Title:           /mlp/ reviews (updated 3.19.15)
Author:          notkickass222urmom
Pastebin link:   http://pastebin.com/tai42fWG
First Edit:      Thursday 19th of March 2015 10:38:01 AM CDT
Last Edit:       Thursday 19th of March 2015 10:38:01 AM CDT

ToC- Ctrl-F the title or just do a shitload of scrolling to find what you're looking for.  Some fics have multiple reviews
 
A Colt to Forget
A New World A New Ranger
A Pony In The Wasteland
A Royal Pain
A Survivors Guide to Equestria
A Vicious Animal
A Week in Ponyville
Ace Combat: The Equestrian War
After the Fall
All About Rarity
An investigation into chaos
Apple of Another Color
*At the Inn of the Prancing Pony
Awakening
Background Pony
Battle of the Blanks
Blackacre
Brown Note the Unicorn
Brushed away
Celestia Sleeps In
Certain Advantages
Changeling
Chasing Winter
Cheating Death
Children of the Sun
CJ in Equestria
Conflagration
Crossed Paths
Doing His duty
Earth & Sky
Empty Darkness
Equinophobia
Eyes on You
First Pony View
*Flash Fog
Foal of the Forest
Forever Faithful
Fragments
Friday Night Twilight
From Skies Above
Gateway of the Eyes
Gladiator
Hands
Harbinger, Randomness of George
Harmony Theory
He Gave Her a Rose
Headless Not Heartless
History Repeats
Horns, Hooves, and Fur
How many friends have you made today?!
How the Sunset Sparkles
Human After All
I Can't Decide!
I Dream of Luna
I Guess It Has to Be My Destiny
Idle Curiosity
Immortal's Retribution
In One Ear and Out the Other
Ink
Into the Black: A Mares Tale
It Takes A Village
Ivory
Jake and the Kid
Jason's Grand Tour of Equestria
Just Blink
Lines and Webs
Like No Other
Living the Dream
Love and Honour
Machinations of a Trickster
Mare Do Well As the Sky Falls
Memories of Shadow
mendacity
Miss Sparkle, Psychopath
Misunderstandings
MLP Loops
Morbid Curiosity
Mortal
My Little Apprentice
My Secret Life as an Evil Insect Overlord
Night's Favoured Child
Of the Hive
One Last Quest
Out of Place
Pegazo Vampir Equinae
Penumbra
Pony bound
Ponyville's New Pet
Quest For Harmony
Radiance
Re:Harmony
Rise
Rise of the Phoenix Empress
Saviour or Destroyer?
Second Chances
Second Contact
Shadows Enigma
Shattered
Shedding Your Skin
Stallions of Harmony - Longest Night
Stairway to Equestria
Stardust
Starswirl and the Purple Terror
Staying Sane in a Peaceful World
Substitute Harmony
Synchronicity
Taken for Granite
TD the Alicorn Princess
Ten Trips to Equestria
The Angel of Equestria
The Best of All Possible Worlds
The Betrayed
The Better Angel
The Celestia Code
The Closet is a Cold Place
The Disqord Continuum
The Dread Chitin
The Ecstatic Quotidian
The Element of Hate
The Fate of a Man
The Ghost
The Great OC Hunt
The Hanging of Twilight Sparkle
*The Last Human- a Tale of the Preclassical Era
The Lavender Letter
The Life and Times of a Winning Pony
The Luna Project
The Man With Two Names
The Many Deaths of Rainbow Dash
The Monster in the Twilight
The Name Game
The Princess and I
The Rule of King Cocoon of the Changelings
The Shadow of a Doubt
The Slumber of Gaia
The Stallion in the Library
The Terrifying Prospect of Swans in Love
The Thessalonica Legacy
The Time of Her Life
The Unity Pact
The White Horse
Together Forever
Trips into the Unexplored
Upheaval Breaking Point
Valor is Magic
Vengeance of Dawn
Wandering Moon
Welcome to the Mash
What If My Second Life
When Worlds Unite Up
Will the Last Pony to Leave
*woodpecker
World of Chaos
Worlds Apart
Written in Dust
You Do Not Belong
 
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A Colt to Forget
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/69619/a-colt-to-forget
 
I'm not really sure why this is even on fimfiction.
 
Its about a human, on earth, doing human stuff while luna and discord watch
 
pros-
>its not a HiE
>no alicornation of said human
>hes not a brony either
>oh and luna molests her guard
 
cons-
>this shit has nothing to do with ponies. it could have been written without any ponies at all and nothing would have been affected
 
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A New World A New Ranger
>http://www.fimfiction.net/story/213833/a-new-world-a-new-ranger
 
Salve mea, Domine. What has this worthless wretch done to deserve such punishment? I must have sinned greatly against you, O Lord, and penitently do shoulder my punishment.
 
This thing is an atrocious chimera of Pokemon and My Little Pony. The hook is this: a female Pokemon trainer is magically teletransportalized into Equestria, somehow turning into a giant fucking fluffy dog thing with nine tails. I never played Pokemon. It's called, entirely unoriginally, a Nine Tails. She immediately falls in love with her former pet, an Arcanine.
 
This is a long, worked out, sideways fantasy that the writer is having about a woman who wants to be fucked by her dog. That is what is going on here. I accidentally stumbled across it and began to read in what I am now assuming was some sort of LSD fugue, as that is the only way I can explain why I allowed this brain cancer to infiltrate my precious neurons.
 
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
 
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A Pony In The Wasteland
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/162886/a-pony-in-the-wasteland
 
82k words
[T] [sex] [gore] [romance] [sad] [crossover] [adventure] [AU] [human]
 
A scavenger in the capitol wasteland is out scavenging one day, when he stumbles across a pony.
 
This was... just wow. Imagine if you will, someone combining Dark Wanderings with My Little Dashie. you think that's bad? Now imagine that combination being written by a 12 year old. Fortunately it doesn't use the plot of Fallout 3, just the setting and some of the background characters. But that's bad enough. There's plenty of gore and plenty of "DASHIIIIIEEEEEEEE". and needless drama. Well drama in the sense that its like a preteens version of drama. And there's action. In the sense that its like a preteens version of action.
2/10 I can't believe I actually finished reading the damned thing.
 
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A Royal Pain
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/155687/a-royal-pain
41k words
[M] [sex] [comedy] [SoL]
 
Blueblood is a player. He goes to high class partys. He picks up chicks. He takes them home. He fucks the shit out of them. One day at a party he meets the daughter of the seapony ambassador, takes her home and fucks the shit out of her. A few months later he starts getting sick in the mornings. Apparently seaponies have some things in common with seahorses. Prince Blueblood is pregnant.
 
I thought this one was pretty good for what it is- a cloppy comedy in which everyones favorite royal goes through some personal growth. He starts off as a snooty uptight R63 rarity we saw in TBNE and becomes much more likeable over time as he gets settled into Ponyville. I don't really want to do a long review for such a short story, but I'd definitely recommend for anyone with an afternoon to kill. 7/10
 
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A Survivors Guide to Equestria
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/75175/a-survivors-guide-to-equestria
108k words
 
[teen] [dark] [comedy] [adventure] [AU] [Human]
The last human on earth miraculously survives a nuclear holocaust by falling through a portal his friend made. Guess where he winds up. He then continues to live his super edgy life in the woods by the skin of his teeth and the snark of his snark.
 
OK so heres a brooding edgy backstoried, last of his kind, human, snarklord, douchebag asshole living in the everfree because hes an asshole and noone likes him. He constantly gets his ass kicked because onomonopia hates his OCs or something. Checks off everything on the edgy- edgelord of edginess HiE checklist, so weve got snark, edge, snark, blood, snark, fights, snark, asshole humans, snark, asshole ponies and a distinct lack of pinkie parties
 
The protagonist is just about as far from a gary stu as is possible. Which just made me miss stus in shitty fanfiction, because snark vader just makes shitty uninspired fanfiction even worse
 
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A Vicious Animal
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/193838/a-vicious-animal
34k words (plus 2 sequels)
 
An apparently postapocalyptic human with a seeming 7edgy23u backstory winds up in canterlot, where he is imprisoned and despised by everyone except Celestia, who wants his hot, irradiated monkey cock.
 
Pros:
[romance][sad][SoL] tags, but it would have been more accurate to just have [comedy]
Really the comedy is the only thing it has going for it.
 
Cons:
Really weak romance and not that sad.
Mistagged.
 
This really starts out like PLanet of the Apes. but with ponies.  A foul mouthed, illiterate and psychotic human would lead you to believe this to be a self insert, but oddly enough that Doesn't seem to be the case.  Its supposed to be a sadfic, but I found it to be really damned funny.
 
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A Week in Ponyville
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/28607/a-week-in-ponyville
89k words
 
A generic and uninteresting human gets summoned to ponyland by Celestia.  He is given one week to acclimate to life in ponyville before he gets sent back to Earth.  He is tasked with becoming one with the elements.  Oh did I mention that manjizz is like pony meth?
 
Pros:
Its not a self insert (I think)
Its a clopfic with an actual story attached
There was a sequel planned that never happened
 
Cons:
For being a clopfic, the clops not really all that great
Pointless drama! is pointless, then handwaved, then forgotten completely
 
 
Meet ponies, get molested by princesses, have all the mares lusting after spunk, get ensnared into at least 3 pinkie parties inside of a week, more seedlust, the end.
 
3/10
 
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Ace Combat: The Equestrian War
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/24736/ace-combat-the-equestrian-war
The idea of a war fic is extremely interesting bu this fic does not deliver at all. Bad writing, bad descriptions, OCs with lots of red, absolutely no skill, intelligence, thought or whatever behind the characters, shitty story, inconsistent and idiotic world building. The best part about the story were the barely acceptable OC names. Dropped after 2nd chapter.
2/10
 
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After the Fall
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/239779/after-the-fall
 
Pros:
>is filled with despair and hopelessness like a grimdark fic needs to be
>no annoying OCs or Pinkie because everyone who's not an alicorn is dead
>has several nice subplots to keep things from getting too bleak and angsty
 
Cons:
>viewer apathy sets in quickly
>little chance for a non deus ex machina happy ending
>the author's gone beyond his originally intended ending--meaning possible padding/ending problems could be looming on the horizon
 
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All About Rarity
I would like to respectfully recommend "All About Rarity" by Wellspring.
 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/87224/all-about-rarity
 
It is a very well-done and emotional story about love, infidelity, and tragedy. It contains RariJack, Shining x Rarity, rape, attempted rape, hate sex, violence, longing, intense drama, high society, etc. The focus on infidelity is a particular quirk for this story.
 
Wellspring is good enough to get published, and he's smart to boot. I will start on his other two fics soon. This author is a diamond in the rough and needs more feedback and attention. I would love to see more from him soon.
 
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An investigation into chaos
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/145690/an-investigation-into-chaos
 
>Pros
Celestia is actually interesting as a character.
Discord is a nice guy, and more than a lolsorandum pile of tropes.
Twilight is shown as a powerful mage, but still not overpowered
Some interesting worldbuilding
Discord only goes into monologues about how Chaos is necesary once, and it doesn't last that long.
>Cons
Some bad writting towards the end, but when I readed it the guy was making a complete rewrite and hadn't finished
Discord goes edgy (Described by Luna as "The ultimate predator") for a few days out of anger. Then he returns back to normal because "The spines made it hard to walk". I guess this goes a bit too much into opinions, but I cringed with the whole form change thing.
Celestia acts like a kid about her crush around halfway, but then again she is still getting used to the idea.
 
All in all, I'd say it's worth a read. Through I think it stays good because it's simply too short to really fuck up (170 pages?), something that more writers should learn to do. It was also written by a lurker here if memory serves,
 
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Apple of Another Color
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/37352/apple-of-another-color
 
A hillbilly redneck finds a cartoon hillbilly redneck offensive. Gets transported to magic ponyland. Turns out the ponies know about perverted pedo bronies. Fight ensues. immediately make up. immediately make out. suddenly flim & flam.
 
Pros:
its short (14k words)
hillbilly rednecks hating other hillbilly rednecks is funny
Twilight is a perv that encourages bestiality
 
Cons:
craptastic pacing
pointless villains out of nowhere
instant resolution for all disputes and issues
 
Just proof that it doesn't have to be a self insert to suck
 
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At the Inn of the Prancing Pony
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/181949/at-the-inn-of-the-prancing-pony
 
it was a natural 20.
 
9/10.
 
 
this is a tabletop rpg fic that apes dungeons & dragons. i personally have had zero tabletop experience of any kind, so i have very little to comment on its success as a tabletop rpg fic, instead i will say that as a person without any tabletop experience, i did not find it to be a barrier to my enjoyment of the fic, so if you are like me and have no experience have no fear, the material should not hamper your enjoyment of the fic.
 
the fic is, of course, heavily adventure focused around and initially follows celestia as hope springs as she explores the new world of equestria before the big reveal of the gods. celestia herself is wonderfully done and meets most of my general criteria for showlestia. other pony characters range from good in midnight, interesting in firebelle and i-dont-care in most other named characters. tertiary pony character development may be a legitimate problem with this fic, the god characters that are later introduced are also less interesting. this is celestias show to carry and she does it imo.
 
the god oriented chapters are weaker from my point of view, but those of you more acquainted with tabletop might love them. in any case, they're good vehicles for more celestia drama.
 
most plot-points are followed up on although not all to my personal satisfaction, primary examples are the dragon army and the firebelle/brian stuff. tl;dr good fic, but im biased from enjoying previous works.
 
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At the Inn of the Prancing Pony
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/181949/at-the-inn-of-the-prancing-pony
I just finished "At the Inn of the Prancing Pony", based on a recommendation from this thread. It was pretty fucking strange, but overall I enjoyed it.
 
It's set in an alternate Equestria where otherwise-normal ponies are sometimes possessed by otherworldly "Players", turning them into dreaded "Adventurers", known for starting fights with monsters, unleashing ancient evils, and generally causing mayhem everywhere they go. (Think "tabletop RPG", because that's exactly how it is.) Celestia wakes up after 80 years of enchanted sleep following the defeat of NMM, and sets out (in earth pony disguise) to figure out what the fuck is going on.
 
The story gets pretty weirdly meta (it is, after all, a story about human RPG players unknowingly controlling the actions of actual ponies living in actual Equestria), but the author at least had some sort of plan, so the story doesn't turn into a trainwreck like "Human" did.
 
Good stuff:
>The premise sounds crazy at first, but it turned out really interesting.
>The author reveals the backstory and details at a reasonable pace.
>Even through all the action sequences, the author never forgot to include periodic reminders that some Weird Shit is going down.
 
Bad stuff:
>There were a couple spots where the author rushed the explanation of some character interactions enough that the outcome was confusing.
>The subplot with the family in the cave was totally useless and the author forgot about it after only a chapter or two.
>Everything wraps up nicely, but then the story keeps going for 3 or 4 more chapters, each one pointing out a flaw in the previous chapter's resolution, and then promptly resolving that new problem.
>The author takes a perfectly good explanation for the weird state of Equestria and fucks it up by tossing a totally unnecessary "Discord did it" on top.
 
7/10
 
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Awakening
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/85825/awakening
 
10k+ years in the future Celestia is long dead, Equestria sunk to the bottom of the sea, Ponies have spread out amongst the stars, tribalism has returned and magic is but a myth.
 
Pros:
SciFi done right (without laser missiles or being a crossover)
Well written
 
Cons:
Every other chapter is a flashback, gives a pretty distorted feel overall
Celestia ex machina (despite being dead for 10k years)
 
Gives the impression its the start of a series, yet no follow up ever happened.
 
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Background Pony
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/19198/Background-Pony
 
My thoughts? Jesus Christ, I thought I was already a cold, heartless bastard, fuck was I proven wrong.
 
The basic premise is that one day, it becomes impossible for ponies to remember Lyra, as if she was completely removed from existence, wandering ponyville as nothing more than a specter, helping where ever she possibly can.
 
What did it evolve into? A heart wrenching story, involving the hubris of a creator who birthed something that's entire existence is to bring death, the human condition, how life is going to fuck us over, how without memories, we are nothing, and a nut punching, I swear to god these are manly tears it's so sad, metaphor about how our life is going to blink before our eyes.
 
For the entirety of the journey, I was enraptured, and enthralled. It had me guessing, theorizing, and crying because I'm a little bitch who connected a little too much with what happens in the end.
 
