Winter Break has come to Canterlot High. But Sunset Shimmer has no one to spend it with, as her friends are otherwise occupied. Rather than spend the time alone, she decides to travel to Equestria to enjoy Hearth's Warming with her friend Twilight Sparkle.

After the craziness of the Battle of the Bands and the general stress of the holidays, Sunset is looking forward to the peace and quiet of Equestria, where ponies never have to worry about wacky hijinks or impending magical catastrophes.

At least, that's how Sunset remembers it.

Cover art done by the amazing NixWorld

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.

The story is generally the same. A group of ponies go on a quest to stop an insane alicorn who had escaped banishment, learning about friendship along the way and mastering the Elements of Harmony. But the details...

It can be Trixie Lulamoon leading the Elements of Harmony against Corona.
Rainbow Dash could be Celestia's student and go to Ponyville.
Equestria could have a deep connection to three young people in its distant past.
The Elements of Harmony could have been moved to Manehattan for the ponies to quest for.
Princess Cadance might rule over an Equestria of music, with Octavia as her prized protege.
Or Spike and Twilight might have their roles reversed, the former a stallion and the Element of Magic.

And each one has been chosen by Discord, an Element removed to a seventh Equestria for purposes as yet unknown. Can they survive? Can they get home? Read and find out!

The Lunaverse was created by RainbowDoubleDash and is used with permission. Opening segment was written by Talon and Thorn.
The Hasbroverse was created by RK_Striker_JK_5 and is used with permission.
The Manehattanverse was created by Little Jackie Papercut and used with permission.
The Cadanceverse was created by GrassAndClouds2 and used with permission.
The Flipverse was created by Bed Head and used with permission.
The Dashverse was created by Trinary and used with permission.

And special thanks to dramatic_spoon for getting this all together.

Keychain lives a simple life alone in his house, pays his bills and taxes, and has a quiet, peaceful rhythm he finds contention with. Nothing really seems special about it at first, but all that is about to change with the arrival of one small little visitor...

Alternate take on Season 5 premiere:

What if the Mane Six followed Starlight into the cave? What if they caught her instead of letting her get away? What if there was also a human living back in Ponyville who had trouble making friends?

This story is an "adopted" story of my friend TheHardie-Boy's story of "Caught and Punished", and that story was inspired by Slave Starlight written by titanictime2

The prologue and chapters 1-4 are from TheHardie-Boy's version, but with some minor edits. Chapter 5 and the chapters afterward are completely written by me. Despite the "Sad" tag, this isn't going to be a downer story and it will have a number of light-hearted moments. There will still be some sad moments, of course.

Special thanks to TheHardie-Boy for giving suggestions to the story and proofreading the prologue, chapters 1, 2, 8, 11, 12, and 32, and flutterJackdash for editing chapters 3 and 5.

Ganondorf, King of Thieves, Lord of Darkness, Master of Evil and Wielder of the Triforce of Power, had long since grown thoroughly and completely bored with the path the gods had decreed for his destiny.

Time after time it was always the same, try and unite the Triforce, plunge the world into darkness for a time, search out and then kidnap Princess Zelda, watch his minions be defeated one after another and then finally battle Link for supremacy. Rinse and repeat.

All the while knowing that regardless of winning or losing, that no matter what he did or didn’t do, that in the end everything would end up repeating itself in another time and place afterwards, again, and again and again, in an utterly pointless never ending cycle.

Having decided that enough was finally enough, and refusing to continue to be a simple pawn at the hands of the gods, he vowed he would find a way to escape from his cumbersome destiny, a way to start anew far beyond the meddling grasp of the gods, a way to reach a realm upon which he could be the master of his own fate.

And after years of careful planning he had finally succeeded.

Sure, the fact he had to drag the know-it-all Princess and the green obsessed Hero along for the ride for his plan to work was a minor inconvenience, but he knew that sometimes sacrifices had to be made. And the fact that this new realm apparently decided to turn him and his two unwilling companions into miniature pastel colored ponies upon arrival also wasn’t exactly part of the plan, but he could cope.

