Why does Starlight have a crush on Trixie? What made her think this way? And should she ask her out or not?

Starlight has a lot of questions for herself and they're very confusing. Surely she should be able to find the answers to them if she just gets a second to clear her head. After all, she's the most powerful unicorn spellcaster alive! There's nothing she cannot do if she approaches it with a rational, reasonable mindset.

Probably.

Written for the StarTrixMaud contest. Editing help provided by Lofty Withers and WritingSpirit.

Beyond Equestria, the lands to the north are hostile and unforgiving. Ponies eke out a subsistence in uncontrollable weather, separated by mile after frigid mile of snow and mountains. A land where only the hardiest survive is no place for civilization.

Yet civilization encroaches from time to time. When a colossal bounty is placed on the head of a unicorn deep in the arts of necromancy, a motley crew of bounty hunters assembles and gives chase. It’s too good a chance to pass up. They’ll bring her to justice, no matter what stands in their way. Not her dark magic. Not the inhospitable environment.

And certainly not each other.

Other entries in this series:

• Hinterlands
• Urban Wilds
• Death Valley

Magic isn’t real. Twilight Sparkle abandoned that fantasy in her childhood, along with nonsense like pony princesses and myths of a monster in the moon. The only thing worth believing in is that which can be proved—scientifically, of course.

But then a series of un-scientific phenomena starts happening at Canterlot High. The magic-obsessed transfer student won’t leave her alone, a vivid nightmare haunts her dreams with increasing intensity, and her benevolent mentor-slash-principal is clearly hiding something big. Everywhere she turns there’s talk and sight of magic; rumours of a thousand-year old prophecy and a monster returning to seek revenge. And worst of all? Twilight finds herself almost willing to believe it.

Almost. Good thing she’s smart enough not to, right?

An EQG-adjacent retelling of the season one opener. Sciset. Animated trailer. Reviewed by PaulAsaran. Art by me!

In the magical land of Equestria the borders are kept by the watchful eyes of the fourth tribe. Evergreen Hold, one village among many, guards the endless forests along Equestria's southwest border. But lately something new has crept into the forest, it seems there is a change in the air...

Many thanks to Destiny Chaser and Comma Typer for their encouragement, and to ClockworkMage for his gracious help in editing this. Any errors that remain exist by my own efforts.

Cover art generously provided by Comma Typer.

A translation into Spanish Generously provided by SPANIARD KIWI.
Halvard y la reina amable

Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia's precocious student, wants to know why it can't be teatime all the time. Princess Celestia's response comes in the form of a story, The Tale of the Dark Empress of Teatime.

In this tale, Sunny Sunshine goes to pay the Dark Empress of Teatime a visit, and comes home a different pony.

Technically an entry in the Weedverse, but stands alone and takes place in pre-history.

This story is a sequel to p-value

Shortdesc

Destabilized by Equestrian magic, Wallflower’s world is dying. For its sake, Sunset had to leave forever. All Wallflower can do is hold on to the last connection they still have: the journal Sunset left behind.

Review

Long-Distance is a wrenching story and more than one of our judges said that, though they won’t ever be able to bring themselves to re-read it, it will stay with us for a long time. Everything is ending, it may or may not be anyone’s fault, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. The time it will take to reach that final tragedy doesn’t make it any less remote. Sunset and Wallflower are separated across worlds, and have only Sunset’s journal to link them. One of them will die and the other will live on. They’re left to learn how to cope with and share and grieve the time they have left.

Long-Distance is superbly written, with just enough detail about the nature of the tragedy to make it feel realized without overwhelming readers with exposition. There’s a novel’s worth of story in this short story, but none of it feels compressed. Sunset and Wallflower’s tightly written, wrenching, and affecting, and the last chapter left us breathless.

--Judges of Scampy's SunFlower Shipping Contest

The result was an emotional tale of making the best out of a bad situation through inevitability and – if you’ll pardon the title drop – long distance. Bicyclette’s work is a delightful story that exemplifies how to Show a hard-hitting story through meaningful dialogue, contextual narrative clues, vivid scene setting, and a firm grasp of the characters and their struggles.

--PaulAsaran, Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXLVII

Contest

Literal last-minute entry to Scampy's SunFlower Shipping Contest, and now unexpectedly the fourth-place winner. Go read the other entries please, there's a lot of good stuff in there!

I originally pulled this story for revisions after the contest results came out. I regret this, and I am sorry.

Credits

Thanks to Sledge115 for emotional support!

This story is a sequel to Blessing

All Rainbow wanted to do was give her friends what she saw as the ultimate gift: the placement of their marks within the night sky. But the offer was a lie. And after Twilight finds out what happened with Rainbow's trial run, she heads off to confront the con artists and get Rainbow's bits back. After all, nopony can just go and create an official constellation just because they feel like it.

But recovering the money isn't that simple.

And neither are constellations.

(Part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group: new members and trope edits are welcome. However, this story can be read as a stand-alone, with no knowledge of the others required -- and while it's technically a sequel, it's not necessary to have read the previous story first.)

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.

Wallflower Blush finally has friends of her own. She’s accepted, tolerated, treated with kindness and respect. For once, she has a place where she belongs.

Or she would, if she weren’t the only one of the group to not have magic of her own, now that she’s lost the Memory Stone.

Fortunately, someone can help her with that. Unfortunately, the price may be higher than Wallflower thinks...

Cover art edited and assembled by forbloodysummer, using work by ShiroSotutsu and TwistedScarlett60.

Everyone has to sleep eventually—everyone, which means that at some point Sunset's new roommate is going to have to stop messing around with her computer and go to bed. But somehow the one-and-only Twilight Sparkle doesn't need to obey the laws of the universe, and therefore she might just be the one-and-only person who never sleeps.

Written as a study on narrative and preconception. Recommended by TCC56. Reviewed by PaulAsaran. Cover art by localsya. Interior art by me!

In a bar somewhere in Griffonstone, Gilda tells the tale of the best and worst relationship of her life.

Entry into Bicyclette's Crackship Contest 2022
Thanks to Mitch H and Solstice Shimmer for editing.
Cover image based on this image by PyroPk

“For a relationship that should have been acid all the way down, I like that there was some genuine connection at the heart of it. Beneath about fifty layers of acid, of course. They're sweethearts really.”

— Botched Lobotomy

“This is peak Gilda.”

— FanOfMostEverything