All in all, easy 9/10 in my books. Solid writing, solid plot, great narrative, lacking in the character department, but excels in Lyra's personal development, and the feels feel like I've been stabbed in the heart, which is made all the more painful by how simple it's all written in the end, as Lyra ages, and her diary entrees slip into the madness she sought to fight.
 
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Battle of the Blanks
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/46200/battle-of-the-blanks
 
402k words
[T] [gore] [romance] [dark] [comedy] [AU] [human]
 
a teenage brony /k/nucklehead is off on the woods playing with muh gunz one day when he finds himself being sucked into a creepypasta game crossover...
 
Why do I do this to myself? Unless you're a newfriend or a reasonably normal person, you've probably heard of 'story of the blanks' or whatever it was called. essentially its a village of werezombie ponies who live in a town in the middle of the everfree that applebloom stumbles into. This is a (likely) self insert crossover fanfic in which our /k/ommando protagonist winds up in a love quadrangle with applebloom, luna and some ghost chick that was murdered by her mother or some retarded shit. towards the end theres some mass effect shit that comes out of nowhere.
 
its really fucking retarded. 2/10
 
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Blackacre
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/123244/blackacre
 
Pros:
>Tyrantlestia done well
>politics and war, what a combination
>Celestia flexes her manipulative muscles
 
Cons:
>shit tons of OCs mean subplots become a mess
>prequel setting means foregone conclusion
>Tyrantlestia still too evil, needs more moral ambiguity
 
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Brown Note the Unicorn
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/177484/brown-note-the-unicorn
 
I don't know why shit like this surprises me anymore
 
pros-
one of the few 'comedies' I've read that actually resulted in minor chuckling
an OC that isn't OP, edgy or savior of the world
 
cons-
was a little short. though thats not much of a con, as stretching this out further probably would've caused this to go stale quickly
excessive fourth wall breakage
 
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Brushed away
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/104295/brushed-away
 
It's a very sweet, extremely sappy gay romance coupled with a decently interesting relationship drama. The very slow and meticulous build-ups cause intense climaxes in the story, which are underlined by a writing style focusing on emotion.
The writing is competent enough with minor stylistic mistakes. Weak points in the story include a bunch of lore-breaking and the world having overtly human-like elements. Still, I would say it's among the better fanfics overall and definitely a must-read for any fan of the romance.
 
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Celestia Sleeps In
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/76290/celestia-sleeps-in
Just finished reading this, and it's pretty damn good. It's basically the Five Score of first contact fics - every aspect of the first contact scenario is gone over in minute detail, and there's no lolmagic translator spell so Lyra and Dale have to actually work to understand each other.
 
Main downsides:
1. It's pretty slow to get started. The prologue and first chapter do nothing but set up a bunch of background for the first contact and a subplot that hasn't gone anywhere yet. Chapter 2 is where it really picks up.
2. Despite the big "Completed" on the fic's page, the story isn't actually finished yet. The author picked an arbitrary cutoff, marked the fic completed (without even writing any kind of real ending), and continued on in the sequel (which I haven't started reading yet).
 
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Celestia Sleeps In
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/76290/celestia-sleeps-in
150k words (+sequel)
 
Pissed that she's the only one on the planet that doesn't get to sleep in late ever, Celestia begins looking for another planet to visit to Live the Dream of sleeping in. On finding a habitable world, she portals herself there with some guards and Lyra for whatever reason and just happens to stumble on some old dude out camping.
 
And thus begins a first contact story that doesn't involve bronies, hugs, or even speaking the same language
 
Pros:
Plausible first contact scenario including communication and cultural issues
Hilarious baseless assumptions on both sides
 
Cons:
The constant repetition of events portrayed through both Dale's and ponies perspectives and interpretations of things gets old after a while
Pacing seems slow to me, things that should get glossed over don't, and things that shouldn't do.
 
The sequel Onto the Pony Planet continues with the same pros and cons, but unfortunately is still in progress
 
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Certain Advantages
>http://www.fimfiction.net/story/68260/certain-advantages
>12k words
 
This year's Sisterhooves Social has two new participants.
The Royal Pony Sisters.
Shenanigans ensue.
 
While sometimes the fic dabbles in absurdism, it's still pretty entertaining as a whole. Definitely a reccomend.
 
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Changeling
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/122849/changeling
[Comedy] [Random] [Celestia] [Twilight]
1,419 words total
 
When Twilight told the Princess that one of her long-time friends was actually a changeling drone, she expected shock, she expected questions, requests for proof.
She did not expect "Yes, I know. Was that all?"
 
 
7/10
Characters stayed in character. It's funny. It doesn't overstay its welcome. Overall, a pretty good short comedy.
 
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Chasing Winter
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/98069/chasing-winter
85k words
 
Trixie, on the run from nobles because reasons, joins an expedition to the far north in search of a windigo
 
Pros:
A Trixie story not involving retarded shipping
A Trixie story in which Trixie isn't redeemed, nor is she a cunt.
 
Cons:
Wacky worldbuilding friendly changelings in Unicornia
Nutty nobles Lulamoons, Bluebloods
 
Not really much to say about a short, small party adventure fic. Though a sequel/spinoff has been hinted at. Still fun and enjoyable even if nothing major really stands out. 6/10
 
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Cheating Death
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36257/cheating-death
 
A brony with a 17edgy53you backstory has a near death experience and tricks the grim reaper into sending him to ponyland. He spends the remainder of the story escaping the Everfree in order to complete his quest of hugging a pone
 
Pros:
its not written by kickass, andre, or SSnE
its short (30k words)
Death is best pone
 
Cons:
its a BiE (which automatically makes it 100 times worse than a HiE story)
has a deadfic sequel consisting of 2 10k word chapters
the 41edgy99you backstory has a twist you can see coming from miles away
 
 
While not the worst piece of crap I've ever read, it really was pretty pointless
 
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Children of the Sun
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/860/children-of-the-sun
79k words
[T] [Dark] [Adventure]
 
Nightmare Moon has been banished, Celestias been in self imposed exile ever since, the elements of harmony have been lost and civil war, pain and strife are all most ponies know. 4 ponies of different backgrounds set forth to fix a mistake one of them caused.
 
An all OC cast done right. No alicorns, no disgusting color schemes, no excessive edginess or angst. A farmer/would be queen, a lunar deserter, a celestial guard and a whore band together to stop a civil war that farmer chick helped cause on top of attempting to prevent celestias assassination. It flows well and I didn't notice anything really complaint worthy about this.
 
Its a quick read and worth some attention, despite being as old as it is. (from 2011)
 
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CJ in Equestria
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/170382/cj-in-equestria
60k words
 
A GTA San Andreas crossover.  CJ wakes up in the everfree one day and the world turns to shit
 
Pros?  Cons?  I got nothing.
 
I've read Humans in Equestria, Bronies in Equestria, Anon in Equestria, Military in Equestria, and anti-bronies in Equestria.  Now I've scraped the bottom of the barrel and read a Nigger in Equestria story.
Its a crack fic.  A sixty fucking thousand word crackfic.  With excessive amounts of nigger slowly corrupting the mane 6 and sunbutt, who apparently wants some hot nigger cawk.  Kinda funny, but the premise starts wearing thin about halfway through.
 
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Conflagration
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/193043/conflagration
36k words
 
In his dreams, a horsefucker is approached by a pony offering to allow him to visit ponyland via bodyswap. brony accepts without asking any questions. Turns out his benefactor was actually a mass murderer that Twilight and Celestia had finally tracked down, and he (now a she) has been caputred and sentenced to death.
 
 
Pros:
Fairly well written
Flows well
 
Cons:
Twilight is judge, jury and executioner.  Court? laws? fate being determined by a jury of your peers? thats for plebs.
Celestia ex machina ending
Revenge! Twilight, while understandable, was annoying
 
 
Despite having tragedy, dark and sad tags and 70% of the fic taking place in a dungeon cell, and having a dedicated clop chapter this was still a fairly quick and fun read.
 
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Conflagration
Finally read Conflagration (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/193043/conflagration) and god was it shit. The justice system was just as terrible as I had been led to beleive. No courts to speak of. Twilight being horribly OOC. That awful second person format. Sudden clop that makes no sense and serves no purpose. And the inexplicable deus ex machina ending that really seems like the author wanted to go full grimdark but just couldn't bear to go through with it so just slapped on a "happy" ending.
 
2/10. Jimmies suffered a breach that will require the IMF and European Bank to construct a New Safe Confinement around them to shelter everyone from the rustling. Would not recommend.
 
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Crossed Paths
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/4285/crossed-paths
113k words
 
6 ponies, a time traveling warrior and an archaeologist wind up transported to a mysterious land wrought with danger, team up and attempt to find a way home.
 
 
Pros:
Doesn't take itself too seriously
 
Cons:
Serious OOC issues with nearly every character. Rainboohoo Dash, Bravershy, Warity, Indiana Feels, Twilight Snarkle, etc
 
 
A 3 way crossover- Ponies, Samurai Jack and Indiana Jones. Its got the makings of a crackfic, but wound up being a legit attempt at writing. Written by the guy that did Written in Dust and Reinventing Trixie (and the same guy that fucked up Misunderstandings), but as this was his second story on the site (and the first was a one shot) this one's kinda rough. OOC issues aside it also gets pretty predictable and downright weird towards the end. I'd suggest passing it by unless you're really desperate for some Indiana Jones or samurai jack ponyfiction
 
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Doing His duty
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/200595/doing-his-duty
 
It's pretty decent so far.
 
Pros:
>fucking pony!Flash Sentry isn't a fag
>pretty funny sometimes
>has Blueblood and he isn't a complete doucheberry
>worldbuilding porn
 
Cons:
>no fucking idea where the author is going with the plot
>author practically confirmed it for future Flashlight
>not finished yet
 
I give it 8keks/10
 
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Earth & Sky
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/34622/earth-sky
Surprisingly good SoL / static adventure fic set in the near future.
 
7.5+/10
 
+ remarkably solid writing for a horse fic
+ good characterization
+ interesting plot and imaginative roles for the (canon character) supporting cast
+ long *and* finished
+ well thought out, consistent trivia
+ good pacing and subplot/PoV management
 
- the fixation on foals and offspring in general carries over from the oneshot prequel and is getting sort of unhealthy - not bad per se, but a little bit uncanny
- the occassional cringe-inducing le20%cooler10sflat moments (far from frequent, but even one would be one too many) and bouts of irrational behavior for the sake of drama
- some characters threaten to slip into supreme gentleman speech patterns
 
---------------------------------------------
 
Empty Darkness
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/154640/empty-darkness
93k words
 
Luna and Sweetie Belle wake up in a world with no sun or moon, filled with darkness, and must figure out where they are and how to return home.
 
Starts out creepy and suspenseful, but halfway through quickly falls into a routine: Walk along in the dark, get attacked by creature, get injured, run away, rest and heal, continue walking along in the dark, get attacked by bigger/meaner/different creature, get injured, run away, rest and heal...
 
It's a quick read. I burned through it in the course of a shift at work. Nothing really special or great about it though. Worth a shot if you've got nothing else on your plate at the moment. 4/10
 
-----------------------
 
Equinophobia
 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/215237/equinophobia
95k words
 
[t] [SoL] [AU] [human]
A human mysteriously wakes up in an apple orchard in a strange land. Oh and she has a crippling fear of equines.
 
 
Someone was trying just a little too hard. the writer admits to knowing all of the standard HiE cliches, and tweaks them slightly to give the appearance of being original. The only original thing about this fic is the almost-titular hippophobia in equestria, but even that is nearly forgotten halfway through the fic. Its bland and really meh. 2/10
 
-----------------------
 
Eyes on You
 
>http://www.fimfiction.net/story/7531/eyes-on-you
 
>148k words
 
>Romance
 
One day, Twilight hears a cry of help in the forest, when she goes to invesitgate, she founds a battered Trixie being attacked by Timberwolves. What follows is the birth of a strong friendship, and perhaps something more.
But, why has Trixie returned to Ponyville?
Well, she wants Twilight to be her partner in the Manehattan Magic Display, Equestria's most prestigious show magic expo.
 
 
>Pros:
 
- Both Trixie and Twilight act believeable and in-character.
- They don't immediately hit it off, and it's nice to see how their personalities clash during the first chapters and start to warm up to each other.
- There's a love triangle going on between Trixie, Twilight and Rainbow Dash that has a good set-up and is well developed through the first part of the story.
- Despite the tonal shift between the Ponyville arc and Manehattan arc, the story keeps you interested in the developing relationship between Twilight and Trixie.
- The events of the Display are creative and engaging.
 
>Cons:
 
- Sans a couple of exceptions, most of the other OC participants in the Display are underdeveloped.
- Twilight's obliviousness to Rainbow Dash's feelings gets a bit tiring near the end of the Ponyville arc.
- The shift between the Ponyville arc and the Manehattan arc is very notorious. If it weren't for the romantic core of the whole story, they may as well be two different Twixie stores.
 
Overall, this is a great fic. The relationship between Trixie and Twilight feels natural, and the Display is a really interesting event. I give it 7.5/10
 
If you like Twixie and Grand Tournaments, this is for you.
 
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First Pony View
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/435/first-pony-view
 
Fuckthisstoryfuckthisstoryfuckthisstoryfuckthisstoryfuckthisstoryfuckthisstoryfuckthisstoryfuckthisstoryfuckthisstoryfuckthisstoryfuckthisstoryfuckthisstoryfuckthisstoryfuckthisstoryfuckthisstory!
 
If anybody has ever wondered how you can have too much purple prose to ruin a good idea, here it is. The faggot who wrote this shit is either a politician or autistic as hell. Go ahead, skim over the last couple chapters, SHIT ALL HAPPENS!
 
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Flash Fog
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/51991/flash-fog
128k words
[E] [comedy] [adventure]
 
An industrial accident in Cloudsdale leaves a massive, magically enhanced fog bank just outside of Ponyville. If it isn't dealt with soon it will harden, leaving massive tracts of farmland unusable. The department of Weather calls in the only available fog expert to deal with the situation. The problem? That expert is Fluttershy.
 
I found this one enjoyable, but for the life of me I can't figure out why. A significant chunk of the text (roughly a third) revolves around the fact that Fluttershy took a correspondence course in fog for the sole purpose of getting tax breaks and doesn't really know much of anything about dealing with fog. A slightly smaller chunk involves dealing with the bureaucracy laden dept. of weather. A third subplot involves Bon Bon and Lyra being convinced the fog is cover for a human invasion, despite it being a well covered industrial accident. Fourthly is the crusaders laying plans to capture a human. And finally theres the Cloudsdale lower middle management peon with a hardon for a former supermodel.
 
So you can clearly see my confusion- Human!Lyra and tax evasion really don't seem like the sort of thing you'd find in a good fic, but somehow kwakerjak managed to pull it off. 7/10
 
--------------------------
 
Foal of the Forest (series)
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/116344/foal-of-the-forest
 
The first of a (currently) 5 book series. I'm halfway through the fifth now.
 
I'm honestly shocked- an OP OC MC thats slightly edgy. Nothing new there. The shocking part? It actually works.
 
The story follows around a pegasus colt with an unusual condition- reptilian eyes. Constantly on the run from celestia worshiping cultists trying to kill him because they think hes possessed by demons. Stumbles across fluttershy in the everfree, saves her from timberwolves and the story picks up from there
 
features a celestia worshiping cult (that aren't all portrayed as nutty religious kooks), pegasus supremacists, changeling genocide, manipulative nobles, WMDs, assassins and feels
 
pros-
author recall- small things mentioned early in the story arc are recalled and expanded on in later installments
Well written and established characters remain in character
Feels- this story has them
 
cons-
excessive shipping- even though its slow paced and well matched it seems excessive (FlutterMel, SoarinDash, AJxOC, TwixOC, scootsxOC, RumBelle, flitterxOC, SpikeBloom, LightningFire, and the list goes on)
kung-fu superpowers- while not DBZ levels of stupidity, some canon characters and several of the OCs have advanced martial arts training. Its done well, but just doesn't see to fit the setting
 
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Forever Faithful
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/17548/forever-faithful
 
With this one, I had quite high expectations, as it was nominated. Sadly, those expectations were not met. The story starts with a funeral, in which everyone's being sad and all that, as you might expect from a funeral. After that, Twilight starts sending letters to Celestia. Just like with any great unexplained event in fanfics, it's put off on her being the Element of Magic. Twilight's insanity is not something that makes much sense, either. She is dead, which made her different, sure, but I see no reason for her to act like others should accept it easily. She states that she should be feeling guilt for doing some things, yet she casually tells Celestia that she doesn't care, which I wouldn't consider the best course of action.
 
