Read it Later story count: 90 (-2)
Words read this week: 56,028
Let's just ignore Muggins here having everything ready to go and not clicking the mouse button hard enough late on Wednesday night and not checking the next morning, shall we? Good. Time for another look at a longer ponyfic today! This is a tale that I'd never even heard of until recently, despite its nearly 40,000 views – but the author has a decent record and "alternative Sunset history" fics can often be interesting. This one has a notable difference from many, as I'll get to in a minute...
The Witch of the Everfree by MagnetBolt
Sunset Shimmer, Mane Six and Celestia
G4 AU; Slice of Life; 56k words; Mar 2015; Teen
My name is Sunset Shimmer. I am the strongest unicorn in all of Equestria, and my life is over. I'm in hiding and on the run, and I have no idea where to start putting things back together.
The difference I alluded to above? In this AU fic, which begins a short series, Sunset never went through the mirror. She's hiding from Celestia in Equestria itself. Along the way she interacts with the Mane Six, including a particularly interesting experience with Twilight. She meets Zecora in the Everfree Forest. And that's not the last of it. Sunset narrates herself, and so you do have to question narrative reliability – which is fine, considering just who is narrating. The chronology is grounded in the fact that the original sonic rainboom happens quite early in the story, meaning that the Mane Six are fillies just beginning to make their own way. But this is Sunset's tale – pony Sunset, remember – and her characterisation and development are satisfying pretty much all through. Even though it's an AU, you feel a clear link with the canon Equestria Girls character, but changed by her environment, which is as it should be. We even find out where that leather jacket comes from in this universe! There are some quibbles, such as Zecora's dialogue being a bit ropey sometimes, and the occasional meta can threaten to get in the way although it never quite does. I liked this a good deal, more than I thought I would to be honest, and it shades into the fours as a result. ★★★★
As usual, major spoilers lurk beyond this line!
Sunset's narration is quite nicely judged, I think. She mostly seems to be telling a pretty straightforward account of her adventures after being dismissed as Princess Celestia's student, but there's just enough doubt to make you wonder how reliable her narration actually is. Certainly she's very sure of her own worth, and in general she's apparently pretty oblivious to how conceited she sounds when she talks about being incredibly powerful or fireproof (which she mostly is!) or whatever. Of course, you do suspect she's telling herself that, too. With no Celestia to guide her any more, this side of her is let loose – which as we saw in canon, can have some bad effects.
Slightly surprisingly for a fic as recent as 2015, this story follows a design common in the older fandom of the hero (well, maybe antihero in this case) interacting with all the Mane Six one by one. Sunset starts with Applejack, then subsequent chapters see her meeting Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Twilight and so on. It's not quite separately episodic, given that the sections with Rainbow and Fluttershy form parts of the same tale, but it's fairly close. They're all at least decent, but Applejack and Rarity probably have the best time of it. Still, you can almost see that as setup for the real adventure: this AU's version of Nightmare Moon's return and what happened then. It's actually pretty well handled and good fun too.
The AU setting allows a particularly interesting part for Zecora, who takes Sunset in when she ventures into the Everfree Forest, and spends years hosting her in her cottage and being her mentor. The zebra's rhyming dialogue only sometimes passes the Zecora Test, but then canon dialogue struggles with making her words both rhyme and scan sometimes. (Luna's olde dialogue later on is better but still has the odd stumble.) You do wonder from time to time whether Zecora knows more than she's letting on, and whether Celestia knows she knows. All those years of my reading "Chessmaster Celestia" fics are probably having an effect here!
For much of the early story, there's an occasional reminder that Sunset really resents Cadance – as she sees it, Cady jumped up from nowhere, became an alicorn and got adopted, while she (Sunset) was the Princess's star pupil yet remained a unicorn. That bitterness falls away in a surprising yet rather satisfying way towards the end of the piece, when the two meet and realise they have more in common than they had previously allowed themselves to believe. I'd actually really like to read more Cadance/Sunset friendshipping set in this AU!
A few little notes. The end-of-each-chapter Author's Notes are a mixture of general chat and comments on the writing. These are usually pretty harmless, though a note that you'll remove this bit when the story is done is when it's still there ten years later! Technically the story is generally fine, without any significant Lavender Unicorn Syndrome, though there are a few examples of incorrect capitalisation after direct speech. All in all, though, the fic reads smoothly and Sunset's narrative voice is convincing. Celestia's is too, though like Chris I find her lack of anything resembling an apology to Sunset slightly disappointing.
I enjoyed this story, and I suspect most readers would – even if you're not a devotee of AU Sunset Shimmer (or indeed Sunset Shimmer in general), as long as the setup here doesn't actually set you running for the hills. It's a solid adventure with some convincing emotional beats, believable alternative interactions with the Mane Six, and – something I always appreciate in a slice-of-lifer – it allows a little fun to show through from time to time. I was a bit unsure about The Witch of the Everfree at first, but it largely won me round.
One final thought: I'm mildly amused by the fact that this AU reforming villain loves to reach for magic (often in the shape of fire) at every opportunity, and just a season later we'd see a canon reforming villain do something rather similar.
Not bad at all! I wish I'd read this sooner. As you might expect, it'll be back to the usual format for Ponyfic Roundup next week. Here's the list:
The Princess and the Reaper by DrakeyC
Rot by Mister E
My house, My say by Felfox
After Glow by TheDriderPony
No Need For Words by Whirring Gears
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