Midnight Sparkle, consumed by the Magic of Friendship, barely escapes Daydream Shimmer at the conclusion of the Friendship Games. She flees to Equestria, desiring more than anything to learn about this 'Friendship' and the power it possesses. And what better place to study than at a School of Friendship? But when she plunges Equestria into an apathetic purgatory to prove the power of Friendship, threatening to unleash ancient horrors upon everypony? It's up to Rarity and Mayor Sunny Skies to save the day!
Written for the Season 10 Bingo Contest
Chapters (3)
Woohoo!
So excited to see this in my notifications box! Awesome premise, and it was carried out with aplomb! Midnight Sparkle has always been a bit of an enigma of a character to me (I didn’t really get her motivations in the movie...), so it’s great to see you tackling it with the skill and gusto as you had in AB:TFY. I always love reading stories with antiheroes, and the Midnight Sparkle you’ve set up seems to be real interesting character to follow!
I especially love how the narration is really analytical and self-conscious: it’s super cool that the story is First Person from Midnight’s perspective and we get to read in the way she thinks. And yet, there are also times where the narration itself seems detached from the character of Midnight Sparkle, where it’s almost as if the narrator and Midnight are separate entities... Not sure if it was intended, but I found it chilling and hence awesome.
Together with the times when Midnight felt oddly compelled to speak the truth, and we get the makings of an intriguing plot point. I’m excited!
From context, it seems that this story is held after Twilight’s second coronation at the end of Season 9. Will she meet the young 6? I’d love to see a small cameo appearance, even if they aren’t going to be major characters in the story.
Mayor Sunny Skies seems like a super random addition to the cast, but hey, it’s bingo! Can’t wait to see what you have planned for him.
And as always, the character interactions are hilarious and are a joy to read. The quippy remarks that the characters give to one another is A+
Poor Spike. He’s seen so much shit that this is just another regular day for him
I love RD and her brutal honesty so much
This list gag will never get old
Looking forward to the next chapter!
My only complaint is that you need better cover art to show what Midnight looks like now. Pony, and not human.
There are several around.
Okay, that one was a stretch. Though it is nice to get confirmation that you're putting in Magic card names deliberately.
This unkarny temporal sundering has piqued my curiosity. I can only imagine what the other human Twilight thinks of this debatably evil twin, assuming a single timeline hasn't somehow forked. Hopefully careful study will keep this accidental planeswalker's scorn from overriding her mirth. Looking forward to more.
Funnily enough, Libratog isn't actually a card. Yet. Though I imagine psychatogs come close.
Staggering insight into pony magic... though I have to gainsay part of it. The Element of Magic was forgotten lore until Twilight and her friends made a shared discovery while Equestria was trapped beneath a blanket of night. It wouldn't be a mystic familiarity to even elite arcanists before Nightmare Moon's dread return. Granted, steady progress afterwards could've improved the unifying theory, but it's still a bit of a mind warp.
In any case, looked forward to having saw how this curse of chaos would effect Equestria.
(And needless to say, if the next chapter isn't "Unless You Discard an Artifact" or something along those lines, it would be a tragic slip.)
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"Unless you Discord an Artifact" could also work.
Hmm. This leaves me kinda confused?
Anyway, the magic lesson was really well done. Makes the whole thing enjoyable all on its own. ;)
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I forget that 'psych' means mind, but even then it doesn't work so well. Lithatog was my first inclination, but they really don't do enough with tablets to justify it. Maybe if she ate Rarity's inspiration book...
Re - Element of Magic: true, but the school of magic isn't called 'Magic', like the Element, but Friendship. Now, we can argue if Friendship ≡ Magic (is identical to) or if Friendship ≣ Magic (is equivalent to), but now we're arguing what the definition of 'is' is in regards to a show titled Friendship Is Magic. Oh wait...
Really? Really?
)
(Though it's funny. I've noted the Egyptian Gods, the Trap cards, the melding fusions, but it never occurred to me until now that Magic did XYZ many years before Yu-Gi-Oh did.
Wait, I thought this was Celestia, not Lyra.
And I am more than okay with this chapter title. Brilliant bit of card-based silliness folded into a genuinely great Midnight story. Allusions aside, thank you for it.
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It was too good to pass up.
My only regret is that I didn't do more with the spell Midnight cast, but that was part of the problem - the whole point was that nopony cared! Alas.
Really appreciated the on-theme comments. And I have to ask, though your link might prove sufficient evidence: do you have an encyclopedic knowledge of the cards, or merely great Gatherer-fu? I played for years (Tempest through Eventide seriously, scattered after that) and so a lot of the allusions came naturally, but a good number of others were me combing through, say, Eldritch Moon, and finding names to slot in.
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Been playing since the Ice Age with only a few interruptions. Though I admit, I did turn to Gatherer a couple of times.