Still, my biggest problem with this fic is the pacing. It's very short, yet it has a lot of emotion it needs to cover, leading to compressed emotion. The whole funeral scene is extremely rushed, and we are just being told that everyone is sad, Rainbow Dash threatening some stallions in a pretty forced attempt to show how hard it is for her. There are no clear indications of time, either, and the letters further complicate the matter. There is nothing particularly new or interesting about the plot, and the ending is just about as predictable as possible.
 
It might seem that I hate this story, but I don't. I do, however, think that there are a bunch of faults in it. It's not very surprising that this story has over 2k likes on fimfic. It's a casual creepy horror story that is made a bit deeper and a lot less horrific, and thus, much more easy to read. I would call it a watered down horror, but that wouldn't really be fair. It's made for a general audience, and that is what makes it like that. So if you are not a horror fan, but you still find some enjoyment in creepy things, you might want to check it out, as it is very well written.
 
------------------------------------
 
Fragments
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/45720/Fragments
72k words
 
Immediately after ACW an injured, amnesiac pegasus wakes up in the everfree and attempts to regain his lost identity. Yeah it doesn't take a genius to figure out where this is going...
5/10 You can pick up hints as to his true nature in chapter one, though the big reveal doesn't happen until 4 chapters later. Shit goes just a little too well for this guy , considering it takes place during the week after ACW. A pretty typical bugpone redemption/acceptance fic thats been done before by better writers. Has a sequel, and apparently is a crossover with another bugpone fic written by the same guy.
 
-------------------------------
 
Friday Night Twilight
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/190502/friday-night-twilight
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/200391/friday-night-twilight-ii
 
12k words total
 
every other week a purple pony shows up in your living room, eats your food, sheds on your couch and forces you to watch a tv show about her and then bitches about how thats not what really happened.
 
Pros:
 
Cons:
 
Why the fuck am I reviewing a 12k word story? Its short, its funny, and ought to take you about 15 minutes to read it. Bullshit ending in part 2, but easily tolerated.
 
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From Skies Above
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/7945/from-skies-above
Pros:
>really cool, original plot
>planetary politics
>complex, difficult to solve problems
Cons:
>humanity has shitty diplomacy
>humans are OPed due to that stupid "immune to magic" shit that's not explained
>hasn't updated in over a year
 
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Gateway of the Eyes
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/145815/gateway-of-the-eyes
 
210k words
[M] [sex] [gore] [romance] [adventure] [human]
 
An amnesiac teenager wakes up in a forest. Yeah thats about the extent of the info blurb. Take note of those tags, this is going to be a rough one.
 
OK this one looked at the list of cliche HiE shit and Drakalian decided to check off every single item off that list. We start off with a human waking up in a forest, not remembering who he is or anything about himself. His possessions include an ipod, a hoodie (I dont know what it is about HiEs and hoodies, but nearly every shitty HiE has Protagonist McCumsalot wearing a goddamned hoodie) and ninja weapons. His first action upon waking up in a dismal forest not knowing who he is? Of course- he saves a talking pony from a manticore. Then stumbles into a quaint country town where he immediately makes friends and has a party in his honor. Since he can't remember his real name, he comes up with one off the top of his head- Drakalian. (if that sounds familiar I'd advise you to look at the authors user name) And gets a love interest. Make that love interests. Everyone wants that hot monkey cock. Prepare for herding. And I don't mean2-3 mares ala xenophilia, no this guy goes full retard. I actually lost track of how many mares hes fucking on a regular basis (oh and there is clop. really poorly written by a guy thats never seen a vagina tier clop), but theres Fluttershy, AJ, Twilight, Lyra, Trixie, Ovtavia, Vinyl, Derpy, Luna, Celestia, Lotus (but no aloe) and I feel like I'm forgetting a few. also he adopts scootaloo. Anyway he settles in, has a lot of sex when derpy gets kidnapped. By azhuitol. Because he's figured out that derpy is daring dos sister. Thus begins the adventure portion where they go to the crystal empire to retrieve
derpy and a bunch of foals. Bullshit happens and another human pops up and ugh you know what I think thats enough.
 
Retarded as shit/10
 
-----------------------------------------
 
Gladiator
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/144701/gladiator
389k words
 
Guy goes camping. guy wakes up in Equestria. Guy gets captured by changelings and forced to fight in a gladiator style arena because reasons.
 
Guy escapes. Guy winds up in an overcomplicated plot fighting against Sombra.
 
More of the same we've all come to expect in HiEs. Non-edgy backstoried guy winds up in ponyland, obtains edginess, befriends the mane 6, repeated 'epic' fights against hordes of pointless enemies, etc, etc.
 
Nothing really special or unique here. finished recently, so some S4 stuff included in the later chapters. 4/10
 
-----------------------------
 
Hands
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/14407/hands
 
Pros:
>decent comedy
>the OC shipping isn't cringe inducing
>good canon characterization
 
Cons:
>features a standard snarky deadpan human seen in almost all HiE fanifcs
>main plot growing increasingly bizarre and sci-fi the changelings conquered Earth, causing the main character to suffer an FTL malfunction, and then did their ACW plot.
>there's a harem with Twilight, Fluttershy, and Chrysalis once she's defeated.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
Harbinger, Randomness of George
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36636/harbinger-randomness-of-george
32k words
 
After spending a few centuries traveling the world, one day Discord's older brother, George, shows up in equestria. George is another chaos being, owns a talking hat, and is human.
 
I tried. I really did. But I only made it 12k words in. 5 chapters was all I could take. Its not funny, its not entertaining, its not interesting.
 
I've finished some of the most autistic, spergy shitfics ever shat out by trilby wearing neckbeards, but I couldn't finish this.
 
I can say one saddening thing about this which can only be said for 3 other fics thus far:
 
Dropped
 
Seriously that shit be fucktarded, yo
 
-----------------------------------------
 
Harmony Theory
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/48739/harmony-theory
 
Rainbow Dash ends up in a future where there is much less magic but she still is as awesome as in the past. Well, not for long. She and her friends have to rescue the world from the Elements of Harmony!
 
The story has a few plot decisions that I do not like as well as a certain changeling and his rule 64 Pinkie Pie friend, who is much more annoying than the real one without all the awesome singing. However, overall the story is very well done and the best part about it is the character presentation: every single character is given the chance to be likeable in one way or the other. Not only the canon characters are extraordinarily well written, it also has some of the best OCs.
 
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He Gave Her a Rose
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/133328/he-gave-her-a-rose
 
If this fic is the embodiment of the concept "soft exposition' then I understand it now somewhat. I think this is a curious way to tell a story and it makes me understand the appeal of third person over second person a bit more.
 
9/11, was good. It's not really my cup of tea though, as everything was far too vague for the fic to fuel the escapism I've come to know and love when it come to everything pone. I think these type of fics focus more on the poetic aspects of things rather than actually keeping the reader enthralled with the story if that makes any sense. It felt like less "read this fic to indulge in ponies" and more "read this fic for a taste of something whimsical."
 
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Headless Not Heartless (series)
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/169153/headless-not-heartless
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/178613/golden-grace-headless-headaches
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/186087/the-life-and-times-of-an-alchemist-turned-pony
 
177k words in all. yet another of those awful "human becomes a video game character in ponyland" shitfics that had been trending lately.
This alone would be bad enough. But it gets worse- theres crossovers. Many, many crossovers. Crossovers with other "human got turned into a video game character in a different ponyland but decided to come visit this one for no plausible reason" All of the crossover chapters are written by other folks that have their own shitty human-turned-into-a-video-game-character-in-ponyland (heretofore simply labeled HTIaVGCiP). But of course all of these guest HTIaVGCiPs add nothing to the plotline, so I wound up skipping multiple chapters and story arcs because all of this HTIaVGCiP shit is pointless.
 
Pros:
Its not a self insert (I think? possibly?)
Its short for a trilogy
as of book 3, the writer confirms its over.
 
Cons:
HTIaVGCiP
crossovers, crossovers everywhere
HTIaVGCiP crossovers
 
Why do I do this to myself?
 
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Headless Not Heartless
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/169153/headless-not-heartless
 
it was soulless
 
6/10
 
 
Stop me if you've heard this before: a human finds a strange artifact based around a villain of some sort and uses it as a prop for a Halloween costume, that human is transported to equestria where while experimenting with his powers he angers celestia/luna who imprison/persecute him despite him only using his powers to inflict horrible punishments on ponies that deserve it, the princesses are portrayed as quick tempered, specist and naive. there is a scene where the villain confronts the elements about them just being pawns for celestia and not thinking so good, some elements are won over but twilight is the last holdout, typically depicted as a crazed mad scientist who would do anything celestia asks.
 
so yeah... this genre(?) of HiE is quite thoroughly beaten down and hosts many of the problems people tend to have with HiE in general, that said to the stories credit it does not spend a whole lot of time focusing on the backstory with the main character being fairly comfortable and static in disposition most of the typical angst is assumed to have already occured and everyone's dealt with it, with the exception being the hurrrrrrrrrrrrdurrrrrrrrrrr celestia derailings and how [mostly secondary] characters respond to that.
 
oh and it has crossovers with other fics characters showing up. yeah...
 
anyway, i'd be curious to know how far along this fad was at the time this fic was written, since it seems to hit a lot of the standard tropes with little new material showing up. it's not terribly hard to read though and nothing is bad enough to knock you out of immersion.
 
-------------------------------------------------
 
History Repeats
 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/90335/history-repeats
59k words
 
[T] [Dark] [adventure] [human]
When a new ancient evil enacts a plan to conquer Equestria and the elements of harmony aren't available anymore, Luna can only think to seek out and recruit an ancient fabled ally- The Megan
 
Its a G1/G4 crossover. honestly I probably would have enjoyed this one more if I had any knowledge whatsoever about 80s ponies, as there are a lot of apparent references. Megan Williams- apparently a decade older than she was in G1 despite something along the lines of 1400 years passing since she was in ponyland. Grogar- a ram necromancer. The smooze- something most will only get as a reference to friendship is witchcraft. flutterponies. Sleipnir (really? odin's ride popped up in 80s mlp? wacky shit) and tons and tons of G1 namedropping.
 
Still it was a fun adventure fic, fairly short and a quick read. 7/10 even if i didn't get most of the references.
 
-----------------
 
Horns, Hooves, and Fur
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/19697/horns-hooves-and-fur
122k words
[T] [sad] [comedy] [adventure] [SoL] [AU] [human]
 
A teenage brony falls through a portal and discovers hes been turned into a satyr. shenanigans ensue.
 
OK going into this I was well aware of the conflicting tags. sad comedy? Slice of life adventure? Meh I thought, how bad could it be?
Teenage brony in equestria immediately makes a few friends- Lyra, who had summoned him, carrot top, derpy and bon bon. Everypony else is rightly terrified of the freak until he starts helping them. After saving applebloom from a fire, AJ wants his hot goat cock. He gets captured by the royal guard and promptly escapes canterlots dungeon. He winds up with a 3000 bit bounty on his head, then proceeds to to the most intelligent thing he can think of- throws a concert in ponyville. Oh and his 'insanity' is an evil force thats more powerful than sombra, discord and nightmare moon combined.
 
Think it sounds like shit yet? we're just getting started. A few months ago I reviewed "what if- My Second Life", which was an autistic fanfic of a fanfic. About 7 chapters in I discovered that this was a fanfic crossover fanfic of a fanfic. So shit takes a turn for the worse when vinyl scratch, her husbandu the grim reaper (a former human), and another human with superpowers show up to help. Then goatboy helps the weather team deliver water to cloudsdale and he chills in town despite almost everyone hating him and having a large bounty on his head.
 
As much tolerance for stupidity as I have, I just couldn't take anymore. Dropped/10
 
------------------------------------------
 
How many friends have you made today?!
 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/192497/how-many-friends-have-you-made-today
68k words
 
[t] [sad] [SoL] [AU] [human]
Anon is just trying to survive life, but horse queen harasses him daily wanting to know how many friends he's made.
 
Its AiE. The princesses are just about anons only friends. The Mane 6 are total assholes, and they remain solidly in character while being such. Really the only reason this one deserves a mention is the fact the writer pulled off the mane 6 being assholes while remaining in character. Otherwise its a pretty meh non-comedy AiE
 
-------------------------------
 
How the Sunset Sparkles
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/155300/how-the-sunset-sparkles
92k words
 
[E] [Romance] [comedy] [SoL] [AU]
After the events of EQG, fearing for her safety, Sunslut Shimmer sneaks back through the mirror and into ponyland. Since ponies don't actually have any sort of judicial system, Celestia just has Twilight keep an eye on SS in ponyville because reasons.
 
Pros:
Decently written without any noticeable fuckups
Flows fairly well
Pacing isn't horrible
 
Cons:
Snarky and lusting over third best princess. This might as well have been a self insert OC
Draaaamaaaa. and not even especially good drama. Celestia hates me. Oh wait no she doesn't. Twilight hates me. Oh wait no she doesn't. My sister hates me. Oh wait- oh no she actually does. But then she doesn't. Hell demons are chasing me. Hell demons have dragged me to hell, oh I wonder if someone will save me?
 
Its OK if Twiset (Sunlight?) (Shimkle?) WTF is this ship called anyway? Well its ok if this is a ship you're interested in, but SS feels pretty out of character here. As does Twilight, honestly. Its really sort of flavorless. Perhaps something to read between other fics to cleanse the palate or something. 4/10 if you're really into the whole former villain redemption thing. 3/10 if you're not
 
--------------------------------------------
 
Human After All
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/159780/human-after-all
48k words
 
Lyra the aspiring archaeologist happens across an acncient bunker in the everfree.  And decides to assist the bases sole, 6 foot tall, immortal, biped resident in reclaiming his fallen races civilization after the 'chaos war' destroyed humanity
 
Pros-
A so/so sci-fi-ish setting
Human story without romance, dark, tragedy, sex, gore or SoL tags
 
Cons-
Lyra!+human!
(actual spoilers)
[spoiler]Equestria was earth all along[/spoiler]
[spoiler]ponies were humans all along[/spoiler]
 
Probably one of the better human stories out there if for no other reason than the lack of bronyism, suicide or a 7edgy9u backstory.  Takes an odd turn towards the end, but still pretty decent for what it is.  5/10
 
---------------------------------------
 
I Can't Decide!
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/194427/i-cant-decide
 
This is a Friendship is Optimal side fic. I read it because it showed up on the recommendation list for another fic I read, and because I like FiO. Unfortunately, this fic is pretty bad.
 
The main storyline is rather disjointed. The first three chapters feature the protagonist
spending ages deciding what sort of character to create for Equestria Online, and then warning others to be similarly careful (don't want to upload and then spend eternity as the wrong type of pony, after all). I'm still not convinced this would actually be a big deal, but the protagonist was, and the other characters were on board too after only minimal discussion. Turns out, none of really matters, because the Earth storyline completely drops this plot thread and instead follows the protagonist's sudden trip to Japan.
 
This next part makes me sound like an autist but I'm posting it anyway.
The other storyline, which runs in parallel, follows the protagonist's adventures in Equestria and his relationships with various NPCs. This part of the story suffers greatly from the author's blatant disregard for FiO canon. NPCs are not only aware of the "outer world", they directly observe and interact with it on several occasions. The NPCs' transition from "extension of Celestia" to "independent mind", which is supposed to be basically transparent for everyone involved, gets turned into a major plot point. But even then, the transition itself winds up having basically no effect, aside from giving the NPC full knowledge of pop culture references.
 
Overall: 2/10. Maybe 4/10 if you don't care about the FiO-specific stuff.
 
-------------------------------------
 
I Dream of Luna
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/163879/i-dream-of-luna
84k words
 
 
Anon winds up in Equestria and attempts to live his life while the mane six and Luna are all out for his hot monkey cock.
 
