Whatever and whatnot found below.

449080
deep man.

449100 Deep, eh?

Well, since all the real answers are barely fit for public consumption, I'm going to go with:

Take the Mary Sue X Challenge. Just to see what comes out. Blame Ezn.

453413
I've been hearing a lot about Ezn lately.
What's the Mary Sue X Challenge?

454121
SWOOOOP!

tl;dr: Write a story about your self-insert going to Equestria, turning into a pony, having one of the mane six fall in love with him and then becoming an alicorn. And make it good. And get it accepted on EqD.

It's been up for over a year and still no-one's managed.

454408
Suddenly... Ezn.

It's funny. After writing that last post I realized you were one of the new members. Crazy coincidences.
So welcome! I'm very glad to have you here!

Incidentally, I posted your guide under 'Resources'. It's pretty awesome.

Despite EQD no longer accepting 'Brony in Equestria' stories, this challenge is still rather tempting. I remember I once had a concept for a webcomic where a narrator version of myself would irritate the living daylights out of a character version of myself by changing story elements until she fought back and made her own decisions. Scrapped it for time and effort.

Also, I once took a Mary Sue Litmus Test using myself as the character and the quiz told me to kill myself. I guess I shouldn't expect any less from the internet.

455476

Despite EQD no longer accepting 'Brony in Equestria' stories, this challenge is still rather tempting.

Exactly. There's no challenge like a 'you couldn't do that' challenge.

It just requires you to have the stones to self-insert and make yourself balanced enough to carry a story. Like I said, not quite ready for that hill yet, but I definitely wish I had the courage for it.

-Scott

455476
455909

The game is rigged in that regard; stories with that sort of content are automatically filtered out and not sent to the pre-readers.

456011 It's not about actually winning the prize, it's about the kudos of just doing it well at all.

456011 Who filters them out? There are pre-prereaders? Is that what it means when a rejection is signed by "The Equestria Daily Staff" instead of a specific pre-reader?

610104

The people who filter things are pre-readers as well and fulfill the same duties with the exception that they also manage the slush pile and incoming/outgoing e-mails to and from the recipients. They are known colloquially as "ficboxers" because they run the fan-fiction submission box. And yes, that's what the "The EqD Team" signature usually means.