Convention vendor, compulsive writer. I have a Patreon for monthly bills and a KoFi for tips.
A year after Spike returned Pee Wee to his parents, the little phoenix chick has returned for a visit... but he's being a bit of a pest. As Sir Richer Attaburro observes, Spike, Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer struggle to cope with an uninvited, and very rude, guest...
A silly bit of nonsense written for Everfree ScribbleFest 2017.
Part of the Remember Fort Libris print anthology, thanks to our Kickstarter supporters!
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Witnessed.
That end!
Highly amusing
"Behold the magnificent adolescent alicorn in her natural bedroom habitat as she prepares for sleep. It is a complicated ritual, with an additional element to the dance of drowsiness today. The young Princess Twilight seems to have added a hammer of sorts to her toothbrush, mane comb, and hoof polishing, and is stalking around the room for some reason. Watch as she approaches our secret camera hiding pla--"
Dickie Penisburg.
This was hilarious. And a tiny bit scary, but mostly hilarious.
I like that this set up it's premise early and it works well for that. There are some minor bits that fall flat for me, mostly Starlight's self-deprecation, (and why does Spike assume Pee Wee is "moving in" and not just visiting at first?) and a few minor technical mistakes, but overall I like the idea.
What falls short for me is this story feels feels like it overreached. There's a great premise here, with Pee Wee being harrassed by a nature documentary. Attaburro's voice-overs are pretty hilarious, but it's weakened by having two or three other characters also commenting. The gist of this story is a visual comedy, Pee Wee does something disrespectful, Attaburro explains it humorously, and Twilight/Spike/Starlight fume about it. The last element is too vocal though. A single interjection about "Not my comics!" or "But that book is over 800 years old!" or something is fine, but we should (and do) already know from the descriptions of the action just how bad it is. E.g. the descriptions of plastic on the comics lets us know they're rare, etc. Having Spike then explain it just slows down the pace and weakens/delays the humor of Attaburro's narration. In fact, it might even be funnier if it's set up early on that they have to remain absolutely silent to not "disturb nature." Then you can add a little extra humor with Spike, Twilight, etc. acting out their rage, rather than saying it.
The ending also feels off. Nothing indicates this naturalist is crazy, just... dedicated. There needs to be more evidence that Pee Wee is specifically being annoyed/harrassed by this guy than the one eye-roll early on, and/or more evidence he's off his rocker. Otherwise the twist there just blindsides the reader and feels cheap. Maybe, instead of the mysterious cameras popping out everywhere, have them actually be toilet paper rolls with the words like "camera" written in sharpie on them to make it more obvious.
Overall, I really like the premise, and the quality of the prose is up there as well. I just think it could be stronger if it had a tad more focus.
8033874 Much of what you say about pacing, excess reliance on dialog, etc. is spot on with my feelings on the story.
But I think you've missed the point about Attaburro. Even taking into account the magical nature of Equestria, it ought to be blatantly obvious that what Pee Wee is doing is not instinct or nature. Yet Attaburro's narration utterly, completely fails to recognize this. Granted that for dramatic purposes I had to keep the early instances halfway plausible, by the time Pee Wee's parents show up it ought to be blatantly clear that Attaburro is off his nut. (Unless American Express issues lines of credit to songbirds where you live?) Pee Wee is playing off Attaburro's delusions to keep him occupied until the nice young ponies with the clean white coats can come to take him away, ha-ha.
8034425 I'm sorry, but to me, it's not so obvious. That's the problem with Equestria. Nothing is "natural" including the weather, animal hibernation patterns, or anything else. This is a land where trees "naturally" grow into libraries with spare bedrooms, and ponies naturally farm (and EAT) rocks. Because of that, it's almost impossible to assume anything about the base setting, especially when it comes to different authors interpretations of it.
In that light, the bit with the credit card was hilarious, but only because the bird actually DID have a credit card AND knew how to order pizza with it. If Pee Wee himself was doing nothing un-bird-like, and the narration was making up crazy stuff, then sure. But he only described what the bird actually did. Yes, in a funny/ridiculous way, but... it's very, very difficult to determine if that "ridiculous" description is the conceit of the story (and is true in terms of the story), or merely that particular character (who is crazy.) It certainly doesn't come across to me that he is genuinely, escaped-the-loony-bin nuts, as Twilight herself has done crazier things just taking notes on Pinkie or when worried about homework, but she was never locked up for it.
But that's just my two cents, and how it reads to me.
8034425
Yeesh, Twilight, you must hang a lot of lampshades around here.
late edit:
I bet Celestia has to do that a lot