TAnts, Fortune and Striped Pants

• MLP: FiM
• Drama

When life gave Fancy Pants lemons — and he made a fortune off of them — boredom came knocking.

• Profanity
• OC
• Fancypants
• Fleur de Lis
• Other

RanOutOfIdeas · 8.2k words  ·  29  1 · 294 views

Description

Fancy Pants is tired of perfection. He knows very well that many don’t achieve the success he has, that fewer have the popularity that he does, and that none can claim to have a wife like his.

A humble pony he is not.

Yet, his boredom has faced against all of those niceties, ripped them to meaningless shreds and came out the victor. So he decided to take the reins of his life for once, no matter the consequences.

At least, that's what he told the warden of Canterlot Correctional Facility.

Initial Thoughts

To be honest, I was more drawn to the cover art than the story’s actual description. Fancy Pants is one of those characters whom the fanbase seems to have been drawn to very early on, but since I only joined at the beginning of Season Five, he never quite struck my (heh) fancy. But he’s always been a joy to read, and I admit to having used him once or twice in a few older works. 

That said, I’m surprised that this story presents him almost as a bored socialite. I think that isn’t quite the way I understand him, but I am curious as to why he is being depicted this way. More than that, I find it rather funny that the description should unabashedly declare all of Fancy’s successes and note that he’s not trying—nor needs to try—to downplay himself, which seems to be intentional. It’s a curious little lead into the story, suggesting that Fancy Pants is looking for a unique thrill—but based on how the description ends, it seems that even he hadn’t any idea of what that would mean.

Most curious is the fact that though the cover art depicts Smarty Pants (only now do I realize the relationship between their names), Smarty Pants doesn’t show up in the description or tags… and if he did, well, what relation does he have to Canterlot Correctional Facility?

Thus the story has presented itself, efficiently and effectively, with enough intrigue and specificity to warrant reading. I am eager to see where it will lead.

As always, spoilers lie ahead.

Summary

Fancy Pants, at his zenith, faces the crushing prospect of a life of excellent monetary value, high social standing, and little in terms of interest or excitement. A chance encounter with a warden of one Canterlot Correctional Facility leads to a snowball effect of controlled chaos, wherein Fancy finally injects some excitement into his comfortable life—at the cost of everything.

Plot

I think it’s fairly obvious that this is a story concerned with the mundanity of money, as told from the perspective of a clearly jaded Fancy Pants. He’s, more or less, tired of being content, recognizing that the life of comfort which he lives was fueled by little conflict and very deep pockets—but not much else. Furthermore, it appears that he recognizes that this is a condition he and his contemporaries—Blueblood, for example—suffer from, but unlike himself, they don’t appear aware of their own lackluster existences. Fancy Pants makes this quite clear with what he immediately says at the story’s beginning:

“I’ve come to conclude that all the fellows here in Canterlot don’t have the time to merely ponder on rigmarole alone. Action trumps long-winded reflection in all but the select few minds that I’ve yet to encounter, for its cost-effective manner of entertaining the observer.

Important to note is the fact that the italicized text is not told within the confines of the present narrative. As the story’s description reveals, and as the last chapter of the story indicates, the entirety of “Ants, Fortune and Striped Pants” is a tale told after-the-fact. It is a relation of a series of events that happened in the past, which Fancy Pants is describing to a specific audience: that of the Warden of Canterlot Correctional Facility, who also happens to be Cherrywood, a minor character who may be the “inciting character” for Pants himself.

I note the importance of that second sentence: “Action trumps long-winded reflection…” There is a tone of irony here, given how the story Fancy Pants relates unfolds. You see, that’s because up until Fancy Pants does what lands him in prison, he’s done nothing but reflect long-windedly. The revelation presented above, then, is one that he comes to after everything is said and done, which paints a rather ironic view of how the story begins and how it ends. 

