Once upon a time, (if the term even applies) two young ladies, (if that adjective even applies) decided to visit a magical land of Equestria, selected seemingly at random from about a million.

• One of the two is a time traveler deprived of her time machine, the other is an eldritch abomination out of her element.
• One would prefer the world of pastel-colored ponies to stay as it is, and can’t help but alter it. The other one is anxious to see how it can change, and can’t help but maintain it.
• Both believe that this is not their story. But while they disturb the delicate world of ponies, they don’t even notice ponies doing the same to them.
• Sandwiches are involved somehow.

There are many things this story is and some things it isn’t.

It’s not a fix fic, no matter what some of the characters think. It’s written in multiple first person narration, which happened for a pointlessly clever reason, that will eventually become quite obvious. It’s not a crossover, it just comes with an unhealthy amount of backstory. It could be a rational-fic, but since idealistic philosophy is typically not seen as very rational, it’s only a philoso-fic instead. It’s quite meta, in the original definition of metafiction: fiction concerned with fiction as a concept. In any case, it’s either a small monument to overthinking things – I’m trying to reexamine many fanon ideas here – or a digital paperweight, I’m not sure which. It’s quite a bit more subtle than it could be, and everyone talks way too much when they should be having glorious adventures.
I know how it starts, I know how it ends, and most of what happens in between. Readers say it’s a slow burner, but we’ll get there eventually.

Acknowledgements

With special thanks to my editors, Thainen, Shrink Laureate, and MitchH.
Further special thanks to ScarletWeather and Themaskedferret for valuable input.
The artist who made the cover image stubbornly wishes to remain uncredited, but thanks to her anyway.

Meteors fall. There's a blaze of fire across the sky, a moment of impact and since everypony was lucky, nopony was hurt. It means there's a meteor embedded into the soil of the Acres and for just about everywhere else in Equestria, that zero-injuries landing would pretty much be the end of it.

But it's Ponyville. And for Applejack, the meteor was the easy part.

(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.

After the Friendship Games, Sunset feels it's time to return home.

Only when she gets there, Twilight's castle is nowhere to be found, Cadance just got her horn, and Princess Celestia is still calling the bacon-haired pony her prized student rather than a failed one. And just reliving her past isn't on the table thanks to a pair of wings Sunset seems to have sprouted upon her return to Equestria.

With Sunset being back before she's supposed to, will the world stay as harmonious and on track, or will everything go down in flames as Sunset has to deal with allegations that she's really a changeling in disguise, a nerdy stallion with blue hair that wants to be her coltfriend, a pretty pink princess in need of remedial magic lessons, and an annoying purple pre-teen pony that will absolutely not go to bed without first being read Starswirl's Complete Mystical Mysteries Compendium?

Only time will tell

While exploring Canterlot Castle, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash uncover a room filled with stone tablets connected to dials. Above each dial is the name of an alicorn they know.

These old things couldn't possibly control an alicorn's power, could they?

Only one way to find out.

This story is a sequel to Scary Monsters

Following on from his jailbreak the local human finds himself in something of a rut, and decides that this is due to his nagging feeling that the previous matter had not been resolved to his satisfaction.

He decides the best way of rectifying this is to break into at least two castles, get locked up again and disappoint just about every single entity he happens to encounter.

Often while naked.

The local human, finding himself possessed of strength beyond measure in this strange world, decides to be a brutish nuisance. You know, running around half-naked, stealing cider and that sort of thing.

When his behaviour lands him in jail he casually breaks out and - more on a whim than anything else - breaks out the other jailbird too. Because that's mischief, and she had to have done something wrong, right?

They then run from Twilight, sit around a fire and sleep in a cave.

-

Ahahaha I got featured and I don't even have a picture what even is this.

This story is a sequel to You Can Go With This

Much to her surprise, Twilight receives an invitation to the Dragon Lands.

As it turns out, she is brought there under false pretences. A monster has moved in recently, and despite the best efforts of the locals they haven't been able to shift it. Could Twilight, being as how she has monster experience, have a look?

She has a sneaking suspicion it may be a 'monster' she's familiar with.

Always fearing for her friends' safety, Twilight Sparkle takes it upon herself to create body doubles to use as protection.

Each body double looks just like the original.

Sounds just like the original.

And is also highly explosive.

Twilight Sparkle wants you to ignore that last part.

Spike finds something interesting while cleaning. Something that he never thought somepony would treat so poorly. If only he knew the significance of the item he'd just found.

Reading by StraightToThePointStudio

Reading by The Audio Project

Reading by Pony&Wolf Productions

After the slumber party at Rarity's, the humane 5 are shocked to discover that the pictures that were taken during the slumber party have been posted on Anon-A-Miss's page for the whole school to see. pictures that were taken using Sunset's phone.

Naturally the girls assumed that Sunset was Anon-A-Miss and when she didn't show up at School it further proved her guilt. But when they visited her apartment using the spare key Sunset gave Rainbow Dash in case of an emergency, they discover a very ill Sunset resting on her bed.

Pushing their anger aside to aid their sick friend the girls soon discover that Sunset is not Anon-A-Miss as whoever it is made a post while they were watching Sunset.

Now as they figure out who Anon-A-Miss could be, Sunset's fever continues to get worse and when her body starts flashing red, they realize that whatever Sunset has is beyond their world's ability to treat.