Pinkie's Apiecalypse by Sparkle Cola

Read 10,5k words, two chapters.

Pros:
Spikes assessment of Twilights researchs.
Ponyfie some scientist names.
Twilight thought about Celestia taking holiday with some muscular stallion.
Fizzlepop Berrytwists description as Twilights Guard captain.
Twilight screeched, “You burned off my tail!”
Doctor Horse
The picture in chapter one along with the joke that goes with it.
General the pictures are nicely made and support the atmosphere of the scenes.
The prank war between Celestia and Luna is still going on.
Pinkie fluttered her eyelashes at the surprised farm pony.
Applejacks weight is mentioned in apples.

Cons:
Spike ask Twilight if some of her guards can carry stuff, she has none in the show.
Worry about singed notes via transportation spell while normally even spikes fire doesn't harm them while transported with them.
The Royal guard descripted as capable of anything.
The second picture miss some details if I am right, were are the pastries on Luna's horn?
Alcohol for Celestia
Ans why do he suddenly knows that Twi's tail tickled him when he didn't realised it in the first place?
Cursing/language
Stretched scenes that start to get boring.
Using of spanish.
More Slice of Life than comedy and the level of randomness is just Pinky being Pinky so far.

Summary:
Here we have a Slice of life story or a very stretched comedy story, depending on how you wanna see it. It starts entertaining enough, a few good jokes, some intimations and all around a good setting it seems. I enjoyed the pranking interaction between Celestia and Luna, which is supported by well written staff like Melon Seed and which give you some laughter. The ideas are not always fresh but still serving their purpose and ideas like Doctor Horse or Celestia have some holiday with hot stallions fluff it up. The scenes also got pictures to them sometimes which fit normally very well and support the atmosphere, only when the edits make the details on the pictures obsolete it gets in the way of being nice. (The author explained that to me after I noticed the second picture miss some details from the descripted scene.)

Still we also have a lot of stuff going on that simple is build up or slice of life and such. It gives the events background and suports their logic, but after a few thousand words it simple gets boring, more so with the long chapter length considering the story overall wordcount. Really, I miss the comedy here and the random tag so far only is Pinky being Pinky, which is written well, don't get me wrong, but simple is as expected. Though the little flirting character of her is a refreshing touch.

If I had a choice, I would wish the story was far more focused on Celestia and Luna, along with some Twilight-Spike interaction like in the first chapter. The author did a good job at them, just enough build up to make sense and support the jokes and not so much it gets simple slice of life.

Rating:
Here again, we have the problem of what authors apply with and what I have as rule for the stories I review. Let me quote:
Your story must have one of the following tags as focus:

Mystery, Horror, Comedy, Romance

So with that in mind, I can only give a 5/10
It is maybe a good slice of life story with some comedy scenes and randomness, but it is defently not focused enough on the comedy.

By second thought, I should give an extra 0,5 points for the fine artwork. That is not so common and the pictures are made nicely in my opinion, not high quality paid work, instead, if I am right, made by the authors daughter? Anyway, there is effort and hearth in them.

Total: 5,5

Hi Azure! Thanks for checking my story out. Sorry if it was a little "stretched" as far as comedies go, but you are right, it is kind of a split between Slice of Life and comedy. Or perhaps, in my heart's effort of paying homage to the show when I wrote this, it really is more a slice of life, because there is quite a bit of natural humor that just happens in the Equestria we all know and love.

That being said, if it wasn't packed full of enough comedy, I guess that is a personal taste. I do realize I can get a little wordy (I'm trying to cut back, honest!)

Was sad you didn't get to the hilarity between Rarity and Rainbow Dash in chapter four, but if you want the cliffs notes version of those hijinks, just check out my daughter's comic of the same name, from which those art frames were pulled from (and why there isn't (yet) art for chapter 5)). Here is the link if you are interested --> Comic from AoS.

Either way we slice this, I really do appreciate you taking time to go through the portions you did. I'm happy you appreciated the humor that was there - it was an experiment for me of sorts, since humor isn't necessarily my comfy forte, but I had a blast doing it. Thanks for giving it your attention and review, and if you need anything from me, don't hesitate to ask.

P.S.... If you want a little more focused humor, you should check out the last chapter, when everything gets a little (heh heh) unhinged. But you also learn why all this happened in the first place. (Pinkie, you ol' schemer)

6616016
I defently Check the comic out, yes the humour was good, so I am looking forward to reading the comic later today.

