At a suggestion from Twilight, Celestia decides to turn the Grand Galloping Gala into a masquerade ball. What results is a spate of mistaken identities, misplaced passions, and assorted other mischief.
Written for April Fools and published as Midnightshadow, because confusion was the order of the day. Story concept by Mids with an assist to bookplayer, who kindly helped out with pre-reading.
Page generated in 0.15 seconds
Total duration
1,013 users online
1,844,440 hits today, 1,887,535 yesterday
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
*Laughs and applauds* Bravo. Clearly there needs to be more about Tia chasing Luna and threatening to murder her.
Confusing as hell, but pretty hilarious. Good job.
4167487
i kind of felt that way too, but there was just so much to juggle with the other three stories! anyway, having them conduct their little proxy war off-screen lets everyone imagine it to be much more entertaining than anything i'd write.
4167499
thanks! trying to do this with lots of untagged dialogue and pinkie's stubborn insistence on not being pinkie made it a bit hard to keep things straight, but i hope it wasn't too hard to follow and i'm glad you liked it!
Confuzzling to the brain until heavy breathing was applied.
By the sun, moon and stars... There needs to be a sequel. I've never asked for a sequel before, but the shenanigans in this story amuse me greatly and I would love to see them expanded upon...
Awesome once my brain stopped hurting.
so now is just a changling missing in the mix ... or wait
guard (Rarity)
fluttershy(AJ)
lotus (RD)
Aloe (Pinkie)
StarS(Twilight)
AJ (Fluttershy)
RD/StarS (Luna)
Rarity (Celestia)
wow how did you write it? did you marked every character extra somehow ? so you didn't confused yourself while writing ?
4167718
in the original planning, i actually intended to have two changelings prowling the party, too. but that would have taken too much explanation, and i decided it didn't really add anything. as for keeping everyone else straight, the first thing i did when i wrote this was sit down and make a list of characters and who they were pretending to be. then i just tried to get their voices right. that's how i tried to keep it straight in my head.
4167606
4167551
i didn't mean to confuse everyone quite this much! then again, i suppose when you consider the date and what's been happening on the site, it's only appropriate.
4167559
thanks for the vote of approval! i don't know if this is too likely to draw a sequel, though you might also like a couple stories i mentioned in my blog post about publishing this.
4167737 It was a good confused though! It didn't detract from the story. It made it better! I very much enjoyed the absurdity of it. A comedy of errors as it were
4167831
all correct! and glad you enjoyed it!
This is the best April Fools fic ever. Thanks for making this.
Holy jesus, that was a trip and a half. But major props to you for creating this fun piece.
So hold on, did luna make it look like rd was cheating on aj or what. Because im confused as hell and would greatly appreciate
someone explaining it to me.
How the hell did you write this fix without confusing yourself? The confusion in this made me take all day to read this!
Dammit, this needs a sequel. Stat. This is simply fantastic!
I'm really beginning to wonder how this species ever gets around to reproducing, since they all seem to be lesbians.
4173401
A wizard did it?
Also throwing my hat in for sequel, chapter 2, follow-up, continuity, etc! Bravo, I'm still trying to figure out what really happened and who was doing what.
How...howhowhowhowhowhowhow..... How do you keep track of whose who??
Now I want to hear Flutters try to effect an AJ accent in an actual episode. Because adorable.
Some think that love is infinite, warm and snuggly. In all truth, it's finite, cold and bitter. Now, I'm not philosophic, that's just what I believe.
Also I believe that peace comes at a cost, sometimes that cost is the lives of many. Now let me explain why I believe this. Most of the time, whenever I try to make peace in an argument/fight, (this doesn't just apply for me) I end up making it worse, or paying some sort of price that might involve my own well-being (not financial well-being) or the well-being of the others around me. Notice I say might. Not always does it end badly. Go ahead and dislike this all you want, I'm sticking to my beliefs and I ain't gonna change my mind
Juggling swapped characters and subplots are hard.
Still frickin' funny though!
So dang confusing!
Highly confusing, yet rather amusing! What a winning combination.
I don't think I've ever been this amused and confused at the same time.
Before Twilight and Rarity do anything bad, I'm gonna be the noobiest Kokopelli (Native American spirit that supposedly gave food to the Native Americans) and PUT CASHEWS IN THEIR MOUTHS! IT'S ALWAYS BEEN WANKERSHIM!
Give this comment as many dislikes as you want!
A fine comedy of errors. And Pinkie should consider this party a definite success. Several dozens times as much fun was had as during the average Gala.
4174199 Who was doing
whatwhoKept track of it all, yay!
I just.. don't know how I feel about Dash doing that with Flutters. Maybe something about forgetting it wasn't AJ with wings, but an out of the blue thing about wanting to be with them both, when Pinkie and Flutters are a thing? Doesn't seem all that Dashlike to me.
Still, fun! Luna you naughty thing :D
Did I miss this one somehow? Or was it the April 1st swap thing? Regardless, wow, that made my head hurt, and Pinkie wasn't helping
. Nevertheless, surprisingly fun.
Oh dear. Oh my. This. This is entirely too much. Shipping is one thing, a triple set of simultaneous romantic pairs within the mane six? Madness. It's also hilarious.
I didn't read this story when it was released because it was April fool's and after noticing that both you and Obs had apparently done some switcherooing, I decided that actually browsing fimfic that day was likely to end up corrupting my local story table. Upon checking your story list today, I figured I ought to catch up, so here I am.
