/mlp/ Fanfic Reviews

The Unique Properties of Dark Magic

FimFiction Link - Short ID: 439232/the-unique-properties-of-dark-magic

Published: May '19Aug '21

Review in No. 37328763
Thank you to the fag that said it was supposed to be good. Its description sounded vaguely like a neat guilty pleasure, but also set off so many red flags that I'd written it off entirely until your post convinced me to give it a try a few days ago when I was bored.
The first few chapters almost made me drop it immediately, as it seemed to be living up to every red flag. Edgy former-human protagonist wielding edgy hate-based dark magic, antagonising the M6 during evens of S1 episodes (and yet being somehow an incompetent pushover), and with a relatively obnoxious internal monologue.
However, as the story went on and Weiss's character and the setting both got fleshed out, I started to really enjoy it. It's not a masterpiece, but it's definitely a nice and fun read, and I'm having a good time. Even the absolutely retarded narrative structure that jumps between 3 or 4 different plotlines/settings (depending on how you count) is somehow working out fine and keeping me interested in all of them simultaneously. The worldbuilding is also pretty great - for example is magic system is pretty fleshed out, which is done huge boring infodumps (cough Estee cough), and all its depth ends up being quite relevant to the actual plot. This is probably helped by the fact that the author is apparently a DM, and so has experience coming up with systems and worldbuilding and weaving them into plot points.

Anyway, point is, it looked like horrible shlock but it's quite enjoyable, so thanks for the rec and I'm happy I trusted it.