Click this to read about the hiatus.

We’ve all had nightmares, but do any of us actually know where they come from?

What if, one day, you woke up as the embodiment of nightmares themselves?

In an alley one night, Joseph gets fatally injured after saving a woman from her terrifying nightmares.

He wakes up somehow, but he quickly finds out that he isn’t in his own body. Instead, he wakes up in the body of one of Equestria's most infamous villains.

Joseph must adapt to a world completely alien to him, as well as adjusting to his new body while trying to figure out what, or who he is.

Featured 13/08 & 14/08/14
Update Feature: 4/10/15, 01/06/16, 17/8/16, 4/12/16, 30/1/17

'Sex' tag added for strong cases of innuendo.
'Dark' tag because this fic deals with morose themes.

Edited and proofread by:
Requiem17
Blue Blaze {COMET}
The Abyss
thesaviour711
Twisted Code
Waffle God
Arcane Spirit
Samaru163
Updated as people help. Includes one-time favours and single chapters.

A/N: Tags will be updated as necessary. Constructive criticism and ego stroking are both welcome. Set both in a world where MLP doesn't exist, and after the events of first two episodes of season one. A show-accurate period of events is not likely.

A real hero doesn't brag?

Just because she likes to talk about how awesome she is means Rainbow isn't a hero?

After her friends revealed themselves to her, Rainbow Dash reacts to Applejack's words in a completely different way than what's expected, and things only go downhill from there. Tears will be shed, friendships will be broken, and knives will be twisted as everything that can go wrong WILL.

Trixie Lulamoon finally encounters her first real fan, a unicorn filly that calls herself the Someday Great and Soon to be Powerful Hijinx, or Simply Jinx Because This Is a Mouthful. Jinx begs Trixie to become her teacher, and Trixie's ego is pleased with the prospect of having a student just so she can show up the Ever Annoying and Slightly Attractive Princess Twilight Sparkle.

Nothing ever quite goes as planned, especially around Hijinx, who might just be an even worse magician than Trixie.

Warning: Will eventually contain Twixie, the OTP. If this disgusts you, DON'T READ IT!

Edit: Yay! This Great and Wonderful Story has hit the Fabulous and Fantastic Feature Box! Huzzah! 5/6/14

A farmer, a teacher, a student, a family.
One morning, they woke up and realised something was missing.
But what, exactly, has been lost?

Chapter 2 - Deleted Scene
"What Do Ponies Truly Fear?" - Essay

Applejack and Pinkie Pie don't mind looking up to see Fluttershy flying in the sky,
or knowing that Rainbow Dash can rest on soft, fluffy, comfortable pillows while they can't,
or seeing bright, flashing lights that blind and burn their eyes when Twilight perform spells,
or knowing that Rarity can carry things and teleport without lifting a hoof while THEY need to lift THEIR hooves to do that.
Nope, they don't mind knowing that they can't do those things. Not one bit.

But when Discord get's rid of their friend's wings and horns before they head into a maze, and he doesn't take ANYTHING away from them, and their friends freak out, knowing they can't do those things now.
The two earth ponies start realizing some things.
Some very, VERY, VERY interesting things.

A changeling gets a very risky and clever idea.
Pretending to be an advanced magic doll left as an anonymous gift in front of Twilight Sparkle's home.
It's so audaciously stupid there is no way it's not going to work.

Fluttershy loves her son, but it's been rough raising him. There are those who have always seen him as a threat. Who mock and make fun of him. They see him as nothing but an abomination.

It hurts her to know that there are ponies out there who do this to her son. It hurts even worse when one of those ponies was one of her friends.

***Warning: Spoilers in comments***

Adjustments made in the story due to some criticism that I've received. Hopefully it will help it a bit more :)

Pre-Read by: TwilightUCrazy and Bakmah Genesis

Edited by: "mysterious beautiful stranger" and InsanityCorps

This story is a sequel to Friday Night Twilight

A cartoon pony named Twilight Sparkle visits me every other Friday night. We talk more than we used to, but she still makes me watch that show of hers. Isn’t anything ever going to change?

Chinese Translation by ComradeSpark

Note: that Romance tag doesn't equate to mushy stuff, and it's not the reason for the Teen rating. This is much closer to Everyone than Mature.
Cover art generously provided once again by statoose
Big, heartfelt thanks to Skeeter The Lurker for helping me deal with reader reactions, and to Craine for proofreading the new final chapter.

While moving to her new home, Zecora find the strangest creature - a large, nigh-hairless talking monkey-thing. Seeing how it lacks basic knowledge on surviving in the wild (and that it's quite tall and probably good at manual labour) she decides to adopt it as her assistant. Hopefully, she won't come to regret her decision.

It might seem like a simple spell. A truly basic working. All it does is change the color of something without altering a single other detail, and somepony just pranked Twilight with it. A minor joke, one with no real consequence. But it's still new magic, and so Twilight and Spike venture out to track the spell and caster across Ponyville.

You'd think a spell which merely changed colors wouldn't create so much trouble.

You'd really like to think that.

(Part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group. New members and trope edits welcome.)

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.

Dedicated to John M. Ford.