Pinkowatts

by Arco Iris

The Entire Story :P

It was a bright sunny day in Ponyville, not a cloud in the sky. It was hot as well, but frequent summer breezes allowed cool air to creep in. The humidity was bearable but there was a dense fog over the lake and its surroundings. The smell of freshly baked bread and sweets tarried about. Hooves maintained a steady beat as several ponies trotted across the streets as well as the chirpping of both birds and insects in perfect unison. Foals pranced in the streets and small animals scurried around harvesting food scraps. An esscence of pure tranquillity hung in the atmosphere of Ponyville...er most of Ponyville, that is.
"Spiiiike! It's test day" hollered Twilight. The lavender mare tapped her hoof repeadedly as she awaited her klutzy companion dragon to trot down the stairs. "It's such a nice day out," Twilight thought, "The quicker Spike took his weekly test, the quicker they could enjoy the beautiful day".
"I'm coming, I'm coming" grumbled Spike as he climbed down the stairs of the library.
"Spike, as your teacher;" Twilight was cut off.
"I know, I know, wake up with you, take my lessons take my weekly test. We've been over this every week Twilight. You're still my favorite teacher" said Spike as he began to blossom into full consciousness.
"I'm your only teacher. You're homeschooled" snapped Twilight. "Now take your test!"
"Alright, what's this weeks subject?"
"The metric system. Now please take a seat," Twilight gestured over to a desk, "and begin your test". A pencil and test sheet appered out of thin air on top of the desk. Spike walked over to the seat, and started on the test. (in the comments please tell me if i'm suppossed to make a new paragraph when a charater thinks a quote, i'm not the best writer) "Pretty simple" he though as he began. He started filling in correct answers all over his page. The entire test was 100 questions long. Temperature, decibals (loudness) , distance, time, mass, are and volume.
"Alright, Twilight I finished it!" said Spike.
"Really? Lets see here...", Twilight paused, levitated Spikes test paper over to herself and began to check it over. "Right, right, right, right, right, right, wrong, wrong, right....". "Hmmmm.... Spike, you got 92 out of 100 questions correct. Thats 92% or an "A". Now then, what were you in the mood to do today?
Spike was about to answer when suddenly Pinkie Pie came crashing through the window! Pinkie Pie stood up casually and examined her where-abouts. "Hi Twilight! Hi Spike! Hi Owlowiscious! Hi Peewee!"
Owlowiscious hooted. Peewee chirped. Twilights jaw was hanging and her eyes were wide open. She just saw her hyperactive, ADHD, sugarcrazed friend crash through her window for no aparrent reason and just walk it off. She was completely dumbfounded at Pinkie Pies queerness. "Um Pinkie Pie what are you doing here?" Twilight asked nervously.
"Well when I woke up I was sooo bored so I went to Rarity's place. She was working on dresses and i was trying to help her when I spilled dye on hem of the dress she had just finished and that made me sooo sad! I tried to say sorry and then brought over some apology cookies but she was so mad she locked her door on me! Then I went to Sweet Apple Acres to go buck apples with Applejack but I starting spinning really really fast when we were kicking trees and I got sooo dizzy that I accidently kicked a tree and made it fall on the entire bushell of apples that we just collected. Then Applejack went into the barn to take a nap and when I was back with some more apology cookies she locked me out of the barn! Then I went to Fluttershy's cottage and she was teaching her birds a new song so I joined in but I think I was too loud because I scared them all away. Including Fluttershy! When I was back with even more apology cookies she was crying in the corner she was so scared! After that, I tried to find Rainbow Dash but she was either playing hide and seek without telling me or she was just hiding from me. So I was still bored so I came here!" Pinkie Pie had finished her entire story in one breath.
"But but but..." began Twiilight. But there was nothing to say.
"Oopsies! looks like I did that!" Pinkie Pie motioned over to the Pinkie Pie shaped hole through the window. "Give me half a jiffy and I'll be back with some apology cookies!"
"If it makes you feel any better Twilight, half a jiffy is about .0000000000000000000000015 of a second" said Spike. (according to the average time of a jiffy in chemistry spike is correct... i think)

