Sunset Shimmer hurried off the train, the other ponies disembarking around her kicking her hooves as they pushed her along. Her magic carried her bags above her, away from the frantic commuter ponies in the station. She squeezed herself toward a set of big doors and jumped back as they swung open. More ponies flooded in, eyes set on their routes, uninterested in conversation.
These ponies encouraged Sunset. She had decided upon Manehattan for her new home, hoping its name wasn’t the only thing that made the Equestrian metropolis similar to her own. In a big city Sunset could easily retain a low profile, and if she happened to run into any of the few ponies she’d met in Canterlot she could rely on her disguise. She figured using the one she used in Ponyville was risky, since Celestia and Sylri would no doubt recognize it. Liking Panorama Slide’s blue color scheme, though, she decided to go along with something similar. Her coat was now a dark blue, and her mane teal with cyan highlights. Summer Night was the name she adopted - a common enough name, sure not to attract much attention.
Her cutie mark remained unchanged, a memento of her former identity. Summer hid it under tight black pants, so she trotted through the train station doors without fear of being recognized.
Out on the street, buildings scraped the sky above her. She couldn’t decide if the monstrous constructions were more impressive than the ones back home. It amazed her that ponies could build anything without fingers, but then again, they do have the advantage of magic. Summer floated her luggage down to the sidewalk and walked over to it. Her own magic had indeed been coming along nicely since she met Sylri, but she knew she had a ways to go before she’d be able to build anything like this city.
She wondered if she would ever have the power to manipulate magic in such a way. From studying cutie marks, she figured she’d have a construction related mark if she was meant to build cities. That was when, for the first time, she wondered why she had the cutie mark she had. What did her sun mean? Celestia had a sun on her flank too, she realized.
Suddenly, Summer was knocked to the ground by a passing pony. The pony disappeared without so much as an apology. She stood up again and decided to get a move on. A bustling city sidewalk is no place to wonder about one’s identity.
First on her to-do list was to find a place to stay. She had a meager amount of money leftover from the stipend she received as Celestia’s student, but after paying for the train ride she worried that she might not have enough to afford a decent apartment. As she trotted past a newspaper pagoda, she dropped a bit on the counter and took a paper.
At a nearby coffeeshop, she sipped a cappuccino and perused the apartment listings. To her delight, pony apartments seemed cheaper than their human counterparts. One place advertised one bedroom and one bath, with a small kitchen and living area, and it was so cheap she could almost buy the whole thing if she wanted. That was an unnecessary commitment, though, she decided, finishing her coffee and heading back out onto the streets.
After asking a couple ponies for directions, Summer Night finally found herself at the apartment building. Next door was the complex office, and inside she confronted a red stallion with a grey mane, sleeping at a desk. Two fillies sat in the corner of the quiet room, giggling at her from behind a comic book. She felt her cheeks heat up. A bell sat on the desk, in front of the sleeping stallion, and Summer politely pressed it down with her magic. The ring echoed through the office, yet the stallion didn’t awaken. The fillies in the corner giggled harder, struggling to suppress themselves, yet clearly not willing to help Summer.
She rolled her eyes, and cleared her throat. “Excuse me, sir? I’m here for an apartment.”
The stallion snored a bit. An earth mare appeared in a doorway behind him, rubbing her hooves clean on her apron. Summer sniffed a bit and realized that the room smelled delightful, like home cooking. She wished she had had something to eat back at the coffeeshop. The mare shot the giggling fillies a frown and the two went quiet. She clomped toward the stallion.
“Dust Devil!” she shouted, bringing her front hooves down heavily onto the desk.
The fillies in the corner burst into riotous laughter as the stallion sat up straight, wiping the drool from his muzzle.
“Honestly, Dust,” the mare said, gently grooming his frazzled wings before returning to the kitchen. She stopped at the doorway and looked at the fillies. “Dinner’s almost ready, you two.”
They grinned at each other and scampered after the mare, abandoning their comic book.
Summer was thus left with the stallion, Dust Devil.
