This story is a sequel to Eclipse

Page needs a vacation.

He's not getting a vacation.

What he does get, is... how do they put it? Brand new exciting opportunities.
He never wanted to be a Prince, nor to rule. But he's stuck with the job, which means having ponies relying on him.
So he's doing his best.
Which would be fine, except ponies seem happy to keep finding brand new ways to make it harder for him.

Marble Pie is hoping for a bit of change in her life, but with her father, mother and sister still resistant to it, all she can do is simply stay quiet and soldier on. But that doesn't take away her desire to at least find out what else there is to life besides aching for a lost love, or doing the same thing every day.

This is a Jinglemas story for FanOfMostEverything. The man. The legend. HE WHO WE ALL LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING COMMENTS FROM.

His request for this year was: No genre notes, but I'd like to see something with Limestone and/or Marble Pie.

So here we go!

This story is a sequel to Changeling Space Program

The space race is over, and the third flight of ESA Amicitas is not yet even contemplated, but life goes on for the first changeling queen on the moon and her hive.

Faced with the necessity of keeping track of all her subjects and proving that they are, in fact, hers, Chrysalis decrees the Badlands Hive's first ever census. And normally this would produce merely normal levels of changeling stupidity, silliness and shenanigans...

... but what happens when a name pops up, and you can't prove that the changeling attached to it even exists?

Takes place in late winter after the end of Changeling Space Program and about two years before the beginning of The Maretian.

Written for FanOfMostEverything's Imposing Sovereigns IV contest, pairing Chrysalis and Unorthodoxy. (Group here.)

Fluttershy has been keeping a secret from everypony she knows. A problem she's tried dealing with on her own, but it's been getting harder. Hearing about a place for ponies with her... condition, she decides to visit to hopefully find somepony to help her before somepony gets hurt.

Of course, things never go as expected, and she finds a familiar creature under any other circumstances she would rather avoid...

This story was written for the New Blood Contest 2023, and I would love feedback from the judges.
I'm also fulfilling the bonus "Include a bug"

The changeling heart icon used in the cover image was found: https://derpibooru.org/images/2381676

Apple Bloom attended one of Twilight's talks about magical constructs that emulate creature's intelligence. But why limit that to magic, when good ol' Earth Pony ingenuity can do the trick?

Many thanks to Alumx for the cover art!

Now with a Russian translation, courtesy of CuTiE_PoNY-JacKie!

This story is a sequel to Looking Glass

Page is stuck. He never wanted to be a Prince. But he can't just... stop. Ponies are depending on him now and he's feeling the pressure.

Being a Prince isn't all that it's cracked up to be. It's all work and so much responsibility. Ponies plot against you constantly. Luckily, sometimes it's for your own good.

Other times... not.

Big thanks to Arratra for betaing this one.

Idol Hooves holds a special place in Equestria. He's probably the only exiled changeling to serve in the Royal Guard, or at least, that's what he expects, as exiles don't really broadcast that fact. However, it's well known that Princess Celestia loves all of her little ponies, and her guards perhaps more so, and that makes it one of the best ways for a changeling to discreetly feed.

But how does a changeling even get there, let alone get exiled in the first place? For that matter, why would it ever go to Canterlot? Set a number of years before the series proper, before Luna’s redemption, Idol details how he was exiled, the ponies he’s met, and the series of misadventures that led him to joining the Royal Guard, and should continue a good ways into the series, as something of an alternate perspective.

Soon, he’ll have to deal with a boisterous new princess to serve and a royal wedding in the works bringing a third to power. Will his old instincts bring this new life crashing down around him? What precipitates Chrysalis’s ill-fated assault on Canterlot? Is it really so wrong for a changeling to enjoy good craftsmanship to an obsessive degree?

New cover art provided by the fantastic Carnifex

And a TVTropes page here.

And an Ask Blog of questionable canonity!
Out of Idol Curiosity

Fanart by Norad2! Major thanks! Short For a Royal Guard

Art by Egophiliac of Idol and his Daring Duckie Please don't tell him what that brush is meant for.

Rating updated to (T), it's a bit darker than (E)
Comedy Tag added as well
And changed the character tags a bit.

A shipgirl in MLP

What we have here is a very annoying Plot bunny which never went away. All because the main character of Worm and a destroyer from WW2 share a name, then for some absurd reason my head says yeah! That’ll definitely work in my little pony. I can’t just let it be a standard destroyer though Worm has tinkers which could do cool things to the warship right? So what if there is little to no fighting in my little pony. I want a flying super destroyer which could probably blow up Malaysia.

“Sorry Taylor, the truth is. The game was rigged from the start. Gate!” Contessa shouts as a Gate open up just in front of Kelphri.

Taylor Hebert post GM

Warning: This story and this description both contain spoilers for the Web Novel: Worm. If you don't want to be spoiled, read Worm first, then come back and read this

The apocalypse had come at the hand of a god-like multidimensional alien entity. Taylor Hebert, a parahuman with power over bugs and bug-like things has her powers altered by a former enemy and subsequently uses morally questionable means to make everyone in existence with superpowers fight this evil deity, eventually defeating him.

This however came with a cost. Her mind was deteriorating as her power was subsuming her. Thus another cape decided it would be a mercy to put a pair of bullets in the back of her skull.

Another entity witnessed all of this. This entity, grateful for Taylor's role in stopping this alien god and thus saving countless worlds and thus countless lives, decides to intervene. It brings Taylor to Equestria turning her into a Changeling Queen in the process.

(Warning, Dark, Death, and/or Tragedy may be added to the list of tags in the future, depending on how things go. Furthermore, the Suicide tag is for the references to suicide in the description and in the first chapter. Suicide and/or self harm will NOT be a major theme in this story.)

(This is a crossover with the web novel called Worm by the author Wildbow. I highly recommend reading it if you haven't, it's a really good story!)

An alien scientist is startled when Pinkie Pie stumbles across his ship in the woods near Ponyville. For him Pinkie is a problem: he's not allowed to make contact with intelligent natives.

Pinkie Pie is overjoyed when she stumbles across an alien spaceship in the woods near Ponyville. For her the alien is a new friend, to be given a Welcome to Ponyville party with all sorts of treats.

Of course, the alien is really alien- a methane-breather who can't leave his refrigerated ship. His biochemistry is very different from a pony's. Can Pinkie Pie find something he can eat that isn't poison? And can he keep other ponies from finding his hiding place and forcing him to leave before he's had his party?

Tied for second place in the Science Fiction Contest II. First draft released early as a Patreon exclusive, now posted here in edited form for everybody.

EDIT: Wow! Straight to the top of the Featured list! Thanks, everyone!

Part of the Remember Fort Libris print anthology, thanks to our Kickstarter supporters!