Accidental Innuendo: Early on Twilight remarks that she set up a few booby traps in her room to keep her brother out of her "bits". This sounds reallycreepy, even if you're aware of the fact that "bits" means "money" in the show.
Season 7 would have an episode where Zecora stops speaking in rhyme. However, there it is a symptom of a worsening illness.
Boris uses a spell to take the wings and horns of the ponies. Season 3's finale would later do something similar where Twilight swaps the Cutie Marks of her friends.
Boris has his horn damaged and has trouble using his magic as a result of that. My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) would feature a villain named Tempest Shadow who has a broken horn, but unfortunately still capable of using magic.
Twilight loses Ben as a friend after she gains her cutie mark. Losing a friend after getting a cutie mark would later become the motivation behind Starlight Glimmer's evildoing in Season 5.
Moment of Awesome: Derpy saving Nyx's life is an in-universe example.
Narm: Some of the lines are unintentionally hilarious, particularly Applejack's "Who in the hoo-ha is this laughing boy?" and "boy Twilight, you sure were a filly colt." note The author probably meant to say "cute filly." The former line caused AgainAFanFicCritic and RegretfullyYours to burst out laughing, and both were featured in the Filk Song they made afterwards.
Rooting for the Empire: A lot of people who dislike this fanfic seem to side more with Boris than anyone else, though his shoehorned Fantastic Racism against earth ponies makes it slightly difficult for some people to officially side with him.
Strawman Has a Point: At one point Boris tells Twilight that she should get over Ben Mare. He may have said this for a selfish reason, but in a way he has a point: Twilight has become so unnaturally depressed about losing Ben all those years ago that she's never even thought of giving romance a second chance with somepony else or just moving on from it in general. To stay so focused on that one event for so long and never overcome it is really unhealthy.
Some of the Brony community can't stand Ben Mare because of how much of a Marty Stu he is. Some even argue that he's worse than Flash Sentry/Brad. note Hilariously, or not, Jus later retconned Flash into being Ben's best friend.
The author's interpretation of Nyx is very much disliked by AgainAFanficCritic and RegretfullyYours. She seems to be rather useless in most cases.
Squick: There's a line where Pinkie Pie tries to justify how both Twilight and her brother being married into the same family is fine because pony family relationships are different from those of humans, meaning incest is apparently okay in this universe.
Wangst: Ben Mare at least has something of an excuse because he was bullied and turned into a demon at the hooves of said bully, but Twilight Sparkle does not. She overreacts to not being able to be with her "special somepony" by becoming extremely depressed every time the subject of her being in a relationship is brought up, and this is said to have gone on for years. What happened was tragic, but having her react so strongly to it for that long is not only ridiculous, but it's not good for someone's mental health. It's pretty sad when the Jerk Jock that the reader is obviously not supposed to agree with has something of a point when they tell her to get over Ben.