Wallflower tries repeatedly to murder Sunset. She doesn't expect Sunset to flirt back.
You get to choose the ending!
Written for The Sleepless Beholder as part of Hearthswriting 2021.
Original prompt:
Wallflower, as a cliche horror killer, tries to kill Sunset Shimmer for all the bullying she suffered during her time as queen b**** of CHS, but her mission becomes immensely difficult when Sunset, instead of being remotely scared, flirts with her in every encounter.
Thank you to Bicyclette, Sunlight Rays, iAmSiNnEr, and daOtterGuy for prereading. daOtterGuy also deserves thanks for the title as it was a fantastic suggestion.
Chapters (4)
omg I love this story
Honestly all good endings but this is the best/most interesting ending of the 3.
Thought the romance ending is the happiest.
Lol Bike would be one to preread this.
Also cant wait to see Scampys reaction to this lol
Love this story, especially the CYOE aspect
"I'm not afraid to kiss you!"
Superhero landing!
I love that Sunset's hornyness is bleeding into the narration.
No, Sunset, not that kind of thick.
Sorry, your pony magic is out of service right now. Please try again later.
“Oh Wallflower, you miss me so much?”
Ok, just the atmosphere alone followed by the absolute ridiculousness of Sunset's responses is everything I wanted when I came up with this prompt. And a multiple choice ending is actually brilliant since CYOA are my favorites!
Thank you so much for the gift Dews! You're awesome!
Ok, while my brain desperately wants therm to kiss, I pick this as my canon ending
Just the perfect culmination of absolute absurdity.
Oh Sunset, you always need to know when to stop when thrill seeking. Luckily you have a very understanding future wife. Now quickly get out of the school before the principals charge you for damages
Yep, definitely the horror ending, and a very good one. Poor Wally
What did I just read? And why was it so good?
There's some severe mood whiplash between the three endings. I can't decide my favorite though.
[ Flirt ]
Okay but how did she stand outside a second story window?
i laughed so hard at this when i read it, those last lines are perfection!
LOL. I loved all 3 of the endings.
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what did super trampoline mean by this
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magic cartoon horses will be magic cartoon horses in any universe
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Probably with her legs.
I do believe this one's my favorite, if only because I really like good endings with a side of sap (tho both the others were great in their own right. That comedy ending, dang
). You keep doing you, Sunset !
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As with most such buildings I presumed there was a lip sufficient to allow her to stand and move around. It's an old brownstone near the center of town so it has unusual architecture.
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Yeah, okay.
I mean, being queen bee doesn't stop a home invasion from being terrifying.
End of the first chapter I could only think, "well, play stupid games win stupid prizes." She couldn't dodge that forever after all. Btw, THAT... was the comedy ending. That was darker than the horror ending. Interesting and fun with any ending.
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You like it when horses are in lesbians with each other
3 tags, 3 endings, and 3% cooler than this story had any right to be.
3 out of 3.
Most excellent.
I'm not sure how to feel about this story.
First, I did like how you started things out. The cliche horror movie scenarios in the first chapter, complete with Wallflower being a cackling villain in a dark hood and Sunset reacting like Neve Campbell were engaging to read. You got a rather... interesting prompt for this story, and I think you handled the setup for it well. There are some really fun turns of phrase in this first chapter, and the ridiculous contrast between Sunset's reactions and Wallflower's intent got some chuckles out of me.
The first two endings are pretty decent. The "comedy" one is pretty strange, though the dark humorist in me did enjoy the last couple lines. The romance ending was my favorite, and what I assumed would be the actual ending to the story when I started to read it. You did say this is a SunFlower story, so this whole thing being a bizarre form of sexual roleplay was what I expected. Billing this as a SunFlower romance comes with certain expectations.
Which leads to the final, original ending. Given that this is how you originally ended the story before pre-readers suggested taking a different route, I interpret this as the "canon" ending.
Which is where this story falls flat for me.
Throughout this story, Wallflower feels completely out of character. A person like Wallflower generally isn't inclined to homicidal action; someone who literally hates themselves to the point of trying to erase their own existence is much more likely to be suicidal. These are entirely different impulses.
Granted, you could point out that Wallflower did use the Memory Stone on Sunset in Forgotten Friendship as an act of outward revenge and/or envy, not one of self-conscious anxiety/hatred. However, FF also goes out of its way to have Wallflower explain why she started using the Stone in the first place... which was far more about how she viewed herself than what anyone did to her. Given that no one else has their memories stolen unrelated to self-hateful impulse (barring Trixie, for obvious reasons), it seems Wallflower's primary motivations for using the Stone were low self-esteem/confidence/image. This led to a pattern of her forcing people to forget so they wouldn't hate her, and her being simultaneously depressed and feeling worthy of being forgotten as a result.
Wallflower's usage of the Memory Stone is an endless cycle of self-sabotaging behavior that is analogous to many, many, many harmful coping mechanisms utilized as a response to trauma/mental illness/both. (You need to drink to forget things you've done you regret; you do dumb stuff when you drink that you regret; you need to drink to forget that too.) Not to mention that the original version of Invisible is basically a song about Wallflower's suicidal ideation.
All of this is why the fandom generally characterizes Wallflower Blush as a poster child for teenagers struggling with mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide, etc. Not exactly the same type of person who you would be able to envision as a murderer without drastically altering their personality.
