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Dr Hooves.

I am so sick of seeing Dr Hooves showing up in every single fanfic. He always ends up being the actual Doctor, never just a regular pony with that name.

It doesn't matter if his role in the story is small or large, it drives me crazy and takes me right out of the story. You want to do a 'The Doctor = Dr Hooves' story, fine, be my guest, but please, PLEASE, leave him out of all the other ones. I'm begging here.

I personally think the whole 'Discord as the main antagonist' thing and everything about him is becoming over-used.

If anything goes majorly wrong, the first reaction is 'Shit, Discord's back!'

If things become too "chaotic", and not even on a magical level mind you, Discord suddenly has a power surge and breaks free, ready and raring to fuck things over again. I never quite understood why that would be the case.

It annoys me when people write him as effectively omnipotent when trapped in stone as well. Whenever someone writes him as knowing about every single little detail and weakness about somepony, my thoughts are "HE'S BEEN LOCKED IN STASIS! HOW THE FUCK DOES HE KNOW THAT?!"

...
But I disgress.

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This is the obvious cliche, it relates to "clops".
The 20 to 1 ratio of Mares to Stalions.

Rainbow Dash as a Wonder Bolt. Not to mention her quick temper.

Pinkie Pie's dark side is a split personality.

Princess Twilight is a doomed for a depressed and lonely existence.

Apple Jack is loses her friends due to her stubbornness.

Rarity moves to Canterlot.

Fluttershy is a closet Fillly Foaler.

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Ugh... that high ratio would kill the population. Eye roller on itself. I don't mind a higher mare ratio, heck my story does that, but... 20 to 1? Holy crap.

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Also Vinyl and Octavia.

This.

Lyra and Bon Bon I can understand, since they're almost always next to each other. But Vinyl and Octavia have never even appeared in the same episode.

Let's see.
Earth ponies are oppressed is pants on head retarded since most socialites, intellectuals and artists on the show, except for a couple of unicorns, are earth ponies.

Then, the Pinkie ones.
First, Pinkie is a crazy psychopath that uses being happy as a cover.
I can't honestly hate this one enough. I can't, I just.
It even gave me the idea for an AU fic about what if the first sonic rainboom never happened. Pinkie is a fashion model there.
Second, Pinkie breaking the fourth wall. This one is kinda tricky because I actually like it but only when it's done in a smart way, not the usual "HEY DER REEDR, I SEA UR READIN A boni :DDDD FANFIC DURPA HURP HUUUEERHAAHGHH".
Is a non-intrusive but exhuberant reference to being on written media that hard to do?

For changelings, I have a personal headcanon since the average fanon for them is so mind-numbingly stupid that it causes me actual physical pain.
They are a colony(duh), so only the queens have actual free will and the rest(workers, soldiers), while having their own quirks and personality, lack one and obey the hive blindly so no misunderstood changeling OC on ponyville for me.
I added that Chrysalis is just a really young queen that hasn't matured yet and that a fully matured changeling queen is an eldritch abomination that matures after finding a loving male and absorbing it ala angler fish. I'd like to add drones into the mix but they don't really need those.
I still don't have anything to use it though.

Lyra and humans I can get behind but only if she is a researcher that's often disregarded and treated like a joke because nopony has ever seen a human so she has to live on Bon Bon's attic/basement.
I hate Doctor Whooves with every poni fiber on myself and anything VinylxOctavia is like finding bile on my sandwich to me, just like Derpy being in any type of relation with Whooves or the mane 6.

I don't mind HiE as long as it's not cliched as in Twilight messes up a spell, portals, wish fulfillment shit, etc. Human villians are pretty cool as an antithesis to it though.
And let's not forget the myriad of alternate names used for the ponies, all sounding cornier than the ones before them. lavender mare, cyan pony, orange pony, PINK. PARTY. PONY., azure speedster, whitecoat the prissy one.

I don't like to admit it but we are kinda retarded sometimes.

929805 How bout starving them to death?

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I feel like that would just make the Unicorns and Pegasi more irate and it's not like Earth ponies are the only ones who know how to grow food

Pinkie being less of a character and more of a vehicle for the author to insert silly jokes and stuff, interspersed with inane party prattle. The show gives her far more depth than that. Same with Discord, too.

Tyrant Celestia is one that pops up far too often, I think. It's also a massive turnoff for me.

Starting off an HiE story with the poor guy landing himself in the Everfree. Also, I'm sure everyone is familiar with the standard series of events that unfold when the human inevitably finds his way into Ponyville. Bonus points if the human is either some badass military dude or some hateful teenager who thinks humanity sucks.

Scootaorphan, adoption by Rainbow Dash etc.. I actually don't mind Scootaorphan stories, though. It's just when they all follow the same formula that it becomes incredibly dull.

Emotality.

931474 They kinda were...

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They don't have to fight. Simple societal pressure would be sufficient. After all it's not like Equestria has electricity. That means that everything in the show is powered by a unicorn somewhere. From the Cakes' stove to Tank's propeller. Granted we don't know how long those enchantments last, but for basic needs like cooking and refrigeration that save thousands of foals every year, why the unicorns just HAVE to help. They don't hate foals, do they? Why wouldn't they help save their lives? Eventually the expectation would drive most of them into just being walking generators because it's what's expected of them. Kinda like how most all of the pegasi already are employed in weather management.

A personal one to me is seeing the words "mare" and "stallion" everywhere. Calling Big Macintosh a stallion every second paragraph becomes cumbersome; same as if you referred to me as an adult human male. The words "guy" and "girl" are far less clunky, and are perfectly justified because they have been used in universe! You can occasionally sub in "filly" instead, depending on context; Rarity has referred to herself as a mare, while Fancy Pants called Twilight a filly.

The terms are interchangeable, and some narrative pieces would work better with one than the other (mare = describing an elegant lady, filly = describing someone young and spunky, or alternatively a kid). Heck, my own story features a colt - and I've gone out of my way to refer to him as boy most of the time, because saying colt all the time just comes across as pretentious.

Speaking of cliches, it's funny how a lot of them ended up finding their way into the show, huh?

Rainbow Dash breaking a wing
Rainbow Dash finally getting a direct chance to try for the Wonderbolts
Discord returning and becoming (loosely) an ally
Trixie returning... and becoming (loosely) an ally
An established character suddenly having a sibling that is also awesome
A new alicorn suddenly appearing
* An OC with an exotic special talent allowing him/her to rival the mane six
Twilight becoming an alicorn, and "joining the royal family" (somehow) in the process

All of the above are canon, and many fics have done them better than the actual show IMO.

A great deal of plot angles have been done to death already; what matters is execution. I don't hear people badmouthing The Immortal Game (which commits at least three of the above cliches) or the Pony POV Series (commits at least two) for playing with cliches.

*My own story skirts dangerously close to this, with an OC unicorn who is essentially Twilight's predecessor, and a special talent for reading (and learning itself). However, I've actually put some thought into writing his story arc around the consequences of such a talent; something lesser fics that get bashed for cliches have a tendency not to do.

Pinkie being a multiple personality, Pinkmamena even existing and her being a cupcake killer I really hate those kinda stories
though I think the doctor pony being Doctor Whooves though is used almost is almost always used differently unless it has a romance tag and features both the Doctor and Derpy... those are just too much used.

929946 it's worse than wiki, eh?

930856 best ship EVAR! k but what u said made a point. But what's more sickening is paring up your damn OCs with the coolest DJ around, EVAR