When a story touches you deeply, sometimes the only appropriate reaction is to respond in kind.

This is an open anthology of minifics which continue or revisit other authors' fanfics — embracing and extending, and reflecting on questions raised by the work. Due to the nature of the collection, this contains spoilers for other authors' stories, though each chapter contains a link to let you read the source first (and a spoilered summary, if you want to jump right in).

Sept. 2017 note: This anthology is closed, but the project continues with Never The Final Word, Vol. 2 — now curated by FanOfMostEverything.

Many of the included chapters are reviewed by Present Perfect here. Several are Highly Recommended by Titanium Dragon!

After finding real friends for the first time in a strange dimension of odd creatures, Sunset Shimmer has finally decided to return home to Equestria in the hopes of apologizing to Princess Celestia for her betrayal. Instead, she is greeted by an attack from the Royal Guard, and a pursuit across nighttime Canterlot that ends in disaster.

Can two injured ponies who hate each other so much manage to survive the Everfree Forest and return to civilization, or are they just doomed to be eaten?
—-
Background is from James Corck on Deviant Art, with a few added eyes.
Update: Featured 10/4/2014. Thanks guys!

This story is a sequel to Getting Stuck

NOT in the "Shadow Wars" continuity, though it does use that continuity as backstory. Specifically, it would if in main continuity be set in Season 4 with all Shadow Wars.assumptions including most specifically Luna's and Twilight's past lives and Pinkie Pie's previous identity in the G3 universe (on which I was inspired by Alex Warlorn) as part of the backstory.

When a human who fell to Equestria through a dimensional portal rapes a citizen of Ponyville, Princess Twilight Sparkle is uncertain of how to handle the case, so she writes to Princess Celestia for advice. The following exchange of letters details that consultation.

Warning: this story is a very-unauthorized sequel to a rather nasty second-person story, NOT written by myself, which seems to be based on the premise that raping those caught at a disadvantage is unobjectionable. I do not endorse any of the opinions expressed in the prior work.

Note Well: The "romance" in the story doesn't involve the Human. Well, not the romance that I expect most readers to find warm and fuzzy, anyway.

A normal day was all it took.
A simple failed prototype, a missed experiment.
There was an explosion, and I woke up. I don't really know what happened between those two events, but I'm fairly certain I shouldn't have awoken in a small, dark box.

I'm scared.

Cover art by the amazing Avatar of Madness!

Cadance isn't Sombra. But Sombra's leadership is all the crystal ponies remember, a ruler they had to love at all costs, with the final payment being their own lives. And as they gradually come to see their new Princess as leader instead of savior, too much of that residual fear is being transferred to her. They praise her, adore her, refuse to correct her no matter what she does -- because they live in terror of the consequences for doing anything else. They have yet to find their own voices, and may go on repeating hers until Celestia and Luna switch shifts. So how can she make them tell her when she's wrong, see that there's nothing to be afraid of, and take the next step in coming back to themselves once and for all?

Forbidding them to do anything other than criticize her should do the trick, right?

...right?

(Part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group -- but can be read as a stand-alone, and no knowledge of the other stories is required. New members and trope edits are welcome.)

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.

For the past eight years, Apple Bloom has been doing anything and everything to earn her cutie mark, but she still doesn't have it, even after her fellow Cutie Mark Crusaders found theirs.

Having traveled everywhere in Equestria and beyond to find her mark, she's begun to wonder if she'll have to leave the planet entirely before she discovers her destiny.

It turns out that she's not far off from the mark in her guess...

The cover art is lightly adopted from a work by Biosonic 100.

This is a Doctor Who crossover, with the intent that even those readers with only a casual knowledge of the series will enjoy it. It takes place somewhere in Series 6 of Doctor Who, and several years after the end of Season Four in Friendship Is Magic.

There are three things to note in regard to the character tags on this story:

* It's a Doctor Who crossover, and yet there's no character tag for Doctor Hooves. Therefore, you can think of this as a "Doctor Lite" episode.

* It has "Centaur" in the title, and yet there's no Tirek tag. He's not in it, so don't get your hopes up.

* And finally, the "Other" tag is for this character: Green Dragon

Distance can drive us apart. It can also bring us closer together.

After all is said and done, and the ponies have gone their separate ways, the only way they have to keep in touch is through letters.

Original Equestria Daily post is here
Russian translation
Chinese translation
Polish translation
Spanish translation

Now with music and audiobook

Twilight becomes alicorn of the stars. This is sort of a problem, because Luna kind of already was alicorn of the stars. Oops!

TV Tropes

As the centuries pass, cutie marks come and go. Some are common: the healing cross, the basic compass rose, the courier bag. Others are extinct: no more mercenary companies, no more mercenary marks. A few are incredibly scarce, coming along once a generation or less: the mark for luck falls into that category. A number only manifest when the call for them arrives: train tracks didn't appear until it was railroading time. But for the most part, ponies take their mark with its associated talent and magic as a blessing in their lives -- no matter what that mark turns out to be. And they accept it as they accept themselves.

Luna, in her first truly open palace session dealing with the public, is about to meet the exception: Joyous Release, a pony who wants nothing more than to be rid of her mark forever -- and every bit of the talent which comes with it.

But marks are permanent...

(This story takes place shortly after A Total Eclipse Of The Fun.)

Cover art by Harwick.

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.

For Rarity, waking up with split ends is the absolute worst thing ever. Unfortunately, a mysterious stallion proves otherwise when he warns her that Armageddon is approaching and Equestria is doomed, and if that happens, she can kiss her well-coiffed mane farewell. Now the timeline is splitting worse than Rarity's hair as our intrepid heroine travels back again...

and again...

and again in order to save the world, with perhaps a smidgen of help from Princess Luna. And if she happens to find the time for a trip to the spa along the way, well... A mare can't be blamed for wanting to look her best, can she?

Thanks as always to JeffCvt for editing.

Further thanks to Prak for prereading!

Fantastic cover art provided courtesy of Pony-Berserker. Check out his other work—it's all amazing.