TDerpy Dink

• Equestria Girls
• Dark
• Comedy
• Slice of Life

"I'm Derpy Dink, yaaaaay!"

• Human
• Derpy
• OC
• Doctor Whooves

23 KM To Nerdiness · 2.5k words  ·  54  4 · 513 views

Today's review is for TheKMExperience's comedy fiction, Derpy Dink. While the bulk of the review will contain spoilers, you are welcome to skip to the bottom for my spoiler-free recommendation.

Opening Thoughts

This is a fairly simple story with a straightforward concept: Derpy has an invention which she is entering into a science fair-type competition, only to have it malfunction. The description emphasizes the story's dark humor, and the tags indicate that the story takes place in the human world. 

Plot/Concept

Grade: 3 / 5

It's a pretty funny concept, and one that may have even been inspired by real events: an Alexa-like device goes haywire and starts saying inappropriate things with little to no prompting. I know I've seen quite a few viral TikToks of Alexas doing all sorts of ridiculous things entirely unprompted, and even read news stories about the same issue. It's undeniably funny - however, it just doesn't feel like enough to fill out an entire 2k-word story. 

This fic has pretty much one joke, and just repeats it throughout its wordcount without much variation in the presentation or style. I felt like I'd read enough of the repeating jokes by the time I was about halfway through, and the second half really dragged because of it. 

I feel like there was a real missed opportunity for some variation in the jokes by setting this story in the human world. Derpy's invention is essentially a Google home inside of a Derpy pegasus plush, and it cites horrifying events in real human history regardless of what innocent question is asked. This is funny once or twice, but it gets stale beyond that. We're this set in the pony world, there would have been openings on how the device operated (rather than merely accessing the internet, is it enchanted to be alive? Does it have a tiny library inside of it run by bugs?), as well as a chance to invent and communicate atrocities committed by ponies. All sorts of room for creativity!

Also (and this might be a personal thing), I found myself wondering why exactly Derpy's invention was behaving in this way. There's no hint as to why it would be malfunctioning so terribly and repeatedly - rather than simply mishearing questions, it seems to deliberately bring up awful things. Again, this could have been an opportunity for a joke (ex: my friend Octavia provided the voice and she's REALLY morbid, maybe it rubbed off on her?). It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to be present and funny.

I would say, in general, that this fic started from a good concept, but seemed to miss a lot of chances to increase the humorous aspects of its concept. This didn't ruin the fic by any means, but it did leave me feeling a little disappointed.

Pacing/Length

Grade: 3 / 5

As I discussed in the previous section, this story felt too long for its concept. There's really one joke driving the whole thing, and after a few variations… it just gets old. Additional interest could be generated by inserting other types of jokes, but as it stands this story is about twice as long as its concept logically requires. The additional "outtakes" honestly only further demonstrate that the jokes in the story are very easy to manufacture - find a scary/weird/inappropriate fact online (ex: some people are attracted to automobiles), connect it to an otherwise innocent subject (ex: hot wheels toy cars), then write the whole thing in an overly cheerful tone of voice (and optionally add some cute catchphrases).

Two instances of odd pacing also stood out to me. There is a brief moment where Doctor Whooves tries to fix Derpy Dink, though this moment flies by in one very short paragraph. We get a strange jump from the Doctor saying he'll try to fix it, to a brief description of him leaving Derpy nervous, then right into Derpy asking if he's fixed it - and he has! It just flies by too fast. Some additional filler in here to imply that the Doctor is tinkering would help. Similarly, there is a very very brief transition between showing the judges the invention and the actual results of the judging being revealed. A horizontal rule would work well in this instance.

It can be really hard to cut down a story, but I really think this is what the concept calls for. It's a funny concept betrayed by its own length.

