Check out the Poll Brackets For Winners!
Or all of the April Foals Entries
Below are the Entries for Round 6! Comments below!
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27) Pranks for Nothing, Pinkie Pie
Description: It's April Fools' day in Ponyville, but nothing for Pinkie Pie is going as it should! An attempt at a comedy piece by Neon Noble--look out, it's kinda long![Normal] Everypony, Pinkie Pie, Author: Neon Noble
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28) Junior Pranksters Forever
Description: Rainbow Dash and Gilda have long been the biggest pranksters at Junior Speedsters, but what happens when one of their pranks goes too far?[Grimdark], Rainbow Dash, Gilda, Author: Pacce
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29) All the Ponies I Call A Friend
Discription: oh Twilight, what have you gotten yourself into?[Grimdark][Random] Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie
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30) The Prankster
Description: March 2011, Ponyville. A serial prankster is loose. Nopony is safe. Our only hope? Detective Spike. But can he face his demons and find the crook before it's too late?[Grimdark] Spike, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Author: Daffodil
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31) Tale of the April Fool
Description: The cutie mark crusaders tell stories[Normal] Applebloom, Author: d d
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38 comments:
Judging by who's probably going to get the most votes, I'm voting for 'Junior Pranksters Forever'. I really liked how it played out.
ReplyDeleteThe Prankster will get the most votes for just being sarcastically grimdark and having music to go with it.
Prepare you're voting button because today something grimdark will hopefully get a good number of votes.
#29. It could use some editing, but god damn that was creepy (and funny) as hell.
ReplyDeleteI like Junior Pranksters Forever the best; I was very impressed by how the author ties it with the actual show later.
ReplyDeleteWow I've never noticed how adorable photo finish looks when smiling
ReplyDeleteI liked Junior Pranksters forever as well. The writing was the best of the bunch, I think, and as others have said, the tie-in with the actual show was well done.
ReplyDeleteTale of the April Fool was decent, as well. Scootaloo's part, though annoying, was characteristically annoying. Shameless self-flattery just seems fitting with her, similar to Rainbow Dash.
I don't want to sound mean, but I can't tell why Pranks for Nothing is winning. The story's fine, and the characterization was well done, but the majority of the writing seemed incredibly "forced" to me.
@Jebin Zedalu
ReplyDeleteMore than likely because most people don't read Grimdark and just picked between the two non-Grimdark entries.
This one is kinda tough...
ReplyDeleteI really like Tales of April Foals, The Prankster, and Junior Pranksters Forever(even though I wrote it).
I mean tales has 4 great little stories (my favorite being Scootaloo's), the Prankster has wonderful atmosphere (helped by the music), and JPF has really fun character interaction...
I think Imma have to read through the three again... and then focus on the negatives.
The other two:
Pranks for nothing was a nice read, but I felt let down by the resolution.
All the Ponies I Call Friend was... weird and creepy and I had trouble actually following what I was reading.
The Prankster is amazing. Whoever wrote that is a god among bronies. It's just so... perfect. Especially Pinkie Pie.
ReplyDeleteThe Prankster isn't really grimdark more than say, Bugsy Malone is. Very tongue in cheek, I like it. Has my vote anyway.
ReplyDeleteCritical Reviews Tiem!
ReplyDeletePart 1: Junior Pranksters Forever!
*SPOILERS*
Hmmm....
Obviously, I liked all the stuff with Dash and Gilda paling around, it makes up for about 1/3 of the story or more. I think that it flowed nicely and it was easy to follow who was saying/doing what and it never made me feel like the story was just killing time.
But then we get to the dark parts... The first one where Gilda is explaining to Rainbow Dash what happened is... well... really dark. It's kinda depressing and really isn't any fun at all to read. Then there's the part in the cave where Gilda apparently murders Show Stopper, also not any fun.
The trouble is that without these parts, the story doesn't work because if you don't at least wonder if "Well, maybe this IS legit" even for a second, then all your doing is waiting impatiently for the big reveal. And yet, they still sorta suck the fun out.