.00000000000000000000000015 of 1 second later...
"I'm baaaaack" exclaimed Pinkie pie as she crashed through the other window of Twilight's library. She was holding a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies that had the words "I'm Sorry!" crudely written on each individual cookie in vivd pink frosting.
"I'm not even going to ask this time" mumbled Twilight as she used her magic to levitate Spike's test in a portfolio.
"Hey what's that thingy?!" asked Pinkie Pie.
"That would be Spike's test on the Equstrian metric system of measuring units." Twilight replied with a matter-of-fact type tone in her voice.
"Sounds fun, can I try?" asked Pinkie Pie
"It's not" said Spike.
"If it'll keep you out of my mane then sure." replied Twilight. Twilight then used her magic to make another copy of the test and a pencil for Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie smilied, took the pencil and paper and got to work.
About an hour later, Spike was outside playing with Peewee, Snip and Snails, Twilight was rereading another novel by J.K.Howling, the Diamond Dog author who wrote the "Harry Pony" series, and Pinkie Pie had just finished her test. "Twilight! I'm done!" Pinkie Pie said with a bitter, irritated tone in her voice.
"Geez Pinkie Pie what's wrong?"
"What's wrong? What's wrong! I'll tell you whats wrong, missy. There is not a single question, not 1 question on the Pinkowatt unit!" yelled Pinkie Pie.
"A what?" asked Twilight, with a confused tone in her voice.
"A Pinkowatt," Pinkie Pie began, "A Pinkowatt is the unit in the Standard Equestrian Metric System of Measurement for measuring the quality of fun!"
"Oh Pinkie Pie there's no such thing as," but Pinkie Pie was not done explaining.
"You see a Pinkowatt is simaler to all metric units. For example: a balloon is equivalent to 1 Pinkowatt. A pice of candy is a CentiPinkowatt or 1/100 of the fun of a balloon. A cupcake is about .1 Pinkowatts or a DeciPinkowatt. A cake or ice-cream cone is about 10 Pinkowatts or a DecaPinkowatt. The average pony spans from 500 to 1500 Pinkowatts or .5 to 1.5 KiloPinkowatts. Make sense? In fact I even have a machine that tells me how many Pinkowatts a pony is. Be back in a jiffy.
One more broken window and a jiffy later, Pinkie Pie had returned carrying a phonograph that was duct tapped to a leaf blower connected to a shower hose that was tied around a kitchen strainer. "This, Twilight is what is know as a Pinkometer. I take this;" Pinkie Pie placed the strainer on Twilight's head, "Then I turn this on," Pinkie Pie cranked up the music disc that was on the phonograph, "Now I flip this switch," Pinkie Pie started to spray duct from the leaf blower all over the library, "And in a few seconds we should here your average Pinkieness or how many Pinkowatts you radiate."
The phonograph music died down and played a recording of Pinkie Pie's voice. "Currant Subject contains 100 Pinkowatts! Subject type is likely to be an inannimate object! Judging on the little amount of pinkowatts radiated, this object is likely to be a doll!"
"I thought you said that most ponies range from 500 to 1500 Pinkowatts" said Twilight, playing along with what appeared to her as a joke.
"Well according to the Pinkometer you are about as fun as 10 whole cakes!" exclaimed Pinkie Pie. "Now then Twilight I hope that you can see that even fun has a unit of measurement and that Spike needs to learn this urgently! I'll be on with my day. Hmph!" Pinkie Pie made sure to take her equipment with her as she climbed out of 1 of the libraries 3 new doors. Twilight sighed and tried to comprehend what had just transpired.
The next day, Twilight was in town checking the bakeries to get a cake for Spikes upcoming 9th birthday. She cantered over to Joe's Doughnut shop for a gigantic doughnut cake. Twilight walked into the store. A soon as the door shut, a little bell went off signifying that a new customer had walked in. Twilight took a place on line and looked at the variaty of sweets on the menu and saw something that caught her eye. "Doughnut Birthday Cake 20 bits, 800 calories, 115 Pinkowatts?!"

Comments

[Arco Iris]

constructive critism is very much appreciated i tried very hard to write... at midnight last night

[Arco Iris]

hmm reading it over again i rushed the plot but its pnikie pie. how aren't you suppossed to rush the plot?

[Silver Sea]

Nice.e.deviantart.com/emoticons/moods/love.gif U mind if I use in one of my stories?
It's funny, at midnight I function perfectlg (my sleep deprived face hitting the keyboard)

[Arco Iris]

689345 the anollogy of measuring fun is open to all!

