This story is a sequel to Looking Glass
The holiday season rolls around, bringing changes in Sunset Shimmer's life. Although she's never been very festive, it is her first holiday with friends, and Sunset wants to make the most of it. But along with new experiences, old memories of a burning cold lake threaten to overwhelm her and her fragile new friendship with Applejack.
(Takes place before Rainbow Rocks.)
A story set in the Who We Become series.
This story was workshopped in my Discord server in a mad dash to make something for the holidays, but then I couldn't get it written in time, which is why it's coming out in January 
Thanks go out to Krixwell, applejackofalltrades, and Sapphire for proofreading.
Cover art by applejackofalltrades.
Chapters (3)
First like gang. Hype squad!!!
Huh
What an Icebreaker
Did I ever tell you how much I love this line?
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Eyy *finger guns*
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Thank you, I was proud of that
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I had to do that
Sunset is such a sweetheart!
Thanks for the chapter!
Great start to the chapter. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.
Although not likely I'm picturing AJ and Sunset in a heated argument down the road that leads to a heavy make out session in the barn
Honestly not sure I follow Sunset's train of thought here. I get that she wants to make amends for what she did, but I don't see how ice skating makes up for nearly killing AJ.
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She sure is trying!
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Lol of course you are
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She's thinking (and I'm not saying she's right) that it'll help if she gets Applejack over her issues with ice, since that's an issue that Sunset caused. It may not fix the fight, but it'll be one fewer issue that resulted from it. It'll be explored more in the next chapter.
Well this has my interest, a trip to the past shortly after the fall formal where some wounds are still fresh and both sunset and applejack nursing a not quite healed over scar of another time at the same lake that went horribly wrong, yeah no wonder A.J.doesn't like ice skating some PTSD going on there.
I like how sunset is willing to learn how to ice skate for her first and best friend buuut I don't see this ending well but I guess we'll see.
Also on a side not I love applejack and sun set's interaction here they play off each other so well. Any ways excited to read more.
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But yeah, suppose we'll see what happens in a week! 
Does anything Sunset does at this time in her life go well?
A promising start. Looking forward to the next chapter.
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Thank you, hope you continue to enjoy as the story unfolds
Yeah....that went about as well as I thought it would, honestly. A for effort, F for actual thought. AJ and Pinkie are both right in different ways. AJ has the right to remain mad that Sunset nearly killed her, and yeah, Sunset was genuinely trying to make amends, just using a flawed method.
Sunset, please. Your brain. Use it.
But yeah you already know what I think of this chapter :>>> good things
Thanks for the chapter! Ouch AJ, just ouch!
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As I'm sure you know by now, these types of fights where both sides are understandable are my favorite things to write lol
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That is the mood for Sunset around this point in her life tbh
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Applejack out here not pulling her punches!
that was intense......at least neither of them got into another physical brawl
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Yeah, we're a bit past the physical fighting of these two lol
Well that went about as expected sunset meant well she's just bad at it plus it seems like applejack hasn't really forgiven her yet.
still you know you screwd up when PINKIE is the one making sense it Will be interesting to see how A.J. tries to make amends.
Imo, Anon-a-miss is not canon and you really, really shouldn't assume it happens. We already have enough awful Anon-a-miss fics on this site, don't make another one please.
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I like to keep Pinkie a little more grounded than other people, it just made sense to me for her to be the only one who really understood what being friends with Sunset meant.
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I mean, I'm gonna need something more than "I don't like it and there are bad fanfics about it" to cut something out of canon. If I had some sort of quality concerns about what was canon, I would cut out EqG 1 because it's a disaster of a movie. Anyway, I already decided I wasn't trying to fit Anon-A-Miss into this series purely because it had timeline issues with what I wanted to do, but I'm not particularly interested in cutting things from canon just because people don't like them... And if I ever did make an Anon-A-Miss fic (something I have no real intention of doing) I assure you it would kick ass
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My big issue with it apart from the fact that's there's way too many fic about it, is that it's a trainwreck of a comic. It tries to tell a story that in his premise, has no place to be in MLP. It's just suffering for Sunset and for the audience and no-one learns anything from it. Fics that rewrites it are always either sunset killing herself and her friends being like "oh guess we were wrong to be asshole to this person who clearly changed their ways" or Sunset running to Equestria where everypony decides that the humans are horrible monsters who don't believe in friendship and they get a strong worded letter from Princess Twilight and then everything's fine.
Also, the CMC would never do something that awful and they always get away with it "because they're kids".
The only way Anon-a-miss would work is if it isn't Anon-a-miss. Really the entire premise is flawed in my opinion.
Also yeah, EQG1 was a disaster lmao.
I don't say I won't read your take on Anon-a-miss, but as with every fic like that, it's gonna start with a huge disadvantage in my head for being an anon-a-miss story. I do trust you enough to hope to be surprise thought.
Its rough to get around traumatic shit. Bout eight years back a friend of mine and I got into a pretty heavy shouting match, ended with him hurling a glass behind him across the room, which incidentally struck, and caused the discharge of, a loaded shotgun(everything firearms wise was being handled properly, the shotgun had just been loaded and set at the door because we were going to go hunting before the argument).
Shit put pellet in my arm and ruined a jacket of mine. Easily could've been fatal. It takes time to wrap your head around that shit, but you have to understand what is or isn't intentional, and you gotta try for empathy there too.
My buddy was fresh from a deployment where we'd both lost people we knew, and he'd lost his dad about three weeks before he got home.
Tried to fix his fuck up by not hanging out at the range with us anymore, not hunting with us anymore, and trying to have a psychiatrist put him as unfit for military duty, which wouldve ended his career.
