The holiday season has come to Canterlot High, but there's little reason for yuletide cheer. A MyStable user called 'Anon-A-Miss' has been posting students' secrets for all to see, and the prime suspect is Sunset Shimmer. With not even her closest friends at CHS standing by her through this, it's looking like it'll take a holiday miracle for Sunset to weather this storm, much less clear her name.
This story is adapted from the Equestria Girls Holiday Special, written by Ted Anderson and drawn by Tony Fleecs. Additional inspiration is taken from "Ponyville Confidential", written by M. A. Larson, "One Bad Apple", written by Cindy Morrow, and Issue #29 of the ongoing, story by Ted Anderson and drawn by Jay Fogsitt.
Part of the Quiververse
Chapters (5)
Off to a promising start. Can't wait to see how this story unfolds.
6700824 Thanks. As previously reported, I've finished writing the thing, and will be posting the remaining three chapters each Friday until Christmas, so you won't have a long wait.
Jesus. Not another one of these stories...
6705764 Yeah, sorry, but I had to take my own swing at it. Don't worry, it won't take very long.
6705777 Looking forward to said swing. Disregard the black alicorn OC.
6705880 Another chunk of the swing is due on Friday. May it knock things out of the park.
6705764 Oversaturation?
6705764
When readers are unsatisfied with a published story, the writer in them wishes to explore solutions to the "problem".
The comic special had a few issues, so there are a lot of these stories. Heh.
6706810 I'm proud to say that I at least timed this right.
6707420 Exactly!
can't wait for the next chapter
6718904 You'll have a very short wait.
OK, so, first the good.
Love this. Especially Pinkie's cafateria outberst and the scene were Sunset almost trapped herself in the bridge world. Verry emotional. Also, the song. And:
Oh Pinkie
Then the bad.
I don't know if you intentially alluded to the Windigoes being able to cause negative emotions or not, but I'm pretty sure that the Windigoes are not able to cause them, but are mearly attracted to them.
Spelling errors.
That "ya'll" should be a "ya'll're"
That "you're" should be either a "you" or a "you've", "you've" works better though.
6723035 Ack. Oops. Implying the Windigoes were the cause of the negative emotions wasn't my intent - I didn't even mean to imply anything. Those lines were a lift from the original story, maybe with some small changes but definitely not meant to imply that the Windigoes were behind all the anger. I'll see what I can do about clarifying for later installments and fixing the typos.
I'm glad you liked the bits that you liked, though. I had a lot of those in mind from when I started on this story, though the original plan for the cafeteria scene went differently - Maud actually went there and played a bigger role in it, and was the one to stun everyone into silence. I'm glad I went with what I did, however.
Wait. That's it I mean I know it is not over yet but seriously thats it. Sunset just forgave them like that. I CALL BULLSHIT! Almost all the othe Anon stories I read have Sunset not forgive the girls right away or just not at all. It is more realistic that way. Just saying
6723219 Okay, look at it from this perspective. Sunset knows that the sort of crap Anon-A-Miss pulled was exactly the sort of crap she used to pull once upon a time. She gets why they did what they did. She's still hurt about it, and probably will be for a little while yet, but she can understand their reasoning, and she can forgive that. And as admitted, she was keeping a pretty big secret from them; Sunset's gotta feel a little guilty about that. And let's not forget, she doesn't want to lose them.
Plus, let's be realistic, at least they apologized first. Which is a step up from the original comic.
Now I understand you taking issue with all the quick forgiveness, but please, have a little faith. I'm not that cheap of a writer.
6723365 point taken but I am saying that maybe you could have had the human 5 find out sunset was innocent in a different way and much later. I am really saying that the story felt rather rushed. Most of the anon firs I read have the 5 find out that sunset is not anon much later into the story like 4 chapters in.(With a few exceptions)and they always find out when the CMC tell them it was them(with one exception being SadisticFluttershy's now cancelled Apologies are'nt always enough. Where they start to think sunset is innocent kind of like your story but they break into sunsets locker and look at her book phone messages and they realize that they fucked up.) you could of had that happen. Just saying.
