Review #9: Dogs in the Attic! - Muggony

[Adult story embed hidden]

I read: Completed as of writing at 15.6k words, 6 chapters
I rate: 6/10
I recommend: Read if you like Applejack or horror-comedy

You know, for somebody who’s quite partial to literary horror, isn’t it a bit strange I absolutely despise horror movies? Yeah, probably. Likely stems from seeing Alien as a seven year old. Anyhow, onto the story.

One night, Winona the cowardly dog hears something in the attic and goes to investigate. There she’s coerced by four strays and a duck into summoning a demon to destroy the world because… well, I don’t really think that’s important right now. Needless to say, she’s less stoked than a rained-out campfire about doing this and so manages to escape, a few seconds too late. All hell breaks loose and it's up to her and the Apple family to fix this before they themselves get fixed, or chewed up and spat out, or whatever.

Now I really must beg the question here as to why this is a fanfic in the first place. Much of it, such as the large number of OCs and new tartarus-related villain, feels like a total non-sequitur in universe and this does at least give me the suspicion that Muggony may have originally planned this as a separate piece of fiction. Of course, I might be wrong - I am at least seven times a week, usually in regards to waking up that day - but let’s just say that this doesn’t feel like an MLP story despite the setting and characters, and that’s taking into account already the rating and genre change. Dainn’s Anonymous still does, despite the dramatically more serious content - this doesn’t.

And that brings me to the characters. They work. That’s it. Winona is likeable, about what I’d expect her character to be if voiced, and the Apple family has a genuinely hilarious back-and-forth rapport. The original characters however are hit and miss - for one, they are by no means actually intimidating, which is a little unfortunate for the “horror” half of the story. On the other, they all do their jobs adequately and Mr Ginny the duck especially gets a few laughs whenever he opens his beak.

Of course, what really saves this story however is the actual writing. Its refreshingly stylistic, with big capitalisations, lots of onomatopoeia and other long words that refer to nifty tricks that make reading fun (like parentheses for comedic impact!). It doesn’t always hit, but when it does the narration really follows through and builds the world and characters, shows off the scene’s progress, and keeps the tempo rolling.

Plot: 2/5. Dogs summon a demon, the farm’s populace attempts to prevent this getting out of hand. Decent pacing, but too little tension to really shock and I do ask why this had to be an MLP fanfic at all.
Characters: 3/5. There’s little to complain about here - the renegade dogs and company aren’t spectacular but they do their purpose, Winona is likeable as a protagonist, and AJ and Big Mac have good chemistry. Nothing stands out though, and I feel that the renegades could have gotten another chapter of characterisation before the dog crap hit the fan.
Style: 4/5. Muggony’s writing has character, its bombastic and, although not always successful in its style, it works well and hits comedic beats regularly.
Execution: 3/5. Comedy, yes. Horror, not really.
Overall Rating: 12/20 = 6/10

To Muggony: Good work, for the most part, and I wouldn’t complain about seeing the rest of this if you’re still invested in this project. I would however advise to actually choose between horror and comedy here - your timing for the latter is excellent, but your ability for the former isn’t. Doing both is incredibly difficult as they’re basically polar opposites and failing to do so can really hurt a story - look at narm or cringe compilations for the idea. 

For something like this: Something Sweet To Bite. What else can I recommend but the spectacularly excessive Nightmare Night classic to slake your thirst for eldritch nasties and hapless heroes? 

As always, thanks for reading. Remember, if a pack of dogs invades your attic… well, live in the basement, I guess?