TNightmare

• MLP: FiM
• Dark
• Adventure
• Slice of Life

When a journalist set out to the Castle of the Two Sisters to seek inspiration, she took one wrong step and found something she never could've expected. Now host to a Nightmare, will she be able to keep her newfound secret without it consuming her?

• Narcotics
• Violence
• Profanity
• Alt. Universe
• Luna
• OC
• Nightmare Moon
• Other
• Bat Pony

Salty Alty · 32k words  ·  164  7 · 3k views

I read: Completed as of this review at 29k words, 11 chapters
I rate: 7/10
I recommend: Read if you like Venom or Nightmare Moon

Have you ever had a day that starts off pretty badly - like, you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, in somebody else’s bed, surrounded by empty bottles of San Pellegrino and, when you get out of bed, you find out some stoner stole your shirt and your jeans are on backwards and also your belt is now hanging from the ceiling fan and you’re too hungover to get it down and the guy who owns the house was also your high school librarian and he was not happy about you sharing a bed with his daughter? I have. It's the reason I don’t drink Triple Sec anymore. However, unlike that dreadful day, this story dramatically improves after a somewhat dodgy beginning.

Nightmare details the adventures of one Evening Shadow - bat pony, prospective waifu, intrepid journalist and the unlucky lady who gets to fill in for the guy from Venom this story. After finding the not!Symbiote in the abandoned castle of the two sisters, she becomes embroiled in a noir plot involving corporate corruption and magical abominations. We as readers follow along on her adventures as she tries to not die and also find out what the heck is going on and that is good stuff.

In terms of writing itself, the story is written… decently. But that’s the average here. The beginning is, for lack of a better word, janky and the reasons for Evey poking around the castle and what the Nightmare actually does to her were neither narrated nor explained particularly well until much further on. The first person narrative especially is a double-edged sword - on one hand, like in the later chapters, it can very immersive and a good insight into our protagonist but, on the other, it can also rapidly become confusing and leave the reader just as lost as the protagonist is and unfortunately that does happen in the first two chapters.

Furthermore, the characters are a mixed bag. While Evey herself definitely grew on me - and this is coming from a person who does not like journalists at all - and the Nightmare was surprisingly sympathetic once the writer let it make sentences more than four words long, the rest were a bit disappointing. Evey’s boyfriend, the kind of businessman guy the lady breaks up with in a Hallmark Christmas movie for a spruce tree salesman, is really the worst offender. While the evil CEO of GenTech is just a bit disorganized and is shown to be less competent than her position would dictate (although that may, granted, be a ruse), the boyfriend, Dawn, seems to be a total hypocrite who is genuinely unwilling to even consider trying to compromise with his boss instead of immediately breaking up with Evey. That really rubbed me the wrong way - of course, stuff happens because the plot needs it to - and it seemed highly contrived and out of character that neither of them would even consider attempting to find a solution to that predicament past a cold break.

However, what saves this from mediocrity is the story itself. While Salty Alty might not be the best technical writer, he is a good storyteller and the way the narrative unfolds is what kept me reading past my minimum of four chapters. It is immersive the further you get into it and, if you’re willing to struggle past the mediocre introduction, you’ll be in for a treat.

Plot: 4/5. The mystery and adventure themselves are well-executed and quite plausible in universe however, as I’ve said before, the beginning throws off the pacing and is a very clumsy introduction to the titular Nightmare.
Characters: 3/5. Evening Shade and Andromeda have good chemistry but everyone else doesn’t particularly impress and even the evil Crystal Heart feels a little underwhelming.
Style: 3/5. Starts off slow but gets a good rhythm in the later chapters as the writer gets a better handle on Evey’s narration.
Execution: 4/5. Solid take on an MLP Venom, for what little I do know of the original property. Kudos for also integrating modern technology into Equestria near seamlessly.
Overall Rating: 14/20 = 7/10

To Salty Alty: As we’ve discussed before, I really do recommend reworking the first two chapters. Personally, I think that it really bogs down the rest of the story and you could introduce the Nightmare symbiote-thing later on - possibly in one of the houses Evey explores, maybe as a red herring to the then ongoing mystery, or she could simply be sent to Ponyville later on. The reason I complain so much about this is because it doesn’t really jive thematically with the rest of the story; it's a whiplash from dark fantasy to borderline cyberpunk and a stilted one to boot.

For something like this: A Millennium of Solitude. While not an homage to a popular media franchise, as far as I know anyway, it is another excellent origin story for Nightmare Moon.

As always, if you enjoyed this review, why not check out one of my stories? While totally unrelated to anything mentioned above, Biography of a Hikikomori is, in my overinflated opinion, not criminally underrated but there’s definitely a misdemeanour involved if you haven’t read it yet.

Thanks for taking the time to review the story!

I can certainly see where all of your criticisms come from, and I will be doing a light revision of the story to hopefully make it look a little bit better.

Perhaps at some point in the future I'll contact you again to get your thoughts on it.

Keep doing you, Leeroy, and thank you for the help!