I like to take a page from Republic Commando and the EG novels and assume Sunset’s love for computers/apps lead her to utilize or develop software that makes insubstantial withdraws from a number of bank accounts and adds it to hers (or her counterpart’s, if she did exist). Not on a scale of millions, but amassing only just enough money to make a decently sustainable living.
 
Though the homeless craftsman headcanon sounds pretty rad, too.
 
@TexasUberAlles  
That or his presence may have been overshadowed by Twilight’s ascension/Sunset’s return during that particular trip. Or EQG’s canon having Shrodinger’s status at the time left a few wrinkles.

@Josh103  
That’s pretty much the entirety of it. It’s a mighty thin hook to hang anything definitive on, since it can be swept away easily enough with “Oops, guess Twilight had a brainfart and got the order mixed up! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “

@Background Pony #A841  
I believe it was that in some episode Twilight mentions something that the last time Spike was there at the Crystal Empire was at those games, when he was there during the first EqG which took place after that. I think.

@Background Pony #73A3  
I’m resigned to not having that question answered. Which, actually, I’m OK with, but I just wanted to give it one more shot.

@Jarkes
 
That was honestly the point where I began to come to the conclusion that she was pretty much perfect. Around the time everyone and their mother started falling in love with Sunset in Rainbow Rocks, I was first starting to see the writing on the wall as to who she had become. Her redemption story had nothing to do with her becoming a better person, but everything to do with her trying to convince everyone else that she had already become a better person. Her being able to suddenly play guitar felt sort of like a cherry on top.
 
Of course, Friendship Games only cemented this even harder.

Honestly, the only time I ever had an issue with Sunset having a skill or hobby out of nowhere was when she revealed at the very end of Rainbow Rocks that she was really good at guitar.
 
That sure would’ve been nice to know at any point during this movie that was all about a battle of the bands, Sunset.

@Background Pony #A841  

 
No one has answered this person’s questions.

@Cabrony  
That and Toryiama is also a troll. He likes giving people the exact opposite of what they want at times for giggles. For example, from what I heard he doesn’t like Vegeta but Vegeta was a huge fan favorite and fans kept telling him to not kill Vegeta. Toriyama killed him at least twice to mess with those people. Not that I mind in that case, I thought both of his deaths were rather moving.

@ThePhilosopony
 
The economy of the EQG bubble universe is probably m u c h better than real life.

@TexasUberAlles  
Kinda reminds me of the recent interview Akira Toriyama did explaining how to become super saiyan you need to have an X number of “S-cells” and how somehow goten and trunks inherited those S-cells to explain why a legendary transformation has been reduced to child’s play.
 
This is midichlorians all over again,but we all know Toriyama is just incosistent and makes stuff up as he goes.

@Animanga21
 
Well, of those it’d have to be 1 or 2 – the comic that showed her flight across the mirror showed her jumping through without taking anything with her.
 
Regardless. I don’t actually have any issue with the in-depthness or lack thereof we’ve gotten for Sunset’s living accommodations. From a narrative standpoint, I’m quite aware that going in-depth about this sort of thing would needlessly bog down the story with objectively pointless tangents. Generally, if I can come up with a couple plausible explanations with a couple minutes’ thought and some background info in the matter, as I can here, I don’t count it as a problem. Granted there’s still the issue with people renting an apartment to a teenager with no guardians, but, well, I also recognize that there are times when you need to sacrifice some credibility for the sake of making the story work like you want it to – what TvTropes call Acceptable Breaks from Reality.
 
My personal problems with this matter here comes from the way the reply was worded – “Also she’s not real, it a cartoon”. I honestly really, really don’t like it when people take that attitude about cartoons, it bugs me to no end to see it in the fandom and it’s very disappointing to see the writers take it too. “Because there’s no point to it” – I could accept that. “Because explaining it would just bog down the story” – it would be true. “Because this is a story about high schoolers having magical adventures, not the gritty details of the real estate market” – perfectly good reason and also true. But the “it’s just a cartoon” take on things… I can’t help but hear it as very dismissive. “It’s just a cartoon, who cares if it makes sense.” “It’s just a cartoon, it doesn’t need to be good.”
 
I get that the writers don’t intend it that way, I do, but that’s still the message it communicates when you cite the fact that it’s indeed a cartoon as a justification to answer complaints. Basically, if you use “it’s a cartoon” to justify what people perceive as low quality or a plot hole or whatever, the implicit statement is “if it were not a cartoon, I would have to explain it or work out how things work, but it’s just a cartoon so it’s fine if it’s low quality”.

@cheezedoodle  
It is vitally important we know how Sunset acquired a social security number or the equivalent for their world  
To be fair, as an Old Person it’s obvious to me that Meghan McCarthy is approaching high school from an Old Person’s POV, since she apparently grew up as I did in an era before computerized records and CCTV and Security in public schools. It’s like horror stories where the author clearly hasn’t internalized the truth that essentially everyone including homeless panhandlers has a smart phone these days; the default high school experience in the minds of the writing staff is fundamentally different than that of Target Audience, because you could just get away with more $#!+ in the old days.
 
@Spinny  
It’s like, heaven forbid we actually learn something substantial about Sunset for once  
The core of the “it’s just a cartoon FFS” position is that you’re honestly asking a bit much in the way of depth from a format which isn’t really structured so as to give it to you, and I disagree that this is even a “problem” in the first place; EqG (like FIM) has a certain story to tell and does it in a certain way to appeal to a certain audience, and I think it does it in such a way that any further expansion on that story is made easy for the (unintended) audience to provide as they see fit. We’re free to make up our own stories to explain [whatever], and as a fan artist with extensive headcanons I prefer it that way. Sometimes when a story tries to explain things in detail… what you get is Midichlorians.