I also agree that it is a question of personal taste if some like the slice of life or not. I have one or two other stories reviewed that focused more on Slice of life already, but for me that is simple boring considering that such stuff can be displayes by a comic or the show itself much more fluffy and entertaining then a story can.

What you said about you stick closer to the show with your writing, I can also agree to a degree. By thinking about it your chapter 2 is in case of Applejack and Pinky more like written out a a Scene that could be from the show. Still with said that the show would need only ons or two minutes to get through it while you needed several thousand words for it.

Maybe so... maybe so... Forgive an old guy for some written doodling, eh?
My daughter certainly had fun drawing it.

The flagship story, Amulet of Shades, is a bit darker. What you read happens at the same time, and represents the innocence of what is going on while darker stuff begins to develop. I am working on chapter eight for that now.
By way of explanation, for Pinkie's Apiecalypse, I split those elements out because they detracted from the main plot of The Amulet of Shades, so I made them a side arc and stand-alone story. If you look at the comic, it isn't split out, it is simply a different arc. Only problem is that it is hard for some to follow, how we jump back and forth. Ah well. Rookie mistake maybe?

6616032
Alright, I have looked into the comic, actiually I am at page 2.03 means page 43 or so? A little bit confusing count system

I love Meadow and her ralationship to Coco is also a sweet addition Also the main plot with Tempest, really name confusing with the movie, is interesting and in form of a comic a very nice method to pass some time, I enjoyed that parts, also the slapstick your daughter drawed sometimes in the pictures Awesome.

Just on the downside again, the whole Pinky/Applejack event is just boring, no matter written out or made pictures out of it. So far also the RD and Rarity event is only worth a smirk at best, besides, Rarities imitation of the tree tribes was superb!

Nice!

The comic numbering is basically Prologue 1-20. Then Chapter 1 -- which we numbered 1.1 all the way to 1.48 or wherever it stopped. Now we are on chapter 2.31 just released yesterday. And no, those chapters are NOT numbered the same as in the fic here on fimfiction.

Hope that clears it up. As far as the Pinkie/Applejack even being boring... huh. I guess we all have our favorite characters, right? I hope (if you read the last chapter of Pinkie's Apiecalypse) that the wrap up on that was decidedly not boring. I mean... a pie fight between mares mostly told through an adolescent Spike's eyes? What isn't there to love?

Unfortunately that wrap up chapter has as of today only had about 78 views of the original 421 readers...
...huh, maybe you are totally right, and the earlier parts are too boring. hmm...

guess we all have our favorite characters, right?

Pinky is one of my favorites

I have finished the comic, I will give a more detailed feedback tomorrow, now it is time to sleep.

6617003
And please use the reply button

6617049
heh heh... sorries

6617003
Thanks for the explanation of the numbers.

What isn't there to love?

At least it sounds like fun

78 views of the original 421

I checked on your viewcount, it is normal to get lesser reader with the second chapter I would say, that is normal on Fim when people first check your story out if it is to their likeing. What I noticed however is that after chapter 2 the reader count stays more or less stable in Fimf-limits, so the chapter 2 may be ok. Though the rapidly fallen viewcount after the first chapter is unusual even for fim (in my opinion) If I had to guess, i would say that with the title and the tags, people expect a random silly fun story about pinky with Applejack bringing some slice of life to it. What they get however is a Luna-Celestia Prank war with some Spike-Twilight stretched comedy-slice of life scenes as first chapter.
So I assume they leave because it is not what they expected, or what you let them expect with your description and Tag use.

***

So more about the comic:
The main story arc for the amulet of shades seems good, side ideas and slapstick fit, entertain and also raise curiousity. The team of the police however feels more like X-com... which I like I wish I had such an artist at hand like you have. Anyhow, I really wonder why you added the side stuff about pinky and Twilight and such? I haven't read further in your story, and honestly don't want to considering the slice of life parts, but I would like to see more of the comic

In the end you have a, as far as it seems to me, interesting adventure/mystery/horror (Meadow sure can add some horror later) story which can keep the reader interested and tell an exciting story, so why water it down with the side stuff at all?

6617908
Whelp... after further consideration, I went ahead and removed the comedy tag, and just kept the random and slice of life tags. Sounded like a reasonable conclusion. Then I removed it from the few comedy groups it was listed on.

Anyway, how goes it? For me, it's been a long haul to finish my chapter 8 of AoS, because life and etc, but now I am 90% there. sheesh. Will put a blog out on it soon.