6723439 Okay, yeah, maybe a little rushed, but I didn't want to spend too long going through stuff we already knew about from the comic. And if it helps, there's still a little bit of story to tell.
6723035 And edits are done. Clarification on the windigoes shall come later.
6723670
Sweet. I'll do a re-read when that happens. Psst, just so you know, I usually never do re-reads.
6723740 Well, I meant later in the story, not with a later rewrite. But if you want to re-read, feel free, I won't stop you.
6723747
Oh, oops.
I'll probably re-read it when the next chapter comes out.
OK, so, the good.
Just start from the top and go to the bottom and that all goes here.
The bad.
A couple of instances of you using one word when you wanted to use a different word. I'm a little burned out from doing my Christmas shopping today, so I'll edit this comment with more specifics at a later date, unless someone beats me to it.
Edit: The specifics.
pretty sure you're missing the word her there between
and
I think you meant at, not on.
I think you mean classes.
This one I'm not sure about. Did you mean embracing or embrace. I suppose they could both work , depending on how you read it.
Was that on purpose, 'cause it seems like "bringing" would work better.
Not sure, but weren't there more than just two new arrivals?
And that's all I can remember from my initial read through and all I could find in my slow skim over of the chapter. I'll leave whatever I missed for someone else to catch 'cause it's time I hit the hey.
6745826 Glad you're enjoying, and feel free to suggest the words you think I should've used. If I agree - and I probably will - I'll make my own edits.
And apologies on the Christmas shopping burnout. If it helps, I have Christmas working burnout. I don't expect to recover until New Year's Eve at the earliest.
6745927
Do you get a notice whenever a comment on one of your story's gets edited?
6746521 No, but you're the only one commenting on this chapter, and I noticed the difference between the original and edited posts very quickly. Expect the cleanups to be done by the end of today.
6745826 And the edits are done. Thanks for pointing all of those out.
6748738
No problem. Happy to help.
I have to give this a thumbs down. Almost none of the problems with the original are fixed. The Rainbooms still face no consequences for abandoning Sunset, they still have their double-standard (suspect that Sunset might be Anon-a-Miss? Instant abandonment! Crusaders admit to being Anon-a-Miss, and to intentionally framing Sunset for it? Instant forgiveness!), and the Crusaders get off even easier in this fic than they do in the actual comic. Combine with the random, completely unnecessary demonization of Trixie and the agreement with the absolutely toxic message of One Bad Apple, and this fic is one huge disappointment.
6766676 ...guilt isn't a consequence? Sunset very nearly ended her own life as well as those of the Crusaders. Plus, I think it's a little easier to justify their actions prior to the Battle of the Bands than it is to justify them afterwards.
Still, you've a right to your opinion. And I do plan on addressing some of the issues you've raised with later stories, so thank you for saying so.
6766696
Not really, no. They still faced no actual negative repercussions for abandoning Sunset, despite her being innocent (and despite the fact that, again, they instantly forgave the Crusaders for worse).
I don't need to read this to know she, once again, completely forgives them despite it taking less than a minute for them to drop Sunset like a hot rock.
This should be doesn't, because her world still exists and so would her worlds Santa, so speaking about him in the past tense doesn't make sense.
Should be thought.
I think "be" or "go" would work better in this instance.
Not the best adaptation of the Christmas special comic, but I'd deffinitly put it somewhere in the top ten.
Also, it's over!? Aww man. Now I have to wait for you to figure out the next story in the series. Oh well, I still have the other 142 stories I'm tracking right now to hold me over.
Also, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
6766951 Thanks for catching all of those, and Merry Christmas to you too! If you want something to whet your appetite, I'm about to post a journal with a small sampling of something to come. For now, I'm glad that you enjoyed the story.
