Pleasant Commentator and Review Group Reviews

Several days ago...

Well, that's another review done! Let's check the ol' submission list, shall we?

Hmm... that's quite a lot of words. I suppose I should pick based on what really speaks out to me, what I feel would most accurately create a dynami-

HA, yoink!

Linkedy Link: I mean, she's not really Pink-ie Pie by 8542Madness

First Impressions

Synopsis:

Pinkie wakes up in the basement of the bakery one morning to discover that her pink coat is now completely white. This realization rocks the foundations of her entire world, causing her to go a journey of self-experience to learn more about who she really is.

Or not.

^A solid way to start a comedy fic. It doesn't deviate too much from the path of other writers I've seen before, but the whole 'silly exaggeration into a <2000 word comedy fic' shtick is used because it works.

Pic is relevant. Next!

Tags. Comedy and Slice of Life. Yes, I did say specifically that I wasn't going to do Slice of Life last review, No, I didn't remember until just now, honest.

Now from my understanding, when you're doing a small one-shot like this is, you want to have one point that your story revolves around. This is because, well.. you can't really fit anything else in, right?

Now, since this is tagged comedy, and the synopsis is comedically exaggerated, I'd expect the story to revolve around that aspect more strongly than the other tag. And it does... kind of? More on this later.

Plot

*Looks at synopsis again*

her pink coat is now completely white

This realization rocks the foundations of her entire world

Well, that was easy.

And yes, this is an everyone-rated fic. Don't think so dirty.

Mechanics

Grammar: I don't remember seeing any mistakes. All good here!

Dialogue: For the majority of the time, Pinkie is by herself. All Dialogue is internal, so we only really need to judge how Pinkie sounds in this fic in relation to the show.

And does the author pull it off? Kinda. I wasn't thrilled by the crazy exaggerations of the synopsis, but she does go down some pretty unnatural thinking-routes. I suppose it depends on how she says it, and I couldn't judge that based on the text alone; italics weren't used for emphasis, rather just being used for her thoughts.

In my opinion, I'd say it'd make more sense if she talked out loud, and that'd make showing the emphasis a lot easier. Plus, it makes her sound crazier, and she's crazy ol' Pinkie, right? The dialogue's interpretation of Pinkie isn't amazing here, but the overall message is brought to the reader.

Worldbuilding: She's in a basement. Next!

Pacing: Like I said, it does get the point across. This pretty much feeds into impact, and since I think that subtitle looks cooler anyway:

Impact: Here's the only other issue I really had with the fic.

When the joke happened, I was like, "Ah hah! That was sort of funny." As the author themselves say, if it makes you chuckle, the story serves its purpose.

And then it goes on for another 300 words. For the author's reference, it's at "Pinkie, I don’t… nevermind. I’m not even going to try." that I thought it should have ended. That's a funny line!

It's very slice-of-lifey, and makes the humour from before fall flat. If this is primarily a comedy fic, then it should really have ended on the punchline, and that's the same for most, if not all very short comedy one-shots.

Conclusion

However!

If you were going for a slice of life fic... then I'd say you did a pretty good job. You showed an instance from these ponies lives, you gave a bit of background later on, and the background wasn't boring. If this was a slice of life fic, I'd say it would be paced pretty well!

The only problem is that synopsis, and the comedy tag! When you do one-shot comedy fics, you tend to just do the comedy-bit. The comedy tag + synopsis here sets up an expectation that isn't entirely filled.

If I felt this was going straight down the Slice of Life road, with a little joke at the start, then the last bit of the story would make a lot of sense.

So, regardless of the relatively high scores that I may give you... this fic needs work, just a tiny bit of work. Delete the 300 words, and I'd suggest making Pinkie's lines a bit more exaggerated, and I'd give it a 'recommended' for that. Or, change the synopsis + tags to something more fitting of a slice-of-life. After that, I'd put it in 'recommended' as a slice of life.

It's a weird case, to be sure, but no less enjoyable.

Scores:

Plot: There isn't a lot you can fit in 1600 words, but I did like the concept. 15/20

Mechanics: The strongpoint of the fic. 17/20

Characterisation: With some added crazy, Pinkie's lines could be a lot funnier. 13/20

Originality: The fic's set up like a lot of authors have done previously, even if the plot seems to be different from the rest. 12/20

Impact: Is it a slice of life, or comedy? Work this out, and this'll be a lot easier to score. 10/20

Final Score: 67/100

*Needs Work* (For the reasons I described above)