Another greentext conversion written by the same guy that did Exchange, this one came first and is much rougher, despite only being a month older. And its more rape-y. The humor isn't quite as refined as what came in Exchange either. If you liked Exchange, you could give this one a shot, but otherwise its a pretty skippable AiE 4/10
 
--------------------------------
 
I Guess It Has to Be My Destiny
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/180605/i-guess-it-has-to-be-my-destiny
 
one shot. Your cutie mark shows your destiny, and you must fulfill your destiny regardless of how great or odd it may be
 
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Idle Curiosity
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/102625/idle-curiosity
 
Pros:
>interesting plot
>multiple factions help keep the plot complex
>told mainly from the humans' perspective
 
Cons:
>goes down the "first contact plot" cliche checklist
>human characters are somewhat dull
>evil megacorp bullshit that makes no sense from an economic perspective
>told mainly from the humans' perspective
 
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Immortal's Retribution
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/43339/immortals-retribution
[Celestia] [Luna] [Sad] [Dark]
3,059 words total
Death is something that drives the world. Hand in hand they walk around the land, Time and Death, the regents of Reality. The things that are unreal become apothesised, placed on the throne above the mortals and given powers above life itself.
 
6/10
It's all a lead up to the story's premise. the background reasons for the result is pretty flimsy, but the story doesn't focus on it. The writing is competent enough. I found the combination of premise and situation interesting. Actual spoiler follows. Celestia tries to hang herself and discovers she will just 'wake up' from death.
 
---------------------------------------
 
In One Ear and Out the Other
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/167053/in-one-ear-and-out-the-other
 
one shot. Typical twistfic. generic background character hears 2 humans discussing something offensive, runs around gathering an angry mob only to discover what the humans were discussing wasn't so evil afterall
 
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Ink
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/107079/ink
 
Its shit.
 
pros:
It has words
 
Cons:
Those aren't very good words, nor are they placed in an order convenient to understand said words
 
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Into the Black: A Mares Tale
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/66766/into-the-black-a-mares-tale
133k words
 
Through no fault of her own for the first time in all fanfiction, Twilight is sucked through a portal and deposited into a very HALO-esque war between some humans and aliens that want to wipe all life from existence. Then returns home only for the war to follow her
 
Pros:
A decent attempt at sci-fi for the first half of the story
 
 
Cons:
Crappily done sci-fi/fantasy fusion in the second half
Really weird, heavily used headcanon Humans originally had magic but risked destroying themselves, so a "Chaos Lord" took all of Earths magic and gave it to a small group of people before creating a new world for them. SStB is Merlin, princesses parents were Arthur and Guinevere. And it gets even wackier from there.
Incidental shitshipping. Really odd combinations get offhandedly mentioned and have no impact on anything. SpiDash, Thunderlane/Gilda, Derpy/Scratch, TwiTurner
 
 
This could have been decently entertaining if it were just a story about Twilight trying to find her way home from halfway across the galaxy. Seriously the first half is fun and entertaining. Usually with funny cutscenes as Twilight divulges her tale to her friends. Sadly it didn't end there. Eventually a palette swapped rendition of HALO winds up on Equestrias doorstep, leading to thousands of playful pacifist pastel ponies immediately signing up to fight, maim and kill their invaders. It gets laughably silly, and even more so when the writer attempts to be dramatic. 2/10. 4/10 if you only read up to the point where Twilight finishes telling her story to everyone.
 
-------------------------------
 
It Takes A Village
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/6195/it-takes-a-village
148k words
 
A few years down the road (its never specified when), Spikes starting to grow up. He doesn't fit in the treebrary anymore, He's catching flak from out of towners that don't like dragons, he's caught the attention of the pony equivalent of the ASPCA and hes pissed off his much bigger neighbor (the green dragon from the owl episode). despite much opposition he just doesn't want to leave home.
 
Pros:
No twilicorn
Feels- this story has them. Well up until the last few chapters, oddly enough
No shitty shipping. Well until the epilogue, oddly enough.
 
Cons:
Theres a lot of fucking angst throughout the story. Its tolerable, but theres a lot of it
Most of the raving opposition is awfully easily swayed with just a few words
 
Was actually a bretty gud fic. And I don't say that often
 
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Ivory
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/138211/ivory
94k words (plus 9 sequels/spinoffs and 50+ other fics in the same 'verse)
 
A homeless vagrant emmigrates to equestria, instantly catches Roselucks eye, doesn't bang ponies, has like 7 different jobs, catches Octavia's eye, gets rich, fucks bitches, lives the dream and just when you think it can't get any worse [spoiler]satyrs[/spoiler]
 
Pros:
Hat can write
 
Cons:
Hat has terrible choice in themes
 
Welcome to the hatverse.  Population:Sir Hat.  77 stories and aside from a few indepedant fics, most of his work seems to revolve around an equestria where humans routinely visit, get into shenenigans and bang their waifus.  Yeah its about as interesting as it sounds.
 
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Jake and the Kid
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/74802/jake-and-the-kid
 
An HiE story. But relax- the H in this HiE is actually a horse, so its fresh and original.
Unfortunately he's got a human sidekick, but the horse is the main character
 
Unfortunately this runs into HiE cliches, but in a meta-amusingly sort of way. Immediately upon being magiced to equestria he becomes an alicorn.
 
hijinks and hilarity ensue.
 
Its entertaining and different enough to stay entertaining. One of the handful of things I've read recently that I'd recommend for actual reading instead of riffing
 
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Jason's Grand Tour of Equestria
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/173471/jasons-grand-tour-of-equestria
30k words
[Adventure] [Human] [AU]
 
An anti-brony (which is apparently just someone that refuses to watch a little girls cartoon) and his twin sister are destined to save the world by destroying it. Or destroy the world by saving it. Really they weren't all that clear on the matter.
 
Pros:
Its short.
 
Cons:
Its nonsensical
Another self insert HiE
Doctor Fucking Whooves
Multipl OC alicorns
 
I don't normally review anything this short, but I just had to warn everyone else to stay away. Shit pacing, changing antagonists, excessive Pinkie 4th wall breakage and self inserty-ness just make this jumbled mess something more suitedto be scraped off the bottom of your shoe than to be read. -72/10
 
------------------------------------
 
Just Blink
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/90729/just-blink
37k words
 
Twilights 6edgy9u backstoried, incestuously inclined, tiny horned OC cousin is sent to ponyville to secretly protect twilicorn from a random evil!OC villain.
 
Pros:
Potential incest is wincest
Its short
Its in legible english.
 
Cons:
what few interactions OC McProtagonist has with canon characters, they're pretty OOC
42edgy9001u backstory is fucking retarded
cliffhanger-y ending hints at a sequel that never happened.
 
This is what happens when clop writers take a stab at writing non-clop. I'd say stick with what your good at, but I haven't read any of his clop so he probably sucks at that too.
 
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Lines and Webs
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/37820/lines-and-webs
 
In medias res done wrong. Done right the story starts with an action scene to draw readers in. Here, the story starts in the aftermath of the final battle effectively spoiling the whole damned thing.
 
If you want to read this, skip the prologue.
 
Yeah I kinda just reviewed something I didn't bother reading kek
 
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Lines and Webs
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/37820/lines-and-webs
 
I read the entire damn thing. If you're looking for an awesome fic where Celestia is torn between the horrible moral dilemma of sacrificing Twilight to save Equestria or go against her entire moral founding to save her ponies, this isn't the story. If, however, you want a generic shitty "Twilight rebels against Tyrantlestia" fic, filled with Celestia being super evil for the lulz, bent on acquiring UNLIMITED POWER!!! than you've come to the right fanfic.
 
3/10. Was the straw that broke my desire to read Tyrantlestia fics.
 
-------------------------------------------------------
 
Like No Other
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/174803/like-no-other
33k words
 
A lone human exists in ponyland.  As an endangered species, Celestia apparently wants to protect him by forcing him to stay at the castle or some such.  He wants nothing to do with that and lives constantly on the run
 
Pros:
Its written in English?
A HiE where the human doesn't have a 7edgy backstory (or any backstory for that matter)
Tyrantlestia (i guess if you're into that?)
 
Cons:
A non-ending.  Not a cliffhanger, just a non ending.
Excessive misspellings.
Anthro ponies.
 
4/10  a mediocre, uninspired story filled with mediocre, uninspired fight scenes. -1 for Tyrantlestia.  -1 for lack of spell check.  -1 for HiE.  +1 for non-edgy backstory. -1 for no backstory or explanation for why he's there. -7 for anthro.  -6/10 rating.
 
---------------------------------
 
Living the Dream
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/851/living-the-dream
 
Possibly the shittiest self inserted shitfic ever shit out by the most shit filled autist ever. The most retarded oc protagonist ever, more pointless characters that do nothing than bleach, dbz style fight scenes, relationships develop at the drop of a hat and all canon characters might as well be ocs due to ooc-ness
 
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Love and Honour
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/76639/love-and-honour
 
a canadian soldier gets injured and is no longer badass enough to be one of the 4 soldiers in canadia, so he hops on a bus to horseworld and joins the royal guard. best princess immediately begins drooling from her nethers upon seeing him for the first time
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Machinations of a Trickster
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/8023/machinations-of-a-trickster
 
421k words (plus a sequel with 188k words)
[T] [romance] [tragedy] [dark] [comedy] [adventure] [human]
 
An edgy backstoried human dabbles in sorcery and stumbles across Loki, who takes him on as an apprentice just to fuck with him. Human dude winds up in ponyland, makes ponies miserable, goes traveling, hooks up with trixie, they make ponies lives miserable together, some other shit happens, and heres where a guy that actually likes HiEs starts to lose interest.
 
Its not really bad per se, but it kinda meanders all over the place without really accomplishing all that much. Halfway through the sequel, the writer gave up in it. The sequel is quite possibly the edgiest edgelord shit I've seen in the history of edgy horsewords. Don't waste your time unless you really love edgy HiEs and have completely run out of other things to read. 2/10
 
-------------------------------------------------
 
Mare Do Well As the Sky Falls
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/97116/mare-do-well-as-the-sky-falls
 
Only interesting so far. Writing is decent enough to be enjoyable but a few common mistakes such as LUS. Have only read the start but promising so far. Rainbow Dash is angry about her mistakes in MMDW and wants to become a proper anonymous hero so she steals a costume from Rarity but not without being abused as dress up puppet before that. 6/10
 
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Memories of Shadow
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/203877/memories-of-shadow
 
Pros:
>some nice, subtle Tyrantlestia
>OC isn't shit
>well written
 
Cons:
>cliche "mindrape" plot
>isn't all that disturbing
>abridged nature ruins what horror could be had
 
Decent, 7/10 oneshot.
 
------------------------------------------
 
mendacity
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/26192/mendacity
75k words
 
[E] [romance] [adventure]
 
Bon Bons a changeling, Hands!Lyra is her marefriend and oh yeah- Canterlots going to be invaded at this upcoming wedding because reasons.
 
Its a short read, but pretty boring. The romance is on par with other BgP shipfics, which is to say uninteresting and barely there and the whole fic was dragged down by the whole fae/unseelie, well its not really a subplot, but seemed more like padding. Little more than filler trying to give some substance to the changelings/faeries/kelpies/whatevers, and to me it just made the tale drag on.
 
It gets a lot of hype and iirc scored a spot on the starter kit, but I really don't get why. I wasn't impressed. 4/10
 
--------------------------------
 
Miss Sparkle, Psychopath
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/174310/miss-sparkle-psychopath
 
Pros:
>intense, high strung plot
>mysterious villain
>that horrible sense of dread that happens when it updates
 
Cons:
>Rarity's a gigantic cunt
>the actual villain's total shit and seems Shyamalan-tier
>has a high probability for one of those shit "fanfic justice systems" that make no sense
>the horrible lack of communications that would completely solve every problem if it was addressed can be irritating
>Rarity such an annoying cunt it deserves mentioning twice
>the Rarity/Twilight conflict's hastily and anti-climatically resolved
 
5.5/10. Seriously, the villain ruined the story.
 
--------------------------------------------------
 
Misunderstandings
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/120686/misunderstandings
228k words, complete
 
A young man arrives in Equestria yada yada yada. He doesn't get to meet the mane6 and actually runs into some real problems right off the bat with plenty more coming along. Strong themes of adventure and survival against all odds with a some political maneuvering and slice-of-life in the second half.
 
Pros:
Good all around writing
Human with plenty of faults and weaknesses
Very good alien creature angle and language barrier
Minor romance is subtle and not shoehorned in
 
Cons:
Last third stretches out more than necessary
Protaganist just can't catch a break, ever, to the point where you come to expect it
 
So this one finally got wrapped up. As far as HiE stories go Misunderstandings is one of the top contestors if only because the author is actually competent at writing. The examination of how Equestria might react to a completely alien being, while being in no way revolutionary, is quite well done. Same goes for both how the language barrier is presented what is done with it. Some later parts felt like they were only included to further explore the dynamics between different characters but they do eventually gain significiance to the plot. The first chapter can throw readers off as it picks up in the middle of a chase scene. This is mostly to show the human protagonist does survive some of the early crap thrown his way in one piece.
A solid 8/10. Misunderstandings isn't perfect, doesn't rock the boat but has overall good execution, which is plenty more than can be expect of any HiE story.
 
---------------
 
MLP Loops
>https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9216685/1/MLP-Loops
Sure, it's another Groundhog day style story, but here's the catch.
It loops the entire span of the show.
Once it hits the unspecified finale, it starts all over.
And only Twilight remembers what happens.
What follows is a series of quite hilarious non-sequitursand different "what if?"scenarios, be it Twilight gathering the Elements of Harmony by herself and defeating Nightmare Moon as soon as she appears, take out Discord with logic, Spikezilla, or quite literally, anything that she can think.
---
Pros:
>It tackles several of the plot holes of the show.
>So far it has 91 chapters, each including between 9 and 15 scenarios
>It's creative with it's alternate universes
>The reason for the Loops is quite interesting, if a bit convoluted
>There are guest authors who play with several possible AU scenarios spanning several chapters
---
Cons:
>There are plenty of crossovers. A lot. Most of them are good, but if you're not familiar or don't like the universe in question, you'll end up skipping a lot. But they pop up more in after chapter 40.
>It starts a bit slow, if by chapter 10 you're not hooked, you should probably stop.
>As with any fic, some of the guest authors never finished their guest stories. But the sheer amount of stories this features should be enough to satiate everyone.
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Morbid Curiosity (54 upvotes, 320 views)
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/149542/morbid-curiosity
 
Pros:
>Twilight's a clinical sociopath, as opposed to the "fiction" sociopaths that are written as evil
>slippery slope fun!
>Not terribly gory or dark...yet
 
Cons:
>body count likely to skyrocket
>(apparent) AU setting can get annoying
>no real plot ("Twilight's a sociopath" IS the plot)
 
---------------------------------------------
 
Mortal
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/95424/mortal
and
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/134664/mother-of-nations
 
As the decades pass twilight remains young and able bodied, while all her friends age. One is already gone and the others are not long for this world. After much harassing from Dash and the loss of another friend, twilight uses her princessy magic to prevent her remaining friends from dying. Celestia is seriously pissed, twilight and friends get booted from ponyland. They found their own country in the everfree. Suddenly alicorns everywhere while Celestias power base dwindles leading to a near millennium long cold war between whats left of equestria and the rest of the alicorn-turned world.
 
This is pretty damned rare- A story I have something positive to say about.
 
Pros-
Pretty good worldbuilding detailing the rise of an alicorn nation.
Food for thought. Just because you can grant immortality for everyone, is it really that great of an idea.
Decent comedic elements- Rara succumbs to the nightmare no fewer than 3 times. She was easily stopped each time due to being surrounded by a nation full of alicorns.
 
Cons
Relatively short. for the topic I think this could have been expanded upon much more
Glossed over conflict. The Elysium/Equestrian tensions and alicorn civil war are barely given an offhanded mention.
Slightly OOC. For once twilight isnt totally sucking celestias cock
 
Still at 50k words total its a pretty short and fun read assuming you don't have any issues with alicornication
 
--------------------------------------------------
 
My Little Apprentice
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/172974/my-little-apprentice
168k words (plus a currently 118k words ongoing sequel)
 
A female survivor of a global nuclear war looking for either a new home for her people or aid in cleaning up the devastated world transportalizes to ponyland, forgets everything, turns into a filly and is taken in by one princess Twilight. Then wacky shit happens.
 
