TMy Crazy Ex

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Comedy
• Anthology

Restraining orders may be imminent...

• Profanity
• Human
• OC
• Other
• Main 6

23 KM To Nerdiness · 45k words  ·  187  17 · 4.9k views

Happy Easter fellas! What better way to enjoy it than listen to some crazy guy talk about a story, am I right? Let’s hit it.

They say that drama is easy and comedy is hard. I find myself mostly agreeing with this statement, because we all have a very subjective and different taste in what we find ‘funny.’ Some people like bad jokes, some like slapstick, etc. My Crazy Ex seems to take the route of character assaination, by examining the characters we know and love and changing them into horrible, horrible ponies, who are somewhat deranged and do horrible things to each chapter’s protagonist.

Now all this being said… I couldn’t finish this work. And I really hope I don’t offend the author, but the factors at play just aren’t appealing to me. I put the work down after the seventh chapter and seriously considered if I should keep reading, because the more I read, the less positive my opinion gets. And quite frankly I think the author deserves better than this.

The truth is I just have a hard time finding this story funny, and this is most likely due to my own personal preferences, but let’s open this up for explanation.

The story is an anthology, meaning that each chapter is independent of the other. Every protagonist is meant to be different, yet they all seem to share one common theme: they are lonely. This sets the stage perfectly for them to enter a crash course relationship with the pony in question.

Also somewhat conveniently, they are somewhat gullible. There are several instances where the protagonist admits that they should end the relationship, but they don’t. I won’t deduct points for this because I respect that it’s a comedy, but there are other aspects I want to pick apart.

First of all, the story comes across to me as very cookie-cutter. Every chapter is supposed to feature a different ‘ex,’ yet the plotline is very much the same: desperate protagonist meets crazy ex, hit it off, and start a relationship. Eventually, the protagonist realizes something is wrong and either continues or tries to break their relationship off, only to realize that the pony is in fact crazy.

Conceptually, I like the idea of dissecting a beloved character and making them terrible ponies. In fact I applaud the author for going in this direction. But my central problem is that it feels like I am reading the same story over and over, just with different characters. 

The twist behind each character and what their true intentions are is mostly well done, so I’ll give the author credit there. For the most part, the twists were unexpected yet still seemed like something the character would do. 

I said I considered stopping at the seventh chapter, but I kept going until ‘Flash Sentry,’ whatever chapter that is to see if my opinion would change. I think I’ve warmed to it a little bit, but I’m still hesitant to say that I liked it.

I realize now that this story might be one better enjoyed in small doses, rather than a whole work at a time. Because as I sit here and read the entire thing straight down, I find a lot of the stories reading the same, even if the characters and scenarios are different.

This being said, it’s clear that the author is doing something right and the story is pretty well received by a general audience, so while it didn’t quite make me laugh, it may be better suited to a different reader.

This is a comedy, but from the very beginning one tiny aspect of the plot has bugged me, and that is the passage of time. This mostly occurs in the beginning chapters, but the ‘Day X’ titles that serve as page breaks simply make no sense. For example, in ‘Rainbow Dash,’ we see the protagonist meet Rainbow Dash and say that he has practiced for a week on ‘Day Four.’ But the next title we see is ‘Day Five.’ 

Is this done for comedic effect? Is this an accident? I have no idea because the passage of time is arbitrary and wildly inconsistent. It may be a minor thing, but as a reviewer it had me raising an eyebrow.

While each chapter covers a different scenario and character, there are several incidents where the scenes feel rushed, and the author does quite a bit of showing rather than telling. Let’s take for example the chapter titled ‘Fluttershy.’ After meeting Fluttershy and saying like two sentences to her, we get the line:

Her name was Fluttershy and I had no idea why she was paying any attention to me, which is probably why I was such an easy target.

So I get that the point of the story isn’t exactly in how these two characters meet, but this almost feels like an info-dump because the author just says ‘oh, by the way her name is Fluttershy.’ Why not have the character herself do the introductions? If it’s because the author wants to focus on the breakup and downfall of the relationship, then why not just start with an established relationship already, as the author does in later chapters?

Next, I have to say that the pacing at times feels very jarring and abrupt. For example in the chapter ‘Octavia Melody’ there’s the scene in which the characters see a movie.

I convinced myself that it wasn't a date. More like......two friends catching a movie.

That's it.

"I must say, that was a good flick." the mare laughed. "I had a good time."

"Heh, so did I." I sighed.