The Zombie Pony scene was really over the top, but again, that was the point. It does make it so that this would prolly be more appropriate for Halloween or something, but I digress.
While I like Dash's reaction to the reveal, it would have prolly been better if I had left it a bit more ambiguous as to how much she actually believed. I have her SAY that Gilda only really had her going a couple of time, but in the story she's plainly freaking out. So I guess she was just lying to Gilda... :\
The little Derpy cameo is perhaps a little gratuitous and while too short to be really funny, I also feel that stretching it out would have veered into info dump territory and would have made it even less funny or interesting.
Show Stopper was nice enough as far as OCs. She has a defined special talent, her talent is plausible and it's alluded to that she had enough spare time (due to cutting classes) to make the elaborate make up and whatever. She's also a jerk, so we don't feel TOO bad when Gilda screws her over, but she also has enough of a personality for us to see that she did in fact get screwed over. (For those curious I give her the VA of BB Bluff from Doug)
Then there's the finale and show tie-in. While it's also nice enough to wrap the whole thing together, I feel like the interaction between Pinkie and Rainbow was a little dry given how much time was put into the the stuff with her and Gilda. Ultimately I think I missed an opportunity to show that Dash and Pinkie had become similarly as close without having to hurt or exclude those around them.
There's sort of supposed to be a lesson her about taking things too far, but since none of the characters actually learn it, it becomes a little lost.
I like this story, I do. But it could have used another day of rewrites and editing to be REALLY good.
Guys, I'll be incredibly disappointed if I only win because my story isn't grimdark.
ReplyDeleteI've read two of the grimdark stories up there and, I must admit, they were good! (Junior Pranksters Forever and The Prankster, if you're wondering.)
And if you're just voting Pranks for Nothing because it's the first one listed in the poll, you probably shouldn't be voting at all. :P
All the ponies i call friends is a really good grimdark story, the reason people dislike it is because it's a bit heavy on the philosophical and depressing side of things IMO.
ReplyDeleteCritical Reviews Tiem!
ReplyDeletePart 2: The Prankster
*SPOILERS*
First thing I want to talk about is the atmosphere. It is, in a single word, perfect. The music (while not necessary) adds to it even more, sucking me in to the rain slicked precipice of darkness that is Ponyville.
Next thing is the tone of the story which is... kind of erratic actually. It starts off making itself very clear as to what it is, a bit of parody. Spike smokes a candy cane and the police treat pranking as murder (the first crime scene, in my opinion, perfectly nails the balance between parody and love letter to noir). Then it gets... twisty. There are actual prostitutes for the sexing (Rarity included who is murdered by her pimp, presumably) the pranks somehow ACTUALLY being fatal despite being explicitly not at the start of the story, Spike drinking and beating ponies to a bloody pulp, and good old fashioned swearing. It just strikes me that this story lost all of it's parody aspects after the first two scenes and then became straight noir crime drama... except for Pinkie Pie scene (which was brilliant, it was hilarious and it kind of gave me the chills "You are having fun, right!?"). It's just a bit distracting and really needed to pick where it wanted it's tone to be and stayed there.
The story was a very straight up noir tale, the only complaint I could levy against it is that maybe it could have used another suspect. Then again, despite that I still didn't actually see it coming (my money was on Twilight). So I guess it worked out fine as it was.
One thing I could say about this story is that it definately had a case of the "in name only"s for several of the characters. Spike didn't snark, Derpy presumably had her eye issue but that's just a guess based on how she told Spike not to call her that, Dash wasn't loyal or brave and she lacked her ego, Gilda and Twilight were basically set dressing and Rarity was only her in so far as she was pretty, well dressed, and owned the dress shop (which gives her three occupations I guess). Pinkie Pie was perfect, but that's because she was entirely unchanged, she was a complete foreigner to this land of noir. Pinkie made for a great contrast to the world around her (which is why it was my favorite scene), but it would have been nice if some of the others had some of the more recognized personality traits. Applejack was the only character, in my opinion, who seemed to be themselves but changed to fit in the world as opposed to being a noir character with a MLP name stamped on.