Irony may therefore be said to inform what amounts to a scathing social commentary about the monotonous matter of money, which is what this story boils down to. Fancy Pants being our narrator provides a unique perspective into the emergence of that monotony, as not only does he begin the story recognizing that exact characteristic in his own life, but he responds to it, thereby making the “plot” appear. That “plot,” then, is not just this exploration of that monotony, but also of the fallout with its realization, which takes the form of Fancy Pants essentially decking a stallion in the face.

Further irony is found in how Fancy Pants explains this act: 

Why did I do it? There’s a number of possible rationales. Maybe I wanted to help Blueblood by distracting the ire of Gavel. Maybe I wanted to help Cherrywood with her intimation. Maybe I wanted to help the workers by having a tycoon lose his position which would result in my businesses returning to Celestia's hoof. Maybe I just really wanted to punch that stallion. Maybe that was the only way I could finally…

Given how the story starts, the fact that he spends some time rambling and trying to rationalize his actions, in half-measured steps, suggests that he doesn’t actually want to provide much of an explanation. All those “maybes” add up to “maybe nothings,” as it were, and indeed, by the story’s end, Fancy no longer seems as though he wants to answer for his crime so much as he just wants to move on. He had, as the description says, taken reigns of his life, for once—and even that once is enough. 

This is my attempt at understanding the structure of this story, by looking at it through this lens of irony, and by gently piecing together how it all fits into that lens. I say “attempt,” because while I think this lens gives us a better idea as to what the story intended to do, I must admit that I do not necessarily think the story managed to do it fully.

My largest criticism with the story’s plot isn’t that it’s unclear if it’s meant to be ironic—I posit that that’s closer to my interpretation rather than strict authorial intent—but rather that, whether it’s ironic or not, it takes a fairly lengthy time building up to the critical moment, the aforementioned decking. Before that moment, the story really wants to hammer home just how bored Fancy is. It goes through ironically trivial dinner parties, conversations that don’t lead to anywhere, and so forth—in fact, it begins with Fancy asking an absurd question out of complete boredom.

I found that, while these details are thematically appropriate, the story spent perhaps a bit too much time digging into the boredom and tedium of Fancy’s life. It proved, for lack of a better term, “uninteresting” despite the fact that it’s supposed to be interesting because of how uninteresting it is. That meta-textual irony doesn’t seem to play nice with how the story unfolds, simply because the story doesn’t unfold until it’s almost three-quarters complete. Nothing happens save for that superficial building up.

And following that building up, following that critical juncture after which everything in Fancy’s life falls apart, there really isn’t a lot of time spent exploring the fallout. I understand that this is primarily because the story’s conceit is that Fancy is relaying the events that led up to his arrest and subsequent incarceration, but it felt rushed, as though Fancy himself didn’t want to talk about some of the greater ramifications beyond a couple tongue-in-cheek remarks. 

For example, though Fleur and Fancy’s marital issues do get shown throughout the story, and there is evidence that this latest act sparked the end of their marriage, not a whole lot of time seems to have been spent on exploring that. It’s hard to tell if Fancy cares or doesn’t. While I don’t think the story would have needed to be more explicit in that regard, given the oddity of how Fancy both dismisses his marriage, while also obsessing over its monotony, I almost expected him to spend some degree of time talking about how only after did things fall apart was he able to think of it in any interesting way. 

To be sure, “Ants, Fortune and Striped Pants,” as a social commentary, certainly functions, since it’s quite clear as to what it’s commenting on. But I did think that it over-indulged in its premise, rather than executing its plot fully. It doesn’t quite feel fully rendered, and, perhaps, may have been constrained to a certain limit that did not work well with the concepts it wanted to explore. The “easiest” fix would have been to explore the concepts presented a bit more, but I acknowledge that doing so might work against the style of narration, as well as Fancy’s “argument” presented in the first chapter. 

