Ponyfic Roundup 536: Comedy Special

Read it Later story count: 89 (nc)

Words read this week: 30,946

Before I get going today, I'd like to acknowledge the fact that DrakeyC has announced their retirement from ponyfic and from fanfic as a whole. A very fine writer, good enough indeed to have been asked to write official MLP content (several of the claymation shorts). I certainly wish them well for the future. Back to the matter in hoof, and today it's all about the [Comedy] tag. I'm looking here for stories that are actually funny, which isn't quite the norm is should be when it comes to this genre marker! Let's see what these fics can do:

Beating the Deadbeat by BikerPon3
Metagaming by Snowday_Pegasus
Starlight Saves Equestria With Custard by hawthornbunny
Lyra's Deepest Secret by Palm Palette
Regarding the Need for Sex Education by GaPJaxie

★: 0 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

Beating the Deadbeat by BikerPon3
Starlight, Other [Sludge], Rarity and Spike
G4; Comedy/Slice of Life; 1k words; Oct 2018; Everyone

You don’t just throw Starlight Glimmer out of the bathroom window and get away with it.

BikerPon3 sadly only has two stories available these days, and one is both unfinished and M-rated, so here's the other one. This is a fixfic for S8's "Father Knows Beast", which is... not a universally popular episode, let's say kindly. Starlight has had it with Sludge and lets rip in response with everything she's got. That's pretty much all this is, so if you like the sound of that it's worth the five minutes it'll take to read. Top-end two, since I'm nudging it above the actual mid-point because I don't like Sludge either. :P ★★

Metagaming by Snowday_Pegasus
Discord, Daring Do, Dr Caballeron [and OC (Fizzy Glitch)]
G4; Adventure/Comedy/Drama; 14k words; Nov 2023; Everyone

My entry in the Ponyville Ciderfest 2023 anthology book, "Scattered Pages: Tales from the Book of All Stories."

This was a somewhat frustrating experience for me. Fimfiction rules forbid stories that only work as in-jokes, and while Metagaming doesn't come into that category as a whole, a few parts of it do run rather close to the line. The setup for Scattered Pages is basically that a book of destiny whose pages are scattered across dimensions, and that anyone who has one can rewrite history and reality. This is apparently explained further in the prologue story on the Ciderfest website – but the provided link to that is now dead, which is really, really unhelpful to newcomers. Anyway, Fizzy Glitch (the con's kirin mascot, who loves all things digital) joins the others tagged to fight against a Tantabus – but this struggle takes place inside the internet. I do like the character interactions here, and the adventure aspects are pretty enjoyable as well. Even the very meta bits (ponies encountering 4chan and the like) are reined in more than all those 2011 fics tended to manage. However, much of the humour missed the mark with me. Fortunately a couple of very clunky anti-AI lines early on were not continued all through, but Fizzy's dialogue didn't quite, well, fizz. I suspect a chunk of this was because I was missing the con knowledge required. (As an example, Discord at one point thinks about "cider with Charlie". Nopony explains who Charlie might be. Presumably Charlie Worthley, the con chair, but I only knew that by chance.) This story is doubtless immense fun for those who attended Ciderfest 2023. I felt like an outsider pressing my face against the window for much of the time, and with that prologue missing I never really felt I'd got inside the story – hence the mere two stars. ★★

Starlight Saves Equestria With Custard by hawthornbunny
Starlight and Twilight
G4; Comedy/Drama/Thriller; 4k words; Apr 2021; Everyone

Custard was the bane of Starlight's existence. Now, it's her last hope.

The fact that this exists at all is my fault. When I incautiously created the Custardverse with Starlight Repeatedly Teleports into Custard, hawthornbunny leapt into action. (Okay, it took five years, but thought was needed. Rabbits have a lot to consider when it comes to leaping.) Hawthorn is a fine friend, but one who could still not be dissuaded from writing this. As it turns out, though, it's a fine yarn and custard plays a relatively small – though still key – part in proceedings. The central conflict is between Starlight and Nightmare Twilight, a confrontation that is interestingly handled with the help of a nice piece of show lore. Oh, and there's sudoku (or something in that line) as well. This isn't rolling-on-the-floor funny, but the custard does provide light relief. I enjoyed this; it's better than my custard story. Damning with faint praise, I know! :D But yeah, not just a three but a high-end three, I think. More than worth your time. Also, it has one of the greatest chapter titles ever. ★★★

Lyra's Deepest Secret by Palm Palette
Lyra
G4; Comedy/Human; 4k words; Apr 2015; Everyone

What possible use can Lyra have for a costume which looks exactly like herself?

Lyra pays Rarity (a lot) to make her a Lyra costume. Yes, you read that right. But a Lyra costume with just a few deliberate flaws. You can probably guess that this involves humans (I mean, the genre tag is right there) but it's in a rather different way to the usual. You'll either see this coming from the start or – like me – absolutely kick yourself when the twist becomes clear. The story loses a little goodwill from me for making an off-putting reference to a certain old-fandom Lyra plush,¹ and one of the humans is tediously clichéd, but this does mostly manage to be both fairly amusing and, at times, even rather adorable. That pushes it above the 2/3-star boundary and into the lower threes. ★★★
¹ Yeah, that one. If you don't know, count yourself lucky.

Regarding the Need for Sex Education by GaPJaxie
Twilight, Celestia and Mane Six
G4; Romance/Comedy; 8k words; Apr 2013; Teen

Ponies these days are nuzzling younger than ever. Talk to your foals about the dangers of unprotected tummy rubs.

The recently-crowned Twilight is worried that she might be pregnant. This would be startling enough, except that she thinks the pony responsible is Celestia. Yeah, exactly. That's what Rarity thinks as well. This sets off a comedy of silliness featuring a hilariously uncomfortable Rainbow Dash and variously helpful or not interventions from the other Manes too. It's all absolutely ridiculous, but it's very funny with it as long as you don't start using too much logic. Definite bonus points for such a smooth escalation of the idiocy, too. The thing that makes this a really good story rather than a great one (for me, though I acknowledge many people completely adored it) is that it seriously stretches credulity in a canon-universe tale that S3 Twilight would be this oblivious to one of the most basic facts of life. This point doesn't irritate me nearly as much as it did MythrilMoth, and in an unashamedly stupid comedy I can mostly take it. Mostly. I'm impressed that pudding plays a part five years before that scene in the show, and the maintenance of such an absurd story over nearly 8,000 words means I'm placing it just in the fours. Stupid fun, but there is a lot of the "fun" part. ★★★★

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Back to the ol' mixed bag next time around, although it will be the usual number of five stories under the microscope. And what will those be, you may very well ask? Fortunately for you, I'm going to tell you right now!

All But Two by Caisius
Rivers of Babylon by A Hoof-ful of Dust
Silver String of Love by foxmaster
The Monster We Made by Corah Il Cappo
Twilight Sparkle and the Elements of Bootlegs by TheDriderPony