Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns is famous across Equestria as a center of academic excellence. Only the best and brightest unicorns are offered places, selected by their academic merit, magical ability and passion for study. To make the admissions process as fair and reliable as possible, all candidates are given three exams by different teams of examiners, who then meet in private to decide which students are most deserving of a place.

Winner of the December 2014 Writeoff competition: Behind Closed Doors.

When your country is several millennia old, the writings of scholars and philosophers and the publications in academic journals could fill thousands of bookshelves. Indeed, in Equestria they do. All academic journals and compendiums of the writings of Equestria's many thinkers have been copied and stored in the Canterlot Royal Academic Archives. As it would take a pony millions of years to read through all of them, this is but a selection of pieces from the CRAA that would be useful to a pony studying various subjects or wanting to catch up on historical or current affairs.

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Often I get ideas of how parts of the show and lore connect with something else or with some academic theory or another, and I'll write an academic style essay about it. This is a collection for them. Usually I'll try to keep in canon with the show because it's more fun that way, but the essays are not necessarily canon with each other, though ideas might be shared between them because I'll find they work with multiple tangents.

Gallus is really, truly unenthused about his latest assigned reading. Some lame romance by a long-dead author is good for pretty much one thing and one thing only: putting you to sleep. Sandbar decides to change his mind.

Shameless Gallbar fluff.

Written for the Pride and Positivity event! Consider donating, and check out the other stories here!

She is as beautiful and graceful as the moon, and just as hard to reach. He is a young artist with much to learn about the world. When he accepts her challenge to create an artistic masterpiece, will he win her heart, or learn a terrible lesson in the nature of beauty and love?

There are no new cadets being trained, the big annual Wonderbolts party extravaganza isn't until this weekend, and Spitfire will only be away from the Academy for three days.

Fleetfoot is definitely ready for this responsibility.

Except she's not.

Somepony is totally getting fired.

Spanish Translation from Spaniard Kiwi!
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JohnPerry confirms: is a fic!
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Featured in EFNW's Fanfic Spotlight #34!

Every Friday, from five in the afternoon to eleven at night, Pinkie Pie does volunteer work. She doesn't have to do it, the world won't stop if she doesn't, but she chooses to do it anyway. Even if it's doing seemingly insignificant little things.

It is a matter of life and death, after all. Literally.

Gallus walks in on Yona showering. She's crying and he smells bad.

On a dark and stormy night, centuries in the past, Celestia and Luna walked into a bar.

They came looking for knowledge. They found a little more than that.

Written for Round 1 of the Four hooves and a pen writing group. Cover art from the gallery of Lopoddity.

On the eve of the five-hundred-and-thirtieth year of Celestial Peace, a shocking accident befalls one of Equestria’s aviators during the Wonderbolts' performance at the Summer Sun Celebration.

Flaire d’Mare attempted to warn against the danger that caused the incident, and thus, she is commissioned to improve the safety of the Wonderbolts’ uniforms at the behest of their tenth leader: General Flash.

Assisted by the optimistic young aviator Fairy Flight, Flaire will do whatever she must to ensure a safer future for the Wonderbolts. 

Even if that means confronting the inner wound of her long-endured grief.

It has been nearly a thousand years since Twilight Sparkle died. Celestia and Luna are gone. The Holy Equestrian Diarchy, ruled by a bigoted and brutal theocracy, has driven ponies apart and divided them along tribal lines. Unicorns are driven from society, feared and hated.

The lessons of friendship, painstakingly written down in the journal of friendship by Princess Twilight and her friends, have been warped and twisted to fit the Diarchy's hateful ideology. But to the average pony, this is the truth and reality of the world they live in, beset on all sides by enemies monstrous and magical.

Emberglow, a young pegasus mare, aspires to join the elite Knights, magically enhanced warriors dedicated to the holy Saints worshiped by the state religion. Can she uncover the lies and deceptions that have led the world to this bitter place?

Thanks to QueenChrysalisForever for prereading Chapters 1-24. Prereader for chapters 29-31 is MrRTS.
Prereading for chapter 34-? by Horsetorian
Additional pre-readers: bananachips/CommissarVulpin, Thought Prism, Chyre
Special thanks to my amazing editor, Cyonix
Cover Art by JodTheCod

Note on timing: I began writing this long before Season 9 aired, so none of those events happened as far as the narrative of this story is concerned.

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Edit: Featured 8/7/20! Yay and Thanks!