“Ah, sorry about that,” he stuttered. “How can I help you?”
“I saw your listing in the paper,” she said.
“And you’re here for an apartment, yes?” he replied, his ears perking up. Summer smiled and nodded. Dust Devil rose from his seat and came around the desk.
“Excellent! Wonderful!” he said, shaking Summer’s hoof quickly. He headed toward the door. “We have several available, would you like to see them now?”
Before she could respond, the stallion whinnied and flew back over his desk to the doorway.
“Going to show our guest the building, dear. Be back for dinner soon!” Summer glanced around the office awkwardly as she waited, then stepped to the side as Dust Devil rushed back to the door. “Follow me please, miss!”
After a quick tour, Summer decided upon a one bedroom apartment like the one she found in the newspaper. The building itself was small - only twelve apartments fit inside it, and only eight of those were currently occupied. The hallways were very quiet. Her bedroom had one window, and through it she had a lovely view of the city skyline. The wallpaper was peeling slightly, true, but the carpeting was very well vacuumed. She believed she could be happy here.
Since she still had a respectable amount of bits left after her downpayment and first three months rent, Summer spent the evening shopping for furniture for her new apartment. She also stopped by a grocery market a couple blocks down the street, and she even found herself inside a music shop where she bought herself a beautiful electric guitar.
Back at her new home, she munched on a sandwich while plucking the guitar’s strings. Of course, she had to use her magic to play the instrument, but she found that it wasn’t too different from using hands. Still, remembering her old guitar and the fun she had with her garage band left her wondering what things were like in her home world. Had her double stayed with the band? No, they probably kicked her out when she suddenly lost her ability to use her fingers.
Surely playing music wasn’t what her evil counterpart had in mind, anyway. Summer Night felt the familiar gnawing inside of her. Had she enslaved mankind yet? she wondered. Is she preparing to march an army of her friends back through the portal to conquer her new home as well?
___
Sunset Shimmer stormed down the hallway, late again to class. This didn’t bother her, she only grit her teeth because she didn’t want to go to the stupid class at all! She cursed Celestia for punishing her this way. Nopony deserves having to go to Trigonometry.
When she first arrived here, she expected the people of the world to kneel before her and her immense magic. But the cruel Equestrian princess must have known that she’d lose her magic upon entering the world. Because of this she’d spent her time thus far stuck doing homework and associating with these lowly humans. "She must have tricked me into going through that stupid portal!"
As she continued on her way to class, her attention was caught by a stylishly decorated poster hung on the wall. Since she was already late, she decided there wasn’t much harm in stopping to read the poster.
“Want to run for Princess of the Fall Formal?” the poster asked.
“Princess of the Fall Formal?” she asked. “Princess?”
She rubbed her chin. A dark smile stretched across her face.
___
The other Sunset Shimmer, Summer Night now, unpacked her few bags. Textbooks floated onto her new bookcase, and from between the pages of one of them a notebook slipped out. She picked it up and flipped through its pages, quickly recognizing it as a small journal she’d been keeping at the castle. It’s first entries were written before her classes started with Celestia; she remembered being inspired by finding her counterpart’s diary.
Pages filled with fear for her old world and fear of her new one, her frustration as she became accustomed to her new body and her magic, her increasing depression which suddenly lightened when the creature causing it became a friend. Remembering all that Sylri had done for her made her regret abandoning the sprite. Yet, she wasn’t about to return to being Celestia’s puppet.
The last entry was written on the train to Ponyville, so she had yet to document her betrayal. Summer flipped to the next blank page and picked up a quill.
As she caught up, she reminisced about the pony she met in the hospital months ago - Swift Flight. She felt a tug of guilt, knowing she only remembered his name because she had just read it in the diary. She wondered how the poor pegasus was doing, and even played with the idea of finding him. Surely he wouldn’t tell the Princess about it, if she asked him not to. She smiled, imagining how nice it would be to have a friend again.
