Due events beyond her control, Twilight Sparkle has come to make a very unpleasant request of Pinkie Pie—to make enough gruel to feed a small army. Will Pinkie crack under pressure? Will she weasel her way out of this? Or will she buck up (somehow) and do her duty? And how did a fairly straightforward slice-of-life story get to be five chapters long?
If you really must know before reading, things get meta and fly off the rails.
Reviews, corrections, and constructive feedback are welcome!
Chapters (5)
Unpleasant because gruel is difficult to make, or because Pinkie won't like doing it?
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Do you think I should have been more explicit with her reasons?
Gruel is very easy to make (combine flour and water and boil it), but I imagined Pinkie would see it as wasted potential (thinking of all the cakes/other actually appetizing pastries that could be made) and opposed to her values (since gruel is associated with austerity and definitely not laughter).
And don't forget that Twilight is uncomfortable too, because she correctly suspects Pinkie won't like it.
Okay! So some thoughts on your story.
This is a solid first fic. Your characterizations of Pinkie and the rest are all on point. Your prose is clean and reads well.
I would say work on focusing the central theme your story. As a reader, I read the first chapter and expected it to be a SoL story about Pinkie learning that she can't always make the thing she likes, and then she learns to find happiness in such a mundane task as making gruel. And it ended up being a sort of existentialism debate spoken by ponies. Between the different scenes and characters, I was struggling whether to feel comedy or feel philosophical.
Every story should come together around a common theme or message. Meta stories can be good, but they still have to feel like a single story that revolves around a central message. I feel bad for self-promoting, but just cozy glow is a meta story I wrote that got top reviews. Even stories made up of disjointed "vignettes" all connect with each other and flow from one to the next.
This is more a matter of personal taste, but too many descriptors can feel a bit overwhelming for the reader. A few simple words can convey deep meaning. Also look up "lavender unicorn syndrome".
It takes time to adjust to writing for a particular fandom. It is a continual learning process. I hope you will continue to write after this, and let me know if you have any questions.