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Misplaced
When thinking of things that can be easily misplaced, ‘keys’ are the first thing that comes to Twilight’s mind. Due to her hardwired, overly-organized nature, she would often find her keys where she’d expect them. Should they not be there, on third loop of the key holder directly to the right of her bedroom door, she would safely assume Spike had misplaced them. She very rarely misplaces things like her keys on her own accord.
The master key to the School of Friendship wasn’t something that could be easily lost anyhow. It was rather large, almost as big as Ponyville’s key to the city. Twilight appeared before the doors of her School of Friendship, ready and eager to feed the growing minds of her class everything she had learned about the matter. With a twist of the key, the doors were opened. Behind them, sat Starlight Glimmer at a wooden table with a tea set,
And literally nothing else.
Aside from the door and the frame it was bolted in, Twilight’s entire school was misplaced.
“Have a seat.” Starlight spoke in a rigid tone that easily indicated just what type of headache this conversation would produce. Headmare Twilight Sparkle, God-princess of friendship, narrowed her eyes, almost as if to increase the pressure of her glare stream.
“Wait outside, Spike.” Twilight ordered coldly. She walked through the door and shut it behind her, leaving a very confused young dragon on the other side of the useless frame. If he could just walk around it, was he outside enough? He shuffled in place before ultimately taking off.
Starlight lit the chair across from her with magic, prepared to telekinetically pull it out for her mentor, only to have the much stronger alicorn magic yank it away and position it. Twilight carefully sat in the chair which was clearly indoor furniture that was out of place in the pit where the school should be.
“I’m sure you have multiple questions…” Starlight started as she levitated the kettle.
Twilight cut her off. “I only have one question.” Her voice was frighteningly firm. Starlight had trouble pouring tea into in to the cups and almost made a bit of a mess. Another mess, that is.
“You want to know where the school is?”
“No. I want to know how this happened.”
This was a much more difficult question for Starlight to answer. Twilight could tell, based on her subtle change in expression. She knew that look. She had been in similar situations in her youth under Celestia’s tutelage.
“How? Okay, well uh, let’s see…” Starlight fished for an explanation in her mind, mostly succeeding in wasting time. Twilight poured herself another cup of tea, almost as if to illustrate how long she’d be willing to wait. The sound of the oddly muffled waterfalls seemed to grow louder in the silence. “So, you know how Trixie’s been learning magic?” The tea cup Twilight brought to her lips suddenly floated back down to the table at the sound of Trixie’s name. “I decided that, you know, after school, I could tutor magic for her and any other creature who was interested. So, when you went home yesterday, Trixie and a few other unicorns came in and we tried some simple stuff... at first.”
Twilight leaned over the table slightly, “Why was this something you couldn’t tell me? I’d have allowed it if you had just asked me. In fact, there was a meeting yesterday about after school activities! That you attended!”
“Yeah, well, the idea kinda came to me post hoc, and I kinda figured the magic classes would be more of uh, you know, an 'adult ed' type thing, so it was pretty late.”
Silence.
Twilight spoke first after looking down where the halls used to be and let a sigh go, “It could have gone b-”
“It coulda been worse! I mean, Trixie didn’t do it this time.”
“This time?!”
The sweat drops won’t stop falling. Starlight tried to pour another cup of tea, only for nothing to come out. Twilight set the kettle down forcefully with a hoof.
“Well, Starlight?” She stood up, “Where did you and your class teleport my school?”
Starlight gulped, “Nowhere.”
“Wha…” Then it clicked, “Oh… ohhhh…” She looked around, sighed again, and buried her face in her hoof. “Is it indespectia or limpidalus?”
Starlight aggressively sucked air through her molars in discomfort.
“Starlight!”
“I’ll go get the paint buckets.”
The master key to the School of Friendship wasn’t something that could be easily lost anyhow. It was rather large, almost as big as Ponyville’s key to the city. Twilight appeared before the doors of her School of Friendship, ready and eager to feed the growing minds of her class everything she had learned about the matter. With a twist of the key, the doors were opened. Behind them, sat Starlight Glimmer at a wooden table with a tea set,
And literally nothing else.
Aside from the door and the frame it was bolted in, Twilight’s entire school was misplaced.
“Have a seat.” Starlight spoke in a rigid tone that easily indicated just what type of headache this conversation would produce. Headmare Twilight Sparkle, God-princess of friendship, narrowed her eyes, almost as if to increase the pressure of her glare stream.