Finished writing, she dropped the journal and picked up her guitar once more. She missed feeling the weight of the instrument in her arms as she played, scratching the strings against the blisters on her fingertips. She missed having fingertips. But she played on anyway, and it really did sound just as good - if not better.
7544361 Yeah, it is pretty much impossible not to characterize canon characters slightly differently.
That's why I tend to use almost all OCs in my writing. That way, I can create entirely new characters . Obviously, this doesn't work for all kinds of stories.
8015750 I realize that the whole "Not being able to return" thing could use some work. Perhaps I'll edit it with a better reason as to why she can't.
You know Celestia, with Sunset (both of them now) deciding to run away like this, it's almost like some people DON'T like being used as pawns, whatever your intentions. *Gasp!* You're just lucky Twilight seems to have her lips glued to your plot so hard she'll probably never go against anything you do, no matter how manipulative or outright STUPID it may be. *cough*Crystal Empire*cough*
8016203 Lol.
Poor Summer Night...it's good that she's adjusted to Equestria and all, but still...
I'll admit, this has been in my read it later list for a long time. The premise sounded interested, as not many have considered exploring the notion of the EqG Sunset Shimmer ending up in Equestria when the MLP one crossed over.
But, you've got some issues with the story, and I feel like you lost direction of what you were trying to do, or shifted the focus of the story somewhat, there is a disconnect that grows with each chapter. To start, the short chapter form does you a large disservice, making each chapter have less impact. It takes a lot of skill and know-how to pull off short form chapters, and even then not every story can do so, even if the skill is present. Your story isn't really capable of pulling it off, not well anyways. So, that begins to hurt the story, almost off the start.
Then, we get the introduction. It does start off well enough. Poor Sunset, she's been pulled into Equestria. But then, even after those 2 1/2 years, she can't go back and try to fix her life? She's a high school student, it's not like her parallel self can destroy her life, especially since we've seen from the movie how things went. You really don't explain why she wouldn't be able to go back, not very well anyways. I mean, you make a claim, but there's really no evidence beyond it, so we have to take it at its face value and try not to read into it to believe it, which is hard to do with a very inquisitive mind.
Now, moving along. The story starts off as promised... Sunset is dealing with all this new stuff of being displaced and thrown into the hooves of her parallel self in Equestria. We see the parents, we see Celestia dealing with the situation and grief in her own way, and then we see Sunset's struggles.
Then, things just start to... fall apart, really. We don't get any real exploration into her character or her situation, just a fair bit of crying here and there, with snippets, at best, of what is going on. Then, you start pulling time skips of unknown amounts to start, then the pixie thing pops in, and... I honestly have no idea what it is you're trying to write anymore, as it's definitely not what is in the description of your story. I am sorry if it sounds harsh, but this is not the story that it originally set out to be, and it's hard to tell what it is that you're trying to do with it.
On top of that, some of your plot devices truly make no sense... Celestia is torn over Sunset's actions, and vows to aid this displaced Sunset in adjusting to life in Equestria, to learning magic, to finding a place to fit in, hopefully. Instead it comes out 'Oh, I was manipulating you, and the student I was keeping hidden from you managed to do what I was hoping she would.' ... ... ... ... ... ... Take a moment to let that soak in, and perhaps in hindsight you'll understand why it just comes off as, well, wrong. I understand that many see Celestia as manipulative, but I simply cannot see her deviating so far as to use Sunset like this. Coupled with hiding Twilight from her? I would think, had you not strayed from your premise, introducing Twilight to Sunset would have really jelled well for the story, and for their characters.
Sorry, but I simply cannot keep reading. There's too much burdening this story, and the collapse of such an interesting premise is somewhat heartbreaking.
8022719 Yeah, I'm not really all that good an author. I actually partly started this story, because it was something that hadn't been done before, and to hopefully inspire other, better authors to do their own take, that would obviously crush this one into obscurity. I know it's bad, poorly done, and probably belongs in the "Badfic Bin" or "No." groups. So, yeah, it's a piece of trash fic, possibly less of a piece of trash than my first (It's pretty bad, and got utterly destroyed by a couple Rage Reviewers, though a third had said it got better later on), but I guess at least it's my piece of trash.
