Fanfic Reviews – Comedy 3rd Edition · 5:36am Oct 14th, 2014
Hyrule Warriors seem to have stolen my soul, forcing me to spend all my free time with that game. While I try to break free, have some comedies. Below you will find:
Pipsqueak’s Day Off
Long Story Short, Things went Down
Of Birds and Bees and Awkward Things
Foxtrot Unicorn Charlie Kilo
Philomeanie
Small-town Charm
Opposites Absolutely do NOT Attract!
Ransom for a Pretty Pink Princess
The Carrot Dog Fight
Cutie Mark Crusaders Alpha Pack Leaders
As a reminder, scores are in a 0~10 scale, with 3 representing a mediocre fic, and 8 being where I can say I like a story.
Chuckfinley – Pipsqueak’s Day Off – Adolescent Comedy
An adolescent Pipsqueak goes on a quest to have sex and get wasted.
This reads like one of those teenage movies, but with ponies. Superficially it is a stupid comedy where the main character walks around looking for ways to get drunk/high, all the while waxing philosophically about the higher calling those things entail, all the while being a typical asshole teenager. That is the kind of thing that tends to make me go nuclear, but this fic is painfully self-aware of everything it is doing.
Look a bit deeper, and you will find a story that is very cleverly written, full of care for the themes of adolescence and growing up, what it means to be a good person, and the importance of being genuine, besides many other things. It is all spread throughout Pipsqueak’s character arc, where he starts to become aware of his own actions, and take steps in order to fix his mistakes. I am a sucker for these things, and that makes the fic work very well for me. It is also worth noting that is very funny and well characterized, full of little moments and exchanges. Character interactions are also excellent, full of character, but never forgetting their age.
Still, for all that it can’t hide just how stupid the overall plot is. It takes too long on some of their bullshit, and despite being great at being what it is, it still suffers from the tropes of this genre. Still, an enjoyable fic all around.
Why it should be read: For an intelligent adolescent comedy, with great usage of crude humor.
Stand-out moment:A great meta scene where the characters talk about a “My Little Human” series, trying to deny, but then falling into raging fanboyism. It also introduces Tony Stark x Ada Lovelace, my new OTP.
7.5/10
Aragon – Long Story Short, Things went Down – Anarchist Comedy
6 Background ponies go on an epic bender
This is a comedy with absolutely no redeemable characters. The last time I felt anything similar was when watching Arrested Development, but there we at least had Michael as a break from how disgusting everyone else was, and here we don’t even have that, this is Arrested Development with a full-on psychopath cast. And that is fine, really! However, by the end of chapter 2 I was actively wishing for them all to die, which made it very hard for me to care about the things that happen in the story. The lack of consequences of whole thing made Equestria look like a post-scarcity world where crime is such a non-issue for it to be actively ignored. In short, a misanthrope’s idea of social commentary through comedy.
I hesitate on calling this a Dark comedy, or an offensive one, for there are no real victims, or at least no feeling that anypony was negatively affected, despite the arson, assault with an obscene statue, and the chemical attack. I felt a morbid curiosity in seeing how the thing would end, and how fucked-up the set pieces would get, but nothing much more than that, since, again, I couldn’t care about the struggles of the characters.
The best thing about this fic is just how the author can twist common fanon personalities, and run with it to their horrible, worst possible consequences – Octavia’s vapid valley girl personality in particular. In fact, I am half convinced that this was written as some kind of meta-joke. The contrast with the show is great, and used to great effect. All in all, it is certainly an unique read. Still, it remains a fic that made me actively hate the characters for most of its duration, and that is something I simply can’t ignore.
Why it should be read: A bunch of great set pieces, and some fantastic sequences.
Stand-out moment: The whole affair with the gay guard was hilarious. It went so overboard with the joke and with the Doctor’s cluelessness to make it work.
6,5/10
JoeShogun – Of Birds and Bees and Awkward Things – Awkward Comedy
Young Twilight interrupts Celestia’s night with a lover, and is forced to have The Talk with her.
This is a story that managed to win me over. Chapter 1 has multiple writing issues, and Twilight’s exploration of the castle goes on forever, enough to almost make me quit. However, it gets better, and quickly. Chapter 2 is ok, but Chapter 3 is great, with phenomenal snippets of characterization for Celestia. It is all very cringeworthy, but in a way that made me laugh, like in the insane details that Celestia goes into. Suffice to say, “The Talk” doesn’t need to include the Kama Sutra.
