This story is a sequel to The Enchanted Library

It's easy to think about fairytales when you’re an ancient alicorn trapped in a library for centuries on end. It's easy to wonder how one would go about rescuing you, to think and devise and plot out how to free you in a blaze of glory, intrigue, adventure, and romance.

Or, rather, it’s easy until suddenly it happens and you’re forced to ask yourself the one terrifying question you’d yet to consider.

Now what?

PATREON!
Original story inspired by an old oneshot.
Chapter Art by Arctic Waters and lilfunkman// Graphic Design and Typography by Swan Song.

Being late can do a lot of things. It can have positive or negative impacts depending on the individual and what it is their late for.

What if Nightmare Moon was late for her appointment back to Equestria? What would she do then?

Featured: 08/27/2017

[Rationalfic Deconstruction / Subversion of Displaced]
You’ve read the stories of people from Earth being “Displaced”: Their bodies are changed, their minds are warped, and they’re thrown across the multiverse, to whatever world and timeline their supernal "Displacers" decide upon.  Well, this story isn’t one of them...

...because when they tried to remake me, I didn’t let them.

A Rationalist Horror story, in which an Occultist from some version of Earth (implied to be the World of Darkness) undermines her own Displacement and ends up as a Self-Modifying Construct. Scientific Inquiry, Philosophical Debate, Rational Discussion, Body Horror, and Existential Hijinks ensue. Themes, Concepts, and Style inspired by HP Lovecraft, Elizer Yudkowsky, Gordon R Dickson, Edgar Allen Poe, Modern Prometheus (Frankenstein), Dresden Codak, World of Darkness, and Friendship is Optimal.
^{Front page on JUL 28th, AUG 12th, OCT 30, and every update after that.}

Your story breaks the shitty norm that most displaced stories have in common by being an 'actually interesting story' instead of a powertrip for a horny teen.

This is like brain porn. My head hurts but in a good way.

Author’s Notes

I often find Displaced fics to be more often Miss than Hit with me. Often, they're generic, poorly written, or just do not do anything worth reading with the concept.  This is an experiment to trt out a few other concepts which aren’t used often, even by me, including some which directly subvert Displaced as a genre, and maybe even come up with some advice for those authors. This is also a crossover with the upcoming Dragon: The Oroboroi Chronicles, a World of Darkness rulebook which I lead the development team for.

I hope you all enjoy this, and I implore you to leave some feedback in the comments section: I'll experimenting with a few uncommon concepts here, and I'd like to know how people feel about how they're coming across. :3

FAQ

Because people keep bringing these things up...

Horror/Dark Tags

I've had multiple people ask "how bad does it get?" Note the lack of the "gore", "sad", or "mature" tags or anything like that. Yes, there is blood and death at some point in this story, but the real horror of this story comes from the philosophical and scientific quandaries the characters go through: this is "intellectual horror", not "visceral horror".

Length

In the interest of this NOT becoming one of those long, sprawling fics, I plan to keep this limited to a manageable 10 chapter limit, not counting Prologue and Epilogue. No one wants to read something that long, and I'd rather not be stressing over this 6 months from now.

Sequel

The Sequel is already in the works, with scenes already written. It will be a more episodic story revolving around world optimization and interplanar hijinks.

Crossovers

To be clear, I do plan on having the main character make one of those "Token" things, but as they often get in the way of actual stories, that won't happen until the end of the story. The Sequel will be crossover-heavy.

When a certain drake find himself leaving home for a life of adventure, Twilight Sparkle finds herself in need of an assistant. While most would consider it the highest of honors working under any other princess, there's a problem with the newly-anointed alicorn.

She's absolutely, unapologetically, absurdly crazy.

Here are her adventures, as well as the adventures of her new assistant, who desperately wished he had ignored what father's advice and went into the profession of stripping.

