Sunset has always wondered who her father is. Her mother, Princess Celestia, described him as kind, but can get very angry when woken up not on his own terms. When the Anon-A-Miss incident rolls around years later, she finally gets her chance to meet him - the Mighty Firebird. He will stop at nothing until those who have tormented his daughter have been punished severely.

The Suicide/Self Harm tag is for when Sunset nearly tries to end it all.

Twilight Sparkle and her best friends are in deep trouble... yesterday.

Starlight Glimmer's been holding onto a secret for a long time now. Her old villainous days of messing with Starswirl the Bearded's spell alerted an alternate dimension full of shape-shifting monsters, and now this malevolent faction from beyond seeks to send their minions back in time to the first year of Twilight's stay in Ponyville in order to consume the magic of harmony. So, to secure the timeline and save the multi-verse, Starlight has devised a plan to project herself back several years and play bodyguard for the Elements of Harmony.

There's only one problem. Her great and powerful best friend steps in during the execution of the spell. Now both Trixie and Starlight are stuck back in time—fused magically to the same physical avatar—with an incredibly difficult mission to accomplish during the first year of Twilight's friendship lessons. Can the two time-displaced mares work together to thwart an alternate dimension's meddling? Or will they fail and hoof the future over to chaos? Even worse—will they get too relaxed with the comforts of the past and miss an opportunity to be heroes?

Credit to KeronianNiroro for the vector
and
Scampy for the edit.

After pictures from her phone get posted online, that human five confront Sunset with the information. After discovering that she and the others had very different ideas about how to confront her, Rainbow Dash finds herself defending Sunset from the rest of her friends.

Rainbow siding with Sunset didn't change all that much. Sunset was still successfully framed, Sunset still lost most of her friends, Sunset will still go back to being the most hated student at CHS, but she won't have to face any of it alone, and that will make all the difference in the world.

Meta stuff follows.

Let's talk about combinatorics.

There is one way for none of the five to remain on Sunset's side, there are five ways for one of them them to side with Sunset, there are ten ways for two of them to do so, there are ten ways for three of them to do so, there are five ways for four of them to do so, and there is one way for all of them to do so. Out of these thirty two possible configurations, almost every Anon-a-Miss story sticks to the first one.

I did a tally once upon a time and what I found was that 96.9% of possibilities were almost never explored, and 87.5% were never explored at all (no "almost" necessary.) These figures get rather more abysmal if you're looking at who did or didn't side with Sunset from the start. The rare stories that have one or more of the five side with Sunset tend to have the initial confrontation go down pretty much canonically, and then have someone have a change of heart later on.

So, in the interest of stuff, here's a thing where Sunset has someone on her side from the very start. Most of the first chapter was released two months early on my Patreon page, for subscribers only, as you might imagine.

Daring Do never belonged anywhere, but she always knew what she was going to be when she grew up. Someday she'd be Daring Do, world famous archaeologist. This was easier dreamed than done given that all of her posessions fit in a backpack, she had no one on her side, and she preferred to live entirely off the grid.

After discovering hidden message that had been forgotten for centuries, she set off to, hopefully, find something she could use to get her foot in the figurative door. It seemed to pay off: she made the find of a lifetime at seventeen. Then she got punted into the future.

Sunset Shimmer finally belonged somewhere for the first time in her life. She felt like she finally had a family. Then it all fell apart. That didn't mean she could stop working, though. She was the one who brought Equestrian magic to the Human world, it was her responsibility to keep it in check.

While trying to track down a magic surge that should have been impossible, she met someone who would, eventually, become a friend. There's just one problem: Sunset knows that Daring Do is a fictional character. So why is this someone, who claims to trust Sunset, insisting her name is Daring Do?

“In every generation there is a chosen one. One mare who will stand against the demons, the monsters and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer.”

Bon-Bon never asked to be a monster-killing secret warrior of the night. It's a lonely life in which she cannot afford to get close to ponies. After previous losses took their toll, she has closed off her heart and dedicated herself to never letting herself love anypony ever again.

Then she is sent to Ponyville.

Then Twilight Sparkle is sent there too.

Then Princess Luna returns from the moon.

Not to mention that darn unicorn neighbour Lyra won’t leave her alone.

And suddenly everything becomes much more complicated.

A collection of side stories, deleted scenes, and all the other bits and baubles that are too short for a story/chapter proper. Bite sized servings for your enjoyment.

Potential spoilers ahead! Proceed at your own risk!

After a fight with Celestia, Sunset flees through a magic mirror into a different world.

Without her horn, any direction in her life, the inability to simply go back home and surrounded by strangers, she has to go on a journey of self discovery to find meaning in her life as dark forces begin to threaten the world she resides in.

But, at least she still has her magic and plenty of instruction manuals to learn more from.

There's more than one way to lead, and more than one way to be an Element of Magic. An AU looking at the effects of a slightly different early life for two unicorns.

So yes. This resulted from wondering what Trixie would be like as an Element of Magic. Given the choice, I decided to make her and Twilight childhood friends because of the potential for their entire life to be a gigantic Bokke and Tsukkomi routine (a comedian/straight man routine).

I also think that Trixie would do well as a combat mage. After all, she's genuinely powerful (if not so powerful as Twilight) and more importantly she's very good at misleading and bedazzling others. In fact, this entire thing began with my writing the fight scene with Nightmare Moon.

Finally, the Discording she had is based in part off what happened to her in the Pony POV series.

Hope this at least gave you the odd laugh.

Twilight’s surge of uncontrolled magic changed ponies into pot plants, hatched a petrified dragon egg and gave her Princess Platinum study plushie a makeover and an existential crisis.

Celestia’s still not sure how to deal with that one, but at least Twilight has someone to remind her to eat now.

Twilight Velvet's mother, Evening Star was an odd pony with a hobby of making dolls. Over the course of her life, she made many and most were simple toys to comfort a newborn foal or young filly but a rare few were far more sentimental and held more personal meanings. Some said they had a bit of personality all their own, often being in the right place perk up a sad day. Her last few creations carried with them fables of moving when no pony was watching but few ever tried to put the theory to the test.

Then again, none of her works were at ground zero to a record breaking magic surge.

A human living in Canterlot castle is given to Queen Chrysalis as part of peace negotiations between Equestria and the Hive. Celestia knew she shouldn't have let Luna finish the negotiations herself.

Cover art by jalm on Derpibooru.

Featured on 4/22/20. Thanks guys!

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