Sunset Shimmer and Princess Twilight Sparkle have both been plagued by odd dreams. Romantic escapades and tender moments between ponies they don't recognize that all end in tragedy.

Together, they investigate this phenomena, aware of the growing tug their hearts have for one another. The answers they find, however, may threaten to tear them apart.

Cover art from Yellowrobin. Thanks!

Pre-read by Oroboro!

Twilight Sparkle decides to stop wearing a costume for Nightmare Night... and then discovers the perfect reason to keep doing it.

Like everything else in life, the service of a Royal Guard has both a beginning and an ending.

Artwork by: Ruirik
Proofread by: Eckaji, Snakeskin Ducttape, and PresentPerfect
Featured by Equestria Daily
Review link: PresentPerfect and PaulAsaran

Ponyville is one of the largest cities in Equestria, a center for trade and finance, a melting pot of many races, tribes, and cultures. It is also a place where corruption is a way of life. Here, the cops that aren't on the take are forever chasing their own tails, citizens live in fear, and gangs battle for control of the streets.

Daring Do has just been released from prison after a year-long sentence for thievery, and no one is about to let her forget her place. Phillip Finder is a local private detective and the bane of the Ponyville Police Department. The new partners quickly find themselves at ground zero of a city-wide gang war; surrounded by dirty cops, mobsters, assassins, and bizarre crimes, they can only rely on each other and a few honest ponies for aid.

They're hardly heroes. Which means they may be exactly what Ponyville needs.

Updates every Wednesday. Proofread by Eagle—Paladin of Shadows

The first story of the Noireverse.

Sex and Gore tags for suggestive content and graphic descriptions.

Check out the theme music by The L-Train by clicking here!

Featured on 1/29/18! Thank you all so much! <3

A bit of background...

Three years ago, I introduced Phillip Finder in my first fanfiction, "The Pony in the Gray Trilby." Over the next many months, I kept writing and eventually turned my first work into a twenty-story series. I learned much and enjoyed the stories' moderate success, but unfortunately, I became dissatisfied with them over time. I realize that it's perhaps a bit of a cliche that many artists end up hating their own work, but for both Tchaikovsky and myself, it is the truth.

I initially planned to write this story as a prequel to the series, focusing on Phillip Finder and Daring Do. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wanted to improve upon my work, but felt as though I was being held back by the original series. While I am proud of my first stories for what I learned and gained through them, I decided that the best course of action for me, what would make me the happiest, would be to wipe the slate clean and start again from the basic foundations.

That's where this story comes in. A semi-reboot of the original series, the adventures contained herein, set in a vastly different alternate universe and replete with a mixture of reinterpreted and original characters, are the culmination of all the experience that I gained writing the original series. This is Phillip Finder and company as I meant them to be.

I hope that you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoy writing it!

The wheel of time turns, as destiny and history clash together.

Fifty years into the future, Sunset Shimmer is Princess Twilight Sparkle's most faithful student. She is smart and eager, but doesn't always think things through. Her life had been perfect, right up to the End of the World.

With a ruined future, Sunset travels into the past to alter the course of history. With only her mentor's cryptic word to go on, Sunset and the Elements of Harmony must solve the riddle of the Dark Regalia and stop the mysterious Vesper Radiance from rising to power. But the further Sunset goes, the more she feels like she's been through it all before.

Is destiny set in stone, or can Sunset shape her own future? Only time will tell.

Featured on Equestria Daily 6/16/13
Gratefully edited by JustAnotherTimeLord, Icarus_Gizmo, Cerulean Voice and Bad_Seed_72

The Sunset of Tropes page!

Sunset Shimmer is having the worst day of her life. She used to be important. She was the personal student of Princess Celestia. She was a future leader of Equestria. She was the kind of mare that everypony envied.

Today, it's all crashing down around her.

Alternate Universe: What if Sunset Shimmer hadn't gone through the mirror?

This fiction has been completely rewritten since it was originally posted, and then some. (More rewriting of one particular chapter is in order, if I ever get around to that.)

Acceptance. It is a wonderful thing, sought for by many. For the unfortunate ones who do not find it, it is the symbol of all the joy in life that escapes them. For those that find it, it becomes expected of them: a reality that is neither special nor unexpected. When a seeming misfit by the name of Twilight Sparkle arrives in Ponyville, she becomes the lone hope of a cast-aside, wall-eyed, bluish-grey pegasus in search of a home…

This takes place in and around the first two episodes of season one, and is designed to be canonically accurate. It is only labeled "slice of life" because there is no "normal" tag, although it does fit both tags.

Ditzy's story is continued in Equestrian Concepts.

Applejack's entire life is on Sweet Apple Acres. All her time and energy is devoted into making sure her farm is in the best shape it can be in. Every hour she can spend making her farm and her work better isn't time wasted to her.

Life isn't all about working, though, and Applejack knows this. She can make time for friends, family, fun, and life later though. She's got plenty of time and it'll all happen eventually, right?

"The town of Ponyville doesn't exist."
That's how this all started. That single matter-of-fact sentence is how this entire thing began. Because despite what the books say, despite what the maps say, despite what the princesses say, Ponyville does exist.
Lyra remembers. Her memories of Ponyville run perpendicular to her memories of growing up in Canterlot. But of course nopony believes the crazy conspiracy mare.
That's fine. Lyra doesn't need anypony to believe her. She just needs to find her way home.