A My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Fan Fic in the Eventide Verse, started in 2021 and currently ongoing.
Shortly after Ponyville's Nightmare Night celebration, Princess Luna is invited, alongside the Mane Six, to an upcoming celebration in the titular city of Eventide, to honour the Lunar Princess and those who had a role in her restoration. This would be fantastic news, if not for who is doing the inviting.
Eventide is a strange place, shrouded in darkness and surrounded by magic-saturated wilderness, and its mysterious Umbral Society have existed ever since Nightmare Moon's defeat. They harbour a deep distrust for Princess Celestia, and the city has always seemed just barely part of Equestria at all. To have them suddenly welcoming a large group of ponies with open forelegs is concerning, enough to treat this as a full-blown mission, rather a mere public appearance.
Meanwhile, Chancellor Penumbra and her inner circle work to enact an unknown scheme, fearing the risks that come with welcoming outsiders into the heart of their city.
Read it here.
The Long Eventide contains examples of:
- Affectionate Nickname: Diamond Dust has "Dusty," Penumbra has "Penny," Brandywine has "Brandy," Masquerade has "Mask," and Zigzag has "Zig." Most of these are used predominately by Blackbird, and later Pinkie Pie, but Penumbra requests the Mane Six call her Penny as well.
- Agitated Item Stomping: When Diamond Dust is worked up into a rage over the state of the decorations for the upcoming Winter Moon celebration, she ends up tearing them down and ripping them up, first with her magic and then with her teeth, as well as stomping on them with her hooves.
- Alternate Universe Fic: In canon the transformation of Princess Luna into Nightmare Moon is depicted as only resulting in a brief skirmish with her elder sister, followed by her banishment to the moon. In this story, Nightmare Moon was around long enough to take over a city, bend it to her will, and place a spell over it that's still active a thousand years later.
- Always Night: The city-state of Eventide, which is under the illusion of eternal night called the Shroud, originally placed by Nightmare Moon.
- Animalistic Abomination: Hypnos, the nyx. When summoned, he's described as "something like a sloth, save for all the ways that it wasn't," with proportions looking off and something in place of claws that the narrator refuses to describe. It's also noted that looking at him for too long would yield the sight of something worse.
- The Archmage: Lady Masquerade has the title of Society Archmagus, acting as Chancellor Penumbra's right hoof in matters of the arcane. While she's yet to flex her magical might on-page, she attended Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns alongside Twilight Sparkle and she's shown a desire to study creatures like Hypnos.
- Because Destiny Says So: Twilight, when first meeting Penumbra, realizes that her cutie mark matches the insignia of the Umbral Society perfectly. She notes that it could just mean that Penumbra has a rare, specific mark for leadership, or that she considers the Umbral Society to be her home, but that such marks are also found on dangerous zealots and "A mare who could turn out to be her enemy had a mark-deep dedication to her role." Penumbra later implies to Blackbird that her mark essentially forced her predecessor to give her the role of chancellor, which Blackbird denies.Penumbra: You know that I wasn't her first choice. Other factors—[looks at her mark]...Forced her hoof.
Blackbird: Horseapples. That stubborn old mare would kick anything that tried to force her hoof right in the snout. She wouldn't have put down your name if she didn't believe in you." - Big Eater: Princess Luna, by virtue of being an alicorn. Her enthusiasm for her lunch is described as a "campaign to drive all food on the table to extinction."
- Call-Forward: As a fanwork taking place in the early seasons and written after the show has concluded, there are several:
- Masquerade jokes in Chapter One that they'll be "overrun" soon with alicorns at the rate they're appearing, a nod to Twilight's future ascension and Flurry Heart's birth.
- Twilight spends a moment in Chapter Two hoping that there aren't any more ancient evils about to be unleashed on Equestria. Since the timeline of the show is poised to later include the return of King Sombra, Lord Tirek, The Pony of Shadows, and even the Windigoes, one commenter put it succintly as, "Oh, you poor, sweet summer child..."
- In Chapter Three, Penumbra is reading a book about the Elements of Harmony, and a passage is shown that references the virtues embodied by the Pillars of Equestria, who appear in later seasons of the show. It also notes the occasional folkloric depiction of a seventh element, with one of its potential names as Empathy, Sunset Shimmer's element in the Equestria Girls spinoff.
- In an argument with Blackbird in Chapter Four, Zigzag mentions that it may be another thousand years before Discord can answer any questions about his treatment by the Mane Six. They turn out to be somewhat off the mark, since he makes a reappearance in the season right after the one that the fanfic takes place in.
- Continuity Nod: The work also likes referencing things that took place in earlier episodes:
- The whole story takes place shortly after the episode "Luna Eclipsed," with Luna's public appearance there setting the wheels in motion for the Umbral Society to invite everyone to Eventide. Applejack later confirms to Masquerade that the rumour that Luna made herself look like Nightmare Moon to entertain the foals is true.
- Twilight Sparkle uses a reminder of the chaos that took place during "The Best Night Ever" to make her friends promise to behave themselves in Eventide. Masquerade later gets the story from Applejack and finds it hilarious.
- Fluttershy notes that she's extra jumpy around griffons thanks to Gilda roaring at her in "Griffon the Brush Off," and references both a line from "Mare in the Moon" and the plot of "Bridle Gossip" as examples of the fact that she can be very ignorant when it comes to non-pony sapient creatures.
