FimFiction Link - Short ID: 482601/wondercolts-forever
Published: Nov '20 — Jan '21
Wondercolts forever is a 48k word story starring sunset shimmer. After having a spat with Celestia about her being particularly manipulative and duplicitous she runs away into another dimension.
This other dimension is the canterlot high we all sort of know, but everything is slightly off. The adults who live here are little better then robots, the food is free, and for starters nobody really bats an eye when some girl shows up out of no-where claiming to be a transfer student.
The main plot is that principal Celestia is actually a faerie, and feeds off the potential of the people in her care. In exchange they get to live a life where their every need is taken care of and every experience is brand new just like the first, because Celestia dulls those memories with her powers.
Whats interesting is that Faelestia is completely transparent about that, and is upfront about the fact that Sunset is a tantalizing morsel, with such untapped potential.
Because there needs to actually be a story, sunset can't leave as the portal won't open for 2.5 years and she just won't accept that.
What follows is an interesting little adventure where sunset gets to be a delinquent for a while and tries to escape the normal way, instead she finds out its a pocket dimension.
Eventually Faelestia makes a deal with sunset where as long as she plays nice she'll help her gain the skills she needs to leave, and then sci!light shows up to help.
After being forced to play nice, sunset manages to hold her spaghetti long enough to make some friends as she figures out how to get back. Eventually she succeeds and after fostering a real connection to the perpetually cynical sci!light she makes a deal, to her equestria is still great and she wants to give her new friend a real choice.
Scilight disagrees, and thinks the perpetual hugbox is better. Because they're friends twilight agrees to give the outside world a chance if when she leaves sunset finds redeemable qualities in equestria.
The time approaches and after some minor worldbuilding that serves mostly as padding but does help illustrate how alien the fae of this universe are, Sunset masters the spell to go back and have a chat with Celestia.
That chat never happens as she walks in on Celestia meeting with twilight. Heartbroken at being replaced after a single year she rushes back into the arms of Faelestia, to actually be one of the hosts for her. Theres a 20 year time skip where Fluttershy of a different universe where she was a unicorn shows up in much of the same scenario as Sunset who has forgotten who she was almost entirely, and the princess is left with a broken mirror as a monument to her failure.
Sunset: brash arrogant and manipulative shes written to the role well, only real criticism is that there was a whole lot less culture shock then I expected.
Principal Celestia: she is an inhuman abomination and does a great way of showing it. She's entirely transparent, and serves largely as a foil to Sunset, and makes no secret that she's valuable like a trading card. Its a fun to read charachter
Rainbow dash: a traumatized wreck of a person representing g the modern day, and she left behind her potential to escape her surivors guilt.
Rarity: a former slave from the distant middle ages. Left her world because she couldn't express herself since being a slave sucks.
Scilight Sparkle: represents the near future where she lived in the pod and ate the bugs. Hope is literally a curse word shes so fedora tippingly nihilistic. She also comes across as naive and innocent. I did not like this character.
Pinkie pie: shes the token comic relief and her weirdness is explained by her being able to understand the faes and doing that breaks your mind. Shes a vehicle for some minor world building and comic relief and that's it.
Overall I enjoyed this, its far from my favorite and I dont typically read EQG fics, but this one manages to avoid the worst tropes and the social justice infestation that i typically associate with the eqg tag. Sunny has a bit of a potty mouth for something rated everyone but its otherwise completely kid friendly. Its definitely unsettling and worth it for that experience, but there's nothing really that it nails. My final score is 6/10 if you dont mind eqg. 4/10 if >no hooves bothers you.
'Wondercolts Forever' is a forty eight thousand-word EqG shortfic. Sunset Shimmer escapes into another dimension where all of her needs are catered to.
Let's address the elephant in the room first. As mentioned in the first sentence this fic has a notable lack of equine appendages, hell I'd even say the only character who outright feels like her canon counterpart is Shimmer, but if one's willing to put themselves over these two obstacles, they are treated to a surprisingly creepy and sad story.
What makes this fic so chilling is the dissonance between being presented with the perfect hugbox and just how inhumane such a thing in reality is. In a sense this story doesn't even have a villain and the antagonist is entirely transparent about her intentions and even helps Sunset through most of the story turning the usual formula completely on its head. Rather than subjecting its characters to pain or suffering, this fic presents the reader with a world where one can (and many intentionally do) become sentient cattle in return of being cared for and unconditionally loved and then walks them through the process of how someone who wants none of this gets their determination whittled down until a certain event completely sends her over the edge and make her decide to give in.
It is easy to handwave a lot of written horror as silly or completely nonthreatening, but stories like this are different, because they implicitly point a finger towards the reader asking "could you last this long?" as the idea of lukewarm stagnation does seem enticing until you realize just how against human instinct it goes.
However, while I'm all for the core idea, the rest of the fic left me feeling pretty ambivalent. Neither Dash's nor Twilight's glimpses into the world outside made me feel any shocked and the utter subliminal cynicism they conveyed - which I'm hoping is merely used as a literary device and isn't the author's actual belief - felt so over the top that it left me completely indifferent. I also somewhat feel like this story is original fiction wearing MLP's (or more specifically EqG's) skin. This isn't meant as an insult, the story is regardless still competent, but due to its structure and logic one could easily swap all of the names and change up Sunset's origin story a bit and you'd get a story completely unrelated to the source material. You can decide for yourself if you consider this a negative, for me personally while it didn't ruin the fic, it bothered me that the characters only act superficially like themselves. It's logical and understandable, but still sucks. Though I suppose one with some humor could also interpret this as a scatching critique against EqG and its shallowness.
Overall: 7/10 It's a decent read. The horror is well-done, especially during the ending, but otherwise the fic left me untouched. Regardless, I still recommend it if one can accept the "buts."