Sorry, man. Ain't nothing interesting to see here. Just move right along, thank you.
It has been but a decade since humans have crossed time and space into Equestria. With them came a host of brand new technologies and ideas that rocked Equestria to its core. A decade is a lot of time to see change. It is also not nearly enough.
Pisces Pieces is an ordinary pony. He has a day job in Ponyville. He enjoys sun, Winter Wrap-Up, and a good hay sandwich. One day, he looks back on how life has changed ever since the humans came.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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In your short description:
In your long description:
Based on these sentences, I'm guessing it's pony-human hybrids.
5180949 I am glad my word choice amused you.
I like this a lot. You don't shy away from the negative aspects of human contact like crazed gunmen, the loss of innocence in regards to the concepts of violence and war, environmental concerns, etc. You also don't try to ignore or downplay the positive aspects, like the spread of knowledge and freedom (but I will point out that the human species has not, as a whole or in general, agreed on capitalism being the best form of government. Several countries have, North America and much of Western Europe among them, but definitely not the whole species), and you finish it off by pointing out the friendship and (platonic) love that can occur between the different species and how, for the narrator anyway, that seems to be more than enough to justify both the good and bad. A very uplifting point of view, and one that I think anyone who dreams of meeting alien life can feel very strongly.
5188179
Sakes alive, if you only said you liked it a good deal, I would have been vindicated enough.
If I may be pedantic, if you're talking about me portraying democracy being the globally accepted best government system, I would suggest that almost every major country at least pays lip service to the ideals of free elections. If you're talking about me portraying as capitalism being the best market system, that wasn't really my intention, but write what you know, and I know the American Industrial Revolution and Inside Job.
But that's me being pedantic. Thank you for the kind words and the favorite!
5189263
I have been far too willing to correct people on confusing their terms in the past to be at all mad about you doing the same to me.
I don't recall how long ago this story was added to my group, but if it was a long time I apologize hollowly for that delay.
I'll say up front that I don't like Human in Equestria(HiE) stories. I understand full well that it is an incredibly popular section of the fandom, with thousands of fans, thousands of stories, and that it is such a huge and diverse subsection that within such a broad scope is a staggering array of different styles and tones of stories. It would be terribly unfair to dismiss a story simply for being HiE, as there are some incredibly talented writers who have love and passion for what they write. Between reading a sampling and through general osmosis I've been unable to avoid HiE, and I have a fair idea of some of the popular sub-subsections. I'd go on to explain what it is about HiE stories I dislike, but that explanation is more suitable to a later section of the review, as this story showcases something quite well and it is directly relevant to the review itself, rather than this preface where I explain my biases and things.
On to the story then!
The first thing I noticed was that the main character is a pony. Pisces Pieces is rather clever for a name. I'm not sure anypony would be so cruel as to name their foal that, but there are plenty of canon and toy-canon names that form a wide array of names that this certainly feels like a fitting member of. Granny Smith would be another name that I have trouble believing anypony would be so cruel as to inflict on their child. Try to say it 5 times fast out loud though. Pisces Pieces Pisces Pieces Pisces Pieces Pisces Pieces Pisces Pieces. Even just reading it is visually like a tongue twister.
Where was I? Oh yes. For a HiE story, we have a main character who is not only a pony, but a remarkably likeable and relatable one at that. So far this story has bucked two depressingly common faults of the stereotype that lingers about HiE like that clingy, oily musk you find has permeated your clothes and hair if you attend a convention. That hideous and health-hazardous mix of BO from large numbers of fans with poor hygene in close proximity and often in sweltering heat that central AC simply can't keep up with.
Passing grammar. Nothing stood out as distracting errors. I've apparently hit a fairly lucky streak of stories lately that have been free of random typos that any decent spellchecker could catch, meaning hopefully people are taking that token bit of time and effort to actually use these tools. None of the sentences really stood out as awkward to parse. There may well be errors lurking about, but if there are, I doubt you'd get complaints on them from most readers. I am no expert on grammar, and am only slightly better at it than the average person myself, but I do tend to catch errors slightly better than the average as well.
On to the bad. This is the section you probably have been waiting for, or dreading.