This was a decent sci-fi-ish, fairly slow paced story right up until the last few chapters where everything went wonky. Seriously- chapters 1-22 was slowly paced in which twilight teaches a filly magic and the filly explains advanced technology while learning to fit in with ponies. Then it went all Cultural Artifacts-y for 2 chapters. suddenly changelings, kidnappers, cultists, human beliebers (featuring Lyra! yeah big surprise there), Cthulhu, discord, cyborgs and evil! former humans shit seriously comes out of left field and seriously detracts from what was otherwise an ok read. 4/10.
 
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My Secret Life as an Evil Insect Overlord
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/181310/my-secret-life-as-an-evil-insect-overlord
82k words
 
A brony inexplicably winds up in equestria as a freshly hatched changeling princess.  Shortly afterwards Chrysalis gives him/her a mission- assassinate princess twilight sparkle.  his/her disguise? Flash motherfucking sentry.
 
Pros:
flash hatred from "flash"
The TV show didn't get all of the details right
Decent comedy, mostly stemming from the above
 
Cons:
Inconsistencies (chryssys an idiot, chryssys a genious)
Borrows a few themes from S4 episodes without really doing much new or interesting
Romance subplot kinda falls flat
 
Still its not the worst brony turned changeling royalty story I've read this week, so theres that...
 
--------------------------------------------------
 
Night's Favoured Child
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/5523/nights-favoured-child
 
Pros:
>great NMM who has chilled out quite a bit over the thousand years and isn't still an insane tyrant
>politics and religion flesh out the AU world
>filly Twilight
 
Cons:
>continues the long trend of authors ignoring the photosynthesis/lack of sufficient heat problem "NMM wins" stories have
>will be completed several hours prior to the heat death of the universe
>seriously, the plot's moving so slow, a glacier could write faster
 
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Of the Hive
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/133544/of-the-hive
 
Pros:
>Pretty awesome worldbuilding (especially with the changelings), and the rules of the world help shape the story
>Twilight never really comes off as out of character, despite what happens to her
>Twi is the best goddamn changeling ever holy shit
>Sequel is updating about 3 times a month
 
Cons:
>The romance seems kind of forced, and the object of Twi's affection isn't really developed
>A couple of the action scenes were confusing for me
>Spelling and grammar aren't great in the most recent chapters
 
-------------------------------------------------------
 
One Last Quest
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/152/one-last-quest
71k words
 
What happens when Celestia has a mission so suicidal that she doesn't want to risk the mane 6?  She has spike grab some random ponies from the post office instead.  Pokey Pierce, Cheerilee, Redheart and an OC winger named Medley get shipped off to find some pretty rocks that may or may not save the world.
 
Pros:
Decent humor
No mouthswords, no wingblades
 
Cons:
Celestia and Luna are portrayed as actual goddesses, complete with religion and prayers
 
 
8/10 Yeah the premise sounds sketchy, but it turns out there was a prophecy being followed.  A fun read and an enjoyable take on the chosen characters.
 
----------------------------------------
 
Out of Place
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/68773/out-of-place
 
106k words
[T] [SoL] [Human]
 
An edgy backstoried engineer somehow pops up in equestria as a colt with the knowledge to defeat discord. Oddly enough this is like a year before his escape.
 
This is one of Dan_s comments' fics. Thats Dan_s comments of cultural artifacts fame. This shares some traits with Cultural artifacts. When its good, its great. But the vast majority of the time you have no idea whats going on. Princess fillies, helicopters, the NLR, wonderbolts, shadowbolts, princesses playing hoofball, ticklefights, hot dogs and many, many other things that would fit right in to a discord fic, except they're all present before discord breaks out of stone.
 
Banana/10 I have no idea what the fuck I just read.
 
-------------------------------
 
Pegazo Vampir Equinae
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/44159/pegazo-vampir-equinae
 
What has happened to the entire vampire genre? Yes, this fic was shitty too but at least the language was readable despite suffering from many common mistakes. Fuck, it has only been a few hours and I already forgot the beginning. Rainbow Dash wants to practice above the Everfree, which has apparently the size of my garden in this fic. So she just leaves her friends behind after Twilight warns her about invisible clouds. When she is done with practice and wants to do a Rainboom to prank Ponyville, she flies into one of those invisible clouds and wakes up to a 3xxx year old already dead unicorn that explains to her in the dullest way possible that Rainbow Dash now is an alpha vampony and that this means she can have up to 5 lieutenant vamponies under her control with grunts on their own but they follow the alpha-omega in case the alpha opposes the hierarchy and much much more bullshit.
I have no clue... 3.5/10?
 
------------------------------------------
 
Penumbra (98 likes, 1,176 views)
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/34977/penumbra
 
Pros:
>awesome AU setting
>mysterious plot builds suspense
>psuedo-evil Twilight
 
Cons:
>hasn't updated in over a year
>Applejack and Rainbow can be annoying
>Luna gets shafted through her skull and is wasted as a character
 
-------------------------------------------------------
 
Pony bound
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/71922/pony-bound
201k words
 
[T] [sex] [gore] [romance] [comedy] [adventure] [AU] [human]
 
An average high school age guy wakes up one day as an earth pony mare. Plenty of other folks are changing too and no one knows why
 
Ever wonder what would happen if The Chaotic Touch of Harmony and First Pony View got drunk, fucked and then decided not to have an abortion? This is what happens. You've got the humans inexplicably turning into ponies on earth, aliens, and the government being useless assholes from TCToH, and a lot of pointless crying from FPV. Only done worse. With shit pacing. And the main character discovers aliens while the government just constantly steps on its own collective dick. And then it ends pointlessly at an arbitrary point with nothing resolved, while shortcount decided to rewrite the whole thing in a separate, new fic.
 
There probably be spoilers ahead, but fuck it- no ones going to read this fic anyway. Now lets discuss the tags. Yeah theres a lot of them. Notice the sex and gore tags? now take note of the teen rating. All of the 'sex' (s/he masturbates once then licks his bros snatch) and like 2 fight scenes both only exist in gdocs. Yeah hes one of those assholes that adds links to the 'good' parts in nearly every chapter. Yeah theres 'uncensored' verseions of nearly every chapter, despite very little actually needing to be censored. Now that romance tag? pointless. he talks to his girlfriend/coltfriend like 3 times. There is no romance. Comedy? I didn't find any of it to be slightly funny in the least. Adventure? MC leaves his house like 5 times in a 2 week period for a few hours apiece. AU? Well considering that people aren't turning into ponies here and now I guess technically it is, though it still seems like a pointless tag.
 
Theres nothing here that hasn't been done better elsewhere, give it a pass. 3/10
 
--------------------------
 
Ponyville's New Pet
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/122915/ponyvilles-new-pet
 
Pros:
>the only SCP Foundation crossover I've seen that's fluffy and cute
>Nice easy-going plot
>high diabeetus factor
 
Cons:
>due to the simple plot, can grow dull
>it's a crossover
>CMC
 
---------------------------------------------------
 
Quest For Harmony
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/61745/quest-for-harmony
224k words
[Adventure][human] [AU]
 
A brony that really, really loves his family gets beat the fuck up by his subordinates at work wakes up as an earth pony in a world gone wacky. Celestia and Luna are sealed in Gems and Unicornia, ruled by unicorn princess Twilight is at war with Pegasopolis with the earth ponies caught in the middle while some other shit that affects both worlds is going on
 
Pros:
 
 
Cons:
BiE/PoE
goofy named bronydude single hoofedly saves not-equestria
Confusing as hell AU backstoryline involving Nightmare moon, discord and a lot of WTFery
 
 
3/10 This one was just wacky. In a world where the hearths warming shit didn't happen, all 3 pony races still wound up with a unicorn city perched on the side of a mountain, an earth pony town named ponyville and a cloudsdale with a couple of alicorn princesses. Humans with retarded ass names. wait a second... Bronydudes name is Jagold and the writer goes by destinedjagold. Fuck me its a self insert. A self insert with a lot of misspelled words. Its shit 2/10
 
-------------------------------
 
Radiance
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/97784/radiance
114k words
 
Lovebutt, Purplesmart and Speedysnooze wind up in a new world with no recollection of how they got there. Eventually they meet up with 3 assholes, who begrudgingly take them in while the ponies attempt to figure out what happened and how to get home.
 
Pros:
PoE. (YMMV, but I much prefer PoEs over HiEs)
 
 
Cons:
Everyone is a cunt. Then everyone isn't.
Rainbow Dash is a cunt. Well its not so much a con as it is coming to terms with a universal truth
Everyone becomes retarded towards the end
odd pacing
 
I really like PoEs. I believe them to be an underutilized genre. But this one despite being decently written, just isn't very engaging. The pacing seems pretty slow until you realize the entire story takes place in a single day. The humans reactions to technicolor ponies (and vice versa) goes from abject terror to cautious tolerance to full acceptance over the course of the story, which seems to be acceptable. Until you realize that all of this takes place in one day, then it seems horribly rushed. Not the worst thing ever written, but not worth going out of your way to read either. 4/10
 
---------------------------------------
 
Re:Harmony (166 likes, 1,756 views)
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/78420/reharmony
 
Pros:
>great "total" AU setting
>characterization of the AU characters is good
>dark elements don't overpower the in-show feel of the story
 
Cons:
>Pinkie's references are so blunt, they're banned in the EU for bludgeoning people
>advanced tech (fighter jets, nukes) can seem out of place in the world of pone
>story arcs reach johto-tier in length
 
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Rise
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/95283/rise
>31,7k words
 
Initially, I just clicked it because of the badass Trixie cover art, but I ended up reading one of the best Trixie stories I've had the pleasure of finding.
After the Alicorn Amulet debacle, Trixie wants to make ammends and take responsibility for her actions. She is appointed by Princess Luna to help a town get rid of an infestation of magical creatures.
----
Pros:
>It has good character development for such a short story.
>While it shares the same continuity as "The Code of Harmony", it makes no reference to it until the very end.
>It gives Trixie an interesting backstory.
--
Cons:
>Given the setting, everyone except Luna and Trixie are OC's.
>The last chapter has a cameo that feels completely superfluous.
>Again, shares the same continuity as "The Code of Harmony", and given its history, some may be put off from this fic.
 
----------------------------------------------
 
Rise of the Phoenix Empress
What I read: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/164340/rise-of-the-phoenix-empress
What I expected: "Even rarer, there comes a time when gaining power makes a pony better than they were before. This is one such story."
What I got: Thee, thou, thy. 'Tis, 'twas, 'twould, and 'pon. 9000 references to some Winningverse NMM bullshit (apparently this is a Winningverse fic - but not just any Winnigverse, it's some kind of special alternate-universe Winningverse variant). Whatsit Sparkle gains power, decides to be slightly less of a bitch to her daughter. The author seems to have forgotten to actually write the rest of the promised character development.
 
I was not expecting this to be a Winningverse fic. After inspecting the author's 21 published fics, I discovered: 3 Dresden Files crossovers; 17 Winningverse-related; and 1 that looks like a standalone one-shot but is probably Winningverse somehow. (Also, 7 of the Winningverse fics have the word "incredibly" in the title.) Apparently the author hasn't yet realized that literally anything he writes is automatically 1000 upvotes and insta-featured, Winningverse or not, simply by the power of concentrated Horse Fame.
 
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Saviour or Destroyer?
 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/147228/saviour-or-destroyer
130k words
 
[M] [gore] [dark] [comedy] [human]
Changelings find a strange device buried deep underground, activate it, then are surprised and annoyed when wacky and violent bipeds show up.
 
Human genetically modified, power armor wearing totally-not-spartans be all crazy and violent and mildly retarded, instantly side with the changelings against equestria. Stealing Celestias crown before taking on an army of combined ponies, gryphons, zebra and minotaurs. Obviously the handful of totally-not-spartans cant lose, so the other races decide to attack ponies instead. Suddenly everyone on the planet whos not a pony is gunning for ponies and the humans that just slaughtered a shitload of them decide to help out. Then main human dude totally porks luna.
 
I don't even know where to start on this one. Its just all around horrific. At least theres no "zomg! talking apes/horsies11!!1" but thats where the positive aspects end. protagonist is your typical generic snarcastic, psychotic uber badass. undoubtedly the offspring if some sperglord decided to wonder "What if Han Solo and Malcom Reynolds and the master chief fucked and had a kid? Who then was dropped on his head repeatedly and whose diet subsisted entirely of lead paint chips for the first 20 years of his life?" this was the result. Then theres the shit pacing. 'hey the racist colorful ponies dont like the creepy bugpones that weve become bffs with despite meeting them less than ten minutes ago, lets totally go to war for them' and 'hey those racist colorful ponies that we were just slaughtering are now getting their asses kicked by everyone else, lets totally go and take their side because reasons'
 
Fuck dis shit. Its just Godawful -3/10
 
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Second Chances
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/72757/second-chances
 
More of this shit
 
Totally not a self insert, guys. Josh 'Xploshun' Daniels, millionaire, coke addict, womanizer and and most famous dubstep 'artist' in the world fucks bitches, ODs and winds up in ponyland where he runs up a bar tab more expensive than most mortgages and falls for the hottest mare in the world, Carrot Top.
 
Err no actually, hes a dubstep schmuck, so scratchfags be warned.
 
Pros:
*Its short (53k words)
*Its totally not a self insert, guys
*I can't think of anything else positive to say
 
Cons:
*it has like 4 sequels
*its totally a self insert
*shitty pacing and a handful of youtube links
 
 
why do I do this to myself?
 
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Second Contact
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/193722/second-contact
116k words
 
[T] [sad] [dark] [crossover] [adventure] [human]
 
a UNSC frigate has a slipspace whoopsie and crashes into a moon.  a generic random spartan escapes in a pelican before crash landing on a planet.  since we're talking horsewords I'll let you guess which planet that happens to be
 
A self insert pony/Halo crossover. A self insert pony/halo crossover that is the writers first fanfiction.  Yeah thats really all you need to know right there.  Thankfully theres no waifuing, but all of the other self insert, edgy spacebadass human cliches are there.
 
---------------------------------
 
Shadows Enigma
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/181303/shadows-enigma
176k words
 
In the wake of Fluttershy's successful reformation of Discord, Celestia decides to give villain reformation another shot and tasks Pinkie with redeeming Sombra. Apparently the world requires balance, and after 1000 years of harmony the world is slated to suffer a millennia of turmoil. Sunbutt thinks that the mere presence of historys greatest villains might be enough to prevent disaster.
 
Pros:
More backstory for Sombra than hasbro ever bothered to come up with
Interesting premise. Surprised we haven't seen more of these.
 
 
Cons:
Needs an editor. His spellchecker works fine, but homonyms for certain words pop up every so often and its a little distracting
Gets a little wacky towards the end. Specifically the build up to and the climax battle
 
 
This was the first Sombra redemption fic I've stumbled across, so others may exist that I'm just not aware of. It's an interesting take on Sombra beyond the usual smoke effects coming from a growly crystal aficionado. Yeah theres some minor shipping going on, but its slow paced and seems to have decent progression. occasional flashbacks show insight into life 1000 years ago, how a unicorn became ruler of a kingdom of earth ponies, and how a benevolent king was corrupted by dark magic. Helps plug a few plotholes from TCE too. Homonym issues aside, its a well paced, fairly interesting read with a handful of oddities that don't quite fit. 5/10 as is, would be 6/10 if it were run past a decent editor.
 
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Shattered
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/35338/shattered
 
Pros:
>tackles the plot of rape very well without going into pointless wangst
>has an actual fucking court system as opposed to "Celestia handles every single legal case in Equestria"
>very ambiguous plot, it's unknown whether a rape actually occurred, so the court scenes also serve to inform the reader
 
Cons:
>has some pointless homosexual aesop bullshit thrown in that has nothing to do with the plot
>the identity of the alleged rapist may be hard to swallow given his fanon persona
>the court scenes are starting to drag on
 
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Shedding Your Skin
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/149078/shedding-your-skin
 
So, this story, Shedding Your Skin by Golden Vision on FimFiction, is an origin story that really doesn't feel at all like one.
 
It follows the story of a young mare born with a mysterious ability that, for a majority of her life, she was unaware of. However, the ability is misunderstood by most and has lead her to living a secluded life with an adoptive guardian figure only ever addressed as "Matron". The pacing is good and the characters well written. Its a nice little fic that can easily be read in an hour and a half.
 