Whew, all that said I actually loved this story. It just wasn't very My Little Pony.
@Pacce
ReplyDelete*takes notes*
Thanks for the feedback! I'll keep all of that in mind if I choose to write some more.
Also, the best of luck to everyone else in this bracket. Y'all are super talented and I wouldn't be upset if I lost to...well, any of you.
Critical Reviews Tiem!
ReplyDeletePart 3: Tale of the April Fool
*SPOILERS*
Heh, this was a neat way to go about it, a 4-in-1! So I shall talk about each story separately.
Applebloom's story was actually best surmised by Scootaloo, it sucked. It had nothing original really going for it, it had no real point except for a lame "scare" at the end. I suppose it served to illustrate that Applebloom wasn't good at telling ghost stories, but that didn't make it any more interesting to read.
Scootaloo's story had what Applebloom's story lacked, fun and energy. It was a silly story to be sure, but I could so clearly picture her telling it and getting more excited as she went along making up more ridiculous things. You even captured her way with words, or lack thereof. It was all and all very much a story that a kid who likes heroic figures would tell.
Sweetie Belle's story actually surprised me. After Scoot's exciting tale I though it was all down hill from here, but she comes out with a fabulous and romantic fairy tale. I had a huge dopey grin on my face throughout. Honestly, I would love to find out how that all turned out for the princess and the fool she so loved.
Then there's Granny Smith's story... Yeesh, way to suck all the fun out of the story. I like the idea of a poet in love with the moon, and by extension Luna, but then it takes a turn for the really dark. It's very depressing which is fine enough, telling four different kinds of stories was sort of the point of this piece as far as I could tell, but they way it ends on that makes it seem like this story was point of them all.
It just felt to me like this thing COULD have fit right into the show right until the last story when we're hit with a torturing tyrant Celestia and all for the sake of a gag about that one old pony who's cutie mark was apparently hidden under his blanket or absent due to animation error from Feeling Pinkie Keen. Had it been more of "just a story" this would have all added up to a fascinating collection, but it hammers in that "THIS TOTALLY HAPPENED" and it just sort of ends the whole thing on a sour note.
End of the day, I really really really liked three fifths of this story. The framing device with them all telling stories was great, Applebloom's story was dull, Scoot's was hilarious, Sweetie's was precious, and then Granny sorta shoots the story dead and tells us to stop having fun.
Critical Review Tiem!
ReplyDeletePart 4: All the Ponies I call Friend
*SPOILERS*
Um... I didn't like it. It took a long time to get to the point, the "prank" was cruel and extremely improbable, Twilight seemed to accept that everypony was a hallucination RIDICULOUSLY fast and without even bothering to... LOOK OUT HER WINDOW, and then it just ends with Pinkie screaming April Fools at the near death Twilight.
I think a lot of my dislike comes from the fact that it combines Grimdark and Random which are my two least favorite kinds of stories, so take this for what it is, which is just one dude's opinion.
*rubs eyes by the candle light*
ReplyDeleteDear diary.
It's the 6th day of the April's Fool contest. Ran out of food yesterday, today I had to eat dry bread on moldy cheese. Water will last for one more day, two at best.
The stories turned grim today. Due to the past 5 days my mind and soul got weakened, this turn of event felt like a kick in the balls.
My eyes hurt and I feel dizzy.
To make things worse I read Cupcakes on the 2nd day of the contest. Now in my weakened state I start having flashes of the story, mixing together with today's disturbing story "All the Ponies I Call A Friend". I'm starting to live in a bizzare sub-reality.
I don't know how long will I last.
The stories keep coming. I can hear them scratching on the walls of my mind. They keep whispering in the shadows.
If anyone ever finds this journal, I want them to know, I tried my best and fought till the end.
Anyone who walks this road after me, heed my warning: turn back now. Ponies will get you.
