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The Morning After · FiM Minific ·
Organised by RogerDodger
Word limit 400–750
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Pardon My Friends
“Umm...Hello? Are you here, Twilight?” Fluttershy asked, poking her head past the castle door.

“Oh, come on in,” Twilight replied as she pushed aside the papers she had been looking at. “Sorry, I didn't hear you knock.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Fluttershy mumbled as she entered the castle, pulling a cart behind her. Inside the cart was a large rectangular object covered by a blanket.

“So, what have you got there? Some sort of boxed friendship problem?”

“Uhhh...not exactly. You know today is Applesgiving, right?”

“Ugh. Don't remind me,” Twilight said with a roll of her eyes. “I don't know why I let Applejack talk me into making that an official holiday. Now half of these,” she gestured to the pile of papers on the table, “are requests from other ponies who want me to make holidays for their favorite foods. It's getting ridiculous. Just look at some of these.” Twilight grabbed a paper at random. “This one's proposing a 'Marshmalloween.' Why in Equestria would we need a holiday celebrating marshmallows?”

“Surely they're not all bad.”

Twilight eyed the stacks of papers suspiciously. “I wouldn't be too sure about that. Though Princess Celestia did approve 'Cakemas' behind my back.” Her expression brightened as she turned back to Fluttershy. “But enough of that. What can I do for you? As long as you're not here to ask me to give pomegranates a holiday, I'm glad to help.” Twilight's eyes narrowed a bit. “You're not here about pomegranates, are you?”

“Umm. No, I'm not,” Fluttershy said, slightly ashamed nonetheless. “I'm just here about Applesgiving.”

“What about it? Do you have a reason for me to repeal it?” Twilight asked, perhaps a bit too eagerly.

“No, I actually wanted to help it a bit. You see, right now its problem is that we only celebrate it by eating apples. Oh, and Pinkie decided to wear a giant apple costume.”

Twilight smiled and rolled her eyes. “That's Pinkie Pie for you. So you have a new way for ponies to celebrate Applesgiving?”

Fluttershy looked down and kicked at the ground. “Well, not exactly. It's more of a new tradition than a way to celebrate.”

“Okay, what do you have in mind?”

Fluttershy moved to her cart. “I thought that you, being a princess, could maybe,” she paused to pull the blanket off of the cart, revealing a cage with two plump turkeys inside, “pardon some turkeys.”

Twilight stared blankly at Fluttershy for several seconds. “You want me to...pardon some...turkeys? Why? What would a turkey do that needs pardoning? What do turkeys even have to do with apples?”

“It would be, umm, symbolic, mostly. It would show that we support and care about animals like turkeys. There's not really much of a connection between turkeys and apples, but the turkeys do mature around this time of year, so it's at least seasonal.”

Twilight looked from the calm, peaceful turkeys to Fluttershy's innocent smile to the papers on her table. “Well, it's certainly not the worst idea I've heard today. Sure, let's do it.” Twilight cleared her throat and turned to the turkeys. “By the Power of Friendship, I have the power to pardon you. So go on, you're pardoned now.”

Fluttershy waited for several seconds to see if anything else would happen. “That's it?”

“Yeah, it's pretty anticlimactic. But those two turkeys are now officially pardoned, whatever that might mean for a turkey. Now what—”

Suddenly, a magical explosion with the force of one thousand rising suns threw the room into total disarray and confusion. In the center of it stood Princess Celestia, wings flared, horn aglow, and eyes blazing like a metaphor.

Fortunately for Twilight, Celestia relaxed when she saw her. Still, she spoke with a tone of voice that Twilight had only ever heard her use in the most serious of situations, most of which necessitated the use of what Pinkie had taken to calling the “Rainbow Laser Blast of Friendship.”

“Twilight Sparkle, I am relieved to see that you are all right. Last night, attempts were made on my and my sister's lives, and I have reason to believe that the perpetrators are now in Ponyville.”

“What!” Twilight shouted. “Who would do such a thing?”

“We believe that the rebels were two large birds.”

Twilight turned toward Fluttershy, who was hiding under her upturned cart. “Fluttershy, did you just trick me into pardoning two leaders of a coup?” she asked suspiciously.

“Of course not, Twilight. Turkeys don't coo, they gobble.”
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#1 · 2
· · >>The_Letter_J
'twas quite entertaining through the entirety of the story, with an ending that at a glance seemed simply a horrible pun but changed completely on the second read.

I'm still a bit unsure if the last line is a wonderful multilayered joke about international politics or something for which you should be indicted. Currently, I tend to the first interpretation, which places the story very high on my slate.

Kudos author, this was completely unexpected.
#2 ·
· · >>The_Letter_J
Fluttershy's voice sounds a little off to me at the beginning. She's not usually passive-aggressive or morose about her social hoofprint.

Additionally, the early dialogue contains too much forced exposition about the holiday fiasco, which makes both characters sound a little strange. Starting the story off with a flyer describing Applesgiving might have been a better approach.

