Dobbin's been sneaking bites from the National Strategic Wheatgrass Reserve again ... and it finally occurs to his parole officer to wonder why Equestria has one. She asks Princess Celestia for the story.

It turns out there are some things ponies weren't meant to know.

A bunch of Writeoff Association authors got bored while waiting for the October 2015 prompt, and did a silly collaborative story jam on the Writeoff thread. This was the result. This story was co-written by myself, Georg, Not_A_Hat, CoffeeMinion, and Morning Sun, based on an unintentional prompt by Monokeras. (You can see who wrote what at the source thread.)

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Reviewed by City of Doors! (what)

Featured by Equestria Daily! (what)

Recommended by Present Perfect! "I'm with Parade Rest: What."

There's a crime wave gripping the sleepy town of Apple-Morepone, and nopony on the City Watch seems to care. Corporal "Rainbow" M. Dash naps through her patrols, her partner Dobby is an infamous kleptomaniac, Captain Rhymes is a drunkard, and the entire Watch is a group of burnt-out misfits.

They're about to meet a batpony (adopted) by the name of Carrot, visiting town to return an overdue library book.

And none of their lives will ever be the same.

A crossover/homage to the "City Watch" books of Terry Pratchett's Discworld, written to be readable without any familiarity with the series (though they're excellent, and if you do read them you'll catch my Pratchett in-jokes).

Winner of Aragon's "Comedy Is Serious Business" Contest! "I was quoting this offline for days, forgetting where I was remembering the lines from. … This story made me legitimately jealous, both of its cleverness and of its funniness." –Contest judge MrNumbers

Rated ★★★★★ by Louder Yay! "The best comedy I've read in a long time."

"Highly Recommended" by Super Trampoline! (Video review here @ 09:17) "It's 13,000 words long, but it doesn't feel long, because so much fun stuff is happening."

Reviewed by Ghost Mike! "It features meticulously laboured-over prose, rhyming with actual metre for Zecora, perfectly-timed jokes and reveals that are often outrageous, a sneakily clever plot and character investment that works its magic throughout ... This is a phenomenally executed piece of work."

Other reviews: Present Perfect | City of Doors

Thank you to Themaskedferret and Caliaponia for prereading, and GaPJaxie for motivation/inspiration!

Anon decides, despite every bit of logical sense, to boop an angelic pony after exploiting her for chores. This could only end well.

After all, boredom is overrated, and the temptation to boop a cute angel pony is too great! Who cares if you could potentially be smited by pony-God, right?

Now if only you weren't literally being sized up by God himself... And said angel is trying to convince him why you should marry.

What.

Art stolen by Badumsquish. Give their adorable art some love~
Also obviously the angel pony is theirs, lmao, hope they enjoy the story

Oh hey, in featured on release day again!

Here's me quietly shilling my Ko-fi, shhh.

In a first, Daring Do has a tour guide for an ancient ruin. This may prove problematic.

Thanks to the Discord crews for brainstorming and FanOfMostEverything for the chapter title.

Just because something looks similar to something does not make it similar. Just because something is a different does not make it wrong. And just because something is sympathetic, does not make it misunderstood.

The Dazzlings are old. Really old. It's very likely they've gone on many adventures and done many different things in their thousand-years trapped in the human world.

For Aria, a family might well be one of them.

Written for the May Pairings Contest 2022!

Thanks for the pre-read by The Sleepless Beholder

This story is a sequel to Message in a Bottle

For numberless eons, Equus hosted primitive civilizations, ignorant of the proud achievements of their ancient race. In their simple lives, ponies and other creatures could grow without fear of alerting any of the terrible forces that grew in the galaxy beyond. All civilization had been extinguished by forces beyond comprehension. If they made too much noise, Equestria would be next.

Then came James Irwin, with the truth the Harmony superintelligence that maintained the vast Niven Ring had already known: the galaxy was safe again, and probably had been for many centuries.

Once the truth was revealed, Equestria again longed for the stars. Surely they could not be the only survivors of that galactic Red Tide that had swallowed all intelligent life. Their searching bore fruit: radio signals from a nearby system.

Felicity was the Alicorn chosen to captain that mission of discovery. She would bring the pony gift of friendship to a fellow survivor somewhere out there. That was the plan, anyway.

Unfortunately for Equestria, intelligence does not imply friendliness.

A tale of understanding and discovery set in the world of Message in a Bottle. Reading that story first is highly recommended.

This story was written as a Patreon commission for Lithl over the course of over two years now. It comes to fimfiction now that it is nearly finished.

Editing by Two Bit, cover by Zutcha.

Updates Weekly on Wednesdays.

Desert Mirage lives in a world full of guns, lasers, explosives and people competing to be the best of the best. There she excels at what she does: hunting. She started as a nobody, and yet became one of the most sought-after gunslingers.

Sunset Shimmer was practically born the best of the best. Selected by none other than Princess Celestia to be her prized student... until she ran away to another world in search of power. Through trials and suffering she was eventually taught humility and friendship.

At first blush, they don't have much in common. But their connection runs deep, and sooner or later it will change their worlds forever.

Change only becomes frightening when it begins to affect you.

Spike has remained a baby while everyone else is growing up. His desire to do the same, however, lands him in a hospital bed with a strange new body.

Ponies are treating him differently, the world he once knew is no longer the same, and the onset of sudden changes are hard to adapt to. Fortunately, Scootaloo is there to ease him through his recovery.

Audio reading made possible by star912.

This story would be unreadable were it not for the editing master, Props, the handy-dandy proofreader, CitrusFizz, and man who has three pairs of eyes, Setokaiva.

Dedicated to Spike pimp himself, FamousLastWords.

This story is a sequel to A Foreign Education

Twilight was sixteen when she became an alicorn. She hasn't aged a day since. Some ponies ask her what it's like, not being able to grow up.

Twilight can't really say. She's never known anything else.