 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/149078/shedding-your-skin
 
TL:DR
Pros:
+ Good characters
++ Good pacing
+ Nice setting
+ Good world mechanics [or arcane theory if your a fag]
+ Didnt drag on
 
Cons:
- Kinda short [70k plus words is short imo]
- Ending, while not bad, isn't totally satisfying
 
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Stallions of Harmony - Longest Night
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/115683/stallions-of-harmony-longest-night
 
>115,8k words
 
>Comedy, Adventure, Alternate Universe
 
Yet another take on the pilot episode with a different set of ponies, in this case it's a group of six stallions: Thunderlane, Soarin, Big Mac, Doctor Whooves, Shining Armor and Prince Blueblood.
 
 
>Pros:
 
- Blueblood is the shining gem of this fic, the author gives him an interesting past, and good characterization throughout the story.
- The relationship between Princess Celestia and Blueblood is emotional and interesting.
- Blueblood's confrontation with Nightmare Moon is pretty intense and engaging.
- The comedy is alright, there are some high points, but rarely does it miss the mark
- As a group the Male6 characterization is good.
 
 
>Cons:
 
- For some reason the story begins with Shining Armor, despite him being a secondary character through the rest of the fic.
- Thunderlane and Big Mac are severely underdeveloped
- The Twilight subplot could have been entirely cut and it wouldn't have affected the story.
- Through the whole fic it's heavily implied (i.e. they smash you in the head with it everytime he speaks) that Doctor Whooves is indeed Doctor Who, and of course he's shipped with Derpy.
 
Overall, it's an entertaining story but nothing to lose your mind, if it weren't for Blueblood it would be a forgettable story, but just because of him, I'd say it's a 6/10. Maybe 6.5.
If you have absolutely nothing else to read, give this a shot.
 
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Stairway to Equestria
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/5785/stairway-to-equestria
347k words
 
Brony has a near death experience and before being sent back to his old body, distracts the reaper and alters the paperwork to have him sent to ponyland instead. Dude then begins to live the dream in the edgiest manner possible as a 'deathbringer' with his own personal nightmare. Oh and he bangs your waifu.
 
Seriously- Death is pissed at dude, but for some reason can't actually do anything about it. So Edgy McDouchebag leads a long second life of slaughtering griffons, extincting changelings, fucking over discord, dabbling in necromancy, and banging Twilight. All while having pointless conversations with his own version of The Nightmare
Honestly I started reading this one last year and it was recently completed, so a lot of the details from the first 25 chapters have faded from memory and its not worth a reread. Just another 'cheat death then proceed to ruin Equestria' fic 4/10
 
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Stardust
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/100455/stardust
217k words (plus 3 sequels/spinoffs currently adding up to another 80k words
 
[crossover], [human], [dark] and [gore] tags. But don't let that scare you off. Crossover with X-COM, a series of video games dating back to the mid-90s with a cult like following. Knowledge of the X-COM series isn't required, but would probably help. Unlike other game crossovers with a cult following (I'm looking at you, Fallout) this one isn't needlessly edgy, or edgy at all really.
 
Basic premise is Sunbutt decides to attempt reforming Discord, un-petrifies him then runs off for no real reason. Facing the element bearers he makes a bet with Twilight. If she can make friends with any species, he'll allow them to reform him. Immediately on agreeing to the terms, she instantly finds herself on Earth, in the middle of a battle between Xcom troops and the aliens. Gets captured, tested on, yadda, yadda, things develop from there
 
This one winds up being recommended here often and its easy to see why. It's fairly well written, goes into unexplored territory (lets face it most crossover subjects are done to death, and this is probably the only X-COM crossover out there). I'm not familiar with the games aside from being aware they exist, but from the comments it seems this follows the storyline of one of the games exactly, with only the addition of a unicorn into the mix, meaning that someone with little to no exposure to the game would probably enjoy it more than someone who was. I'm not quite sure where to rate it- I feel its worth a solid 8/10, but I loathe to give a [human]/[crossover] tagged fic that high of a rating. Though I'd definitely give it a recommend.
 
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Starswirl and the Purple Terror
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/200070/starswirl-and-the-purple-terror
15k words
 
Twilight creates a new time travel spell for the sole purpose of befriending her hero, Starswirl.  and over the course of nearly 2 weeks, discovers that she is responsible for most of what she already knows about him, and that they are responsible for unleashing most of the evils that have been released upon the world.
 
Pros:
A time travel story that doesn't involve Time Turner in any way, shape, or form.
 
 
Cons:
Its short, and this could have been expanded on greatly.  Though a sequels been hinted at.
 
 
Clover the Clever is more Dennis the Menace, Pinkie introduces Celestia to cake, SStB's fashion choices, Scorpan and Tirec, and a Discord origin story all in 15k words.  Funny? yeah.  Rushed? maybe a little.  Still worth a look.
 
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Staying Sane in a Peaceful World
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/79264/staying-sane-in-a-peaceful-world
 
Another autist fest. kung fu, gun toting ninja, zombie apocalypse surviving teenagers wind up in ponyland and act like retards.
 
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Substitute Harmony
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/706/substitute-harmony
95k words
 
Twilight wish, Applejack, sparkler, Posey, surprise and firefly kidnap most of the mane 6 for nefarious reasons. Pinkie, framed for a crime she didn't commit sets off to investigate for herself. Along the way she runs into her sisters, Trixie, Gilda, and derpy tags along because reasons. With the element bearers indisposed, well you see where this is going
 
Pros:
Its funny as hell. The humor is what really keeps this one moving
G1 vs G4 beatdown is every bit as goofy as it sounds
 
Cons:
Time travelly bullshit. instead of negating the whole story, this time around it causes the entire story.
wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, mulish-bullshit. That fucking timelord shows up. Thankfully its only in the epilogue, which you can easily skip without missing anything.
Time travel is bullshit. This big bad winds up being only kind of a dick and its implied that this big bads motivation was one of the main characters. Oh and apparently Doc Brown was wrong since meeting yourself apparently doesnt cause the universe to implode.
 
 
Some things feel like they were just pulled out of the writers ass, but that mostly comes from trying to make sense of time travel. All in all this one was pretty fun though. and yes, all of my complaints about this one were about time travel.
 
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Synchronicity
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/4773/synchronicity
82k words
 
"On the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape." A few years later they return to collect on that debt. Oh and Celestia gets kidnapped by the seaponies. Oh and Twilight fucks up a spell, giving her and Rarity a telepathic link.
 
Pros:
Fairly well written, with decent humor throughout, until the big baddies land
Canon characters remain in character*
Even pinkie was done well.
 
Cons:
Once the big baddies land it feels more like shonen anime than a ponyfic
*Except for fluttershy. Sev must have a mega hardon for quietyellow. Goes all assertive towards the end and later sonicflutterboom
Princess Rarity
 
It's fun, funny and action-y, but the later chapters get a little too 'Attack on Tita.. err.. Equestria' for me. 6/10 if you can tolerate ponies fighting Godzilla movie rejects.
 
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Taken for Granite
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/44765/taken-for-granite
 
Pros:
>one of the few successful times feels (tragic romance) and comedy (crackship) have blended
>doesn't overstay its welcome
>features best ship
 
Cons:
>the absurd ship may overcome any potential feels
>follows a pretty standard "angst" path
>no dialogue may or may not be a bad thing
 
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TD the Alicorn Princess
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/122018/td-the-alicorn-princess
226k words
 
[T] [AU] [Human]
 
TD Harrison Powell, only human in Equestria and not a fan of pone cartoons, assists his friends when their butt tattoos change one day. He then explodes, finds himself turned into an alicorn, and then discovers he's missing something quite important to him.
 
An AU spinoff of the TDverse, in which TD gets involved during the events of MMC and winds up ascending instead of Twilight. He (now she) must learn to be an alicorn princess along with all of the ups and downs that come with the territory.
 
Sadly, unlike the rest of the TDverse fics, this one doesn't really seem to know what it wants to be. Starting off as a short semi-sadfic, it was extended and turned into a comedy, then extended again and turned into a drama, then extended again deciding to be a warfic before abruptly ending. Theres a sequel in the works, but apparently hasnt been released yet. All in all unless you're already familiar with the TDverse, or a fan of bronywriters theres nothing really exciting about it.
 
-----------------------------------------
 
Ten Trips to Equestria
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/70796/ten-trips-to-equestria
47k words
 
Oh boy. A brony with a shitty life gets approached by Discord wanting to play a game. He accepts. Now everytime he falls asleep, he winds up in ponyland as a different pony. And big surprise since Discord's involved- life sucks for him there too.
 
Pros:
It starts off kinda funny
 
Cons:
It goes dark and unfunny in short order.
Predictable
A non-ending. Though there is an in progress 58k word sequel thats had one update in the last year
 
 
Pretty meh, but that shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone thats read its description. Its a premise that had promise, but just terrible execution. 2/10
 
-----------------------------
 
The Angel of Equestria
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/112076/the-angel-of-equestria
 
An antisocial, genetically modified douchebag fleeing from government scientists manages to teleport himself to canterlot...
Started out not great, but decent enough then went full autist. The edgiest man evar's edgisness breaks down within a month, forms a herd, forms an alliance with manticores and timberwolves, theres yet another 'extra element' cliche. And just before the human army is set to invade (all looking for this one douchebag) fucking alicorns everywhere, three sets of the mane 6, more alicorns, wolf man, and some more alicorns. Seriously- this writer put on a call out for rediculously OP OC in the comments. Fucking retarded. Don't waste your time
 
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The Angel of Equestria
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/112076/the-angel-of-equestria
more self inserted shitfic involving nanobots, edgy not-quite-human protagonist, alicorns, timberwolves, alicorns, manticores, alicorns, dragons, alicorns, human invasion, alicorns, wolf man thing, alicorns, a lich, alicorns, 3 sets of the mane 6, and more alicorns
 
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The Best of All Possible Worlds
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/39157/the-best-of-all-possible-worlds
137k words
 
Through a magic instrument, Voltaire winds up in Equestria and begins sowing heretical thoughts, irritating the princess and upsetting the status quo.
 
Not going to bother with pros and cons this time around, because honestly I can't really think of anything. I was slightly upset that the
Voltaire in question was the philosopher and not the musician, but the writer probably went with the more interesting choice in Voltaires.
 
Story takes place about 250 years pre-FiM. There are a smattering of snippets indicating the ancestors of the M6 with Celestia's hoof in
getting them together (yes, McPoodle seems to use the headcanon of Celestia plotting the loooong game for Luna's return) and some of these snippets are more obvious than others.
 
There's a sub-plot involving a donkey jenny getting portaled to Earth through the same portal initially transporting Voltaire, who who isn't immediately disected and eventually returns to Equestria, but I feel the story suffers from that side plot and would have been better as a whole if it were not included.
 
This story consists nearly entirely of OCs, but considering its 250 years pre-FiM thats to be expected- too far ahead for the big ancients and
too far back for any of the modern ponies. As I don't actually know much about non-musician Voltaire, I can't really say if he was characterized well. But then again neither will most of the folks reading this, so I guess that doesn't really matter.
 
In all it's a pretty entertaining spin on HiEs in which the protagonist is somewhat snarky, but at least he's not edgy, the seventh element,
defeater of a world ending evil, or banging your waifu so this likely boils down to being one of the top ten human tagged stories on the site.
 
8/10
 
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The Betrayed
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/158680/the-betrayed
94k words
 
A formerly human, albino changeling has been living in ponyville longer than Twilight.  got outed at the wedding, and noone seems to care.
 
Pros:
 
 
Cons:
The Gariest Stu since Lance fucking Greenfield
Doctor Fucking Whooves
Its Shit.
 
fgsfds  Its semi-competently written, but the content is just so godawful I can't recommend anyone reads it for enjoyment.  Now if you're up for riffing something, thats a different story.
 
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The Better Angel
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/189261/the-better-angel
[Luna] [Celestia] [Sad]
9,700 words total
Redemption is rarely the end of the story. Princess Luna was given another chance, saved from an eternity of darkness by a lone unicorn. Without Twilight Sparkle, the world will tremble before the mare who rocked the world with her betrayal in days long past.
 
 
9/10 for me, but then I'm a fan of the 'Physical Gods' standpoint on Luna and Celestia. So if you dislike that you might want to avoid it. The writing makes you understand the various reactions involved.
 
---------------------------------
 
The Celestia Code
(http://www.fimfiction.net/story/141549/the-celestia-code)
 
Pros:
>OCs that don't make you grind your teeth
>nice adventure feel and plot
>unique take on the changeling origin
 
Cons:
>plot focuses on Twilight and a single OC
>archeology plot means less excitement/tension
>attempted OC/Twilight shipping Twilight friendzones it, though
 
All in all, probably the best longer fic I've read in a while. 8/10. The sequel's got some god-tier Twiluna in it, too along wiht a more action-y plot.
 
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The Closet is a Cold Place
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/182201/the-closet-is-a-cold-place
 
First up, a story in which Rainbow Dash is sitting in a fridge and thinks that it's actually a closet. The whole story is about as serious as that sentence. The only tag that it has is "Random", and I believe that it is one of those cases where the story deserves it, and in this case, it's actually not a tag that shows that you should be running away as fast as possible. It is very straight to the point - Rainbow Dash is gay and she comes out, everything surrounding it is just detail. I enjoyed it quite a lot, but be warned - there is a reason why it's not tagged as "comedy" - it is quite absurd and certainly not for everyone. Random is what more people will perceive it, so I would suggest this to those who like a bit of light absurd humour.
 
-----------------------------------
 
The Disqord Continuum
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/51764/the-disqord-continuum
 
38k words
 
Plus a 70k word sequel that I just don't have the heart to deal with
 
This is a crossover with one half featuring a Mary Sue as the main character, and the other half whose fanfiction literally created the term Mary Sue. Because reasons the Enterprise is off to study a planet that has shown some unusual properties (namely flying unicorns that move the moon and sun). On their arrival we discover that Q and Discord *gasp* are one and the same. DisQord then begins one of his typical games that winds up being a lot more bloody and violent than anything he's canonically done in either franchise.
 
Pros:
No inverse tachyon beam
It could have been longer. Thankfully it wasn't.
 
Cons:
With the way everyone is portrayed, I'm wondering if the author is remotely familiar with either of the shows contained in this crossover.
There is a sequel, and from the cover art and title, its safe to assume it includes the borg.
FlutterWorf shipping (no, I'm not fucking joking)
 
 
But there is one saving grace in this shitstorm.
Mentioned in the authors notes, I present to you:
 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/136997/spaceballs-the-fimfic-password-12345
Unpublished. the password to read is of course 12345
 
Its essentially a ponified word-for-word recreation of Spaceballs.
 
Sadly it loses its appeal very quickly. But even then its still better than than this shitty star trek crossover.
 
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The Dread Chitin
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/3193/the-dread-chitin
 
Supposedly a battletech crossover. Random human technician diddling with tech opens a rift and gets deposited somewhere. roughly a decade later purplesmart fucks up a spell, depositing her, speedysnooze and most importantly hat onto the same somewhere as battletech dude. everyone chills whilst purplesmart tries to figure out how to get home.
 
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The Ecstatic Quotidian
>http://www.fimfiction.net/story/115672/the-ecstatic-quotidian
 
Review:
 
I've been trying to place what I love so much about Fiddlebottoms' writing -- what it is that both captivates me and renders his prose alone capable of making me laugh.
 
His writing weaves a facile vocabulary with layered sentence structure and inner rhyme to create vivid, ornate imagery rendered with an almost mellifluous fluidity. But it is in the way he utilize-belies this to create an imagery that simultaneously gratifies and belies expectation, in both modes to a consummate extreme, that resides his stories' thrall. He synthesizes the metaphysically profound and the absurd in stunning craft with a presence-demanding presentation. The refined admixture is thoroughly unique, and resplendent in what it is.
 
---------------------------------
 
The Element of Hate
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/51600/the-element-of-hate
80k words
 
Written by Shadow Bolt, this story features Shadow Bolt, a red and black..... pegasus that has no friends, gets chased out of wherever he goes, gets bullied and beaten regularly all because Dash ruined his life as a colt he lost a race they were in once. Oh and hes the bearer of the seventh element- the Element of Hate
 
Pros:
At least theres not a sequel
Voicefag needs to get in on this shit
Prime for riffing
 
Cons:
Self insert
6edgy9u misery filled backstory
seventh element bullshit
edgy superweapon levels of badassed edginess
moar powerfuls than the M6, the entire royal guard and both princesses combined
OOC issues with most of the M6
plenty of other faggotry. I could keep going, but whats the point?
 