Lets get the HiE and mixing of worlds thing out of the way. I, like many others, am a fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I like the characters in it. I have favorites which are totally irrelevant to this review. I like the world. I like the feel and tone of the show. I, and I like to think at least that there are many others too, like to explore more of this world. It is well-understood that the show is never going to cover some areas and topics, either because they don't fit outright, or because there will never be enough screentime to depict everything that could make it on the show. I have a pretty broad range of tastes when it comes to this exploration, so this is by no means me saying that fanfics should be written as if they fit in only that last category, where they could easily be episodes of the show if only the writers of the show had the same idea and/or the time to actually show it.
I also, like many fans, live on Earth. I have a day to day life with concerns, trials, tribulations, successes, and failures. I'm plenty familiar with this world, and while I do like to explore several of its mysteries, there is quite a bit of it that I am just not as keen on as I am the Equestrian offerings. Things like government, taxes, religion, wars, crime, and the general attitude of a lot of people. Ponyland does of course already include a great deal of material from the real world in order to be relatable at all. I feel there is a line where too much more is indeed too much, and I understand that for many that line is probably high enough to include a fic like this, thus the popularity of HiE.
This story does depict quite a few of the things brought in by this contact with the human dimension as mere curiosities to Pisces Pieces, others as horrid, and most as somewhat startling at least. Honestly though, the idea of religion entering Equestria makes my skin crawl. Some person going to Cheerilee's class and shooting the place up is horrid.
That line of text right there captures the awful. It hints at the changes to Equestria that happen/happened in this story. That is the soul-crushing weight of what makes our reality the sort of place that we want to escape from, preferably to a magical land filled with brightly-colored quadrupedal marshmallows. The place has its share of hazards, ranging from dragons and demons to swarms of flying tribbles to bunny stampedes and butterflies strong enough to carry a pony. But even with shady characters like Flim and Flam, vengeful braggarts like Trixie Lulamoon, and pompous assholes like Prince Blueblood, there is still that sense of safety and peace where you can at least trust your neighbors (lol, horsepun).
Bad things happening in a story isn't enough alone to dislike a story though. Bad things happening is kind of a major part of having any story at all. Conflict is what drives characters to be heros. Conflict is what makes strained friendships resolve into stronger ones. Hardships are what make us appreciate our vacations.
Which brings is finally to why I dislike this story. There is no conflict. There is no story. It's some guy noticing some stuff, then we finish off with some lovey-dovey observations about his adopted daughter. Clearly there is enough stuff going on in this version of the world that some kind of story could be told. How about the early part of Pisces Pieces' marriage to his wife, discovery of his infertility, and the conflict that brought up? How about their decision to adopt, and how/why they came to the circumstances of adopting one of these humans? How about that backstory for this adopted human teenager that was plopped into the worspew? Slice of Life not exciting enough for you? You mention some wars. You mention a school shooting. You mention the installation of the internet, the industrialization of farms across all of Equestria. You mention a change of government.
There are tons of stories you could have told. Instead you were either too lazy, or too timid to tell them. So you plopped down nearly the minimum wordcount needed to be able to publish something on Fimfic, and padded it with some description of events vaguely experienced. Hell, many of these events haven't even happened yet. What do they have to do with Pisces Pieces? Apparently nothing, other than he is some random nobody in the world they eventually happen in. He plays no part in causing or preventing them.
So basically you spent about a thousand words shitting on Equestria, had no story to tell with this change and turmoil, and you've seriously wasted not just my time, but the time of everyone who has read this, your own time, and the time of everyone who reads this review in order to learn that they ought not waste their time further by reading this collection of words.
It is frankly depressing to see that at the time of my writing this, 17 people actually thumbs-upped this. That's nearly 20 people. Nearly two whole tens. You'd need to take your shoes off to count them all. I can only hope they're the sort of people that are so crippled by their desire to be nice to everyone that they can't even anonymously downvote something that is this utterly pointless and lacking in value.
5743392 Good heavens, how many moons ago did I stick that in there? Any way, my thanks for the critique.
5743392 "Granny Smith would be another name that I have trouble believing anypony would be so cruel as to inflict on their child."
Actually I think her name is Jaquelin Smith Apple, the only reason they call her Granny is because she is ... a grandmother.
I like this!^_^
It's really good!^_^
A great fanfic!^_^
6563295
No, her name is Granny Smith. It is a cultivar of apple.