Artists is Paradigmpizza

Set only a week after the banishment of Princess Luna to the moon, the realm of Equestria is in a state of upheaval. Celestia's royal guard attempt to regain control over the vast empire once ruled by dual monarchs, and the young alicorn's actions as a ruler have become a subject of scrutiny after her sister's attempted coup. Two factions have risen in the turmoil: The Knights of the Sun and The Bright Moon.

Far away from the political infighting and sword rattling exists a small mining town on the outskirts of Equestrian territory. Where once the royal guard would have no trouble fending off raids from bandits or other criminals, the panic of the capitol has caused a withdrawal of military forces to more essential cities and trading ports. Completely undefended and without a spell or sword amongst them, this town was soon overrun by a band of bi-pedal canines calling themselves the Diamond Dogs. As brutal as they are lazy, the Diamond Dogs have forced the local population to work until collapse to collect gems from the town mine.

Outraged by his inability to fend off these bandits and thieves, a young unicorn named Bone Marrow tries with all of his might to find his purpose in life - his cutie mark - and hopes that it will be enough to drive off the invaders of his home. He will soon discover that his special talent is far more than he bargained for.

((A Sequel will begin for this story as soon as I finish I Am a Pet Changeling. Stay tuned on Discord! https://discord.gg/nDXd3AB ))

Twilight was of two minds about how to handle the situation of being of two minds about how to handle the situation of being of two minds about how to handle the situation of being two minds.

Written for the The Writeoff Association’s ‘Rising From the Ashes’ prompt.

This story is a sequel to You're Not Fine

Friendship is a give-and-take relationship. Fortunately for you, Pinkie doesn't ask for much, and she has plenty to give.
Maybe it's time to start giving back.

A hag: someone with the power of nature, to use as they see fit. Sacrifice, and deals, power at a price, and more defines them. It is a hard thing to be a hag, and a harder thing to deal with them.

So when one of them, old and only partly wise arrives in a land that has no hags, she is confused. Lost. Upset. She does not know Equestria, and makes assumptions that are not wrong...

But not wrong doesn't mean right. It only means that you might be able to understand how the assumption could be considered correct. So, how will the hag deal with Equestria? A friend? An ally? An enemy? Its doom? Any of the above, willing or unwilling, knowing or not knowing? Everypony has their own opinion. Time to see who is right.

Matthias Síðasta Von has always wished to visit the magical land of Equestria, see the wonderful colors, talk to the ponies that live there. Perhaps even, should he be so lucky, live there permanently. Help Fluttershy with the animals, listen to Twilight talk about her most recent lesson or experiment, lift baskets of apples with Applejack, tell Lyra about humans.

One day, a connection is made, an offer: step through the gate. It was warned that the cost might be hefty, that the journey might be hard, but anything was better than this drab, grey life. So he stepped through.

But, this is not the Equestria he knew. Buildings aged and decrepit, roads cracked and eroded, the Everfree slowly reclaiming the Apple's farm and the last barn finally given out under the strain with nopony to raise it anew. What happened? Where did they go?

The colors bleached, the ponies gone, the Harmony and love that once sustained the land dried up and blown away like so much dust.

Except...

It's been a long time since Trixie Lulamoon could call herself "Great and Powerful". After her humiliation at Ponyville, she searched far and wide across Equestria, looking for some way to restore her reputation and shore up her pride.

Lucky for her, Princess Luna has decided to re-open a very special division of the Guard: The Dreamguard. Trixie was only one of many to apply, but she was the very first to be accepted. Now she has a roof over her head, three square meals a day, and lessons in dreamwalking taught to her by the Princess of the Night, herself!

As far as Trixie is concerned, life couldn't be better. But the Dreamrealms have wonders and dangers all their own.

A side-story to Project Sunflower: Harmony, though no prior reading should be needed to read this story.

Cover art: Trixie vs Ursa Major by Korcika, used with permission.

Editorial poking and prodding provided by Razalon the Lizardman, Coandco, BrilliantPoint and Ekevoo, listed in no particular order.