I noticed that you paired almost everyone up with themselves, in a manner of speaking, with Andrea Libman's (Pinkie&Flutters) and Ashleigh Ball's (AJ&RD) characters being in relationships with each other, and this pattern, in combination with a slight formality in her first line led me to think "this is Luna" when "Rarity" first made an appearance. (Because Tabitha St. Germain voices both Rarity and Luna) Alas, it was revealed fairly quickly that it was Celestia, though I suppose Rarity and Luna did kiss at one point, but of course, it seems there was a lot of that going around. I also have to mention, this isn't the first story I've seen where Celestia dresses up like Rarity for a costume party.
Enough of that though. How 'bout that writing? This had the potential to be really confusing, and I did at one point entertain the notion of drawing out a diagram of the interactions that occurred in this story, but in the end it was actually fairly easy to keep track of everyone, what with your careful planting of speech patterns. In fact, it was generally easier to recognize characters by their dialogue than by the names used in the narration, as I was never quite sure whether the tags were referring to the actual character or the one they were dressed as, and the choice seemed to fluctuate throughout.
As for the story itself? I laughed. Luna and Rainbow went trolling for kisses and this obviously wasn't really anything to take super seriously, so it was easy to cackle at Twi and everyone's despair. Really, you should know better than to confess deep feelings at a masquerade, dears.
That was hilarious. I managed to keep track of who was who by the way they talked. Luna seems to have enjoyed the masquerade ball the most.
You know, you don't normally dress up as other people you are acquainted with, much less ones attending that very party, for masquerade balls, right? Everyone's choice in costumes seems oddly specific without anyone mentioning that it was deliberately arranged. I would have expected something more like Nightmare Night (which would also have caused less trouble). And it's not like you can't have mistaken identity in the case of concealing costumes, especially if someone like Celestia changed shape to blend in, they don't have to be literally disguised as each-other.
Did someone pick this strange "dress as your friend" theme? And if so, it should probably be mentioned at least early in the chapter. Though, I have some suspicions about Rainbow Dash steering Fluttershy, I doubt she arranged the whole ball.
This is so delightfully confusing. And the ships! So many wonderful ships!
Hm. So what to do with this?
I've managed to read through it without losing track of who is who - or at least, I think so. It was, as was said a lot before, both confusing and entertaining. I like the idea of Luna being kind of a prankster and Celestia being horribly bored by the Gala. I like both FlutterPie and AppleDash and Twilight falling for Rarity is, uh, okay, I guess. It was a funny, original idea.
But there are two things. First, something that feels like it's missing: Closure. I can understand that you ended it at the point where you did, but I feel left with to much questions.
And then, there's Rainbow. At least half a dozen times I thought while reading on 'Slap her across her face as hard as you can and she still deserves so much more pain than that'. Usually, I like her. She's brash and ill-tempered and she doesn't think things through, yeah, maybe. Cheating on AJ with Fluttershy... I may could've been able to store that under 'Rainbow not thinking about the consequences of her actions'. It probably would've been horribly hard and I would've hold a grudge over this, but it would've been possible.
That scenario completely failed when I read about her reactions later on. She was caught in the middle of it. She didn't even care to apologize in any way, instead, suggesting... stuff. What she suggested might fit her personality again, but only fueled my rage.
I have to admit, I'm surprised myself that I took that to heart so much that it soured my whole experience with this story. It's a bit frustrating to watch, but I just can't help it either.
My personal grudges cast aside, this is an entertaining, funny story. So...
Thank you.
5512239
Yeah, I have to admit I'm not entirely comfortable with how I'm writing her either. I'm pretty happy to call it poor Rainbow characterization myself—though one could argue that AJ's openness at the end excuses it a bit, because it's possible Rainbow just knows her partner well, and knows she wasn't going as far out of bounds as one might originally think. I think that's kind of a weak defense, though.
The truth of it is, this is crack-shipping, and I'm twisting her character to fit the story I want to tell. Generally, I don't like doing that, but it's a bit of "horses for courses" here. Crack shipping is where I got my start with fanfic writing, years and years ago, and this was a special event story that seemed like a good match for that particular story style. I'm not immediately sure how I'd go about trying to fix the issue, if I wanted to revise this, because it's sort of the tentpole for one of the story's three lines of humor (Dash being horny, Pinkie taking everything very seriously, and your classic mistaken identity comedy of errors). Maybe dropping hints about problems between Dash and AJ? Hmm. It's an interesting thing to think about.
In any case, thank you for the comment. I genuinely like getting called on issues like that, because it makes me more sensitive and careful when I'm writing my more serious stories. And I'm glad you enjoyed it all, in spite of Dash being a bit of a jerk to her marefriend here!
5512304
BUT... I am delighted to receive such a friendly response. I'm still surprised, each and every time, about how calm and peaceful authors tend to react. At least, around this forum. Thank you again.
Hm. Dropping hints about possible relationship problems could do the trick, I suppose, but then again, this was kind of a light-hearted story and this way of dealing with the problem probably would end up in a way to serious tone. Probably sounds weird, but maybe it would've been easier if AJ would've tried to hit on Flutters herself before - although you then only create not only the problem of explaining why someone like AJ would do so, but also have to deal with the whole 'Fluttershy is already kinda in a relationship with Pinkie'-thingy.
It's hard to keep the mood up and bouncy with a theme like cheating running wild. Luna tricking everyone into kissing is funny and not that much of a problem at all, since it does stir up some drama here and there, but no existential crisis. Hm. Uh... maybe if Rainbow would've tried to lead Flutters away but would've been caught before? While Fluttershy desperately tries to melt into the floor, getting away quietly, there could've been an interesting dialogue between AJ and RD, maybe even something funny, too.
I'm not sure. Just throwing some thoughts around, I guess. As I said, it was a funny story nonetheless and I never would dare question a writers decisions.
I'm completely and utterly confused
Too many Sugarcubes might be bad for your health ;)
What-