FimFiction Link - Short ID: 533043/
Published: Apr '23
'' is a four thousand and five-hundred word shortfic. Pinkie Pie is invisible. Chaos ensues.
Obviously what sets this story apart from the rest is its use of near-invisible text, which both happens to be the fic's greatest strength and weakness. I do very much like the way the author used different opacities to simulate fading in and out. It is a creative meta-tool and it enhances the narrative nicely. However, at least on my PC, the 'invisible' text is actually practically invisible and tricks like selecting text didn't help much either. Thus I had to ultimately download it as a TXT and read it that way. This obviously completely neutered the fading texts along with everything, which is a shame, but otherwise the story would've been completely unreadable to me. Because of this, I'm not sure how to properly judge this feature of the story. I really want to praise it and as an idea I really do like it, but sadly it interfered with my experience more than it helped immersion.
As for the story itself? It's largely SoL fluff, depicting an invisible Pinkie bumbling around town and unintentionally causing mischief, as the town's brave inhabitants immediately see a ghost in her. Though none