Eight years have passed since Wallflower Blush was rescued from a life on the streets by Sunset Shimmer. Learning to cope with the traumas that put her there—along with navigating a new relationship—wasn't easy. The life Wallflower lives now isn't perfect, but she's proud of how far she's come. With a loving relationship, a fulfilling job, and good friends, Wallflower is content to enjoy the stability offered by clinging endlessly and desperately to the present.
Then, she finds something Sunset has been keeping secret from her, and everything changes.
Now Wallflower is determined to stop Sunset from making the biggest mistake of her life—asking Wallflower to marry her.
Content Warning: This story contains realistic depictions of abuse, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and PTSD/C-PTSD.
Written together with Gay For Gadot ❤️
Cover art by our lovely and wonderfully talented friend Sandy. You're the best, hon ❤️
Special thanks to The Sleepless Beholder and Posh for editing!
One of the best stories I've ever worked on, ever, and I'm so glad I got to write it with you.
Also, I cannot get over how amazing that coverart is. I hope the readers love it just as much as we do. 🙏
Absolutely fantastic.
“Wunk,” Wally called it.
I’ll never forgive you for removing that.Huh. Did expect Twilight to be in NASA. I should've expected that.
Very very strong opening chapter establishing the relationship dynamics and bringing us up to speed without telling too much. And also great foreshadowing!
This is very, very good. I look forward to reading more.
Marriage, is only a ritual, except it much more to those who knows love.
It's a declaration to the world, proving that they have the courage to face anything in the way, together.
It's a swear for responsability, for another innocent being, for a new life.
Above all, it's a bond of love, for eternity.
Let's see how she handles it.
You could take a page to unpack what she/we are expected to be feeling with that whirlwind of images -- curious you did not. Unsure if intentional or otherwise, the recurring theme of being purportedly fully in the present and well-adjusted smacks a bit of 'methinks the lady doth protest too much' with the attention and caveats attached to those moments.
This is an excellent character moment (including the context of doing this chore to begin with)!
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Really, really good so far. Looking forward to more!
Wally, Nooooo! Don't give in!
Dawww
Very heartwarming, very sweet.
And this is the chapter that gets me beyond just being excited for what comes next. With one of my favorite types of characterizations for Wallflower, no less! Like a hauntingly relatable car crash in slow motion (which is a good thing in my book.)
Dammit, I just wanna hug her. Stop being self-deprecating, Wally!
Seriously, though, that first scene? Oof.
I was basically expecting a flare up of insecurity for Wallflower, but this is even worse than I thought it would be.
And I'm speculating that this is another story with semi-autobiographical elements in it. If so, I'm sorry to hear that you ever felt even remotely like this.
Ah hell, I thought this was the case. Sauron impersonated Sunset Shimmer and presented Wally with a ring that, in secret, bound her will to his. Soon she will wither into a wraith and stalk the land endlessly, a thrall to her new dark master, until the world is changed and magic things no longer roam the wilds.
Still, better him than her mother.
This manages to be both medieval and nautical at the same time. It’s medautical.
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Sunset just had to propose on the winter solstice.
Gaslighting the girlboss as a means of gatekeeping. How cunning.
Does Wally not have a license, or does she take public transit so as not to contribute to carbon emissions and climate change?
I’m a big fan of language personifying hunger as, itself, hungry.
Wally should feed it hemborger.
If this be madness, yet there be method to it, etc. etc.
It’s nice that Wally is trying to construct a rational plan to do something incredibly irrational and self-destructive, but I wish she would put that clear-minded and orderly thinking toward some kind of more noble goal, like accepting that she is worthy of love and marriage (which, I am told, go together like a... like a carriage and something else, I forget).
It’ll be interesting to see how she undergoes her journey from self-destructive to self-acceptance, and ascends to her final form: Wally With a Ring On It.
Wally, you need a hug.
From the most pernicious of premises unwilling or unable to invalidate, the situational snowball seed falls. Effective portrayal of falling into that pit and churning in it. If Wally only sat down and talked through these feelings with Sunset... well, there wouldn't be this drama, anyway!
