FimFiction Link - Short ID: 504997/sunny-with-a-chance-of-rain
Published: Oct '21
'Sunny With A Chance Of Rain' is a two thousand and five hundred-word long oneshot featuring Sunny temporarily moving to Zephyr Heights as her previous home was destroyed. When she arrives she stumbles into a pegasus and her foal, whom turn out to be her mother and sister respectively. This story is sadly not very good.
I like the basic concept. Unlike Argyle, Sunny's mother never even gets mentioned in the movie, nor do we get any sort of indication of what happened to her or who she could be. Due to this, it was only a matter of time that authors would start trying to answer this question, but the issue with this fic is you can't properly approach a life-changing event like this in so few words. The writer spends the first three quarters of the story detailing how the M5 do practically nothing and then when they finally move to Zephyr Heights, this random pegasus whose only introduction was a few mysterious sentences in the beginning of the story suddenly pops up, slams a picturebook in front of Sunny and basically says:
>hey, I'm your mom, this is your sister
Sunny then understandably stands there like she was struck by lighting and the whole thing seems to be shaping up to become something very emotional, but then the author must have realized that they only wanted to write a short story and so they wrap up the whole ordeal in seconds, rushing past both why Sunny never met her mother before and also touching on the fact that Argyle has died. Then the story ends with little fanfare and I was left dumbfounded.
Again, I have nothing against the idea, it has potential for some great drama. Sunny could blame her mother for leaving her alone, even though the latter had no choice in the matter. Maybe the mother herself could show anguish that she missed her child's younger years or that she couldn't be there for Argyle and consider herself guilty in his death. Maybe the sister could have trouble accepting a complete stranger as her supposedly closest relative after her mother. There are so many things the fic could have had explored, but instead they just make up in an unnatural way, unlike how I'd assume any mother would try to contact their child. Sadly the supporting cast offers little help to fix this awkward situation either. Once the main "conflict" of the story happens, they all but disappear from the plot by not saying even a single word, even though it was Zipp and Pipp's grandmother who separated Argyle from the mother, which is surely a fact they would comment on. Not to mention, how they'd likely all feel elated at the fact that Sunny isn't an orphan after all.
Overall: 3/10 It's a pity that the author didn't bother to flesh their story out more, because there is plenty of potential here, but as the story stands I can't call it anything but disappointing.