MLP Rational Fic Recommendations

 

Well, that's what this should be. There's only one problem - there's no list of MLP rational fics. I had to do the next best thing - review every fic in the Lesswrong group. This means that I'll be telling you to avoid many fics that are very Rational™ and read many that aren't, but that's better than me telling you to read some fics that are trash or trying to personally rate the rationality of each fic. Anyway, the following are my rating of each fic in the LessWrong group:

 

Note: Fic order within a tier is meaningless. I was too lazy to alphabetise things.

 

# Recommended - Simply the best fics in this group. They're all flawed, but they're better than the rest.

 

The closest thing to pony HPMOR. Excellently written and builds one of the best worlds that I've seen in a fic. It has some major issues in the second half, such as the pacing and some of the cast being dropped, but every other element is so well done that my faith in the author remains absolute. Despite having written countless words on where it goes wrong, it does so much right that I still fully recommend it. I can't read a paragraph of it without reading the entire chapter.

 

Abandoned too early to be commented on, but I laughed alot.

 

Far better than you'd expect. Despite being a 1 chapter, incomplete, and dead on arrival fic from an author nobody follows, I was hooked throughout and it works just fine as a one-shot. Read it.

 

Chapter 2 is pretty bad, but the rest is a very strong premise executed very well.

 

A series. The first few chapters are morbid to the point of being difficult to read, but it transitions to something very different. The conflict in the fic is so strong that the transition that I mentioned couldn't be I done well, but what these fics set up is so interesting that I must recommend them.

 

It's a collection of fics all supposedly written in 30 minutes, so it's hard to review as a whole. Regardless, I must praise it. How many other 500 word stories manage to make you think and feel?

 

I could review this fic, but I don't need to. There's so many good fics of this fic that you're required to read it. If you don't like it, listen to the audiobook. Still, I think that you will like it. Despite its flaws, the concept is enough to carry it.

 

# Praiseworthy - Fics that I can see others recommending.

 

Mostly about on par with the original, but declines towards the end until it turns in to an author tract. If you share the author's hobby horses, you'll love it.

 

A good comedy, but largely falls apart after chapter 1.

 

It's hard to rate a multi-author fic. At best, it uses the framework of a rational fic to parody fairy tales. At worst, the authors either disregarded humour or took their intended lessons and worked backwards. Read chapters: 1, 7, 15, 23, and 27. Skip the rest or else you're in for a bad time.

 

This is a sequel, but I have the same things to say about this as I do any of this author's other fics that I've read. The author is great at Slice of Life, but keeps on ruining it with science lectures. Overall, it's good if you skim the science and read the SoL.

 

Aside from The Moon's Apprentice, which I've rated above, and The Ghosts of Harmony, which I think is unremarkable and missing a middle, I'm happy to put everything this author has done for MLP in this tier. Particularly in the shorter stories, the author is extremely good at writing Twilight, but sometimes that's the only mark she hits. Still, she's usually very enjoyable.

Her only other long fic is the on-hiatus Seeking Power. It's a rewrite and badly tagged. It's really a comedy/adventure. It has a consistent level of quality, but the only real reason to read is the excellent world building. The author has thought through the MLP world quite a lot

 

Good premise, but abandoned too soon to comment on.

 

Half of this Fic is Discord trolling. It was bound to be good, but I promise that it will exceed your expectations. Also, the premise is Fairly interesting and it was difficult to predict where it was going.

 

Good puns and pedagogy, but I don't think that the premise makes sense.

 

Better than I was expecting. It was a mediocre 3k "I need to kill myself to save you" sad fic, but the sudden twist ending was excellent. Overall, it's probably not worth a read, but I must Praise the ending.

 

Has many major flaws: It's dead, the synopsis is an admitted failure, it has long and inconsistent chapter lengths, the clearly ESL author means that some lines/scenes are lost on the reader, the author is so bad at introducing new viewpoint characters that it takes 500 words to realise that it's happened, the MC is worryingly close to a Gary Stu, some scenes are obviously exposition dumps, and the author is terrible at writing everything but world-building and conversations. Despite all of this, I loved it - the world is Fantastic and the vast majority of the character interactions are an absolute pleasure to read. These two things are done so well that they miraculously almost redeem the fic.