Noble idea, shit execution.
We rallied, got him sorted, dragged his dumb ass to the range a put a rifle in his hands and let him know, full well, that if he bitched out on us because of one fuck up we'd be more pissed than not. Made sure he knew that we understood what was up, and that he didnt have to shoulder that shit til it broke him.
Guys got a good life these days. So, you know, fuck ups happen.
AJ just needed to know its recoverable, and she needs to work through her shit.
This story gives me cider cravings. :c
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I have no strong opinions on the comic. I barely even remember it, tbh, and I'd have to reread it if I were to try and do something with it. But on that note, like I said, I have no actual intention of using Anon-A-Miss in any way, and my author's note was intended as a tongue-in-cheek way of saying it doesn't fit into this world at all. I'm just saying, if I did do it, it'd kick some ass
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Glad you and your buddy sorted through everything. Not to undermine what happened to you, which is definitely pretty harsh, but Applejack was actually attacked by Sunset. True, Sunset didn't plan on killing her, but it wasn't purely an accident. Not saying Applejack doesn't have to deal with that and move on, but her having PTSD over it is very fair, I think, and sometimes moving on means accepting certain things trigger you and avoiding them.
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Cider cravings are valid and good!
aww this was a sweet ending.....time to ruin my comment by saying Kiss damn it LOL JK
Wow, a story from Bun that didn’t shatter my heart? The title is clearly a lie!
A great end. I really like how AJ handles things here. She accepts the apology and lets them move on without needing to actually forgive Sunset. She's letting their friendship continue, but still has conflicting feelings about everything. But friendship is nice.
Thanks for the fic!
squeee see the thing is we all know the future but still cant help but ship it
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Same hat
Now that was a great ending , and as the saying goes the rest is history. its the beginning of a friendship and a bond so deep that Nothing not even (well those of us who have read that far know what I mean) can break. excellent story can't wait for more
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lmao I've been waiting for these two to kiss for years now
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I know I know, my reputation is in shambles
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Thank you, that was largely a suggestion I got from other people who felt forgiveness wasn't necessary in the end, and that there was something to be said for the distinction between letting go of a grudge and forgiving someone completely. I'm happy with how it came out
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You're quite welcome
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Gotta ship tease what I can here I can!
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Same hat here too
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Although could you edit your comment to spoiler Sunset moving back home? Most people reading this story now know about that, but people reading in the future may read this one right after Looking Glass without knowing what happens in the other fics, and I wouldn't want them to be spoilered about that 
Best friends for all time, go!
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https://www.fimfiction.net/story/457595/my-heart-is-full-of-tiny-apple-pies
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I imagine there will be much more angst to come in the Bunverse. 👀
>tfw Mirror Pool Lake :O
Sunset and Applejack just need to make out a looooot~Using a traumatic event as its own metaphor for how its participants refuse to talk about it? I'm pretty sure that's illegal. :V
Damn, I had not expected the vitriol! :B I kinda want a story like this about each one of her friends now, though obviously none have quite the history with her that AJ does.
Will Krickis write the only Anon-a-Miss story worth reading on this website? YOU DECIDE :V
Kiss her, you dolt!What a cheeky fucking way to lead into Rainbow Rocks.
Damn, I wish more stories treated friendship with this much deep respect. :)
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In response to the wish to see something from Sunset and all her new friends, that was the plan at one point. It was to be called Guiding Light, and it started and ended with chapters from Sunset's POV, then every chapter in between was from one of her friends in which she learned a lesson of friendship relating to their element. I later used what was going to be Fluttershy's chapter as the prologue for Playing House, so that got used somewhere at least, but the rest of the story now exists only in my head. Like this, it was going to lead into Rainbow Rocks, and would deal more heavily with the forming of the Rainbooms to better bridge that gap. In the end I didn't do it because I was having a lot of trouble with writing at the time and wanted to make forward progress on the series.
Glad you enjoyed the story, always nice to hear from you
As for Anon-A-Miss, my AN was meant to be a tongue in cheek way of saying I'm not doing it at all. While I try to take the EqG comics as canon to this series (bending over backwards in Looking Glass to make things work at times), I found certain issues with the Anon-A-Miss timeline so I threw it out. I did get so many people begging me not to do Anon-A-Miss that I actually regretted this decision because one way to get me to want to do something is to tell me it can't be done well lmao, if I wrote Anon-A-Miss it would kick ass hahaha
So far off to a good start
What happened with applejack getting upset at sunset over the gift, I can relate since I've had a similar experience like what happened in this chapter.
Despite this story was short I enjoyed it, glad to see sunset and applejack happy and glad to see their moving on from what happened in the past, and the music vid fit the ending and hopefully this story will get more views in the future like looking glass
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Thank you, I'm really glad you enjoyed it!
Great story.
I was delighted to hear that between fracture Sunset and Apple Jack begin to heal.
Also, the credit song is really nice. <3
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Yeah, I really felt like not showing this moment between them was a disservice. That was such a major scene in Looking Glass, and leaving that rift unaddressed in the rest of the series was a mistake. I'm glad I resolved that here, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Also happy to hear you liked the end song, I know most people just ignore my music choices, but I really felt this was a good fit
Nice story.
You can has review!
This was such a nice lil side story after listening to Looking Glass on YouTube and to see that Applejack and Sunset talked about that major scene from their past and are able to move forward ^.^
And that ending picture was too much, I loved it
Now on to the next story in this incredible series you have made
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Hope you like where the series goes!
Aww thank you! Really glad you liked it. This was a detail that I couldn't leave unresolved, but didn't really fit in anywhere else. So I just had to give it a little story of its own