Score - 7 / 10 

Characterization

The story being told from first-person allows the author to craft a unique voice for its narrator, who, obviously, is supposed to be Fancy Pants. And it’s certainly a unique voice—Fancy Pants comes across as a bit high-brow, evidently still influenced by his “high society” background, but what struck me the most was his wit and sarcasm. More importantly, these latter characteristics do not appear within the dialogue of the story itself, but rather, predominantly in areas where Fancy goes to essentially confide in the reader. It reminds me very much of the dramatic aside we see in older plays.

“You” is used throughout, both in a general sense but, as we later find out, as a means for Fancy to refer back to his main audience: the Warden of the Correctional Facility in which he finds himself. This suggests a tailored response, though—that is to say, Fancy must be narrating these events in a way as to paint himself and the events in question in a certain light. To an extent, this suggests he may not be fully reliable, but his charm and manner are so hypnotizing, it’s easy to forget that this is the caveat to this kind of narration. It helps, too, that Fancy Pants as a character is more than aware of what he’s doing—take, for example, he slips out of simple narration and into the command form, and how casually he does it, with next to no sense of hiccups or stuttering:

Observe now how quickly, how effortlessly I break my promise of getting into the action of this narrative, of not letting my opinions wander — a recurring theme, of me not sizing up to my own cast shadows.

In such a quote, Fancy Pants also demonstrates awareness of his own unreliability, further complicating our ability to trust him. I’m not particularly fond of unreliable narrators myself, but I found myself enjoying what RanOutOfIdeas did here, whether or not that unreliability was intentional—the fact that Fancy Pants was cognizant of what he was doing proved charming, disarmingly so, which, I suppose, befit to whom he was speaking and some of the wider themes scattered throughout. In a way, Fancy Pants’ narrative voice becomes its own character, one that, rather than operating completely separate from the established cast, supplements its narrator-character through sheer presence alone. 

In this way, the characterization is new and exciting. And I must give kudos to the author for managing to invigorate interest in such a kind of voice. However, there are some points of concern associated with it. 

At times, Fancy Pants, in these many self-aware diatribes and wanderings, may wander a bit too far. Though he is aware of it, as demonstrated by the above quote, I did find it somewhat frustrating that every now and then he would slip into what could be defined as “peanut gallery comments” about the same events he was narrating. It proved distracting to essentially have him inject himself (the himself who is re-telling this entire story) into the same scenes in which his past self was currently attempting to re-live. His monologues could be construed as rambling, and while I may argue that they were rambling with a purpose, I cannot escape the feeling that, sometimes, it felt like Fancy was being a bit too smug with himself. 

In a way, it was like he was saying, “Look at me, I’m so clever, I realize these things about myself and about others.” On one hand, I can justify this as an example of dramatic, tragic irony of character. In much the manner that, say, the narrator for Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby declares outright that his father told him not to criticize anyone, and then proceeds for the entire rest of the novella to criticize everyone (but not himself), Fancy Pants emerges as a narrator who may be wise to the game that socialites play, but ultimately lacks the proper degree of awareness needed to realize he, in even breaking out of the game, must employ rules that permit his game-playing to continue, or to cease. But on the other hand, that kind of ironic lack of awareness seems to run counter to the story’s entire premise. 

The effect is one of ambivalent characterization, which may or may not be intentional. The rambling makes sense given the context, but it does not make it any easier to swallow. Fancy, in some regard, really wants to force both the Warden and the reader to understand his perspective, but perhaps forces it too much to the point where we realistically cannot accept it as either somewhat true or somewhat believable. 

Case in point, by the story’s end, a certain event has informed Fancy’s perspective: the fallout of his marriage with Fleur. The story reveals that it’s closer to a fragile mirage than anything substantial, and by the end, the two have gone their separate ways, on less than amicable grounds. As an idea, this proves interesting—but in execution, I cannot help but find it, and the resulting characterization, lacking. We are told everything through Fancy’s perspective, but in a strange capacity, it is difficult to determine if what he’s feeling about the whole matter is a complete view. Indeed, the only bit of characterization we see from Fleur comes from a bit of profanity and anything else that Fancy describes—limiting us to his perspective, the story doesn’t capitalize on this minor plot point. 

