Twenty of these collections, plus several My Little Pony fanfics I read and did as individual posts. Which I still intend to do for some of these. Maybe next year I can do a project that is re-reading all of them and doing proper story-by-story review posts as a look back review. Or maybe I’ll have gotten the ponies out of my brain by then and gone back to mainstream paid-money-for fiction. Who knows. Even odds that this time next year I’ll have written some pony fanfic myself if I get my writer-self back to work. Anyone, down there is several really short ones and a few really long semi-reviews.
This Day is Going to be Perfect by BronyWriter
Silly and short. Favorite part was that changeling Candance was apparently pausing while singing, right where real Cadance would be singing her lines. Even though there were nowhere near each other and couldn’t possibly hear each other. Great example of one of my favorite types of comedy, taking dramatic techniques of storytelling and extrapolating them out to literal events.
Short little story. Good balance of the show and more adult themes. Not great, but pretty good. Nowhere near as good as the other stories this author has written.
Princess Celestia is a bit cold in this one. I like the version of her that is aloof, but warm at least in private. In this story she is the neutral eternal sun-princess even when it’s just her and Rainbow Dash, which is a little harsh. Turns out to be just to set up the twist at the end, but still seemed wrong. Story was a bit too much focused on modern politics and references, but still felt mostly like MLP.
Princess Luna Likes Coffee by Bradel
Very short. Pretty good, but not real substantial. Would have loved to get a bit more of this to flesh things out.
The Traveling Tutor And The Librarian by Georg
Pretty good, but not great. A bit sitcom-ish in places, a few too many moments of out of context misunderstandings, and not enough emotional depth for my taste. Thought that is mostly just style disagreements and not quality issues. Was a very sweet romance story.
I would have liked more slice of life stuff once the two romantic leads had become a couple. The story really starts to drag when they hook up and the author doesn’t seem to know what to do without the comedic romantic tension between them.
Also wish the events of the show weren’t mentioned as often. A piece of fan fiction can be made stronger by occasionally referencing the show to provide backstory and immersion, but in this case it turns out to be a weakness. The trouble is that the events of this story would be mentioned during the events of the show, given how important some of this story is to the characters, so by trying to connect it to the source material it hurts immersion rather than enhances it.
The story also felt kind of rushed. Not because the pacing was wrong exactly, but like every other scene between the important ones was missing. The difference between a documentary video on a subject and a slideshow with narration. So you still get the basic gist, but are left with the feeling that there is a whole lot more that was missing. Part of that is the chapters are all really short and have odd cutoff points.
This is actually a pretty well written story. A good example of telling instead of showing. Many places the author is simply telling the reader what is happening instead of showing the situation and letting the reader come to their own conclusions.
A Short Story by Twilight Sparkle by Skywriter
Another very meta short story. Much like Heretical Fictions this is fan fiction that involves other fan fiction. In this case the story that the characters are talking about is Princess Celestia Hates Tea. This story has wonderful comments about both that specific story and writing in general that are quite close to the heart of most writers.
A Breakfast of Time Loops by Obselescence
Eh, this one was disappointing in that we didn’t get to actually experience any of the time loops. It was pretty well written, but I like time travel/manipulation stories from the point of the view inside the time-loop. In this case it was more just a plot device than a cool idea to explore.
More changelings. Lots of cool ideas in this one. Different changeling hives feeding on different emotions with different strategies to get their preferred emotion. A lot of the same concepts that was in Flitter, but usually with a twist or two that showed this author had gotten there by a slightly different chain of inspiration. Didn’t like the chapter that was describing how the changeling disguises worked. Was just a bit too much magic-as-technology for me, not enough just ‘a wizard did it’.
Very good characters and plot. Wish the author had written more stories. This is the only fanfic on fimfiction and it is marked as a work in progress.
The City of Doors 