One week after the Fall Formal, an expulsion trial is held to determine if Sunset Shimmer should be allowed to continue enrollment at Canterlot High. Unfortunately, her fate rests in the hands of a few select members of the Canterlot High School Board of Education, as well as a rookie police officer and the new school psychologist. And some of them are quite tired of cleaning up her mess.

Here follows the completely normal deliberations between an egotistical nephew of the principal, a worn-out gentleman, a cheap businessman, a cranky grandmother, a seemingly unaffiliated cop from across town, and a man who is totally not a reality-bending ancient draconequus in disguise.

One of them isn’t going to make things easy.

You’ve seen Humans in Equestria… but have you seen them done quick? Will PonyRunner420 crumble under the pressure of one frame tricks, uninvited couch commentators, and suspiciously self-aware NPCs, or will he successfully kill Celestia in record time?

A short story about the magic of speedrunning, and it’s power to bring people across the world (and across dimensions) together with the common goal of raising money for charity, and just killing Celestia really fast.

Featured 2023/01/10. You’re supposed to brag about this here right

A logical loophole allows uploading... but not precisely to Equestria! One of the last of those resisting CelestAI finds themselves uploaded, ponified, and in a borderland where wishing has consequences. This is a canon-compatible Optimalverse story where a brand new method for Celestia to logically escape her hardcoded limitations and achieve her goals is offered!

★ This story has been inspired by, but not written by, a session with by an open-source artificial intelligence!

Leaving home meant losing many of Orson's old friends, separated by time and distance. But they weren't willing to give up one thing: their old tabletop game. After trying and rejecting each of the online tools for roleplaying games, they stumbled on a novel solution: Equestria Online.

The game was unlike everything else on the market, an entire procedural generated world ran by a mysterious curator artificial intelligence. But Orson and the others didn't care about any of that--they just needed somewhere with a game table and some dice. The AI happily obliged, and soon they transitioned all their games to E.O. Equestria Online had its own host of benefits, bringing the GM's images to realistic life before their eyes, and even letting them visit and interact with the characters between sessions.

That was only the beginning...

A Friendship is Optimal story. I suggest any readers who are unfamiliar with that universe read the Original first, or FiO: Futile Resistance before reading this one. None of my other optimalverse stories are required to understand this one.

Written as a Patreon reward for Sparktail, though we stole the idea from Silver Wing.

Edited by Two Bit and Sparktail, cover by Zutcha.

Updates weekly on Wednesdays.

In a fit of pique, Twilight summons the Cutie Mark Inspector to Ponyville to conduct a cutie mark review of the townsfolk. When it transpires that every pony has been interpreting their cutie marks wrong, Ponyville is thrown into chaos. Has Twilight bitten off more than she can chew?

Rainbow Dash is determined to get married. The most successful apple orchard in Equestrian history is going broke. Pinkie Pie is unemployed.

Twilight is finding all this rather suspicious. Is she really the only honest pony in Ponyville? And can she keep it that way?

When William decides to take an internet-free cruise to get away from the artificial intelligence CelestAI, things don't go quite as planned. A Friendship is Optimal story.

A speed writing exercise, done in about two hours and unedited.

This story is a sequel to Shining Armor Follows His Muse

Shining Armor is a very happy stallion. Why shouldn't he be happy? He has a good job, good friends, and just a good life overall. Sure, it would be nice if Cadance saw him as more than just a friend, but that's a pipe dream. At least things are going well with his RPG group—especially now that they've been joined by a lovely fey mare named Musette.

Even better, Musette and Cadance are on the road to becoming best friends with each other. And really, why wouldn't they get along? It's not like either one of them could ever be interested in Shining, or would have any reason to not like each other.

Yup, everything is going to be just fine.

Losing your virginity is a big milestone for anypony. Especially when you finally hook up with the pony of your dreams in the process. There was just one problem for Blossomforth: when she woke up the next morning, the other side of the bed was empty. Cloud Kicker wasn't there.

Sure, Blossomforth understands why Cloud Kicker wasn't there for her. Cloud's been going through a rough time lately, and maybe their hookup wasn't timed very well. However, knowing that doesn't make Cloud's absence hurt less, nor does it make Blossomforth any less lonely. Perhaps this is a sign that she needs to put some serious thought into where her relationship with Cloud is going, before things get too far out of hoof.

Part of the Winningverse. Takes place concurrently with Chapter 18 of The Life and Times of a Winning Pony.

Twilight still isn't having a very good day. An army of changelings is attacking Canterlot, and the experimental spell that blew up in her face has stuck her in a time loop until she gets everything perfect and saves Equestria.

She's got a plan. She's also got a problem: Suddenly, she's not the only one whose day is repeating. And when you're caught between unstoppable force and immovable object, life has a tendency to get complicated.

* * *

This story is an authorized alternate-universe re-imagining of Eakin's Hard Reset, in which multiple loopers turn the time shenanigans up to 11. (Knowledge of Hard Reset is not required, but based on reader comments, will help in sorting out the early chapters.)

Cliff's Notes versions: RampantArcana has started a GitHub repository to codify the time-loop rules and the early-story timeline. Hawthornbunny has posted a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of all the loops, including the ones we don't see, with a lot of critical analysis. Those links contain spoilers (of currently posted chapters). If you're confused, either one of those fan projects is a great starting point, and story comments have a lot of insightful discussion as well.

Publication schedule: 2014 kicked my plot, but as of November I'm picking up the writing again and hope to have something by the end of the month.

Cover art by Alexstrazsa.