After a tragic accident, a human ends up in Lord Tirek's body, as part of an attempt to reform the villain after his recent escapades. While the hero of our tale is trying to make sense of his new surroundings, the rest of Equestria thinks that the most terrible threat that their world has ever seen is back...
And the powers that be are definitely not happy about it.
New Cover Art By Shadow Bolt

Realizing she hadn't tried to serve dinner once post-reformation, Starlight Glimmer decided to end her unintentional "streak" and made dinner for Princess Twilight, Spike, Eric Reed, and a visiting Sunset Shimmer. Being the big-hearted pony she is, Starlight was proud to do something for her friends, and her huge grin proved it.

It was just too bad her dinner, which she dubbed "Glimmer Surprise", looked and smelled horrendous.

This story is one of a still-growing series of stories that all take place after A Giant Adventure to Equestria. However, it is not necessary to read any of them to understand this story, but "A Giant Adventure to Equestria" does show the details of how and why the human OC Eric Reed is in Equestria

If you enjoy this story and would be interested to check any of the other stories with Eric, you can find the list of all current ones here.

And lastly, special thanks to TheHardie-Boy for helping with proofreading!

Finding herself with wings and unusually powerful magic, Twilight Sparkle proceeds to have breakdown after breakdown, until with the help of her friends, she confronts Celestia and Luna about it... And learns that she's a far more important little pony than she ever imagined - for all the wrong reasons.

Awesome painting by Drezzer can be found here!

20 megapixel version is here (10MB JPEG, 210dpi strangely, 24"x20")!

Thanks, man!

A damaged robot pony, unlike anything ever seen in pre-industrial Equestria, is found in the orchard. Before it collapses, it says only two words: "Twilight Sparkle..."

Twilight fixes the mechanical mare and gives her a new directive: "Make friends." Now a robot must learn what it takes to be a good friend and, while she's at it, what it means to live...

Featured on Equestria Daily (11/22/15) and The Goodfic Bin! (3/20/16)!
Featuring illustrations by Colby Green (Illustration Gallery found HERE.)
Editors: GaPJaxie,The Knight Templar, GenerousGhibli, E3gner, and Reese.
Technical Consultants: Artichoke Lust and JFalk.

Now with its own TV Tropes page!

A Cutie Mark amplifies potential. It makes a pony formidable — but it makes a human a god.

When humans started visiting Equestria and returning with Cutie Marks on their hips, Earth changed overnight. Now a young man with an unwritten future is about to discover the true consequences of that change … and his choice of Marks will forever alter the fate of two worlds.

** CONTENT WARNING: Offscreen rape, mind control.** Earns its Dark tag.

* * *

Highly Recommended by Present Perfect! "Completely memorable ... I've never read anything like it. Also perfectly terrifying."

"It went on my Favorites shelf, and I really don't do dark." –iisaw

Third-place winner in the September 2014 Writeoff Association competition! Newly edited for FIMFiction!

Praise for the Writeoff version:
"What in the hell. … This is a really remarkable and surprising piece, one of the best HiE’s I’ve ever read, and the best Friendship Is Optimal-style sci-fi I’ve read since FiO itself." –Present Perfect

"F**k you for writing an HiE that I actually thoroughly enjoyed. Just f**k you." –Golden Vision

Formal Premise: The inventors of the Mirror wanted to create a device that could channel infinite magic and grant wishes. The hard part was making sure those wishes would never destroy the world. Showing a person their heart's desire is a sensible precaution to put into a wish-granting machine designed NOT to go horribly wrong.

The Atlanteans got close, even managing to imbue some amount of intelligence and morality into the Mirror. But they never finished their work; the Mirror never DID get to the point where it could grant wishes... at least, nobody believes it ever got to that point. But then, nobody has ever been trapped inside the Mirror and returned to tell the tale.

When the Mirror traps someone inside itself and outside of Time, that person and their consequences can no longer affect the world. In that circumstance, with a person fully under its power, the Mirror isn't limited in what it can do. Sometimes, it can even grant seemingly incompatible wishes.

But complex problems require complex solutions. In this case, the Mirror takes a few massive liberties about how, exactly, it satisfies the wishes of both Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. Namely, it sends them to a world of ponies.

Informal Premise: This is a crossover between MLP and Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, not just Harry Potter. No matter how accessible I try to make it to those who haven't read HPMoR, those who HAVE read it will undeniably have an easier experience reading this story.

HPMoR is the second most popular fanfiction of Harry Potter, at least according to fanfiction stats. It involves Harry studying & dissecting the wizarding world with science. Not with technology, with actual science. That is, he uses the experimental method, generates and tests hypotheses, and in the words of his Occlumency instructor, "wants to discover the underlying rules of magic to become all-poweful".

THIS fanfic brings THAT version of Harry Potter to Equestria. It also brings that story's version of Voldemort.

If you want the best reading experience, please go read HPMoR first. It can be found on fanfiction dot net, or on its own website, or even on any podcast app, as it has its own fan-made audiobook with 30+ contributing voice actors, production quality, sound effects, music, etc. (which is more than can be said for most PROFESSIONAL audiobooks).

Link to HPMoR on fanfiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Methods-of-Rationality
Link to HPMoR on its own website: http://www.hpmor.com/chapter/1
Link to audiobook (though the website isn't nearly as good as podcast apps): https://hpmorpodcast.com/?page_id=56

All forms of HPMoR that I've encountered are high quality, but that doesn't mean it's for everyone. You can probably read the first few chapters of HPMoR in thirty minutes or so. If it doesn't appeal to you, this story probably won't appeal to you either.

For those who haven't read Methods and want to read this story anyway, the first two chapters are going to be the most confusing. They're mostly housekeeping and stage-setting, barely touching the MLP universe beyond the new setting.

And I think the same advice Yudkowsky gave for HPMoR applies here. The story starts hitting its strides around Chapter 5, if not sooner. If you don't like it by Chapter 10, best just to give up and read something else.

Given the successful befriending of Discord, Princess Celestia deems that no longer will villains be defeated but instead reformed. While most have the chance to submit willingly or continue to fight, King Sombra is given little option. Brought back from the dead and stripped of all his powers and strength, it's all become a game of futility. Now Sombra only wishes he could have stayed dead all along.

Edited by spigo.

Set 10 years after the brief escape of Tirek, Discord knows one last ploy is all that will be allowed him. Unleashing a villain long since defeated and forgotten, Discord sets in motion a series of events that'll either end with his victory... or his final curtain call. Since when was friendship supposed to last forever?

Flitter doesn't like most ponies. There's hardly anything in the world Flitter likes, very few which she can even remotely tolerate, and only a couple which she truly loves. Fluttershy is not in the last two categories. Flitter sees Fluttershy as weak, and weakness disgusts her.

But when you're trying to help someone you love, you'll look for help in a lot of places -- including the cottage of the weakest pony in the world.

And for those willing to listen past their pain, it might be the place where they start to learn what true strength is.

(This story takes place about five moons before Triptych and well after On The Application...)

Part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group. New members and trope edits welcome.

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.

Audiobook production by ObabScribbler.

Eighty years after the events of The Dread Chitin, Equestria is a radically different place. The arcane science of the late Duran Thirk and the information found on the Star League library core have combined to catapult the nation's science ahead by hundreds of years.

Now, facing the possible aggression of a completely unknown alien power, Twilight Sparkle and her friends have to gather together once more, leading a crew of the best ponies they could assemble in a voyage outside their own star system. They seek to learn about their potential foe, to explore the galaxy around them, and possibly find allies and friends to stand alongside them. Who knows what they will actually find?