Twilight Sparkle has always admired Princess Celestia. Her fortitude, her wisdom, her eternal grace and love for all her subjects. Twilight has often fantasized about what it would be like to be in Princess Celestia's horseshoes. She never imagined those fantasies would come true.

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Events take place a short time after the Crystal Empire's return (early S3).
Proofreading from chapter three-onward provided by Daemon of Decay.
Cover image used with permission from TexasUberAlles, thanks!
Inspiration for Sunny Skies from PhantomFox.

I don’t question the “life” bar floating over my head, or my “EXP” gauge, or the little phantasmal boxes that appear whenever I look at an “equippable” object that show its “statistics.” It’s normal for small messages to appear in the sky every now and then, such as [System update in 2 hours.] My kind worships the Developers, higher beings that direct, create, and control everything we see. It’s all normal. This is how things have always been, since I was born. My father, my grandfather, my ancestors have all accepted and coped with these elements.

So why does everything feel so... fake?

My name is Twilight_Sparkle, and I know there’s something wrong here.

Co-Written by GaruuSpike and Chaotic Dreams.

(EDIT: This story is cancelled forever because someone sabotaged all of our attempts to write. You know who you are, and so do I, and I hope you're happy for killing it.)

This is a fic based on the Time Loop Files, the format of which was first codified by Innortal on fanfiction.net.
Here's a brief guide.
The basic idea is, one character (the Anchor, usually the main character of a fictional setting) is looping back to the very first moments of their parent series every time either they die or some kind of time limit expires. They of course end up monumentally stir crazy given enough time.
Eventually others start to loop as well.
The reset is not always perfect. Sometimes a loop's history will be different to the "prime" loop, or canonical plot.
"Crossover" or "Fusion" loops also occur, randomly. These can involve the home loopers having a guest, or the anchor for one universe spending time in another, or replacements of one character by another.
Vacation Loops are where the Anchor (or others) decide/s "buck it" and lets off steam by doing whatever comes to mind. There's little or no attempt to maintain the original timeline.

In addition, and particularly more recently, it should be known that this story has a collaborative element to it - people may submit loop ideas or loops, ideally at the Spacebattles thread (a link to the current version of which is on the Trope page), and they may become included.

There's two page image options, thanks to Filraen - the current page image has been edited by the original creator from this work of theirs.. The other one is here:
http://hourglass-vectors.deviantart.com/art/MLP-Loops-466030169

Pinkie Pie is visited by a strange customer whilst working at Sugarcube Corner. Hilarity ensues.

What if Rainbow Dash had been present when Discord gave the Mane Cast their first shot at him? How could things have gone different? How could this have changed things?How could this have changed Twilight?

Update Schedule Below the Break.
Now with the super editor FredMSloniker!
Now with a wonderful cover image by Conicer!
Also - Awesome Fanart - http://nyuuchandiannepie.deviantart.com/art/Discolight-273099814

Update Plans
December 11 - Edited versions of first four chapters
December 14 - Chapter 5
Future updates at least 1 time per week.
Total Planned Chapters - 12

Twilight Sparkle never was a Unicorn and she didn't even know it.
What happens when her true heritage comes to light? Will she willingly embrace it? Or will she be forced to?

Beware of spoilers in the comments!

Edited by uTTerAbsurdity, Zervziel, Stormwatch and Gwenio

Cover art by the talented Cartoonlion and colored by the equally talented Stormwatch, original can be found here

Click here for the Tvtropes page

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