It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #85 · 7:01pm Nov 2nd, 2022
And you thought Halloween Nightmare Night was over just because it's November 2nd. HA! THE NIGHT SHALL LAST FOREVER.
So have some Luna Nightmare stories.
Lead story today is a fun laugh: Day to Night(mare) by AutoPony.
Following Starlight Glimmer's intervention, the Sisters are doing a bit better with their relationship. 'Better', however, is relative. There's still rough spots. So with Nightmare Night upon them, Luna invites her sister to attend the festivities with her. Celestia declines - but afterwards realizes that it was Luna reaching out too share something that excites her. Resolving to be better, Celestia changes plans to attend Luna's appearance in Ponyville. As a surprise, and as an apology. She arrives just in time to see Luna transform back into Nightmare Moon before the crowd - and takes action.
Now, despite that sounding ominous? The story is actually rather sweet and adorable. Awkward moments between the Sisters is one of those sweet spots for me: they're so bad at each other, but the love and care in the relationship just warms my heart. And this one is dead on for that. Luna's learned the lessons from her first S2 foray into Nightmare Night (and in fact re-teaches some of that to Celestia!) and has embraced the holiday. Now she's trying to share it with her sister and make sure Celestia has the same fun that she does. It fails at first, of course, but there's got to be a few bumps for there to be a story after all.
It's a good laugh, too. Celestia getting to make mistakes and look mortal is always fun, and that pairs well with the sisterly sweetness to keep things tempered. The compromise solution at the end is icing on the cake - it makes total sense and gives the pair the chance to really revel in things.
This one's just a wonderful Nightmare Night fic without being horror or dark. Which is a rare gem in and of itself.
The other end of things is Sometimes Never, by Blueshift.
The story's just one scene: a slumber party where Celestia and Luna enjoy each other's company after her return from the moon.
Right. So normally I would give a deeper overview of the story and then go into what sets it apart for me. The problem is that in this case I can't do that without spoiling the twist and I really, really don't want to do that. Seriously - it's what makes this one. So I'm going to break from my usual and do the rest of this with spoiler tags, and suggest that you only continue after you read the story. Okay? Okay.
Back? Good. Wow this one really got me. I didn't see the twist coming at all and it blew me away when I did. It starts out as, honestly, a rather generic Sisters fluff fic. Then WHAM it's all a dream and they're fighting. It wasn't until Luna shouted "I’ve been on the moon for a hundred years!" that it hit me. I actually froze up reading that because it turned the entire fic on its head.
I mean, in retrospect it makes perfect sense to have happened. Why wouldn't the imprisoned Luna/Nightmare reach out like this? And wouldn't this be exactly the way she would do it? Cloyingly, trying to slip in under Celestia's guard and prey on their sisterly relationship? It makes a second read of the fic take on entirely new dimensions, and that's where this one really stands out. All the innocent or slightly off moments get cast in a different light from the absence of just one digit.
This one's a real prize, and it's extremely easy to miss because on the surface? It just looks like an extremely generic cute Sisters cuddlefic that we've got a million of. Those have their time and place, mind, but this story? Totally a step apart.
New or catching up? Try Recommendsday: The Index for your story needs!
I remember seeing Sometimes Never in the suggested feed of another fic the other day, but didn't give it a second thought. Fool on me, it is a Blueshift fic. So good on you for a second reminder, one I'm not going to dismiss.
And yup, the goofy sweet fun of the first fic sounds too good, can't pass that up either.
(reads Sometimes Never)
I know this isn't the point, but how did I go this many years without seeing the "Night Mare" pun?
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Fun fact: Sometimes Never was originally written for the (short-lived) UK of Equestria fic contests! The prompt was "Slumber Party", which Blueshift mentions in the fic's end A/N. I read the story at the time (though I don't think I gave it a blog review) and really liked it. I see I favourited it, which at least these days I don't do unless a fic gets at least a four-star rating. It's one of those deceptive Blueshift fics that seems off for a while and then bang everything clicks into place. I'd still join TCC56 in recommending it.
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Fun fact, this appears to be the first Blueshift fic I've ever read. I picked it up off of PresentPerfect's recent focus blog and oh boy do I suddenly have a new author to shotgun the works of.
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Oh my, you're in for a ride!