Critical Review Tiem!
ReplyDeletePart Last: Pranks for Nothing, Pinkie Pie
*SPOILERS*
Okay, let's start with how it was written! It's written very much from Pinkie's own colourful point of view which makes for some very entertaining narration. The only part where that is ever problematic is when it briefly stops over into Dash's mind early on when the same colourful narration. Not a big deal, it was only a paragraph long, but it was a bit distracting.
Now as for the story itself! Okay, so literally EVERY SINGLE PONY IN PONYVILLE had to be in on this, okay, I kinda liked Anger Management so I can accept that. But... why? The only prank they seemed to have was... making a fake town. Everything else, the glue, the airhorn, and burning down the house all seemed to be her own fault... unless they MEANT to trap her in a burning building... Well, if you keep in mind the spring board and the fact that Pinkie Pie can't fly (usually) then I guess the logical conclusion was that they were trying to kill her. Huh.
Another thing that was on my mind throughout and brought into emphasis by the ending was thus: Why do you hate Rainbow Dash? She gets stuck in a costume full of itching powder for the entire day, launched across town, dyed orange, and it's pretty heavily implied that she was somehow the only other pony in town NOT in on the Pinkie prank otherwise none of that would make sense. I thought the whole point of this was supposed to be a big prank on Pinkie, but Rainbow is clearly the chew toy of the story.
So yeah, I really like the way this was written. It had a very entertaining style about it and I REALLY liked how Pinkie Pie was written for the most part. But the plot is just a major head scratcher for me, I just don't get what the point was. Or rather I do get the point the author was trying to go for, but the story seems to fall well short of it. Like if an entire town of ponies and, um, their god were all aligned against Pinkie I'd think it would make sense for their to be a kind of humiliation conga going for her where every prank she did backfired against HER as opposed to the town just operating normally as they hoped Pinkie would nearly kill herself after torturing Dash and accidentally leading Fluttershy into the ONLY PRANK AIMED AT HER THE ENTIRE STORY. I dunno, maybe they sicked the cat at her?
I really hope I didn't offend or upset anyone with the harsher critiques.
ReplyDeleteI thank all of the authors for their hard work and I hope that they keep writing and that we all keep getting better.
Oh and my vote went to the Prankster. It sucked me in and then thrilled, chilled, and fulfilled me.
ReplyDeleteSo yeah.
Review time!
ReplyDeletePranks for Nothing:
Overall very enjoyable! The imagery is particularly nice, as if the narration had taken on a Pinkie tone of its own. All the 'background' pranks very nice too. Quick enough to get a chuckle without detracting from the pace. Good use of the "How we got here" narrative structure. The punchline was great, totally unexpected (if prone to a bit of fridge logic), and also a nice callback to Twilight's Sanity Slip moment from Bridle Gossip. Well done!
Nitpicks: A few grammatical errors here and there, and I don't think a cat could remove ALL traces of cloth glued onto a pony. Minor issues.
Junior Pranksters:
I'm not a big fan of grimdark stuff, but I'll give this a try.
Well, that wasn't as bad as I expected. Good overall, but it strays a little too close to comfort to some touchy subjects of mine. The only main flaw was the ending tying into Brush Off. Dash's motivation for doing the pranks doesn't really gel with her speech at the end of the episode.
All the Ponies I Call A Friend.
There seems to be some flow issues, but I can't quite pin it down. It just seems choppy. The April Fools theme seemed tacked on, as it doesn't really fit well into the story. There are a few typos ('was almost gone' at the end being repeated twice the most glaring). Besides the fact that grimdark doesn't suit me, the breakdown seems a bit disorderly. I feel like it should be more gradual. Piece by piece slipping into place as more things start making sense to her. There are also several grammatical errors around, the repetition of the phrase 'was almost gone' at the end being the most glaring. Overall, it feels a bit sloppy, and doesn't incorporate the April 1st theme very well.