 

IF you want more Hard Reset then this is probably the fic For you. Although I Found it boring, after a couple of a chapters it was usually very easy to read. For me, the problem was that it lacked a lot of the tension from the original. I dropped it when I was about halfway through because I coudin't care about what was going on. I hear that you'll love it if you try to solve the fic's puzzle, but it's crippled by being incomplete.

 

Aside from the first few chapters, which only exist to set up the crossover, it used to be an excellent crackfic where we had madness like Fluttershy being sorted in to Slytherin. But as it progressed, it become clear that the author had lost his mind. Eventually, it starts crossing over with just about everything - even Pulp Fiction and the MCU. Worst of all, the penultimate chapter of the fic is a barely edited copy and paste of The Great Gatsby, making the fic 50k longer than it actually is. In its final state, I can't recommend the fic. In its early days I used to recommend it for the insanity of the character interactions (telling rationallVoldemort “friendship is optimal"? Genius!) and later on I used to recommend it because the author's madness made for some excellent world-building that inexplicably worked (Equestria is Atlantis and you can hear David Bowie when you diel). But by the end of the fic, I stopped recommending it because said madness is no way to resolve a story. There's some very enjoyable parts, but the bad far outweighs the good.

 

Tough fic to comment on. I dropped it too quick on my First attempt. On my second, I figured the fic out Chapter 1 and the first half of chapter 2 are what you want - the protagonist questioning if being uploaded to Equestria Online is really paradise - and show some serious potential. After that, it gradually loses its way. The second half of chapter 2 is just the protagonist having Fun with his friends, chapters 3 and 4 are omake, half of chapter 5 is a battle, and chapter 6 is a glossary. I liked the pondering parts of the fic, but they're weakened by the protagonist already being uploaded. Parts of chapter 1 are Forced to be exposition dumps because of this. In terms of themes, I feel like any Optimalverse fic that skips the sceptical protagonist's conflict over uploading is seriously missing the mark. Abandoned, and ultimately only worth reading for chapters 1 and 2.

 

# Ok - Fics that I don't want to call trash, but can't really praise.

 

It's almost a good death fic, but most of the fic is setup that could've been done ina sixth of the length and most of that setup is never really used.

 

The author regrets it and has said most of what I'd want to about the fic. It's an occasionally confusing work that lacks Focus. If I can praise it for anything, it'll be the occasional bits of humour.

 

Mostly predicatable once you know the premise. The rest relies on Cadence being dumb about just the right things andsmart about others.

 

Edgy trash, but deeper than I was expecting.

 

Unremarkable. If you've read anything remotely similar to these fics, then you'll never I need to read these.

 

It's unreadable unless you're a physics nerd and probably bad even if you are one.

 

Maybe it's because it died afterone chapter, but I really couldn't bring myself to care about it. There's too much useless info in each scene; everything feels over described. It's like the author wanted us to really get to know his characters, but Forgot to get us invested in them first. It gets better once the selF-insert becomes the focus, but the fic dies before that goes anywhere. Finally, there's enough outside references that I wonder if it's supposed to be a social commentary.

 

The fic was essentially setup For a logic puzzle. I can’t say that I was entertained, but it definitely was interesting. In a way, the fic's Failure to be entertaining makes me wonder if the fic would've been better off as an actual logic puzzle or some sort of game.

 

I don't have enough space to explain how much is wrong with this fic. It's as iFit has huge amounts missing. Each chapter Feels like it's From a different fic. Chapter 1 sets up a solid conflict, chapter 2 is essentially a monologue about why the MC is on the right side, and chapter 3 timeskips to show us which side won. I'd like to say that the premise was more interesting than the fic, but the premise almost requires most of the M6 to be OoC and other reviewers have pointed out that the MC wants to publish her work, but every argument that we see is about using said work

 

A bit disappointing. The scenes of Twilight having the typical immortality blues Felt like they could've been in the show, but the final scene with Discord was a bit silly. He essentially dodges her question, and that's the end of the fic. It was engaging, but I not particularly enjoyable.

