March Goes Out Like a Lamb is 11646 words long and tagged [Comedy], [Romance], [Slice of Life], [Twilight], [Fluttershy], [Princess Celesetia], [Princess Luna], [Discord]

Celestia wants to court Fluttershy. Naturally, the best way to do so is while drunk and with or without the support of her sister, Discord, and a baffled Twilight.

Things can only go well.

Alright.

The first thing you absolutely need to do is look at the cover image.

... sooooo cuuuuuuuute!!!! ♥♥♥♥♥

I love this! It doesn't even make sense how her mane is transparent, and I prefer pegasus having feathers instead of fur rather than just at their wings, hippogryph style, but whatevs, this looks amazing!

Err, right. The review.

It turns out I struggle with reviewing comedy. I don't want to go "okay there was this joke which I found funny and then that joke which I didn't find funny and then there were a lot more jokes and I found about third of them funny so I'm giving this 46/100 on the funnymeter, yay!" It's especially tough because I feel like I shouldn't even say what the jokes were so as to not steal the story's thunder. Suffice to say I enjoyed the first third, thought the second was okay-ish to meh and was really bored throughout the last. Which is all in all a lot better than what the median comedy fic does for me, but still not on the positive side.

One point, though. It seems to me that when writing comedy (something which I barely ever do myself), one thing you should decide and stick to is where you are trying to be realistic, and where you're pulling things ad absurdum in service of making a joke. For example, this story about Luna trying to screw in a lightbulb and calling clones to help her tries to play it straight all the way (yes, really), and I think it works pretty well (or at least I thought so when I read it years ago). The Contest has realistic characters with an absurd premise, which I think works okay (and which I think is fairly common). TWTBB also does it like that, and masterfully so. Finally, This one is just absurd on every level.

What they have in common is that, purposefully or instinctively, they are decisive.

This story...

Well, my impression from the beginning (which mind you was the funniest part of the story) was that it goes for all out silly, turning characters into caricatures which are clearly derived from their three-dimensional counterparts but couldn't possibly act this way. Which I'm fine with. But then it proceeds to try for real drama, and real emotions, and I really got the sense that the author either thought the characters were legit, or that she simply didn't think it through.

The ending is lame... it tries to have it both ways, not being contrived because the romance doesn't work out after the disastrous debacle that preceded it, but also imply that it's going to happen in the future. I'd have liked it more if it had cut out after Celestia passing out. A dark edge, if you will.

Writing is pretty good. The second or third-best from stories I've reviewed so far, reads smoothly. Editing / mistake density was ... not good, frankly, I pointed out about a dozen mistakes in my read through (about half of them not being about missing or obsolete redundant whitespaces), and other people have pointed out stuff, too. I do think the author tried to correct them, though, so credit there, and by now it should actually be pretty good.

In conclusion, I didn't end up finding this worth reading, though I do suspect most other people will. On the other hoof, the cover image is part of the story too, so...

48/100

5888294 Thank you for this review! I'll try to improve with my next story