Twilight smiled and rolled her eyes.


These seem like inconsistent emotional displays. I'm sitting here trying to smile and roll my eyes at the same time, and it isn't working.

Twilight said with a roll of her eyes.


Twilight certainly has expressive eyes: they can talk! (A comma might help.)

...and eyes blazing like a metaphor.


Okay, I think this time with the eyes you have actually, technically, just written a meta-metaphor. That doesn't mean I can figure out what you meant by this sentence, however.

Wait, this whole story makes no sense. Turkeys are only semi-sapient, and there's no way they could have traveled from Canterlot to Ponyville in...

...ah, right. :ajbemused:

"Feghoot", said Trick Question, with a roll of her eyes. And also Twilight's eyes.
#3 · 3
· · >>The_Letter_J
...eyes blazing like a metaphor.

Har har...

Okay, not really much to say on this one. It knows what its doing and gets it done quickly enough that it doesn't become annoying.
#4 · 3
· · >>The_Letter_J
something something flown the coop feghoot something

I mean, this had more than one joke in it, and I liked it well enough for that. But what can I say? It's mostly ridiculous for ridiculositys sake. I can get behind that, and the minific round's the best place to do it, but it's not knocking me out of my chair with laughter.

Then again, I have a weird sense of humor, so make of that what you will.
#5 · 6
· · >>The_Letter_J
"Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted." – Fred Allen
#6 · 4
· · >>The_Letter_J
Now this is random comedy done right. Good flow, good absurdities, good stuff all around. Thank you for it.
#7 ·
· · >>The_Letter_J
...Sorry, but this doesn't really do it for me. The point of a Feghoot (as I understand it) is to set up a complicated situation and then reveal that all of it was building up to one pun. But unless I'm missing something, there's only one pun here ("coo" vs. "coup"), and so nearly all of the craziness in the story ("Applesgiving", "pardoning turkeys") ends up unaccounted for.

Besides, the final line doesn't even feel like a Feghoot ending (that AHA! punchline which ties the entire story together); it reads more like a throwaway weak gag about Fluttershy mishearing Twilight's last question.
#8 · 3
· · >>The_Letter_J
Enjoyable, just like a good metaphor.
#9 · 3
· · >>The_Letter_J
I laughed, but I also found the general ironical tone heavy-handed. Though "boxed friendship problem" got me to giggle more than anything else I'd read for this prompt so far.
Post by Shadowed_Song , deleted
#11 · 3
· · >>The_Letter_J
This is the rare feghoot that doesn't make me want to throttle the author. I dig the random comedy here; the "like a metaphor" thing is brilliant. I thought the knock on pardoning turkeys overstayed its welcome a little, but the bit with Celestia makes up for it.

Tier: Strong
#12 · 1
· · >>The_Letter_J
The Great

Solidly written, couple of clever/entertaining lines.

The Rough

Another one that just didn't click with me, unfortunately. Not much to offer here as I am not a huge fan of this sort of comedy and nothing in this fic particularly changed my opinion on that.

Character voice feels a little off, but this is also a comedy, so I'm not sure that's a serious crime here.
#13 · 3
· · >>Syeekoh >>Trick_Question >>Orbiting_kettle >>JudgeDeadd
Pardon My Friends
18th place? Well, that's one of my better showings, so I'm certainly not complaining. I don't think I have a whole lot to say about the story though.

As I'm sure was quite obvious, this was my attempt to write a Thanksgiving-themed story, since this writeoff aligned nicely with American Thanksgiving. I somehow came up with the idea of "what if those turkeys that get pardoned every Thanksgiving were actually getting pardoned for some crime?" And everything just sort of built off of that. I didn't even intend for this to be a feghoot at first. I just decided that trying to overthrow the princesses would be an amusingly ridiculous crime for some turkeys to commit. But once I realized the potential for a coup/coo pun at the end, there was apparently no going back (an additional pun involving "flying the coop" is left as an exercise for the reader). Personally, I don't even really consider this a true feghoot. I just think of it as a comedy that happens to end with a pun.

And since several people mentioned it, I'll quickly mention the "eyes blazing like a metaphor" line. Basically, it was 2 AM when I wrote that. I couldn't figure out how to say what I actually wanted to say, and that seemed like it was close enough, and I liked it too much to get rid of it. I have no regrets.

>>Orbiting_kettle
Okay, confession time. I think you might be giving me a bit too much credit (not that I'm complaining). I did primarily intend it to just be a terrible pun. But I did intentionally leave in some ambiguity with the situation, so I think I might understand what you're seeing there. But I would appreciate it if you would explain it more for me.
Also, you have no idea how incredibly happy I was when I saw this as the first comment on my story.

>>Trick_Question
These seem like inconsistent emotional displays. I'm sitting here trying to smile and roll my eyes at the same time, and it isn't working.