Hmm, at first glace this seems less grimdark, and more Film Noir, which I can appreciate. I like Film Noir. I like how 'pranking' is a criminal offense, a replacement for murder. Ties in well with the pie battle from Over A Barrel. Nice minor twist with Twilight being Spike's secretary, rather than the other way around, as well as Pinkie's 4th wall breaking. Kinda eerie (in a nice way) with her being herself, instead of more like Joker.
Now, this is a story I can get behind. Everything fits here well. Normally, dark stuff doesn't fit well in the ponyverse, it just clashes too much. But the characters and setting are changed just enough to be a believable alternate universe, removed far enough from canon so that it doesn't clash. Good job. I'm not exactly sure of the prankster's motivations, as I can't find all the links to Pinkie's victims right off. I'll search deeper later.
Lastly, Tale of the April Fool
Applebloom has a house? Okay, okay, I'll stop. :) It's a nice collection of short stories, and it's sweet overall, but it doesn't really pack much of a punch. Each story fit each pony well, but the story didn't really pick up much speed. I felt each mini-story could benefit from some description of the storyteller telling it.
My pick: I'm going to have to choose between Pranks For Nothing, and The Prankster. I liked the atmosphere of the Prankster better, so it gets my vote.
@PhantomFox
ReplyDeleteMine does go too dark in places, huh.
Also yeah, she did say that it was dumb luck that Gilda kept setting off, well most of the pranks, she did lead her right into one or two.
Done with all five. I voted The Prankster.
ReplyDeleteWell written, delivering a noir atmosphere to Ponyville and the delicately selected music. The entire story just got me, even if it fell weird and alien in an MLP concept.
Congratz, good job.
Gonna tell my two cents on the stories now as I did in the previous rounds. I see Pacce wrote some extensive critics on them already, which I didn't read yet so I don't get affected by it.
My thoughts are shorter, so if I'm vague at some points I'm sure you can comb together the two .)
*** Mild Spolier alert ***
[Pranks for Nothing, Pinkie Pie] - Sorry but the story didn't get to me. It was nice to finally see a story from pinkie's perspective but I felt it a bit rushed and incoherent at certain points and the ending was simply too much for me. All the ponies. Even the Princess. It seemed more like a serious crusade on Pinkie rather than a prank-revenge by the town.
[Junior Pranksters Forever]: I really liked this one. I think it was well written, the characters came through and I a nice twist in it. Good job there ^-^
[All the Ponies I Call A Friend]:Nice concept but...that was kind of distrubing. Weird. Can't really find a word to describe it to be honest. Probably cruel fits it the most.
Grim and cruel. I don't like such stories in MLP, but putting aside my personal taste I encourage you to work with that concept. Has potential and you certainly have what it takes to deliver it to the readers, just needs some "extra touch".
Could use a bit more work on the ending imo and overall some polishing.
At this stage I'm not really sure whether this was an overdone joke by Pinkie as she drove Twilight to insanity or the story of Twilight's descent into madness as she gained a final peek on reality just before she passes away to the eternal fields of Equestria.
[The Prankster]: Unique in the competition so far, I guess that's what gripped me the most. I liked the story telling, the music, the atmosphere you have created. Keep up the good work ^-^
[Tale of the April Fool]: Can't add much to this apart from being nice, cute, the CMCs acted true to their personalities in my opinion and had a nice twist in the end. Can't really tell why but I still felt a bit...empty in the end. Something is missing. Can't word what.
But still, it's a good work.
@Pacce - if I can recall well, it's you who I should thank for offering a relieving ending to the Cupcakes story. Thanks for that .)
@Pacce
ReplyDeleteAfter reading my own story over again, I can see what you mean. To be honest, I DID have to rush a bit to get it on time, so the plot suffered some. I'm more proud of how I wrote it than anything--maybe it would have made more sense if I'd stopped to think about it.
I had an ending in mind from the beginning. It's so hard to write when you know the beginning and end without knowing the middle.