As for what's to come next, well, I'm hoping to get seven stories out before the end of 2016 - one I've already started posting here, and a second one I've started on. Fingers crossed that I have something out by the end of January!
6767227
Looking forward to it.
6767227
Also, the thing about Sunset not being able to go back through the portal. I'm geussing that was explained in an earlier story, and I just forgot what the explanation was. Which story was the explanation in?
6767534 Okay, hopefully this won't be too confusing.
The Crystal Mirror goes directly between Pony!Earth (henceforth referred to as World A) and Human!Earth (henceforth World B). In each of those worlds is another portal with both leading to the bridge realm (C). Someone going from A to C can't go on to B, and similarly from B to C can't go to A. It's the way they were designed. I've got it roughly worked out in my head, but I haven't yet spelled it out in a story. That's one thing I plan on doing in a future installment, however.
6767572
And I am now kicking myself because I just realized you haven't introduced that device Twilight built to open the portal permanently yet, if you're going to introduce it at all. Sorry for the confusion. And I don't think the concept behind the bridge world and bridge mirrors is all that confusing. A to C to A or B to C to B, but not A to C to B or B to C to A, right?
Me is to confusing concept as Pinkie Pie is to cupcakes.
6767597 Exactly! As for opening the portal permanently, well, I may not do that. The initial way it was presented came across as more 'open the portal at will' rather than 'open it permanently', and I felt the former made more sense than the latter, so I'll probably go with that rather than the alternative.
Though you're right, I haven't introduced Twilight's apparatus yet, but I am building to it. Again, something for a future story.
6767691
Right, I saw it as open at will as well, not sure why I put "permanently" in my last coment. My personal explanation for the ripple effect of the portal is that by opening it early it caused a slight destabalization in it's magical field, not enough to damage the portal, but enough to create that ripple effect. Kind of like it used to be a door that opened up every two and a half years and then closed itself after three days, but opening the door early made it so that it is permanently cracked open and is stuck like that unless Twilight opens it up fully from Equestria. Does any of that make sense?
p.s. I have no idea why I put all of this in this comment. It seems a little excessive, don't you think?
6768044 Friendship Games implied that the portal was open permanently, so I can understand the confusion. And your interpretation seems like a valid one, though I doubt Sunset would try going through it if she didn't think it was open.
6768489
True. Though, if your best friend who you haven't heard anything from in a while was on the otherside of a door and you saw it was cracked open, wouldn't you try to go through it? Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I see that particular scene from the movie as Sunset temporarily giving in to desperation born from guilt.
But that's just me.
6768980 Eh, understandable.
So is it complete or incomplete?
6792923 It was complete, and then comments upon it prompted me to go back, edit it, and add an epilogue. So it is now incomplete. Hopefully, however, it will be complete again within the next week. Sorry for the confusion.
6792928 no just wanted to know so I could shelve it in the right shelf.
I think Sunset forgave them too easily, i perfer her to get mad maybe yell at them or snap at them.
Or at least tell them sadly she needs time before she can hang out with them again.
The CMC screwed up but they were kids stupid kids but kids, seriously cyber bullying is very terrible thing and in real life has cost lives.
But the girls screwed up more, and I'm glad Maud got mad at Pinkie, wish the scene was written would been awesome.
The point is they royally screwed up and hope they feel guilt over what they done and almost drove Sunset to for a good while.
I gave my opinion of the edits via PM, and the epilogue doesn't change my opinion. In short, there's improvement, but too many issues still remain for me to retract my downvote. The Rainbooms still have their double-standard, they still face no consequences for abandoning Sunset, and the Crusaders still got off too easy (though the last point could be debated).
6814817
6815597
Valid points both, and thanks for your thoughts on the story. I'll keep all of that in mind with future stories.
Some things I noticed after the edit:
I think you mean been.
Driveway, I believe.
You need to put that have been or something similar there.
That's all I noticed hear.
Also, goalie duty with Rainbow Dash? I do not envy them.