There's a new filly in Celestia's school, who finds making friends difficult. She's seated next to a filly who could care less about making friends. Neither is exactly friend material... but sometimes you just have to take a risk...

For more of this AU, see:

Series 1:

• Not Exactly Friends
• Shelter of the Storm
• Without Your Cutie Mark
• Never Any Doubt
• Sunset -- Part I and Part II
• Saving Sunset Shimmer
• By the Light of the Moon
• Trixie Luna Moon
• Ring Around the Moon -- Part I and Part II

Series 2:

• A Canterlot Engagement
• The Restless Princess
• Where Trouble Goes
• Meet the Sparkles
• Who Needs Enemies -- Part I and Part II
• The Visiting Team -- Part I
• The Visiting Team -- Part II
• What Nightmares Fear
• Hearth's Warming, AP Class

Starlight Glimmer must work alongside some unlikely allies in order to prevent a terrible threat from seizing power over a weakened Equestria.

This story is a sequel to Feedback

A terrible loss has been averted, but even that has a price.

Between the disappearance of several hundred ponies from around the world, strange portals leading to alternate versions of Equestria, an unknown alicorn frequenting Ponyville for secretive reasons, and the arrival of a new race of ponies bringing some ulterior motives, the pieces sowed by Twilight’s fight with the Nameless are set to crash back down.

What happens when friendship fails? Who will take Twilight’s place within the grave?

The Crystal Ball Trilogy is a series of stories which deal with time travel, parallel universes, and other manipulations of time and space. Substitute is the middle story; it is preceded by Feedback and is succeeded by Divergence.

Digital pdf version here
Print book version here

Featured on 7/19/2016!
Goodreads entry~

Ask Me Anything 10/22/16
Ask Me Anything 1/18/17

Edited (with varying degress of contribution) by
sourichan, Kuairu, Thought Prism, Orion Caelum, Corejo, and AlicornPriest

Featured on Equestria Daily!

What Readers Are Saying...

"You make the waterworks happen," -Stardust_Scratch

"It has been like watching a gruesome car crash. You cannot look away from it, and it tears you apart, you are sure you are gonna have nightmares about it, but you just keep reading." -llDenkerll

"Have any of you ever accidentally’ed your way into a horror story, that was way darker than you thought it was going to be? ...I’m going to go scrub my brain down with a few hours of mindless pony fluff... I am enjoying the story I swear," -fargo11

"The ending of the last chapter left me with hope, with expectations, while the end of this chapter leaves me with sorrow, with emptiness, with hopelessness. I need more," -Anshlun

"I lack any words to describe how fucked this whole situation is. It hurts so much. Good job," -Hermaeus xerxes

"This story has some painful feels to it... I need time to think now," -Destiny Chaser

"Every time I read the witches' dialogue I feel genuinely scared... I don't have a clue of what's going to happen," -TheFaceofMercy

Starlight Glimmer had always been a difficult pony.

She's getting better, though! Really! Three years of living with the Princess of Friendship, one of the most beloved ponies in Equestria, is bound to rub off on a mare. Though Starlight continues to grapple with her insecurities and past mistakes, she never would have presumed she'd be free of the guilt - as it should be.

Yet over the years, she's come into her own as a devoted, passionate, and empathetic friend (despite a few bumps here and there).

But one day, like any other, a strange illness befalls Princess Twilight Sparkle. Starlight is driven to a foal's storybook for answers. Armed with her magic and faith, the ex-student follows a crumb trail leading to one reclusive group dwelling in the heart of an otherworldly bog. If there was any salvation for the pony who'd saved Starlight, it lay solely with them. Except when the time comes for payment to be collected, what's left behind is picked up by Twilight and her friends.

And Starlight doesn't want them to. For how can something so broken be put back together? She'd much rather save them all the trouble...

^{Canon divergence one year after 'The Movie,' post-season seven}

Rated-T for some disturbing imagery and heavy themes concerning depression

Artwork of the Witches by Hermaeus Xerxes: https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2019/9/22/2150483.png

Starlight's Theme: Above and Beyond by Paul Dinletir
Twilight's Theme: Homecoming by Jeff Marsh
The Broken Bond Theme: The Birth of a Soul by Fran Soto

Pre-reader/Editor: JD McGregor
Cover Artist: Calenita

Starlight Glimmer is a complicated mare with a storied past. She founded a town, brainwashed and enslaved her town, and took revenge on the pony who ended her reign by changing the past and destroying the future.

Few ponies know what she did, the full extent of her crimes.

But she does.

One timeline after another, Twilight and Spike are thrown into a world of Starlight's morbid machination. Another tragic end to Equestria, another circumstance of failure.

The frigid wind does little to ease Twilight's thoughts as a simple question plagues her mind:

"What happened here?"

Takes place during the Season 5 finale.
Proofread and edited by Dreams of Ponies.
Third place in the Nightmare Moon 2017 Summer Contest.
Featured 8/6/17 - 8/8/17.

Having waited all night to meet Starlight Glimmer and her new friend, Princess Celestia finally gets the opportunity to do just that when Twilight eventually returns with her pupil in tow. Within the halls of Twilight's castle, four ponies sit to share stories, worries, and declarations of friendship.

Spoilers for No Second Prances.

I only want to help ponies. Twilight had it all wrong about me. Yes, I stole her and her friend's cutie marks, but nopony else's before that. I ran a town of happy ponies. But in the end, I deluded myself. Choice is important in equalization therapy. I've set up practice, under the radar, in Canterlot, where plenty of ponies have trouble dealing with life. Problem is, my reputation proceeds me. And today, it looks like somepony wants me to help him help his "friend," and not in a good way. Sometimes it seems my life is filled with burnt hay burgers.

This story follows show canon only through the season 6 season opener.

Time Travel is complicated, Twilight knew that.

Twilight and Starlight have been playing around with time travel spells for a year now, and they have finally made a grand breakthrough, in the worst way possible.

Twilight now has to deal with her worst enemy yet, Twilight!

Audio Version by MysteryPonyFiction

In an Equestria where Princess Luna was never possessed by the Nightmare the world thrived under both Celestia and Luna's rule. As such, the timeline diverted. After rigorous evaluations, Sunset Shimmer was chosen by Princess Celestia to be her student. Twilight Sparkle, having been glossed over by the Sun Princess, was selected by Princess Luna to be her pupil. One day, the Immortal Sisters send their protégés on a mission to a small town. When the villain named Starlight Glimmer appears all of their lives will be changed forever.

New cover art a birthday gift from my friend Heavy Mole