However, the experience is very uneven. One serious issue is that while Twilight is stated to be 8 at the time, she is written more like a preteen, maybe 12 or so, which defuses in part some of the more problematic aspects, and makes the whole thing seem less awkward than it should. Also, it threads a strange middle ground, not being very funny for a comedy, but also not insightful enough for a more dramatic story. It falls in a weird little niche, and maybe it could have used a little more of both. Still, it is a worthy story, and is a lot better than it has any right to be. I’d love to see a better edited version.
Why it should be read: For a well thought view on Celestia’s sex life.
Stand-out moment:Celestia little aside about the Canterlot elite being prudes because she is uncomfortable around the theme of sex.
7.5/10
A Hoof-ful of Dust – Foxtrot Unicorn Charlie Kilo – Reading by Scribbler – Awkward Comedy
Lyra tries to get Big Mac’s help using lots of innuendo.
This is a pretty funny story. It is filled with clever innuendo, always clear in their intention, but without ever any of the characters saying things outright. Maniacal Lyra contrasts perfectly with Big Mac, whom has a great internal monologue, and speaks out only the strictly necessary. When it shifts to Lyra’s reasoning, the preceding conversation only gets funnier. It is silly, very basic, but is competent in all it tries to do, and I like it for that.
Also, it contains one of the best usages of “wang” in a fic.
Why it should be read: For a short, simple, raunchy comedy that doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Stand out moment: All the innuendo.
7/10
Skywriter – Philomeanie – Comedy
Luna’s interactions with Philomena, in the past and in the present
I loved the contrast between both halves of the fic, with the apocalyptic battle juxtaposed with something straight out of Happy Madison (seriously, there are a lot of poop jokes here). The comedic pacing was pretty wonky, maybe due to the way it keeps cutting to something completely different, despite the fact that I liked the way that the individual scenes flowed together. Still, I think it lost some momentum in the transition.
There is a great core of an idea here, showing how Luna resolves both situations, managing to juxtapose the pony she is with Nightmare Moon, but I feel that this could have been better reinforced through the fic. And I think that is the key thing here: There are lots of things that work individually, but they kinda fall apart when together. In the end, it is well characterized and pleasant enough to read, but I feel there are quite a few things that could have used some work.
Why it should be read: A well written comedy, with a great portrayal of Luna.
Stand-out moment:The ending was pretty great, and fairly poignant.
6.5/10
Cold in Gardez – Small-town Charm – Dark Comedy
Hundreds of spiders gather in Ponyville, to Twilight’s horror.
This is a frustrating story. There is an overt theme of acceptance, empathy, and projection of your own preconceptions, but it also features Twilight’s friends barely acknowledging her worries. That she couldn’t imprint certain feelings to the spiders – something she was clearly afraid of – says nothing about her character, only about her phobias.
Much of it I wouldn’t care much about, but Fluttershy’s speech made me actively dislike the story. It is the kind of thing that, if directed at me, would make me stop talking with a friend, and the way the fic seems to make her appear as if in the right made me feel disgusted. As someone that can’t care about pets at all, it borders into the offensive.
It also bothers me that Twilight would stay in Ponyville, instead of, for instance, traveling to Canterlot for the week. There are a handful nice comedic situations, and it is funny at times, but I simply can’t get past how disgusted I felt about the whole thing.
Why it should be read: Nice characterizations and nice comedy.
Stand-out moment:The joke about locking Apple Bloom in a cellar full of spiders so she stops fearing them was funny in the most messed up way possible.
2/10
Drizzle Quill – Opposites Absolutely do NOT Attract! – Meta Comedy
Rainbow Dash teaches Twilight about shipping goggles
This is just one long, drawn out joke about Rainbow Dash showing Twilight that shipping is a thing. Characterization is OK, the jokes are OK, the presentation is OK, but there is nothing really outstanding in the fic, even if it doesn't do anything too wrong either. Actually, I think it is remarkable in just how middle of the road it is.
Why it should be read: It is aggressively inoffensive and the prototypical average fanfic.
