Once, Midnight Sparkle was the demon that haunted Twilight's nightmares. But as new doubts and insecurities drive her away from her lover, Twilight finds comfort in the demon's familiar face. After all, what better escape could there be, but to be someone else?
Written for the Two-Faced Charade Contest hosted by FamousLastWords.
Pre-read by NaiadSagaIotaOar.
another contestant joins the fray
So, did it happen, or was it all just a dream...? That is the question. But all in all, good piece, and it's done quite well and made so Twilight's plight is completely believable and makes you sympathize with her.
This was pretty damn magnificent! I was preparing myself to sit through the SunLight for the sake of Adagio, but very quickly Sci-Twi mentioned that she and Sunset hadn't slept together and things weren't perfect between them, and suddenly I was very interested. Thoroughly enjoyed the story
Good balancing of the mood, too - it managed to be seductive without being too racy, and show Twilight's insecurities without her bashing her head against a wall chanting, 'Angst! Angst! Angst!' And Sunset being that cheerfully happy and carefree at the end was wonderfully cruel, and precisely the right way to play it. Sunset's usually written as being perfect, so to know that it would soon collapse, and that if anything she was too wholesome for her own good, was a delightful subversion
8756863
Tethered-Angel is ready to Brawl!
8756880
Thanks, I had a lot of fun with it To answer your question, it can be open to interpretation if you'd like, but officially: it happened. She wants to believe it didn't, but the proof is a bit damning.
8757041
Thank you! I was a bit torn on how much SunLight to add to the beginning, but I'm pretty happy with the balance I struck. And yes, it was fun being a bit cruel at the end. But getting to write Adagio as the evil seductress for once was the highlight of this project for me
8757082
I might do a follow up eventually, I have a couple of ideas.
Would you mind hiding your comment under a spoiler tag?
8757041
Oh yeah, and as to your follow-up idea, gimme back my notes!
Haha, no but really, that's not terribly far off of something I was thinking of. Probably won't do a follow up, at least for a while, but if I did that's about the direction I'd be considering.
8757124 It's tempting, and writing that comment was a lot of fun, but I think the story very likely stands up best on its own.
If Adagio has Twilight's gem, she's virtually unstoppable, able to steal all the others when they're sleeping. So to have her not instantly overwhelm everything would take some serious plot contrivances or abilities out of nowhere for the mane cast. Plus, you'd have the overhanging relationship drama from this story, and either have to choose between a very naive Sunset still having not figured out what happened with Twilight, or a very miserable story of them breaking up/having problems/lots of angst.
Whereas this way, you get to set up the horror to come both for the couple and the world, but neatly avoid having to write it I think imaginations can take care of what happens next when it's framed as well as this.
Plus, you know, the story works here with the Adagio element because it's kind of a horror, where the protagonist ends up in trouble. And Adagio's achievement is impressive because she pulls it off with no magical power, taking down a far stronger opponent. Given that she wins here and gains magic, the power balance would be reversed in the sequel, and so the 'satisfying' ending would be Adagio's defeat.
Which is the wrong ending. And not a happy one.
Edit:
What can I say? While Adagio was seducing Twilight and acquiring her geode, I nabbed Sunset's and read your mind
8757139
Haha, so basically my idea for a "sequel" was just pure self-indulgence. Basically: Adagio uses the gem to kidnap Sunset,
who is alone and vulnerable after Twilight admitted to everything and broke things off with her.
In an earlier draft of the story, Adagio's note to Twilight was much longer. "Thank you for last night. It truly was magical. Don't worry about the necklace, I'm keeping it nice and safe. The color suit's me better, don't you think? See you soon! PS: What do you think will hurt more, the things I plan to do to her with my new magic, or the truth about how I got it?" Obviously, waaay too wordy, the short, vague note works much better, this one would have been just sequel bait. But it more or less spells out the idea I had for a follow up. But for now I think this story stands better on its own.
8757285
Thank you. I didn't give you the thumbs down though. It's just what brought it to my attention, sorry.
