| The Sock Swap | |
|---|---|
 The coverart on Equestria Daily
| |
| Writer(s) | ProBrono |
| Date published | August 23, 2011 |
| Status | Complete |
| Type/genre | Comedy |
| Featuring | Luna |
The Sock Swap is a fan fiction written by ProBrono for Equestria Daily's Happy Luna competition. It takes the "ponies in socks" meme and turns it into a story about a holiday that, in retrospect, has some parallels to Luna Eclipsed.
Plot[]
Luna is excited that her favorite holiday, the Sock Swap is approaching. Her collection of socks is now a thousand years old and thus highly valuable. Her enthusiasm is barely squashed by Celestia's revelation that the Swap had died out not too long after Luna's banishment. Undeterred, Luna simply announces the Second First Annual Sock Swap and plans to make surprise visits to multiple towns, including Ponyville.
Celestia, concerned that Luna will be disappointed if the Swap does not run the way it had in the past, sends a letter to Twilight Sparkle asking her and her friends to create personalized socks to give to Luna when she arrives. After Twilight spreads the news, the ponies mostly agree to have Rarity make all the socks. The only dissenters are Applejack, who feels that such a plan is dishonest, and Pinkie Pie, who can't seem to grasp the idea that it is a sock swap and not, say, a Spock swap.
The day of the Swap arrives and the festivities are a hit with the Ponyville residents, many of whom eagerly showcase their personalized socks up until Celestia and Luna arrive. The showing off of the Mane 6's sock offerings goes badly until Pinkie Pie appears with a sock puppet that seems to possess her and stages a robbery of Luna's collection. One of Luna's own sock puppets rises up to challenge the robber and hilarity and confusion ensue.
Relation to Luna Eclipsed[]
This story and the episode Luna Eclipsed have a common theme in Luna attempting to improve her public image through use of a holiday. The key differences lie in "The Sock Swap" being written as an out-right comedy and has Celestia taking a direct role in the plot, thus eliminating the "fish out of temporal water" plot device of the episode. The connections are purely coincidental because "Sock Swap" was written long before Season 2 premiered.