Stand-out moment: No idea.
3/10
Mysterious Stranger – Ransom for a Pretty Pink Princess – Comedy
A young Pinkie Pie gets kidnapped.
This is a comedy, but is written just like a horror story, in that there is always the feeling something is lurking after the main characters. In fact, the plot of a magical child messing with her would be kidnappers is exactly the kind of thing you would find in a horror story.
As a comedy, it is extremely subdued, with the two world-weary criminals having to make sense of young pinkie’s antics. It is very funny when it wants to be, but many parts dragged, and not all of the comedy hits. Pinkie and her father are very well written, and there is a nice rhythm, but it is a little too unsubstantial for my tastes. Much more could have been done with Pinkie, and it kinda smells like a missed opportunity, but it is good for what it is.
Why it should be read: For a nice, low key comedy.
Stand out moment: I love how matter of fact Pinkie’s father gets about his daughter, specially in his speech about how their punishment should be to have her follow them. All that without feeling callous.
7,5/10
Rodinga –The Reign of Princess Dinky the Cute – Random Comedy
Dinky Hooves becomes a Princess.
Here is a story that takes a stupid concept, and manages to execute it as well as possible. Dinky isn’t just considered cute on this fic, but mild-altering so, enough to enslave all ponies to her whims. The central conflict centers around the main characters waking Celestia up from her stupor, and for that we have Octavia and Vinyl running around, because of course. The only tie with music is the nature of the MacGuffin that solves everything. The reason to have those two characters seems to be, indeed, that they are instantly recognizable.
There is no way to cut it: I can’t describe this fic without cringing at least a little. Its individual components all smell like bad fic at its most fandom pandering and generic, but somehow it works. It isn’t a stellar story by any means, as writing quality is pretty poor, full of redundancies, editing is lacking, and there are lots of strange word choices, but it is serviceable. But, for something so seemingly inane, this is a remarkable story.
Why it should be read: For the way it takes a seemingly terrible idea and runs with it.
Stand out moment: The way they manage to break Celestia from her mind control by using a lullaby from her childhood extracted through her dreams was inspired.
6/10
xjuggernaughtx –The Carrot Dog Fight – Comedy
Spike tries to recover the Carrot Dog stolen during Rarity Takes Manehattan.
This is a bizarre little comedy, almost surreal in its very existence. It then runs with the premise, and manages to take the story to the strangest place it ever could, with two street savvy birds fighting with a seagull street thug over who keeps the carrot dog. In fact, Spike is essentially a background character in his own story, despite his final realization and moment of kindness. It isn’t exactly laugh-out-loud funny, and I stared more out of confusion about what exactly I was reading, but I like the overall feeling. It also isn’t very pony, more like something out of a Tex Avery short. The birds could use some better distinction, but it was fine. A reading of this would certainly be interesting to see.
Why it should be read: For a bizarre little comedy.
Stand out moment: The way the birds react to Spike breathing fire was priceless.
6.5/10
Estee – Cutie Mark Crusaders Alpha Pack Leaders – Comedy
Apple Bloom lets a Winona in heat sleep on her bed, causing her to be followed by dogs around the town.
Mother of Celestia, this fic has the weirdest writing I have ever encountered in my life, with an incredibly truncated prose full of multiple quirks. It was weird enough to make it a chore to read.
It is full of run-on sentences, and suffers from a critical lack of commas. The word choices are absolutely bizarre, such as writing Sun and Moon as definite proper pronouns (“Sun was shining”, “It glistened under Sun”, “Moon would rise soon.”), or repeatedly calling Cutie Marks as just marks, or always calling magic as fields. The Apple accents are another stand-out, terribly thick, with enough apostrophes to give me parallax. And beyond that, it is extremely obtuse, terribly circumspect in its descriptions. It fluctuates between weird and wrong in an indescribable way. Just look at these examples, which are the rule rather than the exception:
She got out of bed, headed for the bathroom: morning toiletries would have to come before the trot to the cottage at the edge of the wild zone's fringe.