Thanks for the review, though! I'll keep your criticisms in mind next time around. =D
Also, I actually LOVE Rainbow Dash, but that doesn't mean I should treat her like a princess all the time. :P
You know, when I went through them I was SURE The Prankster would win, if only because of the multimedianess of it. And look at those results...
ReplyDelete@Mads
ReplyDeleteEh. I think it's partially because it's grimdark and partially because it's long. Not many people want to stick through 4500+ words after reading five stories a day for the past week.
I'm just happy that those who read it enjoyed it.
@Daffodil
ReplyDeleteYou wouldn't happen to be on deviantArt or anything, would you? I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I'm kind of upset by how the voting is going so far, I mean all the previous polls had at least five hundred votes each.
ReplyDeleteWhatever happend to the 'books judged by their cover' law? I know I can easily handle being judged the worst, but not these stories. Not these stories "sniffle".
Neon Noble I hope you aren't too dissapointed because so far, it 'seems' like you're winning by fear alone.
@Daffodil
ReplyDeleteI understand why people don't want to read grimdark, but the thing is, it's very confusive.
I keep reading stories labeled as [Grimdark] even if I hate the genre, simply because the category is so vague I find good stuff there.
Grimdark should be divided into subcategories.
It's simply unfair towards the authors and the readers alike to put something as epic and barely grimdark as The Eternal Night (or The Prankster, in fact)and truly depressing, disturbing stuff like, Cupcakes or All the Ponies I call a Friend under the same category.
@D. Shadows
ReplyDeleteWhat's most disappointing is that it seems like it's no contest when I feel like it's a much tougher call than that.
I wish more people would post their opinions so I could at least know the real reason I'm 'winning'.
@D. Shadows
ReplyDeleteWhat's most disappointing is that it seems like it's no contest when I feel like it's a much tougher call than that.
I wish more people would post their opinions so I could at least know the real reason I'm 'winning'.
@Neon Noble
ReplyDeleteMy guess, cause yours was funniest.
And that's a very important quality that folks look for in a story.
@Mads
ReplyDeleteI don't have one atm, but I may make one in the future. Depends on how much time I can commit to writing.
wow, my story got blasted to shit.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying I expected to win the bracket, I'd have been happy with 3rd or even 4th but holy fuck it's not even close to the next story in line.
and uhhh I hate to be "this" guy but as im typing this my story on deviant art has 198 views (69 today) and there are 258 votes on the poll... and well, it just doesnt add up, eyup.
Maybe I'm just bitter. Thanks for the reviews though, appreciated.
I didn't vote on this poll, or any of them so far, because I've been waiting for the final 9.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteYou're not being 'that guy'. People vote without reading all of the stories, which sucks, but happens. It's just an unfortunate side effect of this type of voting system.
@Daffodil what I mean is I don't want to blow a "whistle" on anyone or put fault on the system for my position.
ReplyDeleteI don't necessarily think the results would have been different if they did read my story, it's just disheartening to be so far behind and then see that people might not have even read it.
I think this is what it's like to be butthurt
Hmmm...Less than half as many people have voted for this bracket so far as voted for the first bracket. I expected some dropoff, but that's pretty extreme.
ReplyDeleteI'd have hoped that as the numbers decreased, only the ones who have an actual interest in the stories (say, sufficient interest to actually read them) would continue to vote. But based on what Anonymous (4:23) said, it appears that was too much to hope for.
Oh well, no point getting worked up about what people on the internet say or do. I'm still thrilled that this event generated so many great stories. Regardless of how the voting goes, that makes this whole deal a 'win' in my book.
I felt this was a quite tough bracket and had a hard time choosing between #2 and #3, however when I got to The Prankster it immediately won me over
ReplyDeleteThen when I cast my vote I was a bit surprised to see that Pranks for Nothing won by a landslide (It wasn't bad, but I liked the others better,and in every previous bracket I picked the one that eended up as the winner)
And something I just noticed, if you look at the results there is always a winner by a landslide.
There isn't a single round that was really "contested", and I wonder why that is