Hmm, possibly, but I kind of like the idea of Twilight breaking it off, because of guilt. Sunset seems more like she'd want to try and fix it, and even blame herself for Twilight's insecurity in the first place. Idk, I guess I just like Sunset as a martyr haha.
8757190 It sounds like rather than a sequel, that would make a good non-canon porn continuation? It sounds from just that summary like there's more of a tied up Sunset situation there than a story
In Adagio's position, I think I'd extract the other geodes as quickly and distantly as possible, and then get far away for a while until there's an unstoppable plan to end the Rainbooms for good. They've still got the harmony magic that stopped her last time, and I would have thought kidnapping Sunset would just be tempting fate there. And it would be a shame to see Adagio being as smart and collected as she is here but then still get dragged down with revenge against Sunset.
8757328
True, that or a horror spinoff. Either could be fun to write, but neither would really work as a true sequel. Although... a good Dazzling or Adagio revenge fic, with a dangerously practical and intelligent Adagio, would be pretty great.
Theme song:
8757343 Horror would be good to see, but comes with some more problems than you might expect.
Have you read Voices in the Nightmare Night?
It's a great story, but it highlights the problems you'd face here too I think (I had a discussion with the author in the comments about it).
[Discussion of the flaws in that story, which may spoil it if you haven't read it] Even with horror, a hyper-competent villain whose victory is never in doubt can easily become boring. There's no suspense there. And yet, to engineer in a way for (Sunset, in this case) to potentially escape, (Adagio) would probably have to do something stupid and let down her competence level for a bit.
As you might expect, it's not something I've looked into, but surely kidnapping someone in a way that's nigh-on impossible to escape can't be that hard? If Fritzl managed it for 24 years, one would imagine Adagio could achieve longer? Especially with telekinesis on her side.
8757359
Hmm, good point. No, I haven't read that one. I suppose thriller would be a little closer to what I mean, but I digress. A hyper intelligent villain can still be fun, you'd just have to make the protagonist smart too.
Yeah, you always see people in movies and stuff get "captured," but like with one strap of duct tape around the wrists and ankles and no guard. How are they expecting the hero NOT to escape that? I mean, duct tape isn't that expensive... Anyway, point being, I guess I see what you mean. Although I can see a couple ways you could have a very intelligent Adagio be a credible threat while still having an interesting story. Not related to this, just in general.
1- Maybe Sunset's gem can sense when she is near, giving her an advantage where Adagio cannot easily sneak up on her. But Adagio could still figure that out, and use that to play mind games by staying constantly on the edge of her perception.
2- The Dazzlings seek revenge as a trio, but one of them feels enough remorse about it to subtly sabotage the efforts enough to give the Rainbooms a fighting chance. Either Sonata as the typical stand-in nice one, or in the case of Sonata as a psychopath, Aria could be the traitor, for any number of reasons.
3- She integrates herself into the Rainbooms, and pretends to be their friend, because she wants to destroy them from the inside. THen she has to play a game of subterfuge, rather than just outright revenge. As much as I hated that book, the one guy in The Scarlet Letter is basically what I'm thinking of.
8757395 Sure, I think any of those would be potentially possible. You might have to keep a constant eye out for pitfalls, but yeah, there are some options for how it could be done. Giving her telekinesis, though, might be a game breaker.
8757428
Well, I think there's ways around it. But yeah, it's not something I'm likely to actually do. I've still gotta focus on Neighbors, and I have some other side projects I'd like to do before trying my hand at a horror.
Hey, speaking of, do you think this story should have a Mystery tag? Naiad and I were going back and forth on the tags, but we never talked about that one.
8757456 No, I think it's good as it is. I'm not sure there's enough proper Mystery content here to satisfy Mystery fans who come to the story for that, so I don't think it would help to advertise it as that kind of story? Whereas drama and romance is here a-plenty, so I think leave it how it is
Hahaha, I can't link it here as it's M-rated, but look at the name of the story which just popped up in the New Stories column.
8757468
Yeah, that's about what I figured. Deciding on tags for this story has been such a pain It dabbles a little in sad, and even dark.