"Y'don't remember? Not surprised, little sis... some days, y'don't seem t' pay much attention t' anythin' unless it's happenin' to you, an' when it does happen t' you, y'can't be bothered t' remember it for more than a minute…
I just don’t get the point of the style. I should say that under all that there is a nice story, with an interesting concept. Characterizations are all over the place, the crusaders are a bit too oblivious, and could have been toned down considerably, and the weird writing bleeds into the dialogue. There are also a handful of funny passages, and I like the payoff and the progression towards it, but getting to that was a slog.
Why it should be read: The weirdness of the writing is almost hypnotic.
Stand out moment: The line of thought that “they just don’t have enough dogs” is glorious.
1/10
Soge: unafraid to call out writers on their shit. I kinda fear being reviewed by you. Especially because most of my comedy is very stupid.
I appreciate the review! Thank you kindly, feedback on my work is like blood to a vampire: can't get enough of that shit.
I've actually heard that quite a lot about Pipsqueak's Day Off. "I dislike the concept but the execution makes it work." That's sorta-kinda what I was aiming for. It's a homage to teen comedies, and while teen comedies are rarely high art, they can be surprisingly excellent.
Again, mostly intentional. I wrote the plot to directly mirror Dazed and Confused, which takes place over 24 hours and has a lot of pointless-seeming but very teenagery scenes, because most of being a teenager is pointless crap while you wait for the good stuff to happen.
In any case, glad you liked it. Surprised it got the highest score of the bunch today...
Pipsqueak's Day Off is, by far, my favorite comedy on the site. I absolutely adore that one. I'm glad it got the highest score! You're right with your review, but for me the humor was just spot-on enough to forgive absolutely everything.
Oh, who am I kidding -- I even love the supposedly stupid plot. Fuck, I'd marry that fic. The salmonella conversation was (and still is) the only instance of a fic making me laugh so hard I had to stop reading to wipe my tears. God I love that thing.
Oh, yeah, a fic of mine was reviewed here. Ahem:
Yep. I dislike how everybody and their mothers write the background ponies (especially Vinyl and Octavia) the exact same fucking way ALL THE TIME, so I took the characters that usually have a fix fanon personality and twisted them in the most offensive way possible. I had to actually rewrite almost 20k of that fic because I realized in the middle that Lyra and Bon Bon weren't terrible enough, and that wouldn't do it.
So there we have, every one of the seven characters being a different flavor of horrible: Octavia is the valley girl and egocentric as hell, Vinyl is your run-of-the-mill asshole (she's similar to the normal fanon Vinyl, I think, but with some tweaks here and there), Bon Bon is so sarcastic nobody cares for her, Lyra is sadistic and overall a monster, Derpy is a hypocrite, manipulative witch, Carrot Top is a brainless bully, and Turner doesn't really care for anything that's not him and his own ego.
Then again, I tried to make Turner the least hateable of the entire bunch, so the readers could, at least, have somepony in the fic that they thought shouldn't be dead. Then I proceed to beat him up in the worst way possible, because the overall message of the fic is pretty messed up (although some people have told me it's about friendship, in the end). I guess that didn't work with ya, but that's fine, you make good points in there.
(In fact, the sequel that's already posted is written to make clear that Derpy is as bad as the others, and the next sequel that I haven't started yet would do the same with Turner. I tried to design the worst kind of characters ever because I really dislike this "either fanon personalities or nothing" mindset we have).
Also yeah, that story was written to infuriate a friend who dislikes gross humor. So yeah, you were spot-on there. Still like the story and the characters, tho -- I have a sweet spot for Bon Bon. I'm actually surprised you didn't mention her and went for Octavia instead; everybody seems to either love or hate Bon. You're the first indifferent one I see!
Also: AAH HYRULE WARRIORS GOD I'M SO JEALOUS.
After carefully examining your review criteria, I find your ratings judgment of '1' on my story to be unfair, biased, and highly offensive. Please change it to the appropriate -4 immediately.
2531781
Not to completely threadjack, buuuuuut...
...I may have written a Pipsqueak's Day Off sequel with a highly-subverted Octavia...
2531911 I'm still not sure about that. Not only was the first person I told Aragon, but your portrayal is nothing like his Octy.
2531985
Oh, no, I'm not saying either of us cribbed from each other. They are very different subversions, and my Octavia only has a minor role in the story. I just wanted to point him towards it in case he wanted more delicious Octavia...
2531990
Pretty sure I'll want that, yes.