 
Yeah i knew what I was getting into. It was clearly a super edgetastic self insert, so I was expecting crap. Imagine my surprise when it wound up being even crappier than other seventh element, edgy, self insertions. One of the few fics I've seen with more negs than positive votes, though I'm stunned that this one managed to get 68 upvotes. 2/10
 
-------------------------------------------------
 
The Fate of a Man
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/73196/the-fate-of-a-man
48k words
 
Edgy McEdgerson and his girlfriend wind up in ponyland. Something happens, she apparently dies. Edgy winds up in quietyellows care as an emotionless twatwaffle for a couple of chapters before a pinkie party makes him all smiles and shit. Then discord escapes, his dead girlfriend shows up and the writer thankfully pulled the plug.
 
Pros:
It ended about 60k words prematurely
 
Cons:
9001edgy4u protagonist
48k published words before he pulled the plug
 
 
Utter shiite. Filled with shitty unoriginal HiE cliches and pointlessness. Thankfully it was cancelled. Unfortunately it was slapped with a complete status instead. 2/10
 
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The Ghost
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/137360/the-ghost
 
This story by Regidar livened this place up, sadly, in a negative way. The story itself isn't all that positive, either. It's about Vinyl Scratch being unhappy with life, her art, and her feelings sort of take a form of a ghost. I do feel like there are some pretty major parallels with the feelings Regidar himself has felt at times, though obviously he didn't have a ghost in his house. I do not think that this story is something all that great, really. It does have some really nice ideas, I really like the whole repeating word thing, but there is not much underneath that. It's structured well, and there are no grammar mistakes, but that's not what we're trying to find here. It did have nice atmosphere and it was quite enjoyable, but I would not call it anything special. Read it if you are interested in creepy things with a sad, dark atmosphere.
 
---------------------------------
 
The Great OC Hunt
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/27041/the-great-oc-hunt
 
Straight outta may 2012, yet still just as relevant today
 
ponyvillians are sick and tired of retarded OCs just showing up in town and fucking up everything. When Pinkie senses a new one has come to town the hunt begins
 
Pros-
even as meta as this is, it still calls out attributes and characteristics of shitty OCs
a selection relevant to this thread:
>All of the sudden, a hideous Pegasus, with blue coat, red zebra stripes, and the freakiest lizard eyes you’ve ever seen, came up to Twilight. He was followed by an entourage of equally hideous OCs. Bringing up the rear was a brown Alicorn, wearing a combat vest.
 
>“Oh god, not you again...” Twilight said, facehoofing.
 
also the authors note admits the entire thing was a stab at kickass222urmom
 
cons-
its short but desperately needs to be expanded upon
 
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The Hanging of Twilight Sparkle
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/158538/the-hanging-of-twilight-sparkle
[Dark] [Sad] [Tragedy] Possibly [Comedy] from a certain viewpoint.
[Twilight] [Celestia] [Mane 6]
23,978 words total
 
It's over. She's been with Celestia for years. She's absolved Luna of her crimes. She's been instrumental in defeating Sombra, and has revealed a Changeling invasion. She's even helped in reforming Discord. And now, her time is over. In the time that she's had, she's tried to do her best. She's tried so hard to live up to what other ponies expect of her.
And they were happy with how she was shaping up.
They wanted her to succeed.
Now all they want is to see her dead.
 
 
5/10
The writing is good, the characterization is mostly good (6 out of 7 is good), emotions are communicated effectively and the suspense is built up magnificently. But then you're blueballed. Dropping it from a solid 8 to a 5.
 
---------------------------------
 
The Last Human- a Tale of the Preclassical Era
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/54950/the-last-human-a-tale-of-the-preclassical-era
 
it was good but why the hell is lyra here
 
8/10
 
 
This story is actually very well written and the setting has a lot of depth in it. set in classical equestria during the time of starswirl the bearded the author has a lot of leeway to flesh out the world and he just goes ham on it. This is a world where its easy to believe that there are other stories going on in it, it neither revolves around our characters nor makes contritions for their benefit.
 
the hollow aspect of starswirls magic and how they tie into his character design is neat and the story has one of the better interpretations of a human -> pony transformation I've seen, maybe the best.
 
as far as flaws go the 'abducted by a travelling circus' trope is tired as all hell, but the story is somewhat older so it gets a small pass on that. the biggest flaw imo was a lack of direction in the first half of the story, the characters motivation for suddenly pursuing the Roc were somewhat suspect and the stories transition into the ending conflict is just awkward. it is a good ending with a somewhat decent payoff but i think the author wasn't very comfortable transitioning into it.
 
----------------------------------------
 
>The Lavender Letter
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/78927/the-lavender-letter
Just like the previous one, this one is Twilestia (And I really, really like the group "Twilestia is Bestia" just for the name), but it is written very differently, so there are a lot major differences.
 
First of all, the story is a mix of letters and normal conversations. Each of the chapters has two letters which have their short bits with them. It is a little gimmicky, but the format is not painful at all, so here are no negative points from that. There are no problems with the characterization during the actual scenes, but I felt like the style used in letters was a bit too similar for both of them. Aside from a slight change in tone, it seemed like both were written by the same person - the author, instead of two different ponies.
 
A thing which I think was better than it usually is would be the handling of the "letter cliches", AKA "I am going to tell you the things that we both know because the reader needs to know too". I am not sure about some parts of what is being told in letters and whether they would have talked about it long before in their conversations, but that's nothing major.
 
The epilogue seemed a bit unnecessary, since I don't think that we really needed to know that (this is a spoiler, stop reading) they stayed happy forever , I would rather have an open ending so we can think for ourselves if (this is a spoiler too) their relationship holds.
 
I am giving a "no opinion" on this one, so someone else reading it would be nice. You should read everything else from the list as well. Also, please give me reasons why my reviews are biased and stupid, so we can liven this place up a bit.
 
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The Life and Times of a Winning Pony
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/28239/the-life-and-times-of-a-winning-pony
 
Cloud kicker is a slut. Gets roped into a relationship, then continues to fuck anything with a vaj and a pulse. Everything she touches turns to shit and blows up in her face, yet there are no lasting repercussions to anything that she fucks up.
 
pros:
Both major canon characters manage to maintain their personas as established by canon.
Despite the content, this was well written and not painful to read.
It could have been worse. If this included clop it could easily be longer than DoaM.
 
Cons:
It reads like a shitty self insert. CK is universally loved despite being a total fuck up and everything she touches turning into shit.
Its predictable.
It spawned its own 'verse. Quite possibly the greatest sin a fic can commit.
 
As mentioned, its not the worst thing ever, and chengars writing style is actually fun to read.
That being said I'm not going to waste my time reading anything else from the winningverse.
 
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The Luna Project
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/1438/the-luna-project
 
An origin story about the royal sisters. clever, but not much else to say about it due to short length
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
The Man With Two Names
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/19300/the-man-with-two-names
89k words
 
A human winds up in Equestria. Wait, wait don't leave just yet. What if a human pops up, and the mane six don't immediately fall in lust over him? In fact what if his first interaction between him and ponies is Fluttershy catching him eating Elizabeak? Written covering several incidents from different ponies perspectives.
 
Pros:
Not a self insert (for true this time)
In fact we never see anything from the humans perspective.
 
Cons:
Ponys be racist, yo
Everyone tends to fall for really dumb and obvious lies
 
 
Pony racism is fun even when its annoying. Spike is officially an exotic pet and part of the B story kicks off when he tries to start a civil rights movement after he learns he can never be a citizen. It's fun and definitely a different take from your standard HiE. Oh written by the guy that did the great OC hunt, so there's that too.
 
---------------------------------------------
 
The Many Deaths of Rainbow Dash
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/68479/the-many-deaths-of-rainbow-dash
87k words
 
Twilight finds a book and accidentally casts a spell on RD.  After being unable to determine what he spell did, and after seeing it apparently had no noticeable effects they decide not to worry about it.  The next day Dash dies in an accident.  And then respawns.  Later they figure out that the reaper doesn't like folks cheating death and starts coming after her with a vengeance.
 
Pros:
While not tagged a comedy, its pretty funny
Many, many (many, many, many) gruesome deaths for Dash all laid out in a very graphic manner.  Especially once Dash begins to embrace her condition.
Good portrayal of canon characters
 
Cons:
Graphic depictions of gruesome deaths happen so frequently that it starts getting old after a while
As usual in fics, something that could be cleared up fairly quickly and easily by talking to the princesses isn't, because Twilight.
 
A fitting alternative title would be Final Dashtination.  Its a fun read, Everyone remains in character and its competently written.  7/10.
 
-------------------------------------
 
The Monster in the Twilight
>https://www.fimfiction.net/story/78582/the-monster-in-the-twilight
 
>96,2k words
 
>Sad, Adventure, Alternate Universe
 
Twilight Sparkle’s brilliant mind was gone, burned away by her own power when she nearly destroyed Canterlot twelve years ago. Now there is a monster prowling the Everfree. And it is starting to remember what true power felt like.
 
...
 
From the description, one could think that this story is going to be about a broken Twilight, wandering around the Everfree, scared and alone, and how the ponies from Ponyville react to this, and you'd be right, because that is precisely what happens!
 
For the first eighteen or so chapters, at least.
 
That's the point where things start to feel weird. halfway through, the author starts introducing sideplots and new characters. I'll give you a rundown of the main events of the fic with some commentary and opinions before the veredict, so... y'know. Spoilers ahead.
 
http://pastebin.com/LFY9DCqu
 
So, the final veredict is...
 
I actually liked this fic.
 
Now hold on, there are some very troubling things with it. For example, I don't CARE about what Trixie, and the rest of Ponyville is doing. You know why? Because I've spent the last twenty chapters with feral Twilight and the CMC+2. I care about what they're doing. I care about their little adventures and how they bond and become friends.
 
The entire changeling sub-arc could have been removed it, and it would hardly impact the story. Seriously, Twilight's memory could have been triggered by one of the dozens of Smarty Pants dolls Cadence had made and left in the Everfree. and there was no reason to have the changelings in this story, since the one who follows the CMC in the forest could have been replaced with another guard, or hell, even Trixie.
 
Overall, the story is not bad, not at all. It just gets bogged down by so much unnecessary stuff it lowers the quality of the entire fic. I give it a 6.5/10, just because feral Twilight is amazing.
 
Anyway, TMitT is a very solid and enjoyable story for the first fifteen~eighteen chapters, then everything goes crazy with plot points, sidestories, and characters that appear once and are never mentioned again.
 
You know what?
 
7/10. Feral Twilight is really worth it. I thoroughly enjoyed her and it's the only reason why I ploughed through the rest of the fic.
 
---------------------------------------
 
The Name Game
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/38072/the-name-game
 
Pros:
>uses the dark tag really well, with none of that stupid grimderp
>mystery/horror element is well done
>unlike most mystery fics, it has a good payoff
Cons:
>the villain may not make much sense
>the actual horror isn't as severe as it could be
>(relatively) happy ending
 
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The Princess and I
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/114202/the-princess-and-i
 
Twilight fucks up a spell and Luna winds up in Missouri. protag runs into her and takes her in. Thus begins a feelsy, mostly cute SoL that includes a brony government agent, ebil scientist, rednecks, and a delorean driving Dr. Emmett Brown. Surprisingly decent.
 
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The Rule of King Cocoon of the Changelings
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/26915/the-rule-of-king-cocoon-of-the-changelings
162k words
 
A human turned changeling winds up in equestria. He doesn't care for it and wants to go home. Then he learns other humans have wound up there and makes it his mission to get himself and them home (whether they want to go or not)
 
Pros:
Its a fun premise
 
Cons:
Poor execution
Cultural Artifacts levels of WTFery towards the end
 
I always thought of HiEs in which the protagonist doesn't want to be there are grossly under represented, so I love it when I come across something like this. Early on its fairly well written with few glaring errors. It was lighthearted and pretty funny. Somewhere along the line his editor must've quit though, as towards the end more misspellings and grammatical issues pop up, the MCs backstory is goofy (once he remembers it), everyone that isn't the protagonist becomes pretty one dimensional and it winds up with ploys within ploys within ploys within ploys to the point where its hard to keep track of whats actually going on. A fairly strong start but it ends weak. 3/10
 
--------------------------------
 
The Shadow of a Doubt
>http://www.fimfiction.net/story/133309/the-shadow-of-a-doubt
>Categories: Romance, Slice of Life
>19,6k words
 
Time has passed and Twilight is now a professor at Canterlot's University and has lost contact with her friends.
She is starting to feel discontent with her life when a fateful encounter with Rarity reminds her of her past back in Ponyville, amongst other things.
 
I'd do a "Pros" and "Cons" but I'm really busy right now, suffice to say that it's a really heartwarming story.
6.5~7/10
 
---------------------------------
 
The Slumber of Gaia
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/130442/the-slumber-of-gaia
 
grabbed this from the feature box and gave it a whirl. it is not particularly well written and a few errors might jar you from the story but beyond that it was a fairly easy and lighthearted read.
 
the story follows Gaia, a 4 billion year old alien alicorn who wants to visit another planet for a vacation, her destination turns out to be equestria. Gaia has a 'fuck the bullshit and just be happy' outlook on life so much of the story up to this point involves her trolling the ponies expectations of what a princess should be like. also alicorns apparently grow progressively taller and stronger with age but Gaia and her world did not have magic or a codified understanding of it. so ponies try to impress her with levitation and teleporting and Gaia impresses them by stomping a mountain range into dust from 6 miles away. ponies want to know what the fuck she's about, Gaia is just curious about all these creatures that look like her.
 
also Gaia's home world is not earth, she seems to be from some moonless world that hosts a space-fairing squid people.
 
6.5/10. immersion breaking error's are a problem, the premise is interesting if not quite fleshed out at this time. the dude should probably take more time with his writing.
 
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The Stallion in the Library
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/85437/the-stallion-in-the-library
108k words
 
[T] [random] [SoL] [AU]
 
 
2 weeks after defeating nightmare moon, Twilight sees something she'd never seen before- Someone reading in her library.
 
This fic has many, many, many things for me to negatively comment on, but the most important one forced me to ponder a question.  Is a Stu still a stu if nobody likes him?  The protagonsit has many stu like "qualities", in that he turns out to be royalty, is a doctor, is never wrong, just knows things at a glance, lives in a mansion in the everfree, uses many human phrases and terminology and many other annoying things.  But no one really likes him.  Even his best friends- Twilight and Trixie only kinda sorta tolerate him.  So does that still qualify as Stuish?
 
Regardless its a bland, uninteresting, uninspired, 'lets start from S1E3 with an OC that very slightly changes things, but not enough to bear mentioning' premise.  Then lets take the last 7 or so chapters and use them to introduce  some equally cringy not-quite-red-and-black OCs before ending the fic at a totally arbitrary point just in time for the sequel to start
 
Fuck me running.  I read a lot of shit.  And I do mean a lot of shit.  Most of the shitty reviews in these threads stem from the utter shit I read.  Whether they're boring, or full of plotholes, or have wacky premises most fics have something to offer.  Even kickass222urmom and andre wrote shit that brings something to the table for us to discuss.  The stallion in the library doesn't even do that.  This fic is so utterly pointless that this review exists solely to warn everyone away from it.  108 thousand words and not a single one of them needs to be read by anyone.  
Pointless/10
 
-------------------------
 
The Terrifying Prospect of Swans in Love
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/167424/the-terrifying-prospect-of-swans-in-love
 
So I read this one, and to be honest, I am disappointed. It is a Comedy/Romance fic, and I feel like the comedy part really drags the whole thing down. Before I get into more detail, I'd like to say that I enjoyed it a lot, but I do not consider this good enough to be among the best.
 
First of all, the beginning felt damn amazing to me. I enjoyed a lot of the things happening and I thought this it was going to be extraordinary. Then, after Twilight went away, it started going downhill. The first thing that made me feel that way was the conversation with Luna. This is a spoiler, by the way. The conversation seemed to predict something I did not like at all.
>I don't love Twilight
>Yes you do
>Oh, ok, I didn't know that
 
The second thing actually made me cringe a bit - alcohol. I feel like any character being drunk when it's a romantic (Or any story that has characters that need to talk) story is a forced attempt to start a honest conversation. I understand that this might not exactly be a deal-breaker for a story, but it's something that I think fits in mediocre stories.
 