@FrustrationInExcelsis  
Yeah, but if a kid asks how sunset can afford a place to live, you can answer that she has a job, and that’d probably be good enough because most kids understand that much, but won’t know enough to overthink how a part time job can pay for an apartment.
 
With what information we do have though, we can assume a number of possibilities.
 

@Spinny
 
It can, and will. You just deal with it.

@Josh103
 
I know people care about Sunset, which is why excuses like “it’s a cartoon” are almost insulting. It’s like, heaven forbid we actually learn something substantial about Sunset for once. We know so little about her that it’s laughable, particularly for such a central character. Before this year, we had absolutely no idea that she was an artist and a gamer. They just introduce new talents/hobbies for her seemingly on a whim, and all it truly does is highlight how little we know about her. The Flanksy thing in particular is pretty head-scratching.
 
Now I know that I shouldn’t expect real-world laws to apply to EG, but I think the question as to how Sunset can afford her apartment and support herself with only a part-time job is very legitimate. Hell, people still even want to know how Fluttershy supports herself, since she seemingly doesn’t do anything that provides an income. And this is a legitimate question as well, because we also have Applejack and her farm which has presumably been under threat of bankruptcy in the past. So we do at least know that, much like with our own world, money and finances matter. Therefore, the question of what Fluttershy does for money should not simply be written off as “it’s a cartoon.”

@Evil Emperor Proteus
 
If inquisitiveness is the only matter being considered, I’m not sure where you’re getting that children are less inquisitive than adults – in my experience, it’s exactly the other way around. Honestly, I don’t think there are any questions little kids pull as often as “how?” and “why?”
 
In fact, a stage of intense inquisitiveness about everything is a phase the young of all animals above a certain level of intelligence go through – it’s quite vital for proper learning and development, really. In animals and humans, it’s adults who become much less responsive and more set in their ways once they’ve learned what they needed to learn for life.
 
The issue is how informed one is about such and such a subject, rather than how inquisitive one is – children don’t wonder how people can or cannot afford houses because as a rule they don’t know much about rents, house prices, jobs and real estate. If they did, you can bet they would be inquisitive about that too.

@Evil Emperor Proteus  
Children are arguably even more inquisitive than adults.
 
The difference being in that children and adults tend to think about the same aspects but to different degrees.

@Spinny  
@Josh103  
Adults can’t help being adults, we are naturally inquisitive and seek to explain everything. It is an adults selfish aspect that forgets or does not care that the things they enjoy may be for children, and can’t help but drag this children’s thing into their adult comfort zone. Like how if someone who knows a lot about science, math, engineering and space might not be able to fully enjoy Sci-Fi because their knowledge may prevent them from just bowing to the absurd.

@Spinny  
People care about Sunset. Hence why those questions are asked. They want to learn more about Sunset and how she managed all that.
 
Of course you could spin it and type that it’s more proof Sunset has almost no character if people have to ask those questions.

“She’s not real, it’s a cartoon.” I love that right there. I can’t help but see it as an admission as to why there’s no reason whatsoever to expect anything resembling realism from Sunset’s character, which is fitting since Sunset is about as far from a realistic character as you can get, cartoon or otherwise.
 
So yes, of course she can afford a large apartment with no roommate. Of course she’s recently become an artist and a gamer out of nowhere. Of course she has no flaws or negative character traits. She’s just a cartoon, so who the hell cares?

@Background Pony #A841  
>”OK, why the discrepancy in perceptions of Sunset’s living quarters?”  
The person who claimed her house was huge probably doesn’t have one of their own, so they might have a poor frame of reference.

@Background Pony #A841
 
I’ve read comments here and in other places, and how expensive those kind of apartments are vary a lot from place to place.
 
In the States, in some places they are trendy, expensive living quarters. In some places they are a lot more modest and cheap. Apparently the later is the case up in Canada in general.
 
From what we see in Monday Blues, Sunset’s is cheap and modest, the one room we see is the entirety of her living quarters. The most expensive thing she seems to own is her computer.
 
Given the external layout of the building, there are probably other people renting space besides her.

@Background Pony #A841  
I think there’s a discrepancy because Sunset’s home is a loft style place that’s typically super trendy and expensive for some reason. But it’s also not particularly nice, aside from the nice big window, and most of Sunset’s appliances seem to be cobbled together or salvaged, since she only seems to have a mini fridge and microwave for cooking and her alarm clock literally looks like it’s made out of an egg timer and scrap.
 
I sort of headcanon that it was a bit of a dump when she moved in and she slowly made improvements over time to make it nicer, which is where she gained an appreciation for craftsmanship that she shares with AJ in Movie Magic.

>dat last sentence  

 
@Evil Emperor Proteus  

@ThePhilosopony  

OK, why the discrepancy in perceptions of Sunset’s living quarters?
 
@Background Pony #64C4  
I keep seeing people referring to something about “Equestria Games” that is apparently contrary to the concept of the Equestria Girls subfranchise being canon to the main series, but I’ve yet to see it spelled out. What the heck is this blunder or inconsistency or whatever?

@Background Pony #19D8
 
Speak for yourself. I live for overthinking things :D