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

A relationship, whether romantic or platonic, can sometimes be a dangerous thing...

Especially after it ENDS.

This tells the stories of people, or ponies, who have revisited past relationships, bringing their behavior to a point that reaches the level of being excessive or even extreme.

Opening remarks

My Crazy Ex is a romantic comedy anthology by TheKMExperience (KM) that tells a series of short stories about the various break ups experienced by normal people in relation to canon characters from the show. The story seems fun as a premise and I look forward to seeing how it unfolds. 

Note: The story at the time of this review is incomplete and the following will reflect what has been written up to the chapter Spike.

Technical

The prose of the story is done in a first person interview style, which is fine, however, the over capitalization, ellipses, and spoiler text are very distracting in terms of reading. I would suggest instead either description text or italics for emphasis and pauses. 

Additionally, there are several cases of misspellings and missing punctuation, however these particular issues are minor.

Overall, the story is still readable.   

6/10

Character

There are a lot of different characters, however, all of them feel like they follow the same mold with some minor differentiation between them.

Protagonists are hapless normals, human or pony, that suffer either from a recent break up or while entering a new relationship. The ex in question comes in two main flavours of crazy either con artist or over the top nuts. Finally, there is the best friend of the protagonist, though not present in all stories, who is the voice of reason and suggests certain actions for the protagonist to follow due to the ex’s escalating absurd behaviour.

All of the characters feel very copy and pasted from chapter to chapter with only marginal differences in personality traits. Especially for the protagonist, whose personality is consistent across chapters with only one extra personality trait. 

This is more egregious amongst the canon characters who take on the role of the crazy exes. Most of the early exes feel like their canon counterparts, but, with a notable exception in Diamond Tiara, none of them really feel like their show selves. On top of that, in most cases, the crazy quirk each of them have doesn’t feel related to the character in any way, just tacked on for the sake of the plot rather than being an extension of the character’s personality. 

Overall, the characters feel very repetitive despite the large cast and don’t feel like their show counterparts. 

2/10

Concept

The concept is intriguing. A request based anthology of user submitted protagonists who tell the story of their break up with a crazy ex. The hook of this concept alone is interesting and the requests add a nice tailor made quality to the story. 

That being said, the actual execution is lacking. Many of the chapters feel rushed, and the stories, especially when read back to back, become rather bland. 

An interesting concept that unfortunately overstays its welcome. 

6/10

Vibe

Firstly, the request based format works well for this kind of story, and there is some enjoyment in the over the top nature of the humour. 

That being said, the biggest issue with this fic is that all the chapters feel very samey. 

To be up front, I do not believe this anthology isn’t meant to be read all in one go. It would definitely be more enjoyable if read in short bursts with a few days in between chapters especially as, if you read them back-to-back, the story follows a very clear pattern.

Introduction for the protagonist, usually some normal pony or human with less than ideal circumstance. Future crazy ex is already in a relationship with the protagonist or soon-to-be, comes off as a good match for the protagonist. First sign of strange behavior discovered. Optionally, the protagonist will talk with best friend about noted behaviour and be given advice. Escalation of events. Protagonist breaks up with ex.

All the chapters follow this outline at the same average word count and the same pace blending many of the chapters together into a long slog of a read.

This is further exacerbated by the style of writing. The firsthand account type writing is fine, but every character talks in the exact same voice with the same way of speaking and the same story beats. 

Further compounding this issue is the pacing, which is far too fast. Each story seems to breeze through at a breakneck pace without taking time to settle on any individual scene.

I think it would have been better to lean further into the firsthand retelling of the stories. Have the narrator recount their own tales in a more conversational tone rather than with the date and standard writing format. For example:

So, I walk into the room and there she is sniffing my laundry, taking just these deep inhales, and all I can think is what the hell is she doing? What kind of girl goes through a guy’s laundry and sniffs it? 

This would really add a more personal quality to each of the chapters and inject more personality into our main character.

As is, the stories tend to bleed into each other and never feel unique.

1/10

Closing Thoughts

My Crazy Ex by KM is an anthology of similar stories that become samey after the first couple chapters. I would recommend this story if the over the top humour appeals to you, but only in small bursts to ensure that the repetitiveness doesn’t chafe against your reading experience.

3.75/10

Personal Score

Not my kind of story to be honest. Some of the humour seemed mean spirited in a couple chapters and the canon characters felt so out of character, I couldn’t really get into it.  

1/10

Sorry.