In a manner, therefore, quite similar to the plot, the story touches upon a very intriguing concept, but does not feel like it rendered it in the right amount of time for it to feel justifiable, or, for lack of a better term, “real.” I reflect on the possibility that this kind of limitation may be indeed intended, especially if we accept the idea that Fancy isn’t to be relied upon, but it does make me wonder if the story would have benefited from simply spending a bit more time with these two characters in particular. If less time had been spent on commentary and more on presenting a neutral view, one that may be filtered through the tinted lens of Fancy Pants, then perhaps the characterization would have felt complete, rather than falling short.

Score - 8 / 10 

Syntax

I noted right away that this story really likes to make use of short paragraphs. The majority are, at their longest, maybe three or four sentences long, while the rest stand at an average of one or two. This creates an interesting aesthetic effect, wherein each paragraph appears close to the same length as the other. 

The brevity and frequent use of it works to hammer home the story’s unabashed tone, and works quite nicely in conjunction with this Fancy Pants’ sharp repertoire. But, from another perspective, such a technique feels like the story consists less of a strong sense of prose and paragraph structuring and more of rapid-fire statements designed to play into a “Gotcha” scenario. The tonal “beat” of the story comes across as single-note, ending with a rather placid performance as opposed to a musical or striking one—not because the brevity is necessarily wrong, but because it is simply overdone. 

I try not to let aesthetic sense work its way into formal criticism, since, ultimately, it is up to the author to decide “what looks good” to them. But in this case, I cannot help but think that a greater and more conscientious effort to structuring paragraphs would have aided in presenting a less superficially complicated voice, as well as avoided the kind of one-note tonality that emerged by the story’s end. 

Score - 7 / 10 

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Final Score - ( 7 + 8 + 7 ) / 3 = 7.3 / 10

Final Thoughts

This story sat on my Reading List for a while now, and even after I’d read it, I wondered if I truly had. I admit that perhaps this story isn’t one for me, and that my criticisms lend themselves more to personal preference than constructive feedback, for which I do apologize.

Structurally and narratively, “Ants, Fortune and Striped Pants” is a competent story. I’d almost classify it as a dark comedy, even as it lacks both tags. Moreover, it presented a Fancy Pants far different from what I’m used to reading, which was no doubt its strongest point. 

I fear I may have misinterpreted certain things about it, though, and that I may have read into the lens of irony too much in my attempt to provide something constructive—but I hope that through my critique and analysis, some degree of guidance was, at the very least, suggested. 

<For archive purposes: 7.3/10>

Eyy thanks for the review! Sorry I'm late on the reply, I didn't check fimfic for a bit.

Your interpretation is cohesive and fair. I'll be honest, this was a testing-ground for me, and I 100% agree that I could've done to trim some sections better while expanding others more. But since my main goal was to try and make an at least somewhat interesting character-narrator that could carry a story at face-value, I'm glad you could find him somewhat witty and charismatic (even if really verbose and rant-y at times, might have overdone the narrating part a bit). I've seen a few narrators like that in fimfic, but they never really felt like they were explicitly made for that role (they were more like fourth-wall breaking than constrained as a story-teller), so I wanted to see if I could try my hand at tailoring one exactly for that, in which he kinda split from the story-told Fancypants and took over the protagonist role as story-teller Fancypants, without feeling like he was totally separate from the story as a narrator. In a way, I suppose, the Fancypants you see doing things is a secondary character to the Fancypants you hear comment on how he did those things.

Glad to have gotten some things right, and I appreciate you pointing out the things I got wrong.

Thanks again for your time and your review!

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Of course! I'm glad you found the review to be insightful. I definitely got the sense that this was new grounds for you, so the effort you put in is certainly laudable.