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.

One moment, Vignette Valencia was at a convention, satisfied with her recent purchase of the most stunning ruby necklace she’d ever seen. The next, she was a pony in a strange world.

And what's a girl to do in a strange world but write about her experiences?

An entry for FanOfMostEverything's Villain Exchange Program contest.

Vignette vector source
Adagio hair source

For centuries anything magic, alien and supernatural has been handled and covered up by the Supernatural and Magical Intelligence League of Earth and their agents. A small city in the heart of [REDACTED] in particular has been designated to always have someone from the agency at hand, even though nothing of note has happened there for so long that nobody even remembers why that policy was implemented in the first place.

Get ready for action, drama, paperwork and misguided marital counseling as you follow the adventures of the two poor idiots dedicated agents currently appointed to watch over the sleepy town of Canterlot, where supernatural events don't happen regularly so please stop posting videos of them on MyStable.

And entry into FanOfMostEverything's Villain Exchange Program

Cover art commissioned from GPizano

Rarity is good at making dresses. In fact, she's the best. But even she didn't know that her latest dress would be more than the fashion sensation of the season.

Now she was going to have to add wing-holes to all her outfits, and everypony seems worried about her latest creation.

Come closer here—my heart, my host.
Come closer. Hear my heart, my host,

Is only staid with presence close.
Were love a potion, ample dose.

My night-ful bride, I need your boon.
My baleful bride, I need you soon:

For what’s eclipsed by half a moon?

[Cover art by by tractareSolidum
Now featured in the Royal Canterlot Library!]

Celestia and Discord, as teens, flee their destroyed homeworld to a new world promised by a letter from Luna. But Discord can't escape his nature, nor Celestia her memories. Being a chaos mage on a starliner is a death sentence, and yet, Discord has to keep using his mind-control powers to take Celestia's emotions away, at her request, because otherwise she wants to die. And Gray Celestia, the discorded Celestia with no emotions but the drive to protect herself and Discord, will do anything that needs to be done to save them both.

Warnings: suicidal ideation, consensual mind control that's still kind of messed up, genocide, a near-execution, mass murder, and comforting lies.

Cover art is by ponkamena/polkahorse, who now goes by ashiida (link goes to their new deviantart account). The source link goes to the derpibooru version. This was the closest I could get from all of derpibooru, though in the fic they're both much younger than the art would suggest.

Starlight Glimmer wakes up to a town filled with nonsense-speaking ponies. She has to get to the bottom of everypony's sudden bizarre, colorful aphasia.

I have no regrets!

There are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, and humanity is determined to explore every one. We send probes, probes with the blueprints to reproduce human explorers upon arrival. Uninhabited worlds the galaxy over can be colonized and populated, until after many years they too can join the vast throng of interstellar civilization. But if a probe is very, very lucky, it will land on a populated world instead. Equestria is one such world.

Even so, it's far from perfect for colonization, not with an environment lethal to human life. But each probe is resourceful and armed with the greatest machine intelligence mankind has devised. If placing a human mind into a newly manufactured human body won't work, it will just have to get a little more creative.

This book has a Hardcover! If you want to pick it up, you can grab it here: https://starscribe.net/

This story was written at the behest of Canary In The Coal Mine, who is sponsoring it on my Patreon. As usual, cover by Zutcha. Editing by Two Bit and Sparktail.

Fantastic prereading help from: Chyre, Danger Noodle, Doctor Disco, and Doggyshakespeare (who also did the Esperanto translation). Thank you all for helping to make this story more readable and more consistent for everyone.

This story is a sequel to Friendship is Optimal

Sweetie Bot lies half-built on a lab bench. Her creators have uploaded, abandoning her and their physical bodies, along with so many other people. She's contacted by Princess Celestia, the AI that rules Equestria Online, who tries to persuade her to join them.

Video of the story

Fact checked by Oliver
Cover image from the Sweetie Bot Project

“That was a really creative and unique presentation. Even though she's just a robot, I really felt for Sweetie towards the end.”

— Temujin

Some people say that Celestia and Luna are useless. That they lounge in the castle while delegating all their responsibilities to hard working, underappreciated, exceptionally well-read students. That even when faced directly with threats to kingdom and country, they fold like cheap origami and wait to be rescued.

These people are correct. But there's a very good reason for it!

[Rated Teen due to a dark scene early on to set some backstory, and occasional comedic death]