall Formal for the sake of getting some secrets to embarrass them. In the comic, she opens up to them that she’s basically been alone for a long time (since before the human world as she wasn’t close to her family). She trusted them heavily, including through Rainbow Rocks where she was excluded, forgotten, and blamed. She stuck through with them at their lowest, but nope, she faked all of that to get some secrets to embarrass them with. And does so so poorly that it paints a massive target on her back, to the point where tons of students are hanging up on her. To the point where she was crying, begging them to listen, but they refused to. That’s not them thinking Sunset was a fair weather friend, that was them waiting for her to backstab them. Even when discussing it in the comic, they were set on it being her, convinced she backstabbed them without thinking of why. So no, it’s not hypocrisy or lack of empathy that she doesn’t want to give the people she literally begged while crying to give her a chance after everything they’d been through just so that they can feel better about themselves doing it.
As for invoking Twilight’s name, what got them to listen: “I know you don’t trust me-a-and I can’t prove that I’m innocent—but please— -look at this.” *Presents journal* “I’ve been telling Twilight everything that’s been happening, and— And she reminded me: you’re more than friends—you’re my family. You know me better than anyone. Ask yourself: would the Sunset Shimmer you know— —the real Sunset Shimmer, the person I am now— —would she do this?” It does take bringing up Twilight and then reading the journal to begin to get them to listen. And when discussing who could’ve done it, Applejack at one point says, “Yeah... But I know none of my family would tell and I trust you five— — you four.” And in Dainn’s story, they reject her again after this. And one of the five set her up by tricking her into thinking that one of the only people she has in this world, after at least a week of isolation and bullying, would maybe listen to her. And used that to lead her into an ambush with the intent of her getting hurt (not as bad as she did, but it was literally Rainbow’s intent that she would get roughed up). Sure the other four didn’t lead her into an ambush, but after that level of utter certainty that everything Sunset had done after the Fall Formal was faked just to embarrass them (and make herself the most hated student in the school for no reason beyond that), it casts doubt onto all of the good times they had before and there’s just too much baggage for Sunset to trust them again.
I personally do think it would’ve been best for all involved for Sunset to give it a shot, and that the others learned and grew, but I also think Sunset was fully in her rights to cut all ties and not give them another shot after that level of betrayal and resulting trauma. It’s not hypocrisy to not trust the people who thought you faked everything for petty revenge with so much certainty that one of them was willing to help organize an ambush.
Edit: Decided to take a peak at Dainn’s story again. From the first chapter:
So Sunset tried to talk again, and they chased her out, Rainbow willing to attack her and the others supporting her, but Sunset’s still trying her best to catch whoever’s responsible. And from the last chapter before the Epilogue:
She spells it out. After everything they’ve been through, none of it meant close to enough for more than a late suspicion that something felt off. One of them went as far as to lead her into an ambush. She tried everything she could, intentionally going into a dangerous situation by looking for the Dazzlings, and she was ambushed, tortured, and left to die. And all that time, her friends were being high and mighty off to the side, so sure it had to be her, that they didn’t mind Rainbow threatening her or even following through with a threat. They managed to destroy everything that had built up between them and Sunset, and now Sunset can’t trust anyone besides the handful of people that helped her throughout the story.
10278913
I should point out the comic was written long before rainbow rocks came out: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicIDWHolidays2014
"Mis-blamed: After writer Ted Anderson's last project, the 2014 Annual, received massive backlash, this one's Anvilicious focus on cyberbullying was criticized as him trying to get back at them. The Holiday issue was already in the works before the Annual was out (based on Tony Fleecs' tweeting a work in progress from the issuestatic.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/external_link.gif ). Anderson respondedstatic.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/external_link.gif by explaining the script was locked before the Annual was released, meaning it couldn't be a repose if they wanted. Similarly, the Holiday issue was writtenstatic.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/external_link.gif before they could have seen Rainbow Rocks which also surprised fans with redeeming Sunset Shimmer to the point her treatment here, common in fanworks prior, came off as unfair."
Considering how generous the other girls were towards sunset before this. The fact they trusted her with their secrets, took her into their homes to begin with shows that Sunset doesn't consider why they did it. They weren't waiting for her to backstab them whatsoever. Daines story is unrealistic because at least Fluttershy and pinkie would be willing to listen. Also he could have written it so Dash realizes that gilda would go to far and try to stop her, getting beating in the process as well. Truth be told Dainns story relies on conicidents to separate sunset from the others, and writes characters based on the plot instead of consistency.
It wasn't just bringing up Twilight, it was her pointing out that the girls were her friends and knew how she was. Indeed in the comic they express doubt after their accusations to Sunset
https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/My_Little_Pony:_Equestria_Girls_Holiday_Special
Same here as Pinkie, Rarity, and Fluttershy begins to doubt their accusations: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/272101/2/anon-a-miss/chapter-2-rainbow
People seem to forget that part of the story
Also when was Sunset excluded? The girls invited her to band practice. If she wanted to join, why didn't she say anything?
I need more of this, damn.
Make it gayer
Great story! Hopefully you will revive it someday.
Funny enough, applejack is right. I'm not going to forever scrap just cause you're forever mad. If that's your choice then it's your choice. I'm gonna feel bad about it but I'm not gonna ruin my life over it.
A part of me was hoping to see AJ and Sunset throwing fists