TWho’s Sleeping in My Bed

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Comedy

Marble Pie wakes up after a party to find some pony else is next to her. Who did she bring home?!

• Sex
• Other
• Maud Pie
• Marble Pie

Short-tale · 2.1k words  ·  85  0 · 2.1k views

Marble Pie doesn’t drink that often. When a party for her sister causes her to drink too much she finds her self in a scary predicament. She’s sleeping next to a stranger!

Opening remarks

Who’s Sleeping in My Bed is a romantic comedy written by Short-tale. I have read nothing prior from Short-tale and the premise, though interesting, doesn’t seem to give anything away as to what to expect.

This should prove to be an interesting experience and hopefully an entertaining read. 

Technical

Some missing punctuation (periods and commas primarily), and a few grammar mistakes in the text near the beginning. Otherwise, good.  

9/10

Character

The main protagonist of our story is Marble Pie, the youngest of the Pie sisters, and an introverted, shy pony. She’s characterized well here as she goes over her introspective panic trying to remember information from the night before. I had a few giggles at the expense of Marble’s plight at the anxiety ridden grasp for answers. 

It’s enjoyable, but with this type of comedy, would have benefitted from pushing both Marble and the scenario further than what was presented.

For example, giving Marble a secondary trait where she would produce the most implausible scenario before being rational would have upped the comedic aspect or pushed the scenario to have more questionable elements that further confuses Marble such as the presence of some of the other pony’s personal effects on her side of the bed. Both elements would give more for Marble with bringing out more of the inherent comedy. 

That all said, This is a decent portrayal of Marble Pie. Well done.     

8/10

Concept

The concept of “who’s in bed with me?” is a fun one for comedic potential. Definitely rare to see and certainly unique in that regard. The hook also is decent, pulling the reader along with the promising mystery of who is in Marble’s bed with her? I definitely looked forward to the final reveal if only to scratch the itch. 

That being said, this is a comedy which means the execution is key. The story is clearly set up as a “punchline” type comedy with a buildup and final payoff. This is the area where I feel the story could have used some work.

There are two main points of criticism. The first is in the final reveal of who was in Marble’s bed. This fell flat to me, mainly because I couldn’t figure out who was in their bed prior to the finale. It would have been better to leave small clues either through Marble’s hazy memories or visual hints around the room to allow the reader to make their own conclusions. They could even all be red herrings thus leaving the final reveal as out there, but as it stands the reveal feels somewhat random and didn’t have the punch the reveal should have.

The second is the build up itself. Now, there is always a fear of over-flanderization (pushing a character’s personality to the point of becoming a parody of themselves), but in this type of comedy I feel that Marble should have had their personality pushed just a bit more towards the extreme. Double down on the anxiety induced introspection to really sell the comedy of the moment. 

As it stands, the story is funny, but could be more with a few more tweaks to the build up and final pay off.      

7/10

Vibe

This story was good. The introspection of Marble was enjoyable, the comedic bits got a chuckle out of me, and the characters were fun. Prose was decent, and easy to read. 

Now, there are two main criticisms I wish to address. The first is the repetitive nature of some of the passages. Especially near the beginning of the fic, I found the repeated use of phrases to be excessive. I understand that it’s reinforcing the current state of the character, but many of them felt just a sentence too long in a lot of places. 

For example, just in the opening paragraph, the middle part that was describing her hangover could have been condensed into just one, maybe two lines. By the time it had reached the third descriptor on her state of physical being, I was definitely feeling that the passage should have already wrapped up. 

When writing a passage like this, I find it’s best to hit the key points. As a separate example, let’s say a Character is feeling afraid and angry. Both states should have roughly a sentence each to hit the emotional beats then move on to the next step of the story. Lingering too long on either can give too much weight to one of the emotions over the other or slow down the writing so as to cause the reader to become impatient. 

The second main point is the structure of the story. It feels lopsided. The beginning feels particularly weighted against the ending with the start feeling significantly longer than the end. 

I feel that the story could be better if it did one of two different approaches.

The first is to compact the story, streamline the jokes and have a very “snappy” short story. Hit all the major beats without too much time to dwell, similar to the “Community” style of comedy (TV show by Dan Harmon).

The second is to expand on the existing beats by pushing more to the “over the top” style of comedy with a more “shenanigans” feel similar to that of the more comedic canon MLP episodes.

The story is enjoyable and well executed, but I feel that it could use some work on tightening up the comedy of the piece. 

6/10

Closing Thoughts

Who’s Sleeping in My Bed is an enjoyable quick read with some good laughs and interesting premise with the use of its comedic scenario and lesser used character.

It could use some work on the structure of the story itself, but doesn’t inhibit the overall enjoyment of the piece. 

I would give this one a read.  

7.5/10

<For archive purposes: 7.6/10>

Personal Score

This was a cute piece with an interesting take on Marble and an even stranger pairing. Definitely got a few giggles out of me. A very enjoyable quick read.

8/10