Fluorescence's mom helps run the pony side of the portal between Equestria and Earth. Taylor's mom does a similar job on the human side. So Fluor has known Taylor for, like, ever, and they share a fascination with the portal and how it works. This fascination only occasionally leads to interdimensional disasters.

A magical universe and a science-based universe may sit uneasily side by side, but friendship knows no boundaries.

This is an entry in the Science Fiction Contest III.

3/14/24 Still Alive Edition

There's only one pony in Ponyville that the Mane Six have never met. Pinkie Pie has never thrown him a party, Applejack has never sold him a mug of cider, and Twilight has never seen him check out any books. And as far as that unicorn, Lapis Print, is concerned, that's exactly how it should be.

Lapis can't risk them knowing where he lives, what he does for a living, or even what his name is - if he gets his way, the Mane Six won't even know he exists, and nopony in Ponyville will miss him once he's gone.

It should be a piece of cake - after all, it's not like the biggest magical power in Equestria is about making sure everypony looks out for each other, right?

(Rated Teen for language - mental cursing mostly.)

Formal Premise: The inventors of the Mirror wanted to create a device that could channel infinite magic and grant wishes. The hard part was making sure those wishes would never destroy the world. Showing a person their heart's desire is a sensible precaution to put into a wish-granting machine designed NOT to go horribly wrong.

The Atlanteans got close, even managing to imbue some amount of intelligence and morality into the Mirror. But they never finished their work; the Mirror never DID get to the point where it could grant wishes... at least, nobody believes it ever got to that point. But then, nobody has ever been trapped inside the Mirror and returned to tell the tale.

When the Mirror traps someone inside itself and outside of Time, that person and their consequences can no longer affect the world. In that circumstance, with a person fully under its power, the Mirror isn't limited in what it can do. Sometimes, it can even grant seemingly incompatible wishes.

But complex problems require complex solutions. In this case, the Mirror takes a few massive liberties about how, exactly, it satisfies the wishes of both Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. Namely, it sends them to a world of ponies.

Informal Premise: This is a crossover between MLP and Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, not just Harry Potter. No matter how accessible I try to make it to those who haven't read HPMoR, those who HAVE read it will undeniably have an easier experience reading this story.

HPMoR is the second most popular fanfiction of Harry Potter, at least according to fanfiction stats. It involves Harry studying & dissecting the wizarding world with science. Not with technology, with actual science. That is, he uses the experimental method, generates and tests hypotheses, and in the words of his Occlumency instructor, "wants to discover the underlying rules of magic to become all-poweful".

THIS fanfic brings THAT version of Harry Potter to Equestria. It also brings that story's version of Voldemort.

If you want the best reading experience, please go read HPMoR first. It can be found on fanfiction dot net, or on its own website, or even on any podcast app, as it has its own fan-made audiobook with 30+ contributing voice actors, production quality, sound effects, music, etc. (which is more than can be said for most PROFESSIONAL audiobooks).

Link to HPMoR on fanfiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Methods-of-Rationality
Link to HPMoR on its own website: http://www.hpmor.com/chapter/1
Link to audiobook (though the website isn't nearly as good as podcast apps): https://hpmorpodcast.com/?page_id=56

All forms of HPMoR that I've encountered are high quality, but that doesn't mean it's for everyone. You can probably read the first few chapters of HPMoR in thirty minutes or so. If it doesn't appeal to you, this story probably won't appeal to you either.

For those who haven't read Methods and want to read this story anyway, the first two chapters are going to be the most confusing. They're mostly housekeeping and stage-setting, barely touching the MLP universe beyond the new setting.

And I think the same advice Yudkowsky gave for HPMoR applies here. The story starts hitting its strides around Chapter 5, if not sooner. If you don't like it by Chapter 10, best just to give up and read something else.

A young man lost in the hilly embrace of a mountain sleeps the night away under a knot of tree roots. When he wakes he will find himself thrust into a strange new environment, the Everfree Forest. With only his pack and his experience as a Boy Scout to aid him, he must survive, make sense of his surroundings and with some luck, ultimately find his way home. What does one do after wandering beyond the edge of the map? And better yet...

What if you are not alone?