The thing that I felt was the worst was the comedy aspect of the fic. Barely any of the jokes made me smile and some of them really took me out of the story. It would have been much better if the author tried to make it less lighthearted and more heartwarming.
 
There were some other things that I did not enjoy, like some of the metaphors and character reactions, but both of those had very high moments too, which kind of evened out in the end.
 
The problem here is that the quality of the story is not very consistent throughout, with it going up and down too often, and while the highs outweigh the lows, it's not anything golden.
 
-----------------------------------
 
The Thessalonica Legacy
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/122/the-thessalonica-legacy
70k words
 
A Battletech/Mechwarrior and MLP crossover.  It's really not nearly as retarded as it sounds.
During an FTL jump, a FS ship pulls a whoopsie and winds up orbiting the pony planet.  Trying to figure out where they wound up, a dropship lands coincidentally and convieniently close to ponyville. first contact goes bloodless and everything goes nice until Celestia gets all bipolary.
 
Pros:
A wargame crossover that doesn't result in unicorns taking on battletanks
Oddly lighthearted adventure when edginess is expected.
 
Cons:
Bipolar Celestia.  "Welcome to Equestria.  Now GTFO you evil motherfuckers!!1"
Everything seems pretty rushed
 
Wasn't bad.  and if you like Scifi, well pickings are pretty slim, so might as well give it a shot.
 
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The Thesallonica Legacy
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/122/the-thessalonica-legacy
 
6.5/10. Mundane, forgettable, but fun.
What pissed me off was how off Celestia was when faced with the humans (and by extension, Twilight, especially her reaction to a human killing a diamond dog that would otherwise have killed AJ). The story barely had time to develop a skeleton of every character and then it was over. It relied too much on Battletech trivia to be completely comprehensible to an unfamiliar person (such as me). The Falling Stars did a much better job there.
Still, it was an enjoyable read, but I dislike fics where the Equestrians are portrayed as a sheltered, carefree folk, unfamiliar with the harsher aspects of life (and usually unable to grasp any remotely complex moral or philosophical questions). Just because they're cute little ponies doesn't mean you have to make them out to be 10 y/o kids, it really takes a lot out of the story. It got better towards the end, but it still irked me.
 
-------------------------------
 
The Time of Her Life
>http://www.fimfiction.net/story/114360/the-time-of-her-life
 
Twilight gets stuck in an infinite time-loop of masturbation. She goes insane. Need I say more?
 
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The Unity Pact
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/167251/the-unity-pact
273k words
 
If you think it's terrible when one human pops up in Equestria, wait until you see what happens when 800 of them show up. During a dark and stormy night, an entire apartment buildings population gets transportalized to ponyland. None of their possessions come along for the ride including clothing. Hijinks ensue.
 
Pros:
the seeming self insert protagonist winds up being a pretty insignificant character
Along the same lines as Misunderstandings and AVAtS/ASAtV, theres communication and cultural issues that take forever to overcome
 
Cons:
Both parties forgive horrific events much, much too easily to be believable
Having a shitload of named humans makes keeping track of whos who and whos doing what difficult
 
7/10 This one was actually pretty entertaining that manages to avoid typical HiE autism by putting the protagonist into a coma for half the story. Actions done decently, and while neither ponies nor humans descend into Mary Sueism, neither are and of them complete fuckwits.
Currently has a sequel in progress as well.
 
-------------------------------
 
The Unity Pact
>http://www.fimfiction.net/story/167251/the-unity-pact
>273k words
 
Okay, I finished reading this one. My overall rating is 4/10.
 
It seems like the author started out writing a fairly typical shitty self-insert HiE, then accidentally put Mr. Gary Stu into a coma and wound up with about 20 chapters that were actually kind of good. Unfortunately, the author eventually remembered that this was supposed to be a shitty self-insert, so he woke up Gary Stu, and the story quality absolutely tanked. I'm talking
>let's meet the mane 6!
>anti-magic field (turns out to be for Gary only, so not as bad as some other fics)
>RPG-style pony magic system (literally - the magic system is lifted directly from World Tree RPG)
>Gary is super powerful (his passive anti-magic ability can break any spell up to level 9 - for comparison, alicorn Twilight casts spells at level 10)
>700 humans and 700 ponies live and work together for three months, but politely refrain from learning even a single word of each other's languages, so that Gary can save the day by showing up with his "translation manual"
>Gary has not contacted a single other human since three days after they landed, but on the day of his return three months later, he's unanimously elected as the human ambassador and put in charge of the town meeting for deciding on Humanville's laws
 
Also, holy shit does this thing get preachy toward the end. During the big law-making meeting, Gary makes a several proposals that are strongly on one side or the other of a major real-life political debate, and these proposals universally either pass with no substantial opposition, or else the only opposition is an obvious straw-man argument (which Gary of course shoots down with no trouble).
 
-------------------------------------
 
The White Horse
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/232440/the-white-horse
[Dark] [Sombra] [Celestia] [OC]
5,282 words total
In the chaos after Luna's banishment, four warlords meet.
 
 
7/10
A small bite of a fic, it's interesting enough for it's length, but not much beyond that. It's written well and the author is able to trigger the proper realizations exactly when he seems to intend to. It's Exactly What It Says On The Tin as far as the description is concerned.
 
--------------------------
 
Together Forever
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/208304/together-forever
 
Pros:
>unique take on "Who Wants to Live Forever?"
>good characterization for Shining and Cadance
>slippery slope fun
 
Cons:
>Celestia slides down the slippery slope into Tyrantlestia
>vague threats don't justify the supposed utilitarian motives of Celestia
>only Cadance, Shining, and Celestia get any screen time outside of OCs
 
Pretty good (outside of the shit Celestia portrayal). 7.5/10.
 
------------------------
 
Trips into the Unexplored (series)
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/26069/trips-into-the-unexplored
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/54104/unexplored-paths
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/142277/unexplored-worlds
 
its shit like this that reminds me why HiEs are universally frowned upon by everyone but their authors.
 
Human gets magiced to horseland. then proceeds to get propositioned by 2 princesses, a queen, her sister, and 6 mini-horses I'm sure everyones familiar with.
 
pretty standard crap so far. Oh did i mention that human dude is possessed by a demon? one that makes snark and makes video game references for some retarded as shit reason. so edge
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Upheaval Breaking Point
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/10157/upheaval-breaking-point
176k words
 
A magic Macguffin teleports purplesmart waaaay outside of equestria, far to the north. Where she discovers another alicorn that leads an army of ponies, fighting against the armies of other gods. Once sent home, Twilight decides everyone should know about this horrid place that she spent all of one day in and confronts Sunbutt. Sunbutt promptly banishes her back to shittyland for having stupid thoughts. Oh and the others tag along, because this would be a much shorter and less interesting story if twilight was the only non-OC to get any attention.
 
 
Pros:
Decent world building
Competently written
Fight scenes that don't have rarity or fluttershy written into them
 
Cons:
Pointless shipping. Well it probably becomes shipping in the sequel, but here its more like pointless implied infatuation between several M6 characters and OCs
Bullshit mechanics. an unpenetrable barrier stands between equestria proper and the outlands. an unpenetrable barrier that all the other races gods are trying to reach and actually winds up being penetrated more often than the male lead in one of regidar's fics.
Idiot balls. Idiot balls everywhere.
 
 
Its entertaining and a great time sink, though a bit dated as its from 2012. If you can ignore smart ponies making stupid decisions and constant dropping of the idiot ball by literally everyone, that is.
 
----------------------------------------------
 
Valor is Magic
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/58577/valor-is-magic
 
Pros:
>good characterization
>battles are slow and realistic (relatively speaking)
>invaders have a reason for actually invading that isn't full on retard
 
Cons:
>goes down the warfic cliche checklist (griffon invaders, fanatical Night Guard, etc)
>nobody can logic (your country controls the Sun and Moon, use that against the invaders. Why anyone would want to invade the country that controls the fate of the planet is beyond me)
>wah, how could Equestria's military do this! Shut up, Twilight. Either special forces slows the Ottoman cannon or everyone dies.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
Vengeance of Dawn (114 likes, 1,422 views)
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/89379/vengeance-of-dawn
 
Pros:
>it's Sunset Shimmer's plot, but actually done well and minus the human bullshit
>decent characterization
>feeling of dread builds as the story progresses
 
Cons:
>idiot balls and the villains being unstoppable for most of the story raises the Villain Sue factor
>quick implosion of the villains' plan reveals how shoddy it really was
>Dawn's a meh villain, kind of a big point since she's the main character
 
7/10.
 
---------------------------------
 
Wandering Moon
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/137585/wandering-moon
235k words (plus a still running sequel currently @ 57k words)
 
What if, during the final battle of the equestrian civil war, Luna was banished not to the moon, but the Capitol Wasteland?  and then was immediately stumbled upon by a recently exiled former denizen of Vault 101?  This happens.
 
Its Fallout 3 with Luna.  It follows the major plot points of Fallout 3, while Luna follows the not-so-lone-anymore wanderer around in search of pops over the course of a month or so.  The B story involves Celestia's attempts to change history and prepare for Luna's return.  Over the course of a millenia.  Yeah apparently time flows a little differently between worlds.
 
Pros:  
Its a fallout/mlp crossover that isn't Fo:E
 
Cons:
AU setting in ponyland rewrites everything. Not really a con on its own, but some content is just really odd
 
 
The wasteland parts of the story are fun, as is Sarah and Lunas interactions and lesbianity. Though the Equestria parts seem to drag and are a much different take on history and the lead up to S1E1 than we're familiar with.
 
----------------------------------------------
 
Welcome to the Mash
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/124190/welcome-to-the-mash
71k words
[mature] [sex] [romance] [comedy]
 
Uninteresting lonely generic dork OC meets a mare in a bar, they go to her place and bang and the next morning her son, Button, finds him in his mothers bed.
 
Its a clopfic. A clopfic that attempts to have a plot. The plot is not this fics strong suit. Unfortunately the clop ain't so great either- its repetitive and about as imaginative as "He jammed his wang into her dripping snatch, wiggled it about a few times, and then came 17 gallons of semen".
 
If you like clop but dislike one shots, I guess this is up your alley.
 
-----------------------------
 
What If My Second Life
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/7454/what-if-my-second-life
 
One of these days I'm going to hurt myself. and I will have deserved it.
 
This is a self insert fanfic of a self insert fanfic of a cartoon for little girls. Its like the inception of faggotry. and per the author in the comments, apparently good portions of certain chapters were copy pasted from the original story and added to this one.
 
Its got alll the generic tropes and cliches. all of the mini horse figures they come across tremble in fear, then instantly relax once the 6 foot tall, apex predator, grim reapers protegee kindly tells them he wont hurt them. they be so trusting, yo.
 
Honestly theres not much to say about this shit that hasnt been said about any other poorly written peice of shit on fimfic. This one only becomes worth mentioning due to the fact its a fanfic of a fanfic.
One that got cut short, because its host story was cut short. Apparently from the comments, coal bucks (writer of the original story) parents discovered he was writing self insert fanfiction of their kid fucking colorful mini horses from a little girls cartoon and threatened to kick him out of the house, thus ending an apparent career in writing shit.
 
If only more parents would take such proactive steps it would've saved many, many of my brain cells
 
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When Worlds Unite Up
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/206442/when-worlds-unite-up
 
Pros:
Wonderfuls are in character
Seems semi-plausible for both universes
Meets some of the game's humor.
 
Cons:
>Another crossover that starts in the everfree
Author has other fics running, unknown how quickly he'll update this.
No Wonder Bayonetta yet.
 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Will the Last Pony to Leave
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/150193/will-the-last-pony-to-leave
 
one shot. 600,000,000 years into the future ponies have taken to the stars, Equis is a barren, nearly lifeless rock and Celly is about to turn off the sun forever. What does this call for? A cyborg pinkie party of course. Short, silly and worth the 2 minutes it'll take to read
 
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woodpecker
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/193838/woodpecker
 
it was dark, gritty and mature storytelling
 
4/10.
 
 
our main character is a survivor from war torn... canada who is absurdly hostile to the natives, swears like a sailor, immediately critiques the guard and is 'married' to an underage daughter figure who is why he breaks down every 5 minutes about how he has to go back home and his celestia characterization is arguably worse than that.
 
At 36,000 words it is fairly short, but i required the power of spite to actually complete it. so yeah. enjoy.
 
---------------------------------------
 
World of Chaos.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/8222/world-of-chaos
Pros:
>interesting take on a tried concept
>good execution of that concept (the concept being discord wins)
>descriptions of characters, places, and emotions feel pretty solid
 
Cons:
>story is set 1.5k years in the future in a world that is sorely lacking in magic and the current inhabitants have done fuckall to advance on any sort of technical level. If anything, they regressed.
>Not scifi, con for reason above.
>Ending was a little shaky, still worth the read, but somewhat loose for a fan of good timetravel stories.
>discord seems like more of a cunt than "chaotic" but that is pretty forgivable.
 
Overall its a thumbs up, solid 8/10. Give it a read.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
Worlds Apart
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/29512/worlds-apart
 
PoE. Those wacky magic trans-dimensional portals start acting up again, but instead of sending some loser to ponyland, shiny and best princess wind up on earth and eventually fall into the care of some loser. Because friendship they quickly become losers bestest friends ever. through coaching they manage to get loser into a platonic relationship with some orphan. Then they bide their time until the lesser princesses show up on his doorstep, liberating shiny and best princess and sending them home.
 
Pros:
Its not a HiE
No hot, sweaty man on pone clop
Not a self insert (probably)
 
Cons:
The writing style is fine, but content is pretty bland
No hot, sweaty man on pone clop
Who am I kidding, its probably a self insert
 
Thankfully short at 32k words, yet it still took me the better part of 3 days to get through it
 
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Written in Dust
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/58441/written-in-dust
81k words
 
An urban explorer is doing his thing when he falls down a hole and winds up in an urban explorers wet dream- an abandoned, decayed Canterlot. He then gets 'endofponied' back in time via etherealplane ex machina to discover what happened and attempt to prevent it.
 
Pros:
From the guy that wrote Misunderstandings. and unlike Misunderstandings, he didn't fuck up and ragequit on this one
Its like End of Ponies, except its completed.
HiE/ponified HiE that doesn't involve edginess, Pinkie parties, or your waifu getting banged.
 
Cons:
Technically it's an HiE, half of which is a ponified HiE. I understand completely if you were to skip it based on this fact alone.
It gets a little goofy during the climax
 
 
7/10 Honestly its pretty well done with no glaring issues that I picked up on, sans climax goofiness. There's potential for a sequel, but after the Misunderstandings clusterfuck and considering how old this one is, I don't see it happening.
 
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What I read: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/58441/written-in-dust
What I expected: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_(interactive_novel)
What I got: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/1571/the-end-of-ponies, but shorter, finished, and with none of SS&E's shitty writing style
 
Pros:
>interesting premise
>writing is pretty good
>there's a little bit of shipping, which is handled pretty well
 
Cons:
>the author handwaves a bunch of small details by giving the protagonist extremely specific minor superpowers, explained only by lolmagic
>starring le funny crosseyed muffin horse, and several of your other favorite fanon personalities
>second bonus chapter has a cliffhanger ending for no reason whatsoever
 
Overall: 7/10, bretty good. This fic is actually by the same guy who wrote Misunderstandings, and it seems like he really knows how to write non-shitty HiEs, but having read both stories, it's easy to tell that this was one of his earlier attempts.
 
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You Do Not Belong
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/23095/you-do-not-belong
 
Ooh look, a human winds up in ponyland due to mysterious means. And hes a teenager. wearing glasses. and brings an ipod. and is kind of a dick. but only at first though. then he gets all friendship of magic-y. everyone loves him. then he grows to love everyone. then he grows a horn. guess where this is going. the end.
 
pros-
wasn't written by kickass222urmom
wasn't written by german google translate dude
protagonist didnt bang anyone
 
cons-
was written by 2dextreem (dunno who he is, its just a retarded as fuck username)
bland generic HiE that blends in with all of the other bland, generic HiEs
200k words
 
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