Christian steampunk optimist gamer brony...
Wallflower Blush and Sunset Shimmer play a virtual reality game (designed by Twilight Sparkle, of course). Airborne swashbuckling ensues. But journeying across a virtual world can still bring forth very real emotions.
Written for Oroboro's Sunset Shimmer Shipping Contest: Journeys.
Cover art by Nauth on DeviantArt. For some reason nobody's ever drawn Wallflower Blush as a pirate...
Prereading and editorial suggestions by my lovely wife!
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Well, that was rather cute.
very good you should write a actual story of captain wallflower and mage sunset sky pirates
I get that reference.
^This
9140836
My number one priority writing this fic was to sell the readers on the romance, to write a believable and sweet relationship that'd have people shipping the couple. It's nice to see someone thinks I succeeded 
Thank you!
9141720
There are a couple more scattered throughout the fic too... 
9141900
Glad you enjoyed the references!
9141694
Interesting! You mean actual alternate universe rather than a VR game? Or just spend more time showing the adventures inside the game? I'm afraid for the purposes of this fic, I did pretty much just use the game to set up situations for the romance and/or comedy I was going for. But I chose VR plus sky pirates specifically because I love both those things, so I can see the appeal in writing more about their adventures inside the game
Interesting concept in having Wallflower opposed to Twilight's mad science. I never considered that sort of character wrinkle.
"Ah, but you could've had a sexy demon form and made everyone forget about it."
"Oh no, we're not going down that rabbit hole again."
Given her vast knowledge of botany, I kind of want Wallflower to get in an argument with Timber Spruce over some botanical minutiae. Possibly while their girlfriends boggle vacantly at their shenanigans, but that means acknowledging Timberlight, and I've met my yearly quota for that.
All hail the dryad queen!
In all, a great blend of action, character work, romance, and Twilight shipping it in every possible interpretation of the phrase. Thank you for it, and best of luck in the judging.
I really enjoyed this
Thanks for writing! I hope the judges like it.
9141941
i mean actuall alt universe
Ouchie! I really feel for Twilight making such an embarrassing mistake. This was good and Wallflower is awesome as always. ^^
9142151
Thank you! Yeah, I see Wallflower as feeling somewhat uneasy around Twilight both because she prefers the natural world, but also because she's a little jealous of Sunset's close friendship with her. I'm glad it came across that Twilight is very happy for the two of them and trying to help them get closer
"In all, a great blend of action, character work, romance, and Twilight shipping it in every possible interpretation of the phrase" is my favourite description of something I've created in quite a while
9142815
Yay! So nice to see people get the allusions
9144574
Thank you! Wallflower is interesting to write. I think it's easy to write her and do an okay job but quite hard to write her really well. It takes effort to get into the mindset of "I've been in the background my whole life". Also I had really wanted to get an adorkable line like "...That sounded less lonely in my head" into this fic, but I never quite found the opportunity.
As for Twilight... yeah, I wasn't sure whether to have her be quite that clueless. I concluded it was plausible, if she thought about things the wrong way. The justifications she stumbles through are all reasonable and caring - it's nice that she's spotted that Wallflower can feel left out of the magic-rainbow-friendship-laser moments, and it's sweet of her to try to give Sunset's girlfriend a way she can have her own geode - it's just also a really bad idea the way she goes about it. I hope I didn't come across as throwing Twilight under a bus: I do love her very much and she meant well, and she felt mortified when she realised what she'd done, and immediately tried to make it up to them.
Thanks for the kind words!
I love this ship
Not gonna lie -- I thought about Sid Meyer's Pirates! far too much while reading this, and I couldn't get the stupid grin off my face the entire time. I love pirates far, far too much. (they beat ninjas every time, hands down) And the idea of Wallflower as a pirate just tickles me. Sunset as a pirate just fits, and I loved this idea way too much.
A very cute ending too, and I wholeheartedly approve. Thanks for writing this, mate!
I see, so that's the direction you took with this. The flower stuff was unexpected, but it certainly fits. The ship is... still not really my cup of tea, sadly, but I do think you've done well demonstrating what a romance between them would look like.
Took a look at this while at work, so I didn't comment at the time (thumb typing plus bad building for signal), but this was a fun read. I struggle writing conflicts between protagonists that don't feel contrived, but the interplay here between the couple and Twilight works well. The game as a framing device of sorts did more than I expected for it, and frankly? I'd play that game.
Have an upvote (or rather I already did that when I read it, but yeah), and good luck in the judging!
9153807
Yeah, Sunset as a pirate is irresistible, somehow feels completely natural, doesn't it? Whereas Wallflower as a pirate - especially a pirate captain - is entertaining in a different, 'fish out of water' kind of way. I'm very glad you enjoyed it - bringing a grin to people's faces is exactly what I wanted
9158645
And thank you for the brainstorming discussion that ended up with the idea to have Wallflower take on the captain's role!
Thanks for reading and commenting even though the ship's not your favourite
9167417
Thank you! I was rather pleased how I was able to use the game to set up a variety of moments, be they comedic, romantic, or dramatic
The game would certainly be awesome to play, but that's partly because I rather handwaved some of the complexity away. I tried to make Sci-Twi's technobabble at least somewhat plausible (my baseline was being at least as plausible as the things she does in the actual show). The one big handwave in the game as I showed it is that the various NPCs aren't just parsing the players' comments, but also giving sensible responses, even when Sunset and Wallflower do things that are rather outside the parameters the quests were designed for, like Sunset fomenting chaos between random factions of guards. (I don't think Twilight deliberately designed the quests to have the potential for Sunset to set one group against another. That'd be one too many clueless references to your friends' worst moments.) Many existing video games would be dramatically improved if the NPCs were able to respond as smoothly and flexibly as Twilight's are somehow able to
Thanks for the upvote!
Well, someone's been thinking hard about Wallflower's character. :) That was quite good! I particularly like the end of the first scene, when they're joking about their dark pasts, and the bit when Wallflower leads that first successful raid. She's all "I did it! :D" and you gotta be proud for her. :D
Oh my GOD.
This story must have been tailor-made specifically for me. Everything about it is perfect. Wallflower is such a pure and precious angel and she deserves to be loved and cherished and protected and oh my god I just love this story so much okay
Thank you for writing it.
Hmmm, really good overall. Great use of a VR game, keeping things immersive, but not treating it as just like reality, having limitations to what can happen in the game, textures, AI responses clearly being canned, route line reads meant to prompt the player rather then natural dialog, just all around really well done on that front.
The romance..... it actual felt like a legit romance and I could feel chemistry between the two, it was also well written. They felt like an established, but still new couple working things out. So again, really great writing.
All around, a well written story. While I really don't see this ship as working, or particularly like it my self, the story was really well done and used it well. Plus, as much as don't see it happening, I have brought up that Wallflower's actions in the special really do feel more like a 'Notice me Senpai!' then anything else when it comes to Sunset. But then again, who isn't eager to hook up with Shimmy-Shims?
So yeah, well done story that managed to take a pairing I don't care for, and make me still enjoy the story.