I admit to being inadequately versed in the imagery to draw any connections, but I must comment that referencing Florence + The Machine songs in the chapter titles has not gone unnoticed.
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oh man I'm so excited now you have no idea
Good stuff. I should not have read this at 2 AM... The realistic depictions of depression were a little too strong for my tired and feeble mind. Here's hoping that the lack of a tragedy tag actually means this turns around for the better.
HOLY CRAP, Wally deserves Sunset
I am going to laugh so hard if it turns out that Sunset knew exactly what was happening because Wallflower talks in her sleep, and took action to derail those plans in the most wholesome way possible.
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Why does that feel like something Sunset would actually do?
This is pretty amazing. Your depiction of a deep and lasting love is so true it makes me think of my own wife and makes my heart flutter. I'm glad there's going to be more of this, even if it gets a little more dark.
And your depiction of mental illness is hauntingly accurate as well. The way the brain can turn on itself is scary, and I'm just glad this is a Wallflower that has been through therapy otherwise this could be much worse. I'm definitely in, even if this is probably going to be emotionally taxing just to read.
Well.
This is gonna go bad.
Wallflower: "Damn you, Sunset, why must you be so perfect?"
Sunset: "What was that?"
-- MEANWHILE --
Rainbow Dash: "New plan, everybody! Forget the buses! I'm gonna get some waterskis and jump over a shark!"
Twilight (looking up from a book entitled A History of Pop Culture): "What was that?"
Some days I can really, really relate to Sunset's schedule. The wait to have the time to read this chapter was agonizing, but well worth it with another fantastic entry. The wait to see what Wally does in the next chapter is, once again, absolutely killing me.
I was not expecting to be laughing at how comically ineffectual Wally is being so far in achieving her purported aims. At this point, I have no idea where you're going with things.
Tangent, I will never not consider the Sunset/Celestia dynamic from those other two stories of yours... "Because she was scared of you!" It colors my read here, but doesn't supplant what this story has to offer.
Wow, I guess it’s really true what they say about Chekhov’s flaming motorcycle… if it appears in the first act, you’d better watch out!
I.......don't have any words right now.
... I just had a knife stabbed into my heart from behind... goddammit, foreshadowing stupid right in front of me and I didn't even bat an eye at it...
…..well…..shit………
I made the mistake of looking at the comments before reading, but it was another great chapter nonetheless! Being spoiled didn't detract from my enjoyment at all with how fun it was with Celestia and the back and forth.
I really don't know how I didn't see the motorcycle bit coming back, but it made me giggle.
Thank you for how you handled Princess Celestia. All too often, writers forget her kindness, or how easygoing she is, or that for all her power, she's also an individual with flaws (like all of us) -- and that despite the fact that her age is measured in centuries, she's still capable of learning.
A giccup, if you will
I cannot believe they’ve been together for eight years and this never once came up.
Sunset’s a vegetarian, of course, but the only choices were pepperoni, and broccoli. The latter just reminded her of Wally.
Wallflower is going to make Sunset watch an entire playlist of Demon’s Souls lore videos.
Get fucked, Temper-Pedic, you memory foam motherfucker.
Reheated eggs? Jesus. Wally should be dumping her.
Krav Mare-ga runs until 8:45.
Wallflower “Charlie Brown” Blush.
She was the one keeping dabbing alive. Not dash.
People say that gender-neutral bathrooms are all about accessibility and equity, but the truth is, we keep installing them in public places so that lesbians will have more places to fuck. Which is also about accessibility and equity.
Ash nazg and all that.
On today’s episode of Wally’s Self-Sabotage, Wally goes to the T-Mobile store to get a new phone.
Anyway, Wallflower’s attempts to be as awful as possible making her more endearing is a pretty good premise, and I think more things should be written about cringefail women being inadvertently charming.
I’m hungry now. That thing about the french fries made me this way.
Wally, you are so failing at failure.
The earlier comments have hit most of the highlights before me... Sunset's freak-out over the preparations especially and her and Celestia's dynamic generally were very engaging to read. (Editor mode engages) As a matter of staging, I had trouble believing that Sunset would 'check out' like that at the table, though I understand why she had to stay shut up for the scene to work as intended.