That's canon. ;p
Yeah, I realized as I was writing it that I was mentioning eyes a lot. It's probably symbolism or something.

>>Not_A_Hat
Oh, good. A reader completed the exercise. Kind of. ;p

>>JudgeDeadd
I completely agree, but see what I said above about this not really being a true feghoot.

And thank you to everyone else too!
>>Xepher
>>PaulAsaran
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>Moosetasm
>>Posh
>>Shadowed_Song
>>CoffeeMinion
>>AndrewRogue
#14 · 2
· · >>The_Letter_J >>Trick_Question
>>The_Letter_J

"eyes blazing like a metaphor"


I've started doing stuff like that when I'm just not in the mood to think. Take this quote from one of my stories that won a contest.

“I don’t understand,” Rainbow said like someone who doesn’t understand.


I was literally writing it 10 minutes after I came up with the idea with 4 hours until the deadline and I couldn't come up with the words I wanted to use, so I just put that in.

As long as you're fine with lines like that dictating the tone of your story, I don't see a problem with it. BTW this story was the top-ranked one on my slate because it was just so much fun to read.
#15 · 2
·
>>Syeekoh
<3
Oh, I am very much okay with those sorts of lines setting the tone of my stories. I should really try to write a story filled with as much of that sort of thing as possible.
#16 ·
· · >>The_Letter_J
>>Syeekoh
I assumed the "metaphor" line was an intentional attempt at metahumor. It's actually one of the only things here that made me chuckle (oh deer... more on that below).

>>The_Letter_J
This is where I admit something awful: I bottom-slated this at the very beginning (fourth from last, and none of the stories below it made the cut). :facehoof:

I don't know why feghoots often turn me off so much. I think it happens when it feels like the entire story was just a setup for the punchline, in which case it feels like a waste of space because you could have done the same joke in 50 words. For some reason the story didn't sit well with me, and I think I felt this way because I wasn't seeing comedy anywhere but the groaner at the end—and, the feghoot fell flat for me too.

In one Writeoff, I actually did score a feghoot at the top of my slate (or very very close), but it was pretty amazing. It was the one that ended with "a herd in the band...". The entire story was funny, and I laughed several times. Even thought everything was building to the feghoot, the trip there was amusing enough that it wasn't obvious setup. The feghoot wasn't the point of the story, in other words: it was just the cherry on top. (And the punchline was a very impressive spoonerism.)

So I'm sorry and I feel legitimately bad for not liking this more than I did. :fluttershysad: I should go back and reread it a few times, because there must be more to it. Many ponies loved what you wrote, so you did something right.
#17 · 2
·
>>Trick_Question
I mean, it was kind of a bit of metahumor, I just happened to come up with it for other reasons.

In my defense, this story really wasn't intended to be just a feghoot. As I mentioned before, my goal was just to write a comedy that happened to end with a pun. And if the humor just didn't work for you, then I can accept that. Humor is incredibly subjective, after all. If I read a fic that was clearly trying to be a comedy, but none of it was funny to me, I'd rank it pretty low too.

I remember that story. It was really good, and I'm pretty sure it was at or near the top of my slate too.

And honestly, I kind of wish you had put my story even lower on your slate, if only so I could have gotten that "Most Controversial" award.
#18 · 2
· · >>The_Letter_J
>>The_Letter_J
I was quite convinced that the joke was about the alleged (it's complicated) Coup attempt in Turkey and over the request of extradition for Gülen and the US refusal to do so on a whim (they are right to refuse but it's very complicated).

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/11/politics/turkey-us-fethullah-gulen-ultimatum/

I saw the final joke as some kind of cutting comment about hair-splitting (the difference between Coup and Golpe, same thing but in different languages), about the whole mess and about the uncertainty of the situation.
#19 · 1
· · >>Orbiting_kettle
>>Orbiting_kettle
Sorry to disappoint you, but I definitely did not have that in mind when I wrote this. I remember hearing about some sort of political instability in Turkey a few months back, but I didn't know any of the details and I had completely forgotten about it until just now. But if I managed to accidentally create some sort of brilliant political satire, then I'll take it.
It turned out better than the time I actually tried to write political satire in a writeoff.
#20 · 3
·
>>The_Letter_J
Well, I still liked the story :D
#21 ·
· · >>The_Letter_J
>>The_Letter_J
what if those turkeys that get pardoned every Thanksgiving

Huh. Not being American, I've never heard about this tradition, so no wonder the premise of the fic seemed pretty random to me.
#22 ·
·
>>JudgeDeadd
I anticipated this problem. In fact, I was hoping for it. I have previously had the pleasure of explaining the tradition if pardoning turkeys to a very confused Canadian friend who was certain I was making it up. So I was hoping that someone would say that pardoning turkeys seems like an unrealistic tradition, just so that someone else could explain that it's a real tradition, thus providing additional amusement to all involved.

But I suppose that plan didn't work because the turkey pardoning just seemed like another bit of silliness in a silly story.