Sunset Shimmer isn't like the other Freshman in Canterlot High School. While so many others explain away the strange things that happen in their town, she knows better. There's an entire world out there, a world of magic and incredible creatures, one that she's determined to reach.

Careful study and preparation brings her to the portal in front of her school, at the last moment of its opening. Sunset doesn't have a clue what might be waiting on the other side, but she's sure it will lead her to the magic she's always wanted.

No matter what it costs.

Updates Tuesdays.

This story was sponsored by my glorious enablers Bitera and Sparktail, who also did the editing. I know I don't deserve it. Want one of your own? Drop me a PM. Cover by Zutcha.

This story is a sequel to A Foreign Education

Twilight was sixteen when she became an alicorn. She hasn't aged a day since. Some ponies ask her what it's like, not being able to grow up.

Twilight can't really say. She's never known anything else.

It has been several years since Chrysalis’ defeat during the Canterlot invasion. Since then, the fortunes of her changelings and kingdom have rapidly declined. With mass starvation, ponies capturing more of her spies and love collectors every day, and her own powers diminished to the point of being a complete non-threat to her enemies, she fears that it may soon be over for both herself and her entire race.

As Chrysalis reminisces about past failures, a pony named Time Keeper crashes a large metal box into her bedchambers. He claims to not only be a time traveller but also to have accidentally killed Twilight Sparkle on the day she was supposed to go to Ponyville to defeat Nightmare Moon.

In an effort to avoid the prospect of the universe tearing itself apart at the seams from the ensuing paradox, Chrysalis agrees to go back in time and live out a facsimile of Twilight’s life herself, and if time allows, she'll work on her own little project: shaping the future more to her own liking.

Baked Bean, an aspiring writer of questionable skill, has come across the perfect source of inspiration: the Castle of the Two Sisters. All it will take is a quick trip through the Everfree Forest, and a new world of potential writing prompts will be his for the taking.

Once there, however, he finds there's more to the Castle—and the old legends surrounding it—than he ever imagined, and an ancient law will force him to mate with all of the Royal Princesses...

...whether he likes it or not.

This story is an alternate take on No Nose Knows, so expect plenty of polygamous shenanigans.

Sex tag is for references. Ye be warned.

Edited by Zen and Ponies, Sipioc, Georg, and Spartanpony007!

Cover art commissioned by an anonymous fan and drawn by Apricalico!
Much thanks to Sipioc for the original cover art!

Death learns that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna will be retiring after nearly a thousand years as rulers of Equestria and he couldn't be more happy about it.

A bit of a spoilers based on the Trailer shown recently. A simple one shot that I was inspired to make because of it. - Rated Pontstar.

Pre-Read and Edited by B_25

A large corporation in Manehattan hires you to fulfill the Diversity and Inclusion goals and reach the target numbers on the key metrics such as the absence of gender and racial bias. They specialize in customized spell solutions, distributed enchantment systems and cloud mana storage: three things that you, a human, didn't know even exist.

To their surprise, you are not entirely useless.

This is an RGRE (Reversed Gender Roles Equestria) story. You were warned.

Huge thanks to Vayne Hellslinger and SirReal for helping me to make this stuff more readable.

After losing her hive, Queen Chrysalis is forced to start another one. Luckily she has the help of a few loyal subjects who never accepted their fellow changelings new way of life. They must stay hidden from enemies, collect enough food to survive and rebuild their strength. Now the first brood has hatched and there is something very different about one of the larva.

Cadance starts a paid dating service, doubling as a firm for both marriage and divorce law, and hires a 'reformed' Chrysalis as an intern.

Nopony's relationship is safe, least of all her own.

[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.

Pinocchio wasn't the only wooden puppet to become a real person.

There are other puppets out there, animal-like beings controlled by quasi-intelligent trees. Ponies call them timberwolves and know them as nothing but beasts. But what happens if one of those beasts were to gain the intelligence and ambition of one of the most successful hunters in the universe, a human?

This story loosely shares continuity from Split Second: An Eternity Divided. Reading that is not required at all.

Has a Tv Tropes page.
Featured on EQD: 10/2/2015