Wally, go watch some Mister Roger's Neighborhood.
Midnight comforting snuggles again serve as precious character moment.
Chapter-ending was suitably surprising!
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This is a fair enough take. In my own defense, Sunset doing this is based on my own tendency to more or less totally dissociate if I get too stressed out, but even then I'm still kinda present so I guess this is like a more extreme (and narratively convenient) version of that.
This scene is also based on something that happens to me when I get (extremely and abnormally) stressed! Although it's less wholesome than cuddling. During periods of my life where I was under extreme stress for long stretches of time, sometimes I'd have like, really really bad panic attacks where I completely lost control of my body and would have tremors and random painful thrashing movements, all while still being fully conscious, which I later learned are called psychogenic seizures. I was diagnosed with conversion disorder, and it's all just this whole fucked up thing that I still have trouble believing is real despite multiple doctors and therapists confirming my diagnosis. Gadot wrote this scene, and she told me it was based on her experiences trying to help me when I was having one of those seizures (though thankfully I haven't had one in a long time now 🙏).
Can you tell that like 95% of stuff in my stories are just projected? I'm super talented and definitely not a hack 😎😎😎
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Psychogenic seizures are not a thing I knew of before now -- fascinating. (And you have my sympathy. Aren't brains just amazing things?)
I too am super talented and would never project myself, and certainly not ever about things like touch starvation and emotional isolation!
no it fucking isn't you amoeba
Love the banter between them, it's real sweet
Like any long-lasting loves, it's a simmering fire and it's all the better for it.
Looking forward for m o r e
The level of dramatic irony here is not only off the charts, it's in orbit.
I imagine Wallflower won't have the guts to say 'good riddance' to that.
You get the impression Sunset never really knew Celestia. She was happier eating at Shit-Ass Donut House than at the Great Grappling Growler.
Celestia doesn’t have hands or fingers, so how she’d know to manipulate silverware is anyone’s guess. You could give her a carving fork and say it’s all-purpose and she’d believe you.
“Let’s see, cumin, lemon pepper, dried cilantro, cinnamon, annnnnnnnnnd sesame seeds, set to high heat. Perfect!”
Wallflower never had to resort to adding hair.
also known as the Gayze.
Pssh. Wally does this every day of her life.
I’m sorry, I believe you mean to say “her pale, light grayish magenta orbs and moist pupils.”
Agh burzum-ishi, and all that.
But only from one end, thankfully.
Aw shit, she’s doing the Ranni hands. That empyrean remark weren’t for nothin’, consarnit.
“What a coincidence!” Celestia cried, clapping her hands and beaming. “That’s how I met Sunset!”
Celestia began to consider asking Wallflower to accompany Sunset into Nokron, in search of the fingerslayning blade.
Whatever rivalry Sunset and Princess Twi might still have, I think Sunset might’ve just won it for good. When was the last time Celestia let Twilight call her mom?
The symphony, on the other hand, would have to wait.
Wow what a great chapter. I sure hope no tertiary characters died horribly in a very preventable accident off-screen.
I needed to skip the part we’re Wally dabbed beacuse it made me fisically cringe sorry
Wally at this point take the hint that even the universe wants you to be happy with sunny
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Wallflower dabbing in the middle of the funeral was absolutely delightful. There might as well be a comedy tag for how much of Wally's failures have been making me giggle.
"Dab in the womb, Dab to the Tomb." - quote inscribed on Rainbow Dashs tombstone
"Get your tickets NOW for the amazing Rainbow Dash stunt show at the Wile E. Coyote Memorial Stadium!"
(She probably should have just jumped over the shark instead.)
This story (as of this writing) lacks the Comedy tag -- it is a penalty to make me laugh at a fucking funeral!
The scenes in the car before the funeral were absolutely breathtaking.
I maintian that if only Wallflower could put her feelings into words for Sunset, things would be much different (even so, only a few things would have to change!). I don't see you going for this in this story, but the side-associative mind of mine submits: When saying anything is a risk, you learn very well to say nothing.
She was so close, too... This juxtaposes well (from a dramatic standpoint) with the implosion that follows