Characterization

Grade: 3 / 5

Derpy and the Doctor lead the story in fine voice. While nothing stood out to me as being out of character, though, there wasn't anything (beyond Derpy's catchphrase getting dropped about halfway through) that really connected them to the canon characters they're emulating. Don't get me wrong: Derpy is appropriately hapless, and the Doctor is clever and nervous in an endearing way, but their speech patterns are just… perhaps "bland" is the right word? This precise interaction could be made to fit any number of other characters (ex: Pinkie and Twilight) simply by swapping out the names. This isn't necessarily bad, it just isn't going that extra mile to really embody the characters it uses.

Writing Quality

Grade: 3 / 5

This is an interesting fic because, while it does most things right in terms of the technical stuff, it has a few big whoopses that really took me out of the story. 

First, towards the end of the story, there is an embedded link over the phrase "to check and see if it was all legit", referring to Derpy Dink's more macabre facts. In the interest of being thorough, I clicked the link. I assumed that this link would lead me to an article proving one of the stranger facts, but it instead led to… a reaction gif? This one:

Which is, of course, calling out readers who may have taken a moment to fact-check things brought up in the story. It didn't get a laugh out of me (was it meant to?), and just felt really amateurish.

The second was in the final line, where the author added an emoji to… assumably drive home the craziness of Derpy Dink's behavior:

"What are you talking about, Dinky?" Derpy says.

"......I'M DERPY DINK!"

This just cheapens everything that came before it. It communicates, intentionally or unintentionally, that the author does not have faith in their communication of their idea (Derpy Dink is a deranged robot), and instead needs to show us a shorthand symbol that says "Derpy Dink is crazy".

Beyond that, I had some minor quibbles with formatting through, especially an overuse of italics and all-caps. Again, overusing these sorts of things communicates a lack of confidence in your ability to communicate what you mean. As an example, if Derpy is yelling and in distress, this can be communicated by ending her dialogue with an exclamation point and adding some thoughtfully description related to her expression, the quality of her voice, etc. Formatting things in all-caps and italics is unnecessary if you know how to use other things in your writer's toolbox.

There were also some instances of long sequences without dialogue tags. In some cases, this was used very well (to indicate rapid-fire dialogue between two characters clearly differentiated through their dialogue alone), but it sometimes could lead to confusion related to who was speaking. This issue is related to the aforementioned bland style of dialogue, where there isn't much in terms of the characters' speaking styles that could set them apart without dialogue tags.

All of that said, the story is still very clear and easy to read. No words are misused, there are no glaring grammatical errors, and the style matches the genre and concept perfectly. Nothing about it was especially poetic or lyrical, but nothing at all wrong with the way it was written (beyond those more nitpicky things mentioned above).

Je Ne Sais Quoi

Grade: 3 / 5

I went into this story with rather low expectations, and I'd like to take this opportunity to let the author know that this is mostly a result of the description - a 2k-word comedy one shot really doesn't require two testimonials and a content warning, even if you are proud of what you've written. Again, it communicates a lack of confidence in your own concept and writing ability, and it makes your readers lack confidence in what they are about to read. I was pleasantly surprised to find a story of somewhat good quality, but I don't want to be surprised! I want to know it from your description! Something brief and straightforward would serve the story much better.

One of my more significant disappointments was in the lack of a true "dark comedy" aspect. While the story was comedic and did contain some dark themes (or perhaps "dark facts" would be a better way to describe it), these things don't really depend on one another. This story could be structured in precisely the same manner with Derpy Dink simply reciting facts which are blatantly incorrect, without the need for content warnings and a "dark" tag. In my opinion, dark comedy dictates a certain level of discomfort (should I be laughing at this?) that this fic just didn't have. 

Overall, though, this story is just that: somewhat good. It certainly isn't bad, but it isn't as memorable or as funny as I was hoping for.

Final Thoughts

This story felt, to me, like a great first step towards a good comedy story. What's there is good, but it feels a bit like a half-baked SNL sketch, or a rushed contest entry. There are a number of missed opportunities for humor throughout the piece, and a disconnection from the source material that's a little disappointing. It isn't a bad fic by any means! Merely an average fic which, with work, could be a really fun read.

Final Grade: 3 / 5