FimFiction Link - Short ID: 25219/the-night-that-never-ended
Published: May '12 — Aug '14
The Night That Never Ended is a 145k Dark AU Adventure fic. Twi does an oopsie while experimenting with a teleportation spell and transports herself alongside Dash into a world where the EoH never fully manifested, letting NMM win.
The writing's ok, imo, but there are an absolute mountain of technical errors. Characters having hands, missing spaces, non-capitalized names, filly/colt in place of mare/stallion. Some are super glaring and can break your focus. Despite that I had a pretty clear image in mind for this Equestria the whole time, so it's not an impossible read.
I can't say that I hated this, but I finished it not feeling all too much, either. Twilight was a little frustrating. The only reason they're in this situation is because she just so happened to not tell Dash (who was already super hesitant to help her) that all the ponies who experimented with this spell have outright never been found afterward. This also makes the ending even worse, but I'm jumping ahead.
My main grief, I think, is Rarity. In this world, Ponyville was burned down by NMM's Shadowbolts since they refused to give up the girls. The bulk of the town escaped into a mountain cave and Rarity has been leading them as mayor. On some level I can see what the author was going for. She desperately wants ponies to feel good while living in a world of misery so she's constantly throwing feasts and using their supplies flippantly. Well-intentioned but ultimately negligent generosity, okay. The thing is she's also just fucking dumb. She doesn't read any of the reports sent to her desk, she constantly shut down Twi bringing up her mismanagement of things, and she seemed to just bask in the adoration the ponies gave her as mayor. She comes to her senses down the line but early on it really felt like she was just up her own ass to the point it left a sour taste in my mouth. Fluttershy also just has a totally nonsensical spiel in ch20.
As alluded to, the ending is not great. It tries to end on a hopeful note but it's too abrupt, as well as not actually being that hopeful. Luna is free of NMM but she won't rule, the sun is gone entirely, Celestia AND Applejack are dead. There's also a thing with Trixie; it's revealed that she knew how to do/used the teleportation spell Twi had used at the beginning of the story. That just... goes nowhere because during the final confrontation Trixie lets the Nightmare in and subsequently gets banished to the moon. It just sucks, because it's played as hopeful when it's really not.
There are parts of the story I liked, though. Big Mac was cool, I enjoyed NMM and Trixie's relationship (conniving henchmen are fun), and the NewPville fight was alright. I think the story needed to show more of the world to make the ending work. Still not great, but at least knowing that not everywhere is as bad as Pville would've done a lot. Oh yeah, rest in pancake'd Spike, kek.