Fanfic / The Eventide Verse

"I can't help but wonder, what other old pony tales are true?"

Twilight Sparkle, chapter two of The Long Eventide

A Fan Verse written by SilverNotes consisting of several My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Fan Fics, blending elements from the series, movies, comics, and other media into its worldbuilding.

This Alternate Universe isn't built on a singular massive change, but rather small differences that build up over time with each story, with some things happening exactly how they did on screen, or close to it, while other events may be completely different. Each entry jumps around the timeline of the series, adding extra Worldbuilding to the shared setting, from species, to locations, to magics, to historical events.

The verse also has "branch" continuities, stated by the author to share worldbuilding with the mainline.

---

Mainline Continuity

• The Long Eventide: Taking place not long after Luna Eclipsed, Princess Luna and the Mane Six are invited to a celebration of Luna's return, hosted in the mysterious city-state of Eventide by the enigmatic Umbral Society. Started in February of 2021 and still ongoing.
• A Moonlit Storm: A young Night Light is sent to the far-off land of Farasi with a dangerous zebra mare in tow, to recover a unicorn-crafted artefact and return it to Equestria. Written in October of 2022 and complete.
• Lightning Rod: A sequel to A Moonlit Storm, focusing on Night Light's companion, Kisu, being pulled out of retirement for one last mission, to infiltrate the forces of the Storm King. Started in February of 2023 and still ongoing.
• Dawn of the Chiroptera: Luster Dawn accompanies her mentor to a hospital to visit a sick filly, and in the process learns the grain of truth behind a piece of Equestrian folklore. Written in November of 2022 and complete.
• Lesbian Sheep Syndrome: Lamb Chop, a sheep guardian pegasus, finds herself subject to a series of shenanigans in a bid to help two of the flock's ewes get together romantically. Written in January of 2023 and complete.
• Flash Memory: Flash Sentry is ordered to take a vacation by his superiors, and ends up meeting up with old friends and confronting old mistakes in his hometown of Cloudsdale. Written in January of 2023 and complete.
• Better To Ask Forgiveness A newly-reformed Discord decides to start his apology tour for the things he did when he was a villain with Celestia. Being Discord, time travel gets involved. Written in February of 2023 and complete.
• Flashes of Eventide An anthology of short snippets taking place all over the timeline the verse. Started in May 2023 and ongoing.

"A Precious Rarity" Branch Continuity

• Every Dog Has Her Day: Takes place in an alternate timeline where Rarity was born a diamond dog named Precious. She's been sent to the surface as a scout by her pack, where she meets and befriends Fluttershy in defiance of diamond dog taboos. Written in November of 2022 and complete.

"Of Iron and Crystal" Branch Continuity

• Crystalforged: Takes place in a far-flung post-apocalyptic future, where a unicorn and reindeer search an ancient vault for the resting place of the last alicorn while weathering the horrors within. A crossover with Ironsworn: Starforged written in March of 2023 and complete.

"Wyld Woods" Branch Continuity

• If You Go Down In The Woods Today: Fluttershy and Zecora follow Harry the bear into the depths of the Everfree Forest, and end up somewhere far stranger that has them struggling to survive and get home. A crossover with Armello, written in April of 2023 and complete.

---

The Eventide Verse contains examples of:

• Auction: Night Light and Needles seek to outbid each other on the Alicorn Amulet when it ends up on the auction block in A Moonlit Storm.

• Big Eater: Alicorns, due to their larger size and stronger magic, are noted as being eating machines compared to ordinary ponies. Both Luna in The Long Eventide and Twilight Sparkle in Dawn of the Chiroptera are shown packing away a massive amount of food while dining with other ponies.

• Dark Action Girl: Crimson Flame the kirin in A Moonlit Storm. She's vicious, bad-tempered, racist, fights by wreathing her hooves in flame before striking out with them a la Shego, and is quick to try to take over once she believes she's gotten her hooves on the Alicorn Amulet.

• Demonic Possession:
  • The chapters "Wrought," "Stainless," and "Chromoly" of Crystalforged feature Rutile Quartz being possessed by Rabia and fighting for control of the body. Rutile wins. Shows signs in "Iron" of being on the path to a Symbiotic Possession instead.
  • "Drowning" of Flashes of Eventide depicts Luna's fall from grace as the Nightmare takes over her body.

• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: In Crystalforged, a bounty hunter intending to capture Empress Flurry Heart brushes off being warned of her identity and mocks that he'll put her in his "fanciest chains." She responds by casually turning him into a minotaur popsicle a la Frozone.

• False Widow: In Lightning Rod, Kisu's cover involves her pretending to be undergoing a Widow's Roam, a Farasian practice where a widow takes her foals and relocates to start their life over. This both serves to explain her suddenly traveling to the Storm Kingdom, and allows the changelings sent with her to masquerade as the children she had with her fictional late husband.

• Fusion Fic: Crystalforged takes this approach, replacing the humans of the Forge with ponies and other species from Friendship Is Magic as well as adjusting aspects of the Cataclysm Backstory to better suit a high-magic starting point.

• Interspecies Friendship:
  • In A Moonlit Storm, Kisu (a zebra), Savannah Sun (an abada), and Impisi (a crocotta) have all been friends since childhood, and by the end of the story, Night Light (a unicorn) also counts himself among their tightknit group.
  • Every Dog Has Her Day circles around the budding friendship between Fluttershy (a pegasus) and Precious (a diamond dog).
  • Crystalforged has the friendship between Rutile Quartz (a crystal unicorn) and Tundra (a reindeer).
  • If You Go Down In The Woods Today focuses on the friendship between Fluttershy (a pegasus) and Zecora (a zebra).

