When Fluttershy went to bed, she was a normal mare. When she woke up, she could see numbers floating over everypony's heads. They were timers, each one counting down to some unknown event. Most ponies had timers that wouldn't end for years, some for many decades. But everypony had different numbers.

So why does Rainbow Dash's timer end in three hours?

Editing provided by TheMaskedFerret and SolidFire.
Cover art by HopefulSparks!
Spanish translation by SPANIARD KIWI!

In the far reaches of Canterlot Castle, high above in the towers lived the archmage. Everypony knew her, yet few had met her.

Twilight Sparkle sighed, having teleported away another noble seeking favors before reaching the top of the stairs for the second time today. They never learned. As the archmage, she already dealt with political squabbles far too often without inviting them into her home. Aside from personal favors for Celestia, she did what was required of her position and then returned to seclusion and research.

The nobility grumbled that no archmage should be a commoner, and Twilight’s disrespect toward them proved it. Each and every time they were forced to bow to her, they hated what they saw: the position, the status, the deference.

Was she not powerful? Was she not great?

Twilight, now reading through dusty scrolls and long forgotten tales, wrote in her notes — notes gathering dust of their own. A brief thought flashed through her mind.

Am I not powerful? Am I not great?

And then Twilight picked up The Tale of the Royal Pony Sisters.

Defunct side stories told in Across the Boundary. They can still provide a little context, but when in doubt, the main story here is canon.

Cover art provided by Lafiir

Twilight's transfer from Crystal Prep hasn't exactly gone over that smoothly. She's terribly closeted and hates branching out to other things. Her interests lie in pen, paper, and books. So what is it that can bring all of those things together into one sociable, friendship-buidling (or destroying) activity?

Caverns and Critters, a fantasy tabletop game.

Sunset Shimmer has her reservations, but Twilight seems to enjoy building these fantasy worlds for them, and all of the other girls are enjoying themselves as well (even Fluttershy and Rarity, surprisingly enough.) Far be it from her to deny her friends their indulgence, and if she's being perfectly honest with herself, all the talk of magic and kingdoms and fantasy errata has her pining for Equestria and her old life.

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Rated Teen for mild language, violence, and thematic elements.

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I'm sure Gygax is rolling in his grave, but I felt a Dungeons and Dragons analog in Equestria Girls needed to be done. Because let's face it, what else do high school juniors do with their free time?

Jorge Louis Borges wrote "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", about a world built purely by imagination that then comes to life and takes over reality. I thought this is kind of like Optimalverse, so I wrote this parody.

Summary:
This is a parody of Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, so if you have read that story, this would make a lot more sense.
The geographical location of the story is Japan, the first country to have uploading service, according to Friendship is Optimal. The protagonist is a mathematician who has inadvertently witnessed premonitions of the creation of EquestriaOnline, namely, the creation of Maguek, or Equestria.
Maguek is a fictional world built by a secret group through centuries of work. The group spent a century meticulously world-building it, and the end product was a complete set of encyclopedias, called "A First Encyclopedia of Equestria", detailing everything in it. This set of encyclopedias, as well as other activities of the group, inspired the creation of MLP and EquestriaOnline.

Some of the parts in the story may not conform to the Friendship is Optimal story, but remember that the narrator can be biased or misinformed.
Also, whenever I needed to invent a name, I would use the name of a mathematician's or someone who worked on MLP. There aren't any deep meanings to these names.

Generous Rarity and Honest Applejack are both in a loving, but secret relationship for the past two years with the intent of keeping it a secret for as long as they see fit. Twilight Sparkle meanwhile is head over hoofs for one of the two, causing seeds of lust to be planted in her and once they sprout bad things will happen to good ponies both relevant and irrelevant.

Special Thanks to Panzertank for the amazing cover.

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?