I'm sorry, your credentials as a reviewer should be revoked. You did not like stories exactly the same amount as I liked them. Shame on you.
I think one of the reasons I enjoyed Long Story Short (besides the chapter titles) is that it takes a lot from the show itself. Lack of long-term consequences and the unrealistic results of violence. Next episode starts with no carry-over from last episode after all. Plus it has a great 'snowball rolling down a hill' sort of energy where things get worse and worse.
2531996 2531990 No you're not, Aragon. I won't let you. As your editor, I get some say, right?
I'm a little confused by your inclusion of The Carrot Dog Fight as a comedy. It has a few funny moments, but it's more of an action piece than a comedy. That's why it's tagged Slice of Life only.
Having said that, I have gotten a lot of feedback that it is funny, so it might just be that I've failed somewhat in getting my vision of it across. It's a somewhat serious story to me, with a couple of jokes to lighten things up. If people aren't reading it that way, there's no one to blame but me.
But I do really appreciate the review. And you're correct that it derails into a bizarre situation. The original idea was for Spike and the birds to have this Tom and Jerry-esque back and forth with all kinds of hijinks as they stole the carrot dog from each other repeatedly, but that's just not where it went when I was writing it.
I was asked by my pre-readers to tone the seagull down some. He was quite vicious in the first draft, so maybe dialing him back tilted the story's tone back toward comedy more than I'd realized.
2531996 2531990 No you're not, Aragon. I won't let you. As your editor, I get some say, right?
You're goddamn right it does.
Thanks for letting me know about this. I found your review of my story to be quite fair.
2531901 No, my numerical scores are perfectly objective and always correct.
The bizarre thing is that everything that bothered me in this story is also in 50% Move, 100% Fire, and I love that one.
2531750 I feel it is the best possible story given what it is about. My issues are more related to personal bias than anything else.
2531781 I put Pipsqueak’s Day Off together with Long Story Short because they seemed pretty similar on some level.
Also, Bon Bon acts somewhat like that in canon, so it seemed reasonable to me. And extreme narcissists like Turner really bother me. Ironically enough, Vinyl seemed the most reasonable of the bunch to me, and her personality is certainly the closest to fanon.
2532187 Action Comedy might be a better description. It certainly reminded me of Tom and Jerry and the like.
Also, making the Seagull more vicious would probably make it more cartoony for me.
2532785 I'm mostly a comedy writer, so I'm probably making it funnier than I ought to just out of habit. To me, the comedy basically ends after the stool pidgeon joke and doesn't return until the last line. I think others probably see the whole thing as fairly ridiculous, and thus, comical. That's probably an error in judgment on my part.
I'm not sure about the cartooniness of Cecil, though. I had two pre-readers that thought he was disturbingly vicious, but it's down to tolerance. I didn't find him to be that way at the time, but I dialed him back some. You might have had a similar reaction to mine. To me, he was just a thug.
Small-Town Charm is probably my favorite CiG story, precisely because of that moral--or rather, because it's so open-ended. Between the comments on my review and the comments on the story itself, I've probably seen a dozen variations now on what, exactly, the reader is supposed to take from Fluttershy's bit at the end. I read it this way: the real projection going on here isn't the ponies projecting emotions onto the spiders (there's some of that, sure, but no more than, say, real people project emotions onto their pets), but Twilight projecting naive unawareness onto the townsponies. Why, Fluttershy is asking, does Twilight go straight to "everyone around me is acting differently than I am, they must be too dumb to see this incredibly obvious thing that I've noticed"? What, as Fluttershy says, does that say about her?
But the beauty of it all is that you can read those few lines so many different ways. I don't think that was altogether intentional on CiG's part, from what I've heard him say on the subject, but that doesn't mean it's not beautifully open to interpretation by the reader.
(Oh, and just to nitpick: I wouldn't classify Twi's reaction as phobic in any way; the fact that she isn't irrationally afraid of the spiders seems kind of important to me. She's initially shocked, as well she should be by giant spiders infesting her house, but otherwise treats them as a vaguely unpleasant nuisance rather than a source of needless fear.)
2532143 At least I didn't do anything as crass as disliking Fallout Equestria. That would be pure Heresy.
2533019
Twilight just needs some of Granny Smith's folksy wisdom.