THIS IS NOT MY STORY!

Well, not only mine, anyway. Each author is listed with the chapter. A lot of people like writing short fiction based on Friendship is Optimal. So, anyone who wants their work added here can PM me and I will make you your own chapter. The first one sets up an in-universe frame story, because the Optimalverse is all meta like that.

Credits:

Iceman for writing the original Friendship is Optimal
Eakin for spearheading the project of anthologizing these.
MegaSweet for the original artwork.
Lacon-te for the photomosaic work.

An A.I. awakens aboard the HKS Dancer, a desolate and quiet ship. The crew of which is nowhere to be found. And in the wake of all of this the A.I. discovers something.... something peculiar.

A super cool 3d model that is relevant to this story.

Dusk just wanted to go to a picnic with his best friends before spending a relaxing weekend reading, but fate had other plans; namely his older brother's surprise wedding. Rainbow Dash and Rarity broke up, or at least Rainbow thinks they did. Canterlot has been threatened, and the one behind it is closer to the throne than ever. The guards put in place to combat the danger are being lead by Shining Armor's second-in-command Spearhead Sentry, who is spending more time fussing over his little brother Flash and being scared out of his mind by the fearsomely enigmatic Captain Spitfire to focus on training. Princess Luna and her personal guard of vampiric soldiers walk the streets enforcing a curfew, keeping the citizens safe at the expense of their freedoms. Dusk's old friends from school, the bridesmaids in the upcoming wedding between their own best friend and his older brother, miss him... but he doesn't even remember them anymore. The Queen of the Changelings is mobilizing her forces to destroy Princess Celestia and steal the Elements of Harmony, and she doesn't care how many innocent lives she destroys to do it...

The pieces are in place, and Dusk will have a lot on his plate over the next few days. It's a good thing he won't be facing it alone.

/x/x/x/

Fireflies AU: all equine characters are human, all other characters are anthro, and Twilight has been gender-flipped to Dusk Shine. This is just a snippet of the main story to showcase certain select aspects of worldbuilding, character backstory, lore, and the way magic operates in this AU, as well as the way I utilize retroactive continuity to bring characters introduced later on in the series than the Season 2 finale into play [such as Sunset Shimmer, Flash Sentry, Minuette, Thorax, Starlight, Sunburst, Tempest, and others pending Season 8 and whenever the fifth Equestria Girls movie is released] as well as events from the comics in order to allow for more plot developments. A teaser of sorts for the real thing, if you will. I also make many characters siblings (Spearhead and Flash), and make many other characters openly LGBT or otherwise queer.
Ships: contains Raridash, Dusk Shine X Flash Sentry, allusions to PinkieJack and ScootaBelle, one-sided crushes from Fluttershy to Rainbow and Rarity, from Minuette and Celestia to Dusk, and from Flash Sentry to Sunset Shimmer.
Sex tag for Rainbow and Rarity being intimate, Chrysalis having freaky bug sex, an allusion to an attempted rape, and for a frank discussion between Dusk and Flash about being queer.
Gore tag for Thorax getting his ass kicked in, an unnamed character getting his ass kicked in, bloodied and dead soldiers and changelings, and for an attempted gallows hanging.

This story is a sequel to Gears in the Void

Beyond the Crystal Mountains lies the Frozen North, its original name long forgotten behind a barrier of icy spires and temperatures low enough to flash freeze a pegasus. The last attempt to revisit the birthplace of ponies failed decades ago, and the princesses believe it is time for another attempt.

Two weeks after the events of Gears in the Void, Sterling Gears is still adjusting to what she has lost, but when a hero and the princesses ask her to do what she does best, how can she refuse?

The North awaits. She just has to answer the call.

Part 2 of The Tinker's Journey.

Living in Equestria under a false name and racial identity is one thing. Finding out you're not the only one of your kind stranded here is another... especially when that someone and the element bearers are looking for you.

Being my first attempt at a first-person romantic comedy, this takes a slightly different approach to the concept of being a human stranded in Equestria.

Enjoy.

Big thanks to DVAN56 for editing. Go check out his work!

Time after time, through chaos and through wars, Princess Celestia prevailed.

Of all the terrible forces she could have fallen to, Flim Flam Industry was the last one anypony had expected.

With thanks to gardrek for editing (3-6) and PinkieDP, Ice Star, and Odd_Sarge for prereading help.

This story is a sequel to Mechanical Aptitude

Six Elements of Harmony.

One hundred and eighteen Elements of the Periodic Table.

Let's see who blinks first.

(A collection of irregular short pieces focused on the ponies (and sundry) of Equestria dealing with the other fundamental building blocks of the universe -- more or less. Most of them will be part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page, FIMFiction group, and a newborn character page: new members and trope edits are welcome. However, these can be read as standalones, and no knowledge of the others is required.)

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.

Open Concept: any author who wants to write and post a TEoE story themselves has my express permission to go for it.

Yer invited. All y'all... to this wonderful, glorious cosmos filled with billions upon billions of fruit for all kinds of ponies to sink their purdy lil' teeth into. And not just any fruit, ya reckon? But somethin' that fills our tummies and makes our horse hearts soar to the stars.

Howdy. I'm Professor Applejack. And this is the History of the Apple.

Vector by luckreza8

Forward Charge had always thought her life was pretty great. She got born, went to school, discovered a love of astrophysics, and managed to work at the Royal Observatory on top of Mt. Pluto while still conspiring with her fellow Discordians to overthrow the Princesses and establish Chaos forevermore.

Then she met a new immigrant, went on a short journey to another world, and found out that her entire life had... only semi-happened. Her entire world, and her life with it, was algorithmically generated by Princess Celestia (who really was a scheming superintelligent creep and not a pony at all! YES! VINDICATION!) to entice the people of the Outer Realm into Equestria, where Celestia could feed off their happiness forevermore.

And so, one night, staring up at the stars, Forward Charge conceived her revenge. Now she just had to find a friend to teach her more mathematics and go where the stars pointed her.

Of course, her friends are busy ponies. Fern Pipette is rather angrily trying to introduce a concept known as "species" to the cute birdies of Equestria, Charge's adopted little brother doesn't know enough math, and apparently the Harmonites are busy with their newly-obtained Sacred and Holy DVD Box Set of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Welp.

Celestia is far from an ordinary filly. The wings on her back and horn on her head have made that quite clear. In the corrupt, poverty-ridden world of steam and grime that she calls home, judgement against alicorns is swift and final by order of the Lord of Chaos that ponies have learned to worship.

The road to safety is far from welcoming, and fate has greater ambitions in mind than freedom for Equestria's last surviving alicorns.

(A steampunk-ish interpretation of Celestia's origin story and Equestria's historical past. Book One of a planned Three) Special thanks to Ice Star for prereading and editing help