So, my first note to myself is to go work on a better reason for Sunset being stuck.
Now, in my defense, the description of the story is rather vague. I should work on that one two, second note to self.
As for the Celestia manipulation thing, I really tried to have it a little more tactful, and the reasoning behind the whole bit there is that while she is kind and compassionate to her subjects, she does have a country to run, hundreds of thousands of other subjects to aid as well, and was also hoping to protect Equestria from certain upcoming problems that she knew about. Third note to self, make Celestia a bit more tactful.
The bit about keeping Twilight and Sunset in the dark about each other was actually an attempt by me to stick more to the canon of the show/movies. Obviously Twilight had never known about Sunset Shimmer up until Hasbro needed a new series of Pony related material to sell. So that was on purpose by me and I'll stick with it. Though I do have it planned for them to meet up eventually. Actually, my plan with this fic was to have it end eventually and have her become more involved in my first fic, which would eventually go into a third. Though I am starting to think about canceling the whole thing, because, to be blunt, it's quite obvious that I suck at being an author. Maybe I should stick with reading fics and playing video games, huh?
8023321 I thought the premise was very good. The direction it eventually went was not one that I could say I was fully on-board with. I really could not add much more than what has been mentioned previously, though I wish I could offer actual advise to help.
However, since this is cancelled, I just want to be sure it is for the right reasons and not because someone with a blue colored band around their name says it's bad. Let it be because you have lost your focus and direction, you no longer have a story to tell, or you cannot conceivably continue because of some reasons.
If a senpai comes along and says "I think this is a good idea, however I didn't like this and this. Also I had no idea where it is going and I can't read it any more. Sorry", then that is a bad senpai. There is value in what Spacecowboy says and it is accurate, it's just not the word of god or authority. The sprite thing was really, really odd. I admit that, but it could have worked with more cohesion and direction. I can't really advise on this because it is not something I would have used. A slower progression in her development in Equestria to the point of discovery of Celestia's manipulation would have been better. The manipulation itself needs to be a bit better thought out, more subtle and more build up.
The central portion of your story needs to be ironed out. Sunset's character development could have used more work, needs more meat if you will. A little more work on your flow and the reasoning behind some of the things. You need a battery of notes on why some things are what they are, what's going on behind the scenes, the logistics, etc. The notes are things that will never be seen by the readers. My opinion on this is as long as the writer knows why something happens, those involved know what they would conceivably know, and that which is responsible knows why it happened (or why they did it or such) then that is fine.
Stubbornness is a curse and a virtue. If you have a story to tell, then tell that story. If someone swoops in and gives technical advise, take it and if warranted, adapt. If someone can't follow because of confusion, look to rework it for clarity. If someone comes in and says they don't like a theme, direction, or idea proposed in the story, acknowledge that, but take it with a grain of salt. Your story is your story, not theirs, and you are free to tell what you want.
8027119 I'm cancelling this fic, and my other even crappier one for two reasons. Reason number one is because they need a tidal wave's worth of improvement, and to be honest with both you and myself I'm pretty unqualified when it comes right down to it, if anything I'd probably just end up causing more problems. Take a look at my other fic and you'll see what I mean. Reason number two, is because of people like "Senpai" SpaceCowboy or Pony Admiral Q, whose most specific suggestion is to have Sunset Shimmer meet Twilight Sparkle practically immediately or for her to return to her home dimension and send the pony one back. I don't want to do that because I'm trying to stick as close to the canon as I can.
8028076
my first stories where so bad that i had a group named terrible stories put me in them.
its all about seeking to improve yourself
8077382 At the same time though, it doesn't help when people comment "This has to happen or I'm done reading."
8125061 you need to try or im done reading!!!! >:I
i mean lol haters gonna hate let them have there fun and ignore. i think you can remove the omment
I am sorry to hear that, I personally loved the fic, good luck on your future stories then.
I really want this to come back. Maybe after you improve, you can come back to this with new insight.