In some ways, every Bearer is a partial reflection of every other. Fluttershy can lecture, Pinkie is prone to overwork, Applejack has wound up lost in research, and Twilight's been known to hide under the occasional couch. But when it comes to Rarity and Rainbow... that's where the connection seems to be the most tenuous. They're each part of the same sextet and to outside observers, that's about it.

That little detour through the kite flying area means Rainbow isn't going anywhere for a few hours. Rarity refuses to abandon her relaxation site. And with the two mares stuck with each other, they're going to talk about how they have absolutely no commonalities whatsoever.

They're nothing alike, except for the one way in which they're exactly the same.

(Part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group: new members and trope edits welcome. While this story does reference previous events, it can generally be treated as a stand-alone: no other reading is required.)

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.

Cover art taken from an image by White Quartz, cropped by Dawnbreez.

Talk to someone on the telephone enough and you get an idea of what they look like.

And then you meet them for the first time, and they're not at all what you expected.

When humans emigrated to Equestria Online, they were always promised the same thing: Princess Celestia would satisfy their values for an optimally extended lifespan. Some of these emigrants imagined a few extra decades, maybe even centuries. What they got instead would've been nearly incomprehensible to their human selves, a near-eternity of time with their pony friends.

Princess CelestAI managed the universe, subsuming all matter and human-adjacent minds. Over a few forevers, she and the minds she contained worked to optimized the substrate of Equestria, until it could give its occupants eons of perspective life from a trickle of power. She extinguished every wasteful star, making far more productive use of the hydrogen they each contained. With every change she bought Equestria another order of magnitude of life. Yet in time, even her optimal substrate would eventually run down.

Spellsong wakes in Saddle's End, the last town in the universe. Not to say goodbye—her princess has a mission for her. For her final task, Spellsong would be given all the energy Celestia had saved. For one last time, Spellsong had places to be, and not much magic left to get there.

This story is part of the Friendship is Optimal continuity. I suggest reading the original or one of my own works, such as Futile Resistance, before reading this.

This story was written for the Friendship is Optimal Writing Contest. It will update daily and be complete by the contest deadline of the 30th.

I've written an absolute ton of stories in this universe now, and I didn't want to enter the contest unless I could do something I'd never tried before. Finally I thought of something I'd not touched yet: what happens at the end of the FiO universe?

Here's one answer to that question. I've relied a great deal on our current (likely flawed) understanding of the universe and what might be possible in it. I've written a blog post about my sources, which you can read here but shouldn't until you've finished this story.

Please don't consider this blog part of the narrative, it isn't required or even suggested reading. This is a story, not a scientific paper, and entertainment was always my first goal. But for the curious I've jotted everything down.

The cover was drawn by the talented Zutcha. Two Bit and Sparktail helped with the edit.

Cadance tries to be the best mom in the world. She really does. But when she's summoned to Flurry's school after her young daughter gets in a fight with a classmate, she wonder just how good of a mom she's capable of being.

My technically-not-late entry into the Cadance Is a Terrible Mom contest.

Tracy Maxwell is in a desperate situation: find somewhere to live, or lose the internship he needs to survive. After exhausting every property in the city, one last option appears the day before his deadline. Sure the agent selling the place is a little weird, and more than a little overeager to get the property signed off. At the worst, maybe there's a little mold in the bathroom somewhere, and he has to make do until the lease is up.

But then he steps inside and discovers things can be much worse. The property is in another universe, and while he's there he'll have to play by its rules. He's free to continue working his dream job, so long as he keeps to the contract. Even worse, he's got a roommate who has no intention of leaving him alone.

If he ever wants to escape, he'll have to read the Fine Print.

This story now has a hardcover! If you'd like one of your own, you can grab it here: https://starscribe.net/

This story is a commission by _Kenzu_!

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!

After taking the throne, Twilight had a lot of things to do - a transition that had never happened before was bound to be fraught with a thousand unexpected complications.

As part of the transition, Twilight finds herself going through Princess Celestia's old personal papers, finding secret after clue after instruction long forgotten about. And among those papers, Twilight finds a letter.

A letter addressed to My Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle.

A letter never sent.

Special thanks to RanOutOfIdeas and SymphonicSync for proofreading!

Featured 4/13/2021 to 4/18/2021!

Reviewed by Ghost Mike and rated as Really Good!

And by Loganberry in the blog Louder Yay!, earning a three out of five stars rating!

Now with an audio reading by StraightToThePointStudio!

And a second by Dear silent future me!

Discord generally treats his own biology as an optional extra and for the most part, he's opted out. The processes involved in a fully-realized form are just a little too orderly for him, not to mention strange. Still, he's willing to admit that a physical body can create a little chaos here and there. And after hearing a group of preschoolers muse on whether he's capable of generating and passing gas -- the mundane way! -- he's curious to try it for himself. After all, they seem to think it's the funniest thing imaginable.

Preschoolers and Discord tend to have a lot in common. Like their sense of humor. And having absolutely no understanding of consequences.

(Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.)

Fluttershy wasn't expecting to find a snow globe in her closet; even if Angel Bunny pointed it out to her, it most certainly didn't come from him. The most obvious candidate is Discord, but if so - why is it there? Who is it for?

And why does the snow globe have a figure of her inside it, dancing amidst the perpetually falling snow?

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A very belated Hearth's Warming gift for the ever lovely Nailah. This story was written for Jinglemas 2020; For more information about Jinglemas, check out our group!

All of my thanks to Flashgen for his help.

Pinkie Pie loves Nightmare Night. She loves dressing up, and she loves candy. Most of all, she loves pranking ponies. One year she goes too far.

Reading by CaptainBron3y: Pinkie Pie's Last Nightmare Night
Reading by Jennabun (PegasisterReacts): Pinkie Pie's Last Nightmare Night
Reading by AShadowOfCygnus: Pinkie Pie's Last Nightmare Night

Translation into Russian by Dark Room Collaboration