YMMV / Long Road to Friendship

• Broken Base: Chapter 33 confirms Artemis and the Lulamoons have real magic, including telekinesis and teleportation, and they use these powers to subdue Gilda's gang. Some don't mind this and thought seeing it was cool, others felt it ruined the tone of the story. The author is on record feeling The Reveal (which would get explained in Spectacular Seven) came too soon.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: A few parts of the fic seem rather prophetic about future Equestria Girls media, or are amusingly inaccurate.
  • The film confirms there is an alternate version of Twilight who has her own dog named Spike. And she's a nerdy scientist to boot.
  • The gang has a sleep-over at Pinkie's house, where Maud frightens them, and there's a scene where Sunset can't sleep and confides in Twilight. An identical scene happens in Rainbow Rocks, just flipped to Twilight confiding in Sunset.
  • The gradual destruction and ultimate loss of Sunset's leather jacket serves as a symbol of her Character Development into a better person. In Rainbow Rocks, Sunset casts off her jacket when she steps up to help the Rainbooms fight the Dazzlings, and transforms into her own Anthro-Form shortly after.
  • Sunset's interactions with "Princess Twilight" become a mix of this and Harsher in Hindsight. In the fic, Sunset's conversations with "Princess Twilight" are a mark of her insanity and lingering hate towards Twilight, while in the film Sunset starts using the magical journal to write for Twilight for advice now that they're friends.
  • Sunset has a motorcycle years before My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games had her participate in the motocross competition.
  • In this story, Sunset lives in an abandoned factory. The song Monday Blues shows she lives in a pretty nice-looking apartment.
• Jerkass Woobie: Sunset Shimmer. She's still as catty and mean as ever, even after she starts to reform. But, she's lost everything she's worked so hard for, can't go back to Equestria, and lives in a rathole of a factory, with her money and food rapidly dwindling.
• Nightmare Fuel: Sunset's nightmares can come across as this, especially one where Fluttershy blissfully drops herself off a cliff and the rest of the Mane Six get burnt to the ground by Demon Sunset.
• The Woobie: Fluttershy. Despite nearly being Driven to Suicide by Sunset Shimmer, she still came to her animal shelter, because no one would take care of them if she didn't.
  • Most of the animals in the shelter also qualify, since Fluttershy says many were abandoned or abused.