 

Longer than it needs to be, possibly because of the sudden villain appearance or the obscure (and sometimes hard to read) hints to the ending. Other than that I can't say much for or against the writing. The fic is pretty unremarkable. IF you get the reference, then you might remember the ending. Otherwise, you'll Forget the fic.

 

It's Rational Clop so you'd expect it to have a lot of weird stuff going on, but it ends up being weird in unexpected ways. Twilight is deliberately OoC, the fic frequently goes off on some stunningly long tangents (at one point Twilight goes through SEVEN HUNDRED words of thinking about politics between two lines of dialogue), and the "sex" barely counts. It's not unreadable, but it's far From worth a read. I Forgot most of it two days after reading.

 

# Trash - Fics that just waste your time.

 

The fic should be mostly conversation, but the majority of the word count is spent describing Furniture and drinks. It wasn't even good propaganda.

 

The author sacrifices everything to make Galileo's story fit MLP. It was doomed to Fail. You'll be in awe when you see how much the author sacrifices For an ending that fails to tie up vital loose ends and has many major characters OoC.

 

Nothing more than propaganda to get you to read a blog post.

 

Every chapter was backstory! It seems like the fic can't hold on to any set of characters for more than two chapters at a time. We leave Twilight, presumably our MC, in chapter 2 and don't get back to her until chapter 7. The antagonists seem to be completely typical children of the night and I couldn't even skim the Luna chapter. Incomplete, and dead - skip. Also, "Night Mare Moon".

 

Has a lot of red flags, like the entire Fic being a 21k chapter orthe tags being completely at odds with the — synopsis. Once you read it, you find that it's a stream of consciousness fic that's so dark that you eventually stop caring and realise that the entire ficis the fallout fromthe author reading Atlas Shrugged.

 

The first chapter reads like setup For a clopfic and the remainder is Rainbow Dash solving a very easy ethics problem. A complete waste of time.

 

The kindest thing that I can say — is that it's obviously the author's First Fic.

 

Takes every opportunity to dump fix fic info that is irrelevant to you, the characters, and the story. At one point it even has like 10 sentences of thinking between two lines of small talk. I've been told that it eventually becomes a bad rewrite of the first two episodes, but it's dead and I never made it that Far. Note that chapter 1_ was the last to be written.

 

I barely made it through one chapter. I suspect that it's a wish-Fulfilment Fic, but the truth is that it seems to have nothing of value. It's just plain trash.

 

I can't quite say what, but there's something very off about the writing. I was ready to drop it before the end of the first chapter and there was little improvement when I read the I second. Sadly, it's what you'd expect from this being the author's first and only fic.

 

It's an extremely forced MLP retelling of the Book of Job. Celestia and Luna seem very out of character and the premise seems contrary to important events that we've seen in canon. I dropped it in less than 20° minutes.

 

# Unrated - Fics that I can't fairly rate.

 

Crossover with something I've not read.

 

Extremely weird. You have to get used to reading terms like "eigenwall" and "consensual memespace". The world is great despite this and it's like none other that I've seen, but I cared about nothing else. Once it started moving and the author had to use what plot points and characters he'd set up (about 5 chapters in), I stopped caring and dropped it. Might be enjoyable for someone who either loves the world or sees something in the fic that I didn't.

 

Without spoiling anything, all that I can say is that I failed to realise that the writing was weird on purpose and therefore I ruined the fic For myself.

 

Aside from ripping content directly From HPMOR, the first two or so chapters are pretty good if you like your LessWrong stuff. However, it becomes mediocre after about Five chapters and I've never seen anyone make it as far as ten. Skipping well ahead, it looks like it might eventually get good, but nobody is willing to make that I investment.

 

It's part of a massive series but I didn’t like the first entry, so I never bothered with this.

 

I really couldn't care for the MC and said MC was the majoirty of the fic. The rest of it, even the writing, was good and enjoyably mad. Still, I dropped it after 5 chapters with little regret. IF you like the MC, then you'll probably enjoy this fic.

I think a major problem is how easy the MC is Finding it to not get exposed.