And the end is at least a hint of scariness, but none quite enough to justify the tags. Oh well. Keep it simple, and even if I get fewer readers, hopefully the ones I have won't be disappointed
8757538
Yeah, true, that would be a good order of events. The tragedy of Sunset being nabbed while on her way to reconcile with Twilight would be lovely.
"Cue the main story, Sunset is saved, and Sunset and Twilight reconcile." Of course... the only issue there is that in my stories, the damsel is rarely saved.
8757609
Unlikely
Like I said, I'm probably not going to be doing a sequel. But when I do write with a Dark tag, I like to earn it.
Please make a sequel.
8757478 Again, I think Drama carries a suggestion of all of those, and it's only if those elements are more prominent than the drama that the tags should be added, I think.
Maybe it's to do with intent - if the reason for writing the story was to scare people, then it has the Horror tag, and otherwise it doesn't, regardless of whether it has some scary bits. Like, if scaring people was the main reason you wrote it. Just as if you wrote the story to make people laugh, it should have the Comedy tag, but not if it's just a slice of life with a few jokes in it.
So I think the Sad tag has to leave a lasting impression of sadness. That can either be a story with a sad ending, or one where, despite the more upbeat ending, such a high percentage of the story is sad that that's the main thing you remember about it.
And then there's the yardstick of other stories to consider. The Mother of Many Faces is dark, Resplendence Revoked is sad, and unless you have those elements in that kind of quantity, I think measuring up against those kind of stories by adding the tags won't make yours look good. Plus the old rule of the more tags signifying the worse story.
Keep it clean and focused, it'll be (it is!) better for it
8757939
It's not super likely, but it might happen eventually.
8758206
Good advice, as always
I did put a little more information in the description at least, in case people were getting turned away by the Sex tag, or taken by surprise because they didn't know what the contest was about. It did hit Popular this morning, so I'm happy about that
I'm...impressed! This is a very well made story! It's not very often I find something of such quality under the "sex" tag. However, I did notice a few things that were problematic. Mainly in grammar, which are actually very minor. Things like "...out ill fated music career," and "Sunset pat her knee," as well as some lack of punctuation. But, the grammar is also very good in this story, even managing to teach me some new words (I'll be honest, though, "niggling" does not sound good out loud)! More than that, this simply oozes with passion and thought, and the story structure is very well put together! Perhaps the most impressive aspect, however, is the understanding of the teenage mind, and how their insecurities, wants, and emotions conflict with simple logic and decision making, especially for teenage girls. This really helped Twilight feel like a realistic teenager, which isn't really explored in the movies. Granted, neither is the sexual tension and nudity, but whatever. I'd personally give it an 8.5/10. Good work!
9121039
Thank you so much I definitely try to get into the characters' heads when I'm writing, it's part of the fun of it I think. Even when it's something more depressing like Twilight's insecurity.
As for the grammar stuff, haha, well that's embarrassing I thought I combed through it pretty well. If there were any other spots you noticed, feel free to pm me and I'll try and get them patched up.
It will really makes me sad if this never gets a sequel, Adagio seducing Sci-Twi away from Sunset is a surprising HOT IDEA,
I mean, I really LOVE SciTwiShimmer, but having another hot female rival for Sunset is always welcome, add Sugarcoat and you have 3 hot girls fighting for the adorkable girl :3
That little loose end is BEGGING for a sequel! And so am I! Does SciTwi get her geode back? Does Sunset find out? Does Adagio slide into a three-person relationship with them?!
Probably not that last one, but it felt like a good end to that little tirade.
So, Sunset's not "doing" Twilight because of her equine heat cycles?
9926059
Not exactly, but close. Sunset was born a pony, and is attracted to ponies. She's still getting used to the idea of sleeping with a human. In other words, she loves Twilight romantically, but she's not attracted to her sexually. But she's trying.
Could you maybe write a sequel to this where Twilight tells Sunset about what happened between her and Adagio?
I would love a sequel to this story, its a really good take on Sunset adjusting to human sexuality and the relationship between her and Twi. Hope you make one, this was really good great job.
Eyy, now that's good "fucked up", lez go!