Derp

Could someone who can see all the things post links so us problem-having people can see the comics?

Also, changes to canon ARE explained, crystal television is the ONLY concession to modern technology that I've made, your "out of character" analyses are woefully subjective, you complain that I'm following Death Note too closely and then complain that I'm changing it by looking at background characters, Mer in particular has a completely different personality to the more passive Rem, you predict the end of the story before it happens and get it wrong, you accuse me of barely trying and then later backtrack, the "shipping" is shown to be dysfunctional outside of you looking for something that's not there, and, in general, you talk out your rump about a plot that isn't close to finished yet.

Okay, I'm done.

Instead of jumping forward in time, this version goes backwards, to the very moment that FiM starts. Twilight Sparkle has just learned that Nightmare Moon, the Mare in the Moon, is about to return and bring eternal night to Equestria. To her immense frustration, instead of being taken seriously she is sent to Ponyville to prepare for the Summer Sun Celebration. While there, she happens to stumble across a mysterious black notebook... a book called the Death Note. So, silt goes down, Nightmare Moon returns, and Twilight is out of ideas. Out of desperation, she uses her knowledge of ancient history to write down Princess Luna's real name... and instead of curing her, kills her outright.

The threat gone, things to back to normal... but life is not as we remember it. Princess Celestia, who had been hoping to reunite with her sister after a thousand years, is completely devastated by the loss. Her emotional state slipping, it takes all of her energy just to keep the sun and moon moving in the sky, and control of the country starts to slip away from her. Twilight Sparkle is changed as well; this version of her never learned about the magic of friendship, leaving her the same antisocial pony she was at the very start of the show, and she lives in constant fear of what will happen if Celestia learns that it was her who killed her sister.

As Equestria is threatened by looming invasions and turmoil from within, Twilight starts to use the Death Note again, this time for political gain to stomp down on anything that might threaten Celestia's rule. This backfires and starts to snowball as each death only makes the situation worse, leaving Twilight locked into a vicious cycle of murder and Celestia herself starting to be blamed for the incidents. This leads the two of them to become closer, but Twilight, though she won't admit it at first, finds that she's starting to get a taste for killing. Eventually, Celestia confides in Twilight that she refuses to bear the suffering of her little ponies any longer. To put a stop to the mysterious assassin, she's decided to summon and old ally, a relic of the Age of Titans, a brilliant but dangerously insane detective known only as... L.

Doesn't that sound much better?

Was this all a waste of time? You know, I don't think so. I haven't created a great work of literature (anyone who's read it agrees that my much shorter story Somepony Who Loves You is my best work), but I've definitely learned a lot. Fanfiction is probably one of the best ways to practice writing; when you don't have to worry as much about creating characters and settings, you can just dive right in and get into the nitty-gritty of storytelling. I've made some friends and gotten a lot of fans, and while it saddens me that you didn't enjoy the fruits of my work, there is one thing that you got absolutely right: This has always been a labor of love, and no bad review is going to keep me down.

And now, just for fun, here's the premise of the hypothetical reboot, how it all would have gone down if I was starting the story today:

1. I am a really, really slow writer. It's taken me two years to get this far, and with my other work piling up around me, if I jump all the way back to the start I'll never get it finished.
2. It's selfish, but this has always been for me, not the readers. I do stealth edits from time to time, but for the most part I look back on the story as a test of how much I've improved as a writer over time.
3. To be honest... I kind of like the hybrid world I've made. It's flawed, yes, but it's also spawned some great characters and concepts, and I want to see those parts to their conclusion. Just because your baby doesn't turn out the way you wanted doesn't mean you don't fall in love with it.

To sum up, I'll also add that this review is fairly premature. I mean, we're one chapter away from the season 2 finale. Of course things seem the same if you haven't gotten to The Twist that a hundred thousand words of subtle character development have been leading up to. And that's to say nothing of season 3, which has all-new villains and is carried on the original plotlines developed in season 2. L is more than just a carbon copy of the original (there's a joke there that won't make sense for a few chapters) and the golems are more than just sideshow entertainment. Don't count your chickens before they've burst out of your fiance's chest.

Maybe I should say more than one thing.

A lot of it has to do with DN:E's history, which is something few people care about but I'm going to list for the sake of completion. The idea came about shortly after I'd joined the fandom, and about two minutes after the completion of a week-long Death Note marathon with my brother. I was only just getting back into fanfiction, and I started idly wondering how well Death Note and ponies would fit together. That's when I realized that Lyra, like L, sits funny. That was the spark. For the first season, there was no grand plan; the only goal was to create as many connections as possible and stitch the worlds together piece by piece. Not exactly setting the bar high, but there are plenty of amateur crossovers out there that attempt to do the same thing, and for me it was nothing more than writing practice.

It was around the time I started getting into season 2 (season "one" ended at part 12, thank you for paying attention) that I realized I'd made some pretty serious missteps. There are some parts that I feel fit really well into the story, and others that are simply necessary. It's the anthropic principle; if the conditions weren't right for there to be a story about a Death Note in Equestria, then I would have nothing to write about. Some things, however, the timeskip and crystal technology in particular, were simply not necessary. They were a crutch that a bit of additional planning could have solved. (I've never personally agreed that Equestria is a "utopian" society, but we could debate that for ages and get nowhere.) Now, hundreds of thousands of words later, those initial plot points are holding me back from letting the story take off on its own. It's frustrating for me, and there have been times when I've considered rebooting the whole thing. I've known writers who've done more rewriting for less. However, there are three reasons why it's never been a real option:

Hey, author here. I don't normally make a habit of this, but this was brought to my attention, and under the circumstances, I felt that it was only appropriate that I gave a response.

No one likes to hear their story get bashed. DN:E has been my baby for the past two years, and all its myriad little characters (close to 200 of them) are my children. More work has gone into it than there is in some novels, and I've been very happy with the attention that it's received. So after reading this shaming, flaming, ill-informed article, I have but one thing to say to you:

I am completely on board with this review.

Could be better. There are a number of spelling mistakes, some of the questions are fairly loaded, and any non-American can see the problem with #5...

Could you be more specific about what "autism research" those donations are going to? Because that's a very loaded promise.