What is a mediocre villain to do these days? How in Equestria do you compete with the likes of Chaos gods and love-stealing shapeshifters? Ever since those Bearer brats found the Elements of Harmony and Princess Celestia's long-lost and kind-of-evil-but-not-really-in-the-end sister returned, nopony bats an eye at the small potatoes any more.

Small Potatoes himself just cannot take being relegated to the side lines any longer! He has one, glorious plan in the works, one that might finally see it - his name, that is - go down in history. He's going to do the one thing that villains all over Equestria have been failing to do since that fateful Summer Sun Celebration to stop the Guardians of Harmony once and for all.

He's going to hire somepony else to do the job for him.

[This story contains scenes about death, attempted murder, some blood and an injury described in light-moderate detail (and with a humourous bent, I'm hoping.)]

A foal walks up to his parents and asks:

How was the Crystal City built? The parents respond that, to the north, in the snow, there once lived a couple whose love knew no bounds. Then one day an evil sorcerer came and demanded the couple submit to his will. The couple rejected his offer and fought back. In the ensuing battle, only one stood, her husband dead and the sorcerer gone. The mare, heartbroken by the loss of her husband, tried to join him in the afterlife. But before the sorcerer left he placed a terrible curse upon the mare in revenge that she may never die unless she builds a city for her husband out of a small crystal that only forms every 100 years at the peak of the highest mountain of the land. And that when the mare has completed her task and the city is built the curse will be broken, and that she may be with her husband once again for every second of Eternity there ever was and ever will be.

This was basically a self-imposed one-day Oneshot challenge. So your milage may vary but please do enjoy the horse words I have provided

That thing you're probably expecting it to do? It does that. In fact, it's been doing that over and over, seemingly at random, and the pony involved is just a little ticked off. But that's not the company's problem. It's yours. Your problems can be endlessly denied and blockaded. Any problem which costs more to solve than the solution recovers effectively doesn't exist.

This isn't the company's problem.

Until it is.

(Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.)

[Comedic FIO × Portal Oneshot]

There's nothing like a little light humor to start a test subject’s spiral into crushing defeat, but GLaDOS may have to update the testing protocol to accommodate both ponies and friendship.

Written for a FIO contest; I thought they were gonna make an actual physical book. Oh well, it was a lot of fun to write.

Twilight is on the cusp of leading Equestria for a year. It's been an easy year with no major difficulties. No wars. No natural disasters. No villains.

At least until a villain from the far, far future appears in Twilight's throne room. She's escaping defeat at Twilight's hooves, with one thought in mind: she won't be stopped if Twilight doesn't exist in the future. And here's Twilight's past self, right in front of her. Easy.

Unfortunately, she's not the only villain with this idea.

Saturday was a day to unwind, a day to sleep late, to eat brunch instead of breakfast, go out to the lake, or to invite friends over for a barbeque. Unless the lawnmower was broken and Ms. Bundermann is on the prowl.

Having a unicorn friend doesn’t help fix the lawnmower, but friends of friends can make short work of the lawn. It’s technically not a barbeque if the grill isn’t on, but with a whole herd of ponies nomming the grass and musicals on the boombox, with a selection of drinks to suit everypony’s taste, it’s close enough.

Now with a reading by StraightToThePointStudio!

Luna's still settling back into her full duties, and finding out she's somehow responsible for overseeing Equestria's annual freedom festival came as something of a shock. All she really knows about the holiday is that ponies like to celebrate it with explosions. Fireworks, cannonfire... somehow, her citizens have linked 'freedom' with 'stuff blowing up.' So if there's a citizen willing to blow herself up as part of the festivities -- well, what could possibly be more appropriate?

...it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.

Celestia hopes to convince the parliament to ban duels, but it's an unpopular proposal. The last thing she needs is Luna stirring up trouble at the gala, so of course that's what happens.

^{Thanks to Daedalus Aegle for feedback on this story.}

Twilight's life has changed a bit over the years. She used to worry about it, but more often these days, she finds herself celebrating it.

The story was written for FanOfMostEverything's Imposing Sovereigns contest for the Twilight portion of the Partiers group but didn't finish in the contest's Top Six. Happy squeaks of thanks to The Masked Ferret for spontaneously volunteering to edit and to Miss Cats for the cover image.

James is good friends with a couple of ponies.

James is not aware that he has a disorder.

Inspired by Admiral Biscuit's writing challenge.