“Wait outside, Spike.” Twilight ordered coldly. She walked through the door and shut it behind her, leaving a very confused young dragon on the other side of the useless frame. If he could just walk around it, was he outside enough? He shuffled in place before ultimately taking off.
Starlight lit the chair across from her with magic, prepared to telekinetically pull it out for her mentor, only to have the much stronger alicorn magic yank it away and position it. Twilight carefully sat in the chair which was clearly indoor furniture that was out of place in the pit where the school should be.
“I’m sure you have multiple questions…” Starlight started as she levitated the kettle.
Twilight cut her off. “I only have one question.” Her voice was frighteningly firm. Starlight had trouble pouring tea into in to the cups and almost made a bit of a mess. Another mess, that is.
“You want to know where the school is?”
“No. I want to know how this happened.”
This was a much more difficult question for Starlight to answer. Twilight could tell, based on her subtle change in expression. She knew that look. She had been in similar situations in her youth under Celestia’s tutelage.
“How? Okay, well uh, let’s see…” Starlight fished for an explanation in her mind, mostly succeeding in wasting time. Twilight poured herself another cup of tea, almost as if to illustrate how long she’d be willing to wait. The sound of the oddly muffled waterfalls seemed to grow louder in the silence. “So, you know how Trixie’s been learning magic?” The tea cup Twilight brought to her lips suddenly floated back down to the table at the sound of Trixie’s name. “I decided that, you know, after school, I could tutor magic for her and any other creature who was interested. So, when you went home yesterday, Trixie and a few other unicorns came in and we tried some simple stuff... at first.”
Twilight leaned over the table slightly, “Why was this something you couldn’t tell me? I’d have allowed it if you had just asked me. In fact, there was a meeting yesterday about after school activities! That you attended!”
“Yeah, well, the idea kinda came to me post hoc, and I kinda figured the magic classes would be more of uh, you know, an 'adult ed' type thing, so it was pretty late.”
Silence.
Twilight spoke first after looking down where the halls used to be and let a sigh go, “It could have gone b-”
“It coulda been worse! I mean, Trixie didn’t do it this time.”
“This time?!”
The sweat drops won’t stop falling. Starlight tried to pour another cup of tea, only for nothing to come out. Twilight set the kettle down forcefully with a hoof.
“Well, Starlight?” She stood up, “Where did you and your class teleport my school?”
Starlight gulped, “Nowhere.”
“Wha…” Then it clicked, “Oh… ohhhh…” She looked around, sighed again, and buried her face in her hoof. “Is it indespectia or limpidalus?”
Starlight aggressively sucked air through her molars in discomfort.
“Starlight!”
“I’ll go get the paint buckets.”
Pics
Not liking those tense shifts in the first paragraph…
Given the introduction, putting the emphasis on “entire school” in the fourth paragraph would’ve worked a lot better, making the connection to the opening clearer.
This needs work. At first, it’s not clear whether Twilight realizes the state of her school (though given her, I’m not surprised she still went through the motions.) The ending makes no sense, since I have no context for Twilight’s question or Starlight’s response. The tone of Starlight’s first line doesn’t connect to the situation and her part in it. All told, this is a bunch of parts that aren’t connecting properly.
Given the introduction, putting the emphasis on “entire school” in the fourth paragraph would’ve worked a lot better, making the connection to the opening clearer.
This needs work. At first, it’s not clear whether Twilight realizes the state of her school (though given her, I’m not surprised she still went through the motions.) The ending makes no sense, since I have no context for Twilight’s question or Starlight’s response. The tone of Starlight’s first line doesn’t connect to the situation and her part in it. All told, this is a bunch of parts that aren’t connecting properly.
This wouldn't be the first time I reviewed a comedy minific and didn't get the jokes, although in this case I'm not even sure if the jokes got themselves, if you know what I mean.
The ending in particular kind of left me baffled because not only did I not know what these spells were supposed to be, but I also didn't understand the entire interaction because neither Twilight nor Starlight seemed to be talking about the same thing.
For previous comedies I at least understood the appeal of the humor, even if I didn't laugh at all, but this is the first time where I just don't get it.
Also, there are some random tense changes throughout...
That ain't it, yo. That ain't it.
I'm feeling a strong 4 to a light 5 on this.
The ending in particular kind of left me baffled because not only did I not know what these spells were supposed to be, but I also didn't understand the entire interaction because neither Twilight nor Starlight seemed to be talking about the same thing.
For previous comedies I at least understood the appeal of the humor, even if I didn't laugh at all, but this is the first time where I just don't get it.
Also, there are some random tense changes throughout...