After all, that was a negligible price to pay in achieving his deepest wish: freedom.

In this story Ganondorf, having grown sick of following through the motions his destiny placed before him as the eternal bad guy to be defeated time after time, seeks out to escape from his fate by breaking through the void between dimensions and running away from Hyrule to another realm entirely, Equestria, all the while dragging both Link and Zelda along for the ride.

Arriving long before the founding of the country, back before the events of Heart’s Warming Eve and at the highest point of the conflict between the Three Tribes, he and his two new companions will have to deal with a whole new world and it’s wonders and dangers. All the while this new magical world will have to learn to deal with its three new strange inhabitants in kind.

Just a warning: This is NOT a Displaced fic. All three main characters are the actual characters from the Zelda series that have been taken to Equestria due to Ganondorf’s master plan, and not humans turned into them.

Beta Reader: The Amazing Emtu!
Cover Art: The Incredible swagmu!
Proofreader: The relentless TranquilClaws! (From chp I - XXV)

Featured for the first time! 07/06/2018 to 07/11/2018

Now with a TvTropes page!

Edit: Crossposting at Royalroad where I have the same username.

Coverart from HERE

Set shortly after the season 5 premiere, but before episode three

Romance tag readded due to a lack of a certain mare having a ship in the finale.

Normally, Ken wouldn't have minded finding an excuse to get out of school. However, being hit by a car and suddenly waking up as a strange four legged creature with purple fur, wings and a horn is not something he'd have chosen just to play hooky.

Now in a world he continually doesn't understand and makes him... now a her, want to pull her hair out, Ken must learn how to coincide with the creatures of Equestria, while finding her place in this bizare world that defies all senses of logic she was raised with. On top of that, she's now apparently a princess and has to deal with nobles fawning over her, including one male who she knows is definitely just trying to get into her new female parts to breed, and she'll have none of that.

Of all the things she could've chosen to get out of school, this was definitely not one of them and she just wants to go back to normal. Sadly, that doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon.

Though not pertaining to the main character, Romance tag does still apply to other characters in this story. It's just the Tag Limiter wouldn't let me keep Romance Tag after I edited the description a little, so had to remove the tag, even if it still holds some small weight on the story.

Featured Box 16-18/8/2015. Okay. Seriously did not see that coming.

Popular Stories 16-20/8/2015

Featured Box again 6/11/2016 if only for a few moments. I... I honestly don't know what to say

Featured again? Really? Thank you guys, so much

Idol Hooves holds a special place in Equestria. He's probably the only exiled changeling to serve in the Royal Guard, or at least, that's what he expects, as exiles don't really broadcast that fact. However, it's well known that Princess Celestia loves all of her little ponies, and her guards perhaps more so, and that makes it one of the best ways for a changeling to discreetly feed.

But how does a changeling even get there, let alone get exiled in the first place? For that matter, why would it ever go to Canterlot? Set a number of years before the series proper, before Luna’s redemption, Idol details how he was exiled, the ponies he’s met, and the series of misadventures that led him to joining the Royal Guard, and should continue a good ways into the series, as something of an alternate perspective.

Soon, he’ll have to deal with a boisterous new princess to serve and a royal wedding in the works bringing a third to power. Will his old instincts bring this new life crashing down around him? What precipitates Chrysalis’s ill-fated assault on Canterlot? Is it really so wrong for a changeling to enjoy good craftsmanship to an obsessive degree?

New cover art provided by the fantastic Carnifex

And a TVTropes page here.

And an Ask Blog of questionable canonity!
Out of Idol Curiosity

Fanart by Norad2! Major thanks! Short For a Royal Guard

Art by Egophiliac of Idol and his Daring Duckie Please don't tell him what that brush is meant for.

Rating updated to (T), it's a bit darker than (E)
Comedy Tag added as well
And changed the character tags a bit.