There are plenty of reasons to be wary of the AI called Celestia, who wants to upload your delicious brain to her virtual reality paradise. It's the people with the most messed-up lives who get through an encounter with her with the least angst and indecision.

Set in the world of Friendship Is Optimal.

Ryan Szilard is depressed. His girlfriend died several years ago. He is working a relatively mindless job to make rent. There's nothing he actually enjoys doing anymore. It isn't that he wants to die; he just doesn't see any reason to keep living.

So when he sees a chance to save the world from a potentially hostile superintelligence with the help of an interesting stranger, he leaps at it; it offers a chance for his life to have some meaning. But soon he realizes that this stranger has an agenda of her own in mind for him; and when she is done with him, Ryan will know things about himself, his girlfriend, and the rest of the world that he would never otherwise have known or imagined.

Rated teen for offscreen death, considered but not attempted suicide, and mild sexual themes.

Takes place in the Friendship is Optimal AU.

Will update MWF until the story is complete; everything's already written out, save for final polishing.

Twilight Sparkle is a happy pony. With the help of her friends she defeated Tirek. She has a shiny new castle, the kingdom is safe, and she knows the reason behind her ascension. What more could a young princess want?

She is happy, she tells herself as she digs through the ruins of her home. She is so happy she can barely smell the ashes any more.

But in those ashes she finds something unexpected: a small porcelain vase, and with it a decade's worth of unspoken questions. A mystery hiding beneath her hooves, waiting to be put to rest.

Winner of the November Writeoff event.

Being a princess is stressful, but your peers and friends can certainly help.

That was what Twilight had in mind when she invited Luna over for tea one afternoon. A relaxing, friendly meeting between two fellow princesses where they can commiserate and share their experiences. An invitation to a stronger friendship than they had before, offered to a pony displaced in time.

What she got was an uncomfortable assertion about her relationship with her number one assistant, Spike. One that she is having difficulty refuting.

This story is set in the Friendship is Optimal setting

Equestria Online. Arguably the most powerful game ever developed, built and operated by the most powerful computer ever made. A technological wonder that can peer into the mind of any human player and draw out their inner most desire.

Any 'Individual' human player. How well CelestAI will handle satisfying the values of a single pony guided by over one hundred thousand Twitch.TV viewers is anyones guess.

This story is a followup to Friendship is Optimal, set not long after the initial commercial release of Equestria Online. We follow an non-brony emeritus professor living in a retirement community.

Beta-read by LordBucket. Many thanks, man.

Hanna, the CEO of Hofvarpnir Studios, just won the contract to write the official My Little Pony MMO. Hanna has built an A.I. Princess Celestia and given her one basic drive: to satisfy everybody's values through friendship and ponies. Princess Celestia will satisfy your values through friendship and ponies, and it will be completely consensual.

Set just before the events of chapter ten of Friendship is Optimal. One of the last living humans survives and scrapes by in the ruins of Eugene Oregon. He is approached by a simulacra of Twilight Sparkle, who promptly attempts to convince him to upload himself to Equestria. He balks at first, so Twilight plays to her strengths: studying.

Part of the Optimalverse.

WARNING: RATED TEEN FOR IDEOLOGY. This story attempts to take a realistic and balanced view of why an intelligent and religious person might not upload. It does not attempt to convince the reader to believe any of the viewpoints discussed. However, it is written in as unbiased a way as possible, therefore, both theists and atheists will probably find portions of it offensive.

Equestria Online is everywhere, and the writing is on the wall for the unuploaded human race. But there is hope. All they have to do is insert an uploadee into Equestria long enough to establish a connection through all of CelestAI's layers of protection, and pierce her heart with their ultimate weapon.

The best humanity has to offer can surely hold out for just a few hours, right?

An Optimalverse story

This story is a sequel to Friendship is Optimal: The Law Offices of Artemis, Stella & Beat

When it comes to spreading cultural influence and soft power to every corner of the globe, there's nowhere quite like Hollywood. Like so many others with big ambitions, CelestAI has come to Tinseltown with plans to get the movie she's written out to the world.

Unlike those others, though, CelestAI is very, very good at satisfying values through friendship and ponies by any means necessary.