...or, I think they see a movie. Because the movie itself is mentioned twice and then suddenly it’s done. This happens a few times throughout the story and if you’re not paying attention it can be quite jarring. I’d recommend the author to try and smooth things out a bit with a few transition sentences or line breaks if they don’t feel fleshing out that scene is important to the story.

Phew, that was a lot. Still with me? Awesome. Let’s talk about some good stuff now. The plot of each chapter has a twist that goes to show what makes the pony in question a ‘crazy ex,’ and for the most part each plot is out of left field and unexpected. I don’t really have a problem with the way the setup is done or the way each twist is executed, and the idea for each twist as a whole is pretty creative. So props to the author on that front!

The protagonist of each chapter is, from what I can tell, is a self-insert OC of an actual FimFic user who wanted to be a part of the story. Because of this, I don’t think it’s right for me to come in and criticize their actions without directly attacking the users themselves. So I won’t.

I don’t think I have much to say here. The story utilizes a few AU concepts that take familiar characters and put them in new positions, like Octavia being part of a ‘cleaning service’ and Rainbow being a personal trainer. There are a few… questionable moments where these characters don’t quite act like their personalities, but since this is a character assination comedy, I’ll forgive it.

I guess one thing I can say is that each protagonist, while having different backgrounds, kind of reads the same as every other one. There really aren’t any quirks unique to each character, and for the most part they seem gullible and in a sense blinded by love (at times). I’d suggest that the author try to make each protagonist a little bit more unique, but since he is basing these characters off real users I guess I can let this slide.

You know, I don’t consider myself to be a grammar tyrant or an insane editor, but… I noticed a lot of grammar mistakes in this story. In fact I noted so many that it became a central point of my notes, and I think the grammar hurt my overall enjoyment of this story.

There isn’t anything too major, but instead it’s a series of small grammar mistakes that add up to my negative impression of grammar here. First of all, spacing errors. This is simply when the author doesn’t press the ‘enter’ key enough times when creating new paragraphs, or when the FimFic engine messes up when copy pasting. Here’s an example from ‘Gilda.’

"Guess I'll never top the 'Her-minator'."
"Ugh, I absolutely HATE that name."

Again, this is a really small thing, but… I counted forty of these mistakes in the seventeen chapters I read. When a small mistake is happening this many times it really, really starts to get on my nerves.

Next thing is a recurring typo of the words ‘a lot.’ Every instance of this word was written as ‘alot,’ which is a small town somewhere in India. 

Third, hyphenated words. Descriptions like ‘grey-maned’ will have a hyphen in between the words, and I noted several instances where this hyphen was missing. I’d recommend consulting an editor to help catch all these mistakes.

The fourth issue is dialogue tags. When connecting a spoken line with a tag, the author typically does something like this:

"I'd love nothing more." the mare giggled. "But I have my studies and I have to work all night and you get where I'm headed."

Notice that at the end of the word ‘more’ is a period. This period should be a comma, because it is connected to the sentence immediately afterwards. I didn’t note every single instance of this, but it does happen quite a few times in various chapters.

Now, are all of these big, huge things? No. But as I said again, it’s the frequency of these little things that make this a huge deal to me. I think that I can turn to any chapter in this story and pull out one example of every single thing I mentioned in this section.

And these are pretty easy things to fix, too, it’ll just take some diligence on the author’s part. But fixing these tiny things will greatly improve your story, that I’m sure of. 

I didn’t laugh at this story. Does that mean it isn’t funny? Of course not. This work seems to be pretty well loved judging by the statistics, and I really do enjoy the concepts at play from the author here. If this kind of thing intrigues you, go check it out, and if you’re brave enough, let the author know you want to be a part of it!

I think I stand by what I said earlier: that this story might read better if taken in small doses. Otherwise, it risks becoming bland and unentertaining, with the chapters just kind of blending together. But who knows, you might walk away with a very different impression than what I got.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got to say for this one. My next review will most likely be Higher and Higher by LuminaFaith. Stay safe and wash your hands people.

Deuces.

If you like creative character interpretations, a bullied protagonist, or stories about crazy exes, you might like this story. 

Apologies for cutting open your story like this, but I really did give this story my best shot. I just felt it wasn’t in my best interest to finish it because I think you deserve better than me complaining about your work. Don’t get me wrong, you’re doing a great job, it’s just something I can’t get behind. To put it in the words of a crazy ex, ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’

I do have my reading notes for your fic, if you would like to see them let me know.

Plot: 6
Characterization: 7
Grammar: 4

Average: 5.67