Waking Night by
CrowMagnon
1,000 years ago, the shadow demon Eclipse possessed Princess Luna in a bid to seize control of both the sun and the moon. Eclipse was banished when Princess Celestia wielded the Elements of Harmony, but Luna fell into an eternal coma.
Waking Night, the festival of dreams, is held in honor of Princess Luna and the anniversary of Eclipse's banishment. In the dark corners of Equestria, though, sinister forces conspire to make their move and free Eclipse from its prison.
When the forces of evil strike, six mares from vastly different walks of life find themselves thrown into a quest to retrieve the Elements of Harmony, the only magic strong enough to end the threat of Eclipse and its followers once and for all. In order to find the Elements, they will have to venture deep into the secret resting place of Princess Luna, but Eclipse also seeks the sleeping Princess of the Night.
I will admit, as retellings of the Pilot go this gets points for originality. The fic
starts with a storybook segment laying out the differences in how the whole Nightmare Moon thing went down, and how that resulted in differences in Equestrian culture and society in general. Princess Celestia is not the wise god-queen of canon, but a wizened mare on her last legs. Waking Night is a combination of Nightmare Night and the Summer Sun Celebration.
And, most importantly for this fic, we have antagonists that
aren't Nightmare Moon. Or Eclipse, as the Nightmare entity is called in this retelling.
Which is a good segue into this fic's main flaw, which is that it's complicated with a lot of things going on, multiple plotlines happening simultaneously from different POVs, and it can be hard to keep track. That said, the fic does a good job of settling
what has happened as it goes along, and as of the most recent chapters everything has converged and the plot should be reasonably straightforward. Even then, I still think it's trying to do too much - I have a suspicion Sunset Shimmer would have been a dangling plot point had the fic finished.
Also, the fic dies right on a
nasty cliffhanger.
As far as characterization it's a mix of familiar and interestingly original. Rarity being an aspiring rock farmer, Applejack a high-flying businessmare, and Twilight in the Royal Guard are all well-trodden ground, though the fic gets points for allowing their canon personalities to still shine through. But Pinkie as an emo beatnik? Fluttershy in
Pinkie Pie's role, with all the courage and zaniness that implies? That's new. And I
still don't know what Rainbow's deal is besides the fact that she has one wing and one leg crippled and lives in the Everfree as Zecora's apprentice. Needless to say, I've never seen
that.
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Sometimes pressure gets the best of us, it makes us do stupid things. Or in Mari's case it's accidentally compromising your secret identity and just yelling fuck it. That works also I guess.
In other words Marinette is just done
Yech. On the technical side this is a mess for all the usual reasons. But more importantly, the summary is false advertising, as the story never actually makes it to the moment it lays out.
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While investigating a strange phenomenon, Po inadvertently brings Tai Lung back from the Spirit Realm. Forced to live again, Tai Lung must grapple with his place in the world and the feelings that led to his attack on the Valley of Peace.
So here's something new: a fan
comic instead of fan
fic. Set after Kung Fu Panda 3, it's pretty much exactly what the summary says: Tai Lung is back in the living world, which means it's time to deal with everything that made him, well, him.
Oogway is 100% behind this, by the way.
The art's good, though Tai Lung's expressions are hard to read and the kung fu action could, by the author's own admission, be more dynamic. And so we can focus on the steady unpeeling of Tai Lung's psyche. Spoiler: it's not pretty, as you might have guessed.
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