[Arco Iris]

you know i dont mind dislikes if you explain why my story didnt entertain you to your expectations, you can say:
it wasnt long enough
it was rushed
it was poorly delivered
poor grammar
poor interpretation of characters
poor details in writing
blah blah blah but if you dont explain why you're disliking then you're just being a dick to me and a dick to yourself because you're preventing me from delivering the quality writing that you dont even deserve

[There Is Nothing Here]

Good concept Matt. But 1st thing, yes you should separate text from dialogue with a white line, it makes it a lot less irritating too read. 2nd a lot of it is unexplained because if Pinkie had known about these Pinkowatts for a while, why would they suddenly appear in public? otherwise notbad

[Typewrittensoul]

The feeling I got after reading this was "wasted potential." You've got a great hook, a casual setting and in comes Pinkie Pie. But the way it was presented ended up being messy and distracting and I focused more on understanding what was going on than appreciating the ideas and effort you put in. I feel no sympathy for you just because you posted when you were tired. You're not on a hard deadline to post that would cost you to lose a job. You're writing for fun (I hope) so others can read the ideas you have. If you failed to convey what those ideas are because you wrote late at night, you can't just say "whoops" but instead make sure before publishing, after getting some rest, that you look through the story or have someone that isn't tired look through your story. Even after you post you can still fix up the mistakes once you notice them.

That leads into my first main criticism: give your story a pre-read and review for mistakes or give it to a pre reader/proofreader if you don't feel capable enough of fixing up the errors before you publish. They'll be able to correct your spacing, grammar, spelling and give you advice on how to use middle-of-the-story author's notes to the best comical effect (if the author's notes don't serve a purpose for the story, place it before or after the story or get rid of it entirely). There are a bunch of groups on FIMfiction with pre-readers and proofreaders or go on ponychan.

Second of all, You spent way more time giving a weather report and describing random happenings in Ponyville than setting up the situation between Twilight and Spike. A very strange and jarring sense of pacing happens between the drawn out (and really unorganized mention of a fog over a lake then the smell of baked bread and sweets...over the lake? Common sense dictates that's not true but there's no change of focus of a bakery nearby this lake or making it obvious to the reader that the description has moved away from the lake to the town proper.)

It's obvious that you're assuming the reader's familiarity with the Ponyville library because the level of detail from the first paragraph drops immediately when concerning the layout of the library and where Twilight is and where the scene takes place and jumps straight into dialogue. The dialogue itself feels stiff and unorganic. No one, not even Twilight would speak like this because that's the tone of voice I heard since you didn't use any notable adjective modifiers beyond "grumbled" "snapped", "asked nervously", "matter-of-fact type tone", "bitter, irritated tone" or "confused". The characters don't feel alive because you didn't have them "sigh" or "slump" or "sigh" or "roll their eyes" or "click their tongue", "yelp", "boast", "lecture", "huff", "shake their head" before, during or after speaking (as a list of examples).

Finally the two biggest disappointments I've found would have to be Twilight's tired acceptance of Pinkie's antics, and a wasted punchline. The humor is simply sapped away from any of Pinkie's outrageous actions such as wanton destruction of the library and the whole situation involving her pre-recorded pinkowatt lecture (in case of pinkowatt emergencies). Where's Twilight's righteous anger? Why isn't she burning with rage with how inexcusable Pinkie's being, breaking in and out of the windows like a crazy pony? Reading about that would be hilarious because it points out how absurd the situation is. The best part about "Pinkie being Pinkie" is that no one else would be expected to even consider doing those types of things, much less actually pull them off. The key would have been Twilight playing the "normal" perspective to hammer in that what Pinkie's doing is ridiculous, but instead it was lost within the wordwall.

Second is the revelation of the pinkowatt in common usage, without any set up at all. It just happens and I didn't even realize that that was supposed to be a joke before I reread that line after noticing the "?!" Twilight should have been mumbling to herself or thinking to herself about how ludicrous the idea of the pinkowatt was. That it's one of Pinkie's jokes or some cute made up word....all before Twilight finds out that it's a legit unit of measurement.

Just keep reading and writing to rack up experience and I wish you luck on your next submission.

[Arco Iris]

689965 ill have to say that that was some pretty i pressive and interesting critisism. most the time when im writing i try to look into popular books the see how the mood annd story is set. my main problem is is that i do not want to bore anybody with random sentences but then i miss out on soome key plot points that i should be making. do you think i should edit it and then repost it?

[Typewrittensoul]

690219
Just edit then use what you learned on your next story.

[Domodomo42]

AWESOME!!!!!!!!

[Crow T. Robot]

Hahahaha. Pinkowatts. Might have to steal...I mean, borrow that for my story.

[Arco Iris]

694598 feel free! your story will be over 9000! pinkowatts

[Draco Dei]

"The quicker Spike took his weekly test, the quicker they could enjoy the beautiful day".
-Person and tense problemss: "The quicker Spike take his weekly test, the quicker we can enjoy this beautiful day".

Pinkie Pie started to spray duct from the leaf blower all over the library,
-"spray duct"? Huh?