Everypony knows the Hearth’s Warming Eve tale of tribal unity and the shared rule which followed. Everypony also knows that alicorns - singular or dual - have sat on Equestria’s throne for well over a thousand years.

Very few have really looked in to what actually happened between those points.

Even Twilight Sparkle, until a chance encounter leads her to an alarming discovery: Neither she, nor any other alicorn, has actually held any legal right to Equestria’s throne. They are technically usurpers, autocrats - even tyrants.

Still struggling with her own personal rule, having the fundamental basis for her authority swept from beneath her leaves Twilight with one simple, yet impossible question: 

Now what?

Many thanks to Commawriter and Kirtai for pre-reading!

Cover image was edited by Vinylshadow. They deserve all credit for it!

The Multiverse is a vast and rather unpredictable place. Just when you think you know everything, there's always some particular story that makes you reimagine what you perceive. Events that you're familiar with can play out much differently than you expect. Twists in the narrative can unfold into alternative variants of reality. Some of them may even just be a pale reflection of a source.

Who are we, you might ask? Well, you may call us The Archivists.

What do we do? Well, one particular tree in the vast expanse of reality garners our attention the most. It goes by various names, but the amount of branches that split off from this single tree are mesmerizing. And the leaves that sprout from it all have a story to tell

We take it upon ourselves to tend to this tree... while also sharing tales from it that take our interest. No two are the same, but each one is enough to garner some attention.

Heed our words though. While we might be the ones telling the story, you shouldn't trust our words at face value.

For we know more than we're letting on and we tend to break a few rules from time to time.

This anthology contains a collection of story ideas that I had that either didn’t quite make the cut for writing and put on the chopping block or are short pieces of collaborative works that I’ve been doing with other authors on FimFiction. 

Each chapter will contain specific tags as to what type of story it is, but a majority of what you might find are crossover ideas that I never really will get the chance to write personally, but the concept of it is open for anyone to try.

As for how the story is presented, it’s in a format similar to the audio podcast that I’ve been enjoying over the last few weeks named Midst. With the complete first season being out on YouTube.

Feedback is appreciated, but this is mostly to serve as a place for me to leave loose ideas that happen to linger around in my head. Regardless, I still hope you enjoy it and perhaps it might inspire someone to expand beyond a base concept. My goal is to try and add an update to this once a month or so, allowing me to put together the ideas and make them presentable.

Despite being listed as ‘Complete’, I will still update this whenever a new idea comes to mind and I have the urge to write.

Cover image isn't mine, but found on Google Images.

Thank you for supporting me over the years. I hope you guys enjoy some of these loose ideas and thoughts that linger in my mind.

Being seniors at Canterlot High has some advantages. For the fall semester, Sunset Shimmer, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Twilight Sparkle won't actually be at CHS. Instead, the girls made it into a competitive foreign exchange program, which is sending them to Tokyo for the semester! Having taken Japanese as their foreign language credits, the girls joined the exchange program to open themselves up to a broader world.

Among the many experiences the exchange program exposed the girls to is the newest and hottest technology, the NerveGear, which brings virtual reality to a whole new level. Sword Art Online, also known as SAO, is the premier game soon to be released for the NerveGear. With their new friend, Ota Natsuki, they scored limited copies and get to be some of the 10,000 players to first experience Aincrad, but SAO is more than a game.

The girls are trapped, along with the other 10,000 players, by Akihiko Kayaba, the developer of the NerveGear and SAO. To get out, they must conquer Aincrad, floor by floor, until they beat the final boss in the Ruby Palace at it's summit. Then they all will be freed, however, if you die in the game, you die in real life.

The girls must band together with their new friend and face Aincrad, not just for themselves, but for all of the other players who can't take on such a challenge. After all they have been through, beating demons and sirens, a game should be easy, right?

EQG: Sword Art Online - Ruby Palace is not a sequel to EQG:SAO - Aincrad and, likewise, Ruby Palace is not a "rewrite". I chose to follow SOA Canon in Aincrad, placing the girls inside those events. Ruby Palace is a full crossover and Alt-U between EQG and SAO.