• Interspecies Romance:
  • Discussed in A Moonlit Storm in regard to Night Light's (a unicorn) cover, which has him masquerading as the fiance of Kisu (a zebra). Kisu states that, while there are not many ponies in Farasi, the most common reason for them to be there is having fallen in love with locals, and so it raises the least suspicion. Night also spots a pony and donkey couple with their young mule foal during the Auction for the amulet.
  • During the same story, Impisi (a crocotta) is referred to by one of the villains' lackeys (a hedgebeast, the verse term for the Storm King's minions) as "the pretty one" and he is blatantly smitten with her after she broke a chair over his head in a brawl.
  • "Humility" of Flashes of Eventide references intermarriage between ponies and bison.

• Mandatory Unretirement: Kisu starts Lightning Rod having moved into a retirement community, only for Princess Celestia to send her a summons for one last mission. She does frame it as asking for help, but it's noted that she does have the power to force the issue, and Kisu doesn't believe she would ask at all if she didn't already know that the answer would be yes.

• Masculine, Feminine, Androgyne Trio: The three changelings agents sent with Kisu in Lightning Rod form one of these trios, with Ladybird (feminine), Damselfly (androgyne) and Beetle (masculine).

• Non-Human Non-Binary: Several characters in the verse use they/them pronouns.
  • The Long Eventide: Zigzag the zony
  • A Moonlit Storm: Savannah Sun the abada
  • Lightning Rod: Damselfly the changeling

• O.C. Stand-in:
  • Night Light is recast from a character whose only canon traits were "Twilight Sparkle's dad who likes bingo" into a cunning Crown magus in A Moonlit Storm.
  • Thunderhead and Deluge in Flash Memory are ponified versions of Flash Sentry's bandmates from Rainbow Rocks who, in the movie, are simply background characters. Their personalities, names, and pony appearances were all invented by the author.

• Patchwork Fic: The verse takes an approach of grabbing elements from all over the franchise, not just the main series, and weaving it together into a whole:
  • The Long Eventide features a nyx, a species only ever seen in two comic arcs.
  • A Moonlit Storm takes place in Farasi, which was featured in a Season 10 comic arc, and features an abada, one of the species revealed in that arc. The villains are from the homeland of the Storm King from the theatrical movie. Lastly, Impisi the crocotta, and the behemoth auctioneer, are based on old leaked concept art for Generation 5 that showed elephant and hyena-like creatures.
  • Every Dog Has Her Day takes the different diamond dog homelands shown in the Friends Forever and Season 10 comics and makes them into ancient cities from diamond dog mythology.
  • Lesbian Sheep Syndrome has the point-of-view character having survived a life-threatening encounter with a cloud demon like the previous-generation villain, Erebus.
  • Flash Memory shows magical music similar to the kind invoked by the Rainbooms in Rainbow Rocks.
  • Better To Ask Forgiveness has Discord using his time machine from Discord's Magical History Tour.
  • Crystalforged references the story of Sombra and Radiant Hope from Fiendship Is Magic and Siege of the Crystal Empire as one of the legends that Rutile Quartz has been told when she finds herself face-to-face with three umbrum. She later becomes possessed by what's left of a dying Rabia. Amore also gets a passing mention as part of the ancient Imperial line.

• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Discussed in Better To Ask Forgiveness, when Celestia considers that a time-travelling Discord may be trying to provoke her into doing the things that will set him free in a bid to prevent it.

• Shout-Out:
  • Lesbian Sheep Syndrome: The point of view character is named Lamb Chop, and a young lamb mentioned in the final chapter is named Shaun.
  • Lightning Rod: In chapter two, Ladybird mentions that she plays Warhorseshoe and Damselfly is reading a science fiction trilogy called The Mane Effect.
  • The Long Eventide: One of the animals that Brandywine is looking after is a bird named Oz, of a species called a "night raven."

• Smart People Play Chess: Kisu, a cunning agent of the Crown, is a fan of strategy games and likes to use them to pass time and get to know other creatures. She challenges Night Light in A Moonlit Storm during a sea voyage (and loses) and, in Lightning Rod, upon finding out that Beetle spent time in Farasi, invites him to play Bao (a similar game originating from East Africa) with her.

• Stable Time Loop: The focus of Better To Ask Forgiveness, which has a reformed Discord going back in time for a chat with Celestia and tell her about her future decision to attempt that reformation.

• Talking in Your Dreams: Implied, but not shown, in Dawn of the Chiroptera, when Redeye Flight is asked to "say hi to Luna" as she goes to sleep, whom she'd previously referred to as her "favourite former princess."

• Technically-Living Vampire: The verse takes the one-off Flutterbat transformation in Bats! and makes it into a disease that transmits from vampire fruit bats to pegasi via bites. They have bat wings, red eyes, fangs, and an intense thirst for fruit juices, but are very much still alive. The transformation can even be treated via potion, though it never entirely goes away, and is shown in Dawn of the Chiroptera to be hereditary.

• Weapons of Their Trade: Kisu has a mark for knife-handling, and is both a Crown agent and a chef. While she does own specialized Orichalcum throwing knives, she still at once point in A Moonlit Storm ends up raiding a friend's kitchen for a cooking knife, which she uses to intimidate one of villains' lackeys during an interrogation.