In short, Wallflower Blush is OOC in this... pretty much from the beginning.
With that all being said, I know that this story was a prompt and that you were working with what you had. And not just any prompt, but a prompt for a gift story. So there's only so much you can do to both balance characterization and fulfill someone's holiday wishes. That in mind, I don't fault you for the setup, regardless of it's OOC-ness, because it was a parameter you were given. In fact, I wouldn't be bringing this up at all... if it weren't for your original ending. Which also has Sunset being out of character.
Without having to reiterate the entirety of FF here, I will say that, while I can buy Sunset utilizing self-defense, I cannot buy her having slowly poisoned Wallflower in the beginning and then dragging out the charade for her own gleeful intent. Nor can I buy her dressing down Wallflower for using the Stone. This completely misses the point of both FF and Wally's character, as well as Sunset's character arc in that movie and her empathetic nature as a whole. Honestly, it reeks of the same kind of reasoning people who hate Wallflower often espouse. "Green girl bad because she made muh waifu cry" is too common of a sentiment, unfortunately, ignoring that their waifu realized her own mistakes and literally offered Wallflower a hand in forgiveness.
For Sunset to murder Wallflower and rant about what an awful bitch she is while she dies a painful death is just wildly out of character, directly contradictory to the meaning of FF, entirely contrary to Wallflower's nature, and, frankly... gross.
So, coming into this being told, "Oh hey, Dewdrops wrote SunFlower!" and then getting to the original ending... I just left the story shaking my head. If it hadn't been advertised as a SunFlower story, I might not have been so disappointed. Because, to put it bluntly, this isn't SunFlower. It's closer to being an Anon-A-Miss style revengefic, just with Wallflower in place of the CMC/Mane Six/entire student body. The (non-canonical [?]) romance ending nonwithstanding, I'm not even sure why the tag is there.
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You have a lot to say about a story where them being out of character is the whole point.
Also I should re clarify: the actual original intended ending was the comedy one. The dark ending was the first written one and I wasn't that happy with it, because it's so out of character.
So yah, I get they're out of character. That's on purpose. It's the point. It's not an attack on either of them. This is not what I think Wallflower or Sunset are.
I wrote this as a gift for Sleps and Sleps likes how some of my writing can be dark, so I wrote a dark ending for that purpose. I didn't write this as some revenge fic. I'm sorry you took it that way.
This was a fun read. I think all the endings are pretty good, but the Romance ending is my favorite. No surprise there. Keep up the good work.
talk about flirting with death
good ending
What did I just read?
Sunny needs Help
Yeah, I can see why you decided to plan out some other endings after this one. Still, overall an enjoyably absurd exercise in disproportionate retribution. Thank you for it.
oof! and agh, great choice in starting off the story with tension and panic over an unrelated thing. really sets up the contrast with her reaction to Wallflower later
hahaha, i totally missed how ridiculously versatile this single knife was as a tool the first time! it's all the better for having been played so straight
where's your power of friendship now, Sunset?
aww, so sweet! love it
my favorite part of Sunset is just how effortlessly smooth she is, Celestia i wish there were me
always have to have reasons for characters to not have their phones in these horror stories!
aww, street cats! and haha, classic horror fakeout
i mean, that's what happens when you jump down from the rooftop to the ground! think, Wallflower, think!
ahaha, that just raises so many questions! how did Wallflower think a dildo-knife was a murder-knife? i kind of like to think Sunset is a reality bender here, retroactively making the world fit her expectations, which would be spooky!
or it's a hint that the narration may be unreliable, since Wallflower's exasperated reaction fits that more, haha
i always do forget that their hair grows as well as their ears changing. what a strange transformation!
hehehe loving how single-minded Sunset is here. she is down bad for green girl
these sound effects really give the story an immersive, cinematic feel. very fun!
still as perfect as the last time i read it! the no-holds-barred ridiculousness is just so great, augh
auauaugh i love this, so cute!
hehehe nice
oof!
it's neat how this was the same explanation as the Romance ending, just with who was in the know reversed
i mean, to be fair, Sunset's plans back then don't really indicate a shrewd, steel trap of a mind, haha
augh, that really is the darkest end for Wallflower, fulfilling her worst fears and pains. poetic, but very, very dark, agh
and that really does twist the knife! it would have been far kinder for Sunset to express nothing but hate and rage at Wallflower why she is doing what she is doing, instead of this pity. the meta-nod to the light, happy ending makes this one all the more darker. an impressive feat
my favorite ending is still the original comedy one, since agh, that was just a perfect comedic escalation and completion of the fic's ridiculous premise, and i really like it when stories take ridiculous premises and take them to their logical conclusions no matter how far and how strange they have to go. but the CYoE was a nice display of your skills in diverse genres, and a format that is i wish there were more good examples of, besides this fic!
and remind me to never, ever be a character in one your stories that you're writing a bad ending for, haha
*kicking and screaming* "YOU MONSTER, I JUST WANTED A CUTE ENDING. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS. IM GONNA GIVE "DEATH OF THE AUTHOR" A NEW MEANING" 10 outa 10, would read again
This is such a brilliant concept executed so well.
So much CHAOS in this it's hard to even try to unravel. One can only wonder of Sunset's mental state throughout this past year in this AU...
I'm a terrible person for laughing so hard.