I have been reading fan fiction here for a while and wanted to give something back.
My first fiction ever so constructive criticism is welcome. Fair warning, it takes a while for me to write a chapter so expect gaps between updates.

[Hiatus notice: As of 10/1/2022 this fiction is on hiatus so I may focus on other projects and items, will resume at a later date.]

Rated teen for strong language

Awesome cover art by Carnelian. Seriously, the guy has major skills with how fast he drew this up.

and of course ALL CHARACTERS / REFERENCES BELONG TO THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS. “MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC” IS OWNED BY HASBRO

NO PROFIT WAS MADE IN THE CREATION / DISTRIBUTION PLEASE DONT SUE ME OR ANY PARTY THAT DISTRIBUTES THIS WORK (unless they try to sell it, then by all means go nuts)

[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.

This story is a sequel to What I've Done

This is the third book in The Humanity Within Trilogy. If you haven't read the other two books first, go back and do that now. Don't worry, this will still be here when you get back...

Also, if you've already finished this trilogy, you should be happy to know that the next book in the series, A Darkened Sky, is out right now! Go read it, follow it, and all that stuff!

I don't know what to believe anymore. I was sure they were all monsters, all demons bent on destroying any peace I and my new friends might find in this life.

I was wrong.

Instead of burning this world down around me, their weapons are pointed away from the planet, not towards it.

As if that conundrum wasn't perplexing enough, I also have to deal with finding my own place in this odd, yet familiar society. But how does one simply go back to being normal? Especially knowing that the real monsters that caused this mess in the first place could be just around the corner?

After all, it's not like I'll ever see my home planet again. They may not be here to hurt me or my friends, but I still don't trust these 'friendly' aliens to get me a ride home...

This story is a sequel to What I've Become

It is highly recommended that you read What I've Become before you read this story, since this is the second story in The Humanity Within Trilogy, and you will be lost if you just plunge into this without any preparation.

Also, this story already has a sequel: What I Am!

Things have been turning up roses for me lately. I'm no longer fighting to survive, I have people that I can turn to, and I have my face back, all because of the kindness shown to me by strangers.
But will they continue to help me once they find out what dark secrets haunt my past? Will they shun me for the evil deeds that my abductors forced me to do while I was in their service? Will they continue to protect me from the monsters that destroyed my life, once they realize what kind of monster I really am?
How does one forgive a murderer?
WOOT! Feature the day it came out! (how did that happen?) 12/1/2014
Edited by Malefactory. He is fantastic at this kind of thing!
Proofread by Cantankerous. He's freaking amazing.
Also proofread by PhiliChez.
Cover Image done by the very talented PaintSplotch! You can find his FimFic account here.
And here is his DeviantArt Account!

This is the first book of The Humanity Within Trilogy. Its sequel is What I've Done.

I wasn't always like this, a monster, running through the woods on an alien planet. I was once a man. I had dreams, a girlfriend, and a great job.
Then They came. In the middle of the night, They scooped me from my home, and... changed me.

Now I'm a beast, a demon the like of which the world I've become stranded on has never seen before, scraping by on the fringes of society, hiding from the natives, and doing my best to avoid notice.

After all, who could ever be friends with a monster?

Cover Image done by the very talented PaintSplotch! You can find his FimFic account here.
And here is his DeviantArt Account!
Now 100% approved by Twilight's Library!
Mad props to my prereaders:
ThatPonyWithASword.
Admiral Applejack.
JXWheeler

Given a unique perspective on negative emotion, less than a foal's knowledge of ordinary magic, a healthy schadenfreude, and danger bearing down on all sides, the self-proclaimed "Weiss Noir" makes no plans accounting for his death, and plans to keep it that way, even after being torn away from earth, turned into a unicorn, and dumped into one of the most inhospitable locations and times in all of Equestria.

Stranded in the Frozen North, a place where biting cold ends lives, and one thousand years in the past, in a time when peril is the norm, rather than the exception, Weiss decides to indulge in sorcery most foul, stolen ideas, and human ingenuity to survive.

Given the choice between a mad slaver and a mad sage, however, there is no avoiding an inevitable tide of ponies escaping the conquered Crystal Empire to bask in the warmth of his well-stoked hate. Something which draws attention, enemies, and most worryingly, the rivalry of his "peers".

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