That ain't it, yo. That ain't it.
I'm feeling a strong 4 to a light 5 on this.
This starts out very telly from Twilight's perspective. I think it would be much better to begin with Twilight finding the school missing and omit the initial part entirely. Don't tell us how Twilight is, show us.
I don't get the ending at all.
I don't get the ending at all.
What I like: The bait-and-switch at the start gave me a chuckle. Talking about the nature of losing keys, having no trouble finding keys, then finding that the whole building has been lost (all right, "misplaced") is a good subversion. You also have an eye on how to move pieces so that your joke is ready for checkmate. Nice moves here, compadre.
What I don't like: I figured out what had happened at the end - the building's invisible - but you wrote it so obscurely that I had to go back and reread it to figure that out. Repeatedly. That is not a good sign, grasshopper.
"Indespectia or limpidalus" mean bugger all as clues; I googled and wikipedia'd both words, and the closest match I found was "limpidus", which meant, of all things, "clear, bright, limpid". "Indespectia" got me nowhere. When it comes time to explain the joke, at least make sure your clues aren't so faulty that even Internet research can't make sense of them.
In addition, there are tense slip-ups throughout, (honestly, just stick to the past tense and you're largely covered when it comes to storytelling), and devoting your fic to two major jokes - even if the lead-in to the second one actually is pretty decent - feels a bit weak, especially when the one successful joke is resolved within the first four of twenty six paragraphs.
I'll put this at the low end of middle-tier, as it has an idea of what it wants to do - lack of ambition aside, that's fair enough - but has little idea of how to deliver that final checkmate. I'd recommend clarifying the ending, tidying up the prose, and maybe, if you want to be more ambitious, including more and smaller jokes to tide us over while we build up to the big one.
What I don't like: I figured out what had happened at the end - the building's invisible - but you wrote it so obscurely that I had to go back and reread it to figure that out. Repeatedly. That is not a good sign, grasshopper.
"Indespectia or limpidalus" mean bugger all as clues; I googled and wikipedia'd both words, and the closest match I found was "limpidus", which meant, of all things, "clear, bright, limpid". "Indespectia" got me nowhere. When it comes time to explain the joke, at least make sure your clues aren't so faulty that even Internet research can't make sense of them.
In addition, there are tense slip-ups throughout, (honestly, just stick to the past tense and you're largely covered when it comes to storytelling), and devoting your fic to two major jokes - even if the lead-in to the second one actually is pretty decent - feels a bit weak, especially when the one successful joke is resolved within the first four of twenty six paragraphs.
I'll put this at the low end of middle-tier, as it has an idea of what it wants to do - lack of ambition aside, that's fair enough - but has little idea of how to deliver that final checkmate. I'd recommend clarifying the ending, tidying up the prose, and maybe, if you want to be more ambitious, including more and smaller jokes to tide us over while we build up to the big one.
Minifics live and die off of the hook, and unfortunately I think your opening here is way too slow. I know that sounds odd since it's only two paragraphs, but consider the fact that these 150+ words take up more than a fifth of your entire word count. That is absolutely forever, especially when the reader knows that there was never going to be a whole lot of words outside of the intro anyway.
If you look at historic minific winners, you'll notice that virtually all of them set up the scene with the very first sentence and then make the main conflict clear within fifty or one hundred words. By the time they are at the word count you've used to only to set the mood, they're already progressing the conflict, drawing in the reader further.
I really hate to make this a numbers game, but the fact is that I strongly feel that you have to be a lot more economical with how and where you devote your wordcount and attention. Opening with an extended metaphor might work with virtually any other story, but for a minific you'd need to have something extremely specific and specialized planned to make something like that work. As the story stands right now, I think the clunkiness of the opening makes the rest of the story feel bare-bones and rushed in comparison. I'm really sorry to say it, but you are definitely being hurt by this one little thing.
If you look at historic minific winners, you'll notice that virtually all of them set up the scene with the very first sentence and then make the main conflict clear within fifty or one hundred words. By the time they are at the word count you've used to only to set the mood, they're already progressing the conflict, drawing in the reader further.
I really hate to make this a numbers game, but the fact is that I strongly feel that you have to be a lot more economical with how and where you devote your wordcount and attention. Opening with an extended metaphor might work with virtually any other story, but for a minific you'd need to have something extremely specific and specialized planned to make something like that work. As the story stands right now, I think the clunkiness of the opening makes the rest of the story feel bare-bones and rushed in comparison. I'm really sorry to say it, but you are definitely being hurt by this one little thing.