The Vignette Arcs are not required reading to follow the story, but they are recommended. The Pilot Episodes are the official start of the story.

Special Thanks to my editor, Void Runner and my beta reader, Cotton Sweet.
Artwork - Wing banners and page breaks are by Drytil.

Sword Art Online is created by Reki Kawahara.
My Little Pony is owned by Hasbro.

Shortly after leaving the Crystal Empire castle to live a more humble and ordinary life among their subjects, Princess Cadence and Shining Armor decide to have a foal. Instead, they get two, and they couldn't be happier. They tried.

Skyla is a normal, if very hungry, alicorn filly. Her sister Inova is a reborn human, though nopony knows that, not even herself.

This is a substantial rewrite of the original story, with some new scenes, better writing, and a few things removed as well. Chapters will be released when they're good and ready, instead of evil and unprepared.

Celestia, Princess of the Sun and Princess of Equestria, has led a long life. She's made a lot of decisions, for good and for ill, and she's decided it's time to quit. Twilight Sparkle, her faithful student and fellow Princess, will assume the crown and rule Equestria in a month's time with the help of her friends. But before that can happen, Celestia has to host one last Grand Galloping Gala. She decided it would go out with a bang.

That was last night.

Today, the Princess awakens with a ring on her horn and a strange earth pony in her bathroom. She's hungover, and the pounding in her skull triggers some memories of events she pushed far out of her mind for many years. Because Princess Celestia wasn't always a Princess or even Celestia.

And her new husband won't stop running his mouth.

(Cover art by cadillac_dynamite.)

Sunset Shimmer, personal student of Princess Celestia, is the most gifted Unicorn in Equestria. She has long-neglected personal connections in favor of studying and ambition. Celestia, concerned by her student's behavior, searches for a way to help her student grow as a pony. As a last resort, her thoughts turn to Starswirl's Magic Mirror, that it could show Sunset a new way, or to a path of darkness, but then something or rather somepony comes as her solution. Sunset now finds herself teaching her own student, a bookish and anti-social young Unicorn named Twilight Sparkle. Can the two form an actual connection, or will their anti-social tendencies lead to disaster?

(A What if scenario where instead of showing Sunset Shimmer the Magic Mirror Celestia brings Twilight Sparkle to her to teach)

It's always been fun playing Dungeons and Dragons with the girls. Applejack never gave thought to running a campaign herself until their group hit a wall. Sunset's game had just finished, Twilight wasn't ready to start a new one, and no one else volunteered. It was Applejack or bust.

But she wasn't much into dragons, glowing swords, and all that. As her writing slows to a crawl, Applejack takes a walk outside in search of inspiration...

Edited & Proofread by: Ahroozle & Cupute
Cover art by: | Cupute |

Based on Snowcrash & Tron with a hint of Mr. Robot

Have you ever just been having a regular day, then suddenly, BAM, you're dead? Well, no, of course you haven't. But what do you expect to happen after you die? If the answer was getting shoved into an overly pink copy of a pony princess, you'd be lying. Worse yet, she made me an alicorn just like her, which causes a whole new set of problems.

Unfortunately, she was adamant that I stay and become her twin sister. I ditched her immediately in my bumbling confusion and fear, and who could blame me? The last thing on my mind was being here! Ponies, princesses, and twin sisters? What kind of fantasy story was that? I was on the run, hiding from guard patrols, and fighting for my next meal. However, my own hubris caught up to me in the end, and her super powerful mother, Cadance, found me and made me see how stupid I was being. And Cadance, is an absolutely crazy powerful pony, with an even more powerful maternal instinct. So when it came down to her word against mine, she was really hard to convince, and she wasn't taking no for an answer.

(AKA, Super wholesome, fluffy, found family. And me having fun tugging on heartstrings.)
(Cover image by: me)

When you woke up one morning, you weren't expecting to be greeted by candy-colored ponies ruled by a tyrant named Nightmare Moon. You also weren't expecting her to take such a liking to you. She's a bit cruel to her subjects, but you admittedly don't mind the preferential treatment she gives you. So... maybe you like her back?

Perhaps love is the one thing she's been missing.