This story did not explode! What a relief and/or letdown.

Part of OPERATION CRACKFIC STORM 2024 ( group | stories ).

Thanks to Silk Rose for coming up with the idea, writing chapters 22 and 9, and developing the code; thanks also to Meadowsys for general code help.

Thanks to IrradiatedPirateBooty ( tumblr ) for the awesome character art.

And thanks to everyone in the comments who stuck around for the final countdown!

In a show of good grace, the Griffon Kingdom organises a festival to strengthen bonds with Equestria. Dash received an invitation, but her intentions have less to do with politics and more with strengthening an old friendship.

Written for TheAncientPolitzanian for Jinglemas 2023.

In this spoooooky Str8aura entry, your favorite characters are picked off one by one by a relentless, uncaring superpredator hellbent on devouring all of Equestria. Also words are involved. Happy Halloween!

Inspired heavily by Brain Problem Situation, including taking the name of it's monster. I do hope the author doesn't mind.

"Rule number one." Pipp put on an uncharacteristically serious face. "Your fans cannot be your friends."

Sunny blinked. "What?"

"Oh here we go," Zipp muttered to herself.

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.)]

Life is like a tree: constantly growing, stretching many directions.

But the trunk remains the solid center it builds from. A branch may reach the sky, but stays anchored to and part of the tree.

Twilight Sparkle isn't the only one to grow into a new role.

[Death] tag is only for discussions and mentions thereof, nobody dies on-screen.

Featured 7/6/2021 - 7/7/2021!

After taking the throne, Twilight had a lot of things to do - a transition that had never happened before was bound to be fraught with a thousand unexpected complications.

As part of the transition, Twilight finds herself going through Princess Celestia's old personal papers, finding secret after clue after instruction long forgotten about. And among those papers, Twilight finds a letter.

A letter addressed to My Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle.

A letter never sent.

Special thanks to RanOutOfIdeas and SymphonicSync for proofreading!

Featured 4/13/2021 to 4/18/2021!

Reviewed by Ghost Mike and rated as Really Good!

And by Loganberry in the blog Louder Yay!, earning a three out of five stars rating!

Now with an audio reading by StraightToThePointStudio!

And a second by Dear silent future me!

Sunny believed the tales. Really believed, in a way that most ponies didn't anymore. About the Elements of Harmony, and about Twilight Sparkle. Back when Equestria had princesses, and was whole, when every creature knew the real power of Friendship. She believed⁠—and she knew that, one day, if she believed hard enough, it could be again.

Elsewhere, distant, Twilight Sparkle watches her would-be student, and frets.

A Russian translation by NovemberDragon is available here. | Русский перевод от NovemberDragon доступен здесь.

A Chinese translation by forgivenlove is available here here. | 这里有forgivenlove的中文翻译。

A reading by ObabScribbler is available here.

Part 1 of Equestrian Scions, which continues with The Dreamer and Me.

A late addition to the "But what happened to Equestria?" story pile.

[04/29/21 - 05/02/21] Featured. That's a first for me. Thank you all so much.

On a dreary day, Twilight and Spike stay home and talk about life.

Retail tends to run a little ahead of the actual calendar: Nightmare Night stock is put out in summer, and Hearth's Warming merchandise is slammed onto the shelves at the instant that's gone. So Invoice, who's temporarily running Barnyard Bargains while Mr. Rich is on vacation, sees absolutely nothing wrong with announcing the first Back To School Sale less than one week into summer.

The kids of Ponyville have a different opinion. And it comes with picket signs.

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.