- Rarity has gained a fear of heights after the events of "Sonic Rainboom," and ends up relaying the events of that episode to Blackbird during a breakfast at a rooftop restaurant.
- Covered in Gunge: After Rainbow Dash starts a food fight during the lunch, the narration spends time describing how the Mane Six, Penumbra, Blackbird Song, Brandywine, and Diamond Dust are all absolutely covered in food, including food tangled in manes, caked in feathers, and Twilight trying to remove chunks of cucumber from her horn. Princess Luna is not shown, but assumed to be the same, with only her guards unscathed.
- Cursed with Awesome: The narration in Chapter Four that describes Brandywine's Necromancy outright calls the talent a curse, in the sense that it's overwhelming and dangerous power to wield. Downplayed as she's more than willing to make use of it to get around her sunlight weakness while taking precautions to not be consumed by it.
- Enraged by Idiocy: During the leadup to the celebration, Diamond Dust is found berating the creatures decorating the Grand Hall and shrieking about how stupid they are. The creatures around her are reduced to cowering and begging for her forgiveness until Pinkie Pie arrives and calms her downDiamond Dust: None of you care to educate yourselves, when the information has been available for moons. Something as simple as our glorious princess's name. All of you, together, could not scrape together enough of a mind to know not to address Her Highness Princess Luna as Nightmare Moon! I ought to drag you all to the edge of the Shroud at noon and kick you into the sunlight one by one, to remind you how blessed we are!
- Evil Counterpart: When arriving in Eventide, the Mane Six are introduced to the city's own set of six important mares within the Umbral Society. Both groups consist of two ponies from each of the three main tribes (Honour Code and Brandywine — earth ponies; Masquerade and Diamond Dust - unicorns; Penumbra and Blackbird Song - pegasi) and have a leader with a name related to celestial bodies. But while the Mane Six are a Ragtag Band of Misfits who became unlikely heroes, these are politically powerful mares whose intentions are currently unknown.
- Food Fight: Rainbow Dash starts one during a lunch between the Mane Six, Princess Luna, and the Umbral Society.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Or Half-Pony Hybrid, in this case. Zigzag is half-unicorn, half-zebra, resulting in a horned equine with pastel pink and blue stripes.
- Hammerspace: While taking a group bath after the luncheon food fight, Pinkie Pie produces a snorkel from "somewhere" that disappears shortly afterward. A later chapter has it referred to as her Secret Super Special Pinkie Pie Hiding Place.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: Brandywine, when attending lunch with the Mane Six, brings a litter of kittens, who were found abandoned alongside their mother and are in the process of being nursed back to health. It spurs Shrinking Violet Friend to All Living Things Fluttershy to approach her despite her intimidating appearance.
- Orichalcum: The mysterious artefact given to Zigzag by Blackbird is noted to have orichalcum in it. What properties the metal has is currently unknown, beyond the fact that the artefact needs to "attune" to a user.
- Mythology Gag: Zigzag the zony shares the name and part of the colour scheme with the G1 toyline character Zig Zag. Noted in an author blog post to have been accidental.
- Necromancer: Brandywine has the ability to summon "echoes" of once-living creatures which take the form of spectral animals. It's noted that she can also summon echoes of sapients, but that there's not much left of who the target was in that case.
- Not Helping Your Case: When being chastised for starting the food fight at the Society luncheon, Rainbow Dash doesn't do a very good job of defending herself, at first blaming Pinkie and digging a hole for herself from there.Twilight Sparkle: Even if Pinkie hit you with a roll, you didn't have to yell 'FOOD FIGHT' and throw a salad at the chancellor.
Rainbow Dash: I wasn't aiming for Chancellor Creepy, I was aiming for Princess Luna.
Twilight Sparkle: That doesn't make it better. - Power of the Sun: During Chapter Two, Twilight is shown to be studying legends about a pony who could directly tap into the sun's power to enhance her magic, named Sunbeam Smiles.
- Pun-Based Creature: Par for the course for a My Little Pony fanfiction, the first chapter introduces "water deer," nonsapient, aggressive aquatic deer with fang-like teeth.
- Shout-Out: One of the animals that Brandywine is looking after is a bird named Oz, of a species called a "night raven."
- Super-Senses: Rarity has the ability to boost her senses temporarily with magic, as part of her mark, increasing things such as the detail of her vision or range of sounds she can hear. Scent and touch are also affected, as she needs to shut the power down in Chapter Five when the floral scent Blackbird is wearing, and the sensation of her own scarf against her neck, start to be overwhelming.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Rarity's unusual accent is noted to be similar to Masquerade's in Chapter Four, which Applejack wastes no time poking fun at her for. Chapter Five confirms that she mimicked the accent of the star of a film from her foalhood, who she only later found out was from Eventide.
- Weakened by the Light: Shown to be a weakness of the Umbral Society ponies. Honour Code flees a sunrise in the first chapter, and Blackbird Song screams in pain when stepping into sunlight in the fourth, with it mentioned that Brandywine would be unable to follow her. Chapter seven has Masquerade identified as a "daywalker," but she's still discomforted and views the sunlight as "oppressive."
