The Moonstone Cup by Cyanide - K+ - MLP:FiM

[Aekiel]

Title: The Moonstone Cup
Author: Cyanide
Rating: K+
Genre: Action
Status: WIP
Pairings: No pairings
Summary: Twilight is invited to Canterlot to compete with some of the greatest magicians in the world for the Moonstone Cup, a prestigious award for the most powerful and skillful magicians, unicorn and otherwise. Can she win? What sort of competition will she face?
Link: http://www.equestriadaily.com/2012/02/story-moonstone-cup.html
Link: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/3378/The-Moonstone-Cup

Yet another pony fic I'm recommending. This one features Twilight in a competition against a bunch of other powerful magic users (including unicorns, griffins, dragons and more), and a fuck load of awesomeness aside. The plot mostly revolves around the various contests, which cover a good spectrum of skills and the likes, but with a couple of side plots that are done pretty damn well.

A good portion of the fic is also devoted to the other races that inhabit the MLP world and their backgrounds. I enjoyed the back stories that it established a lot, though I don't know how much of it is actual MLP canon from the pre-awesome eras. Suffice it to say that the author fleshes out his OCs well and twists the plot around quite magnificently. He also had me rooting for Twilight the entire way through, punctuating it with some of the most creative magical duels I've read in a long time.

All in all, if you like MLP (and you're on this site), you'll like this fic. Spelling and grammar is of consistently high quality too, so I have no problem giving this fic a:

5/5

[Dark Minion]

No one? Not even one of our notorious pony fans? It seems DLP's pony lurv is sated.

I moved it because of its five votes. Read it at your own risk.

[TMNTurtwig]

I first came across this story when I was looking for stories with lots of Trixie, it's been a long time since then (though Trixie is still best pony) so I don't remember much, but what I do remember was pretty epic. I particuraly liked the author's use of other magical animals which I, in my limited experiences with the pony fandom, have found to be largely ignored in favor of more equine characters. Understandable considering the show is called "My Little Pony" and not "My Little Dementor". This gets a 5/5 from me for its general awesome.

[Nemrut]

Pretty good story and it handled the magic, the races and the characters well and although it was entertaining I don't think it had anything that really stood out. It's not really all that memorable, not the way like the Dresden Files crossovers, the war stories and Sparkle's Law were.

4/5

[Cadence]

This is one of my favorite FiM fics (I'm a huge Twilight fan), but I'm still waiting for a very good explanation for how overpowered Twilight is. The fic does insinuate that there will be one coming, but until then, the God-Mode Twilight still rubs me the wrong way. Not enough to detract from my enjoyment of the fic, because it's well-written and engaging like very few stories in the fandom are, but still enough to keep me from rating it as "perfect".

Like Makiri, I loved how the author handled other species, especially because some of them were a little morbid, and because we got to see cultural misunderstandings between them.

I didn't like much the last chapters as much as I did the first ones and the ones in the middle.

The fight against Amarok was convoluted. Though, to be fair to the author, I can't think of another way to defeat a creature that already knows how to defend against virtually every spell in existence.

The idea of God-Mode-Twilight bothered me in the fight against Najstariot, but I liked the execution, from Twilight being terrified of Najstariot's size to her switching into an uncaring force of nature. I also liked a lot the glimpses into possible outcomes of that fight.

I still don't know what to think of Najstariot's faith. It seems kind of... idealistic? I'm not sure if that's the right word to describe it. I mean, it obviously is going to cause some problems, what with her being a queen, but it seemed like the easiest way out of that problem, short of Najstariot having a magical change of heart.

And this is more of a personal preference than anything else, but I wish there had been less Trixie. Not because I dislike Trixie, but because I would have preferred to see her story in a separate fanfiction. As it was, I thought it distracted from Twilight's story. I don't think that the contrasts between the two characters were enough to justify all the interludes. But again, that's just me and I'm not counting this particular grievance in my rating. I just wanted to mention it, that's all.

All-in-all, it's interesting and handles suspense and action pretty well for a FiM fic, but once you judge it on its own merits and not against the rest of the fandom, it's just pretty good, but not outright excellent.

So, 4.5 out of 5, from me, rounded down to 4.

[TMNTurtwig]

Wow, I just read this story again when I saw people going on about God!Twilght. There were three new chapters that I hadn't read yet, and I have to say that I didn't like them. My 5/5 dropped to 4/5 simply because of those last chapters with potential to rise again if the story gets updated in a which suitably explains this new turn of events.

[Doctor Whooves]

Yes, the story does take a turn for the OP in the later chapters, but it's always nice to read stories that focus on developing the MLP magical system, which this fic does.

And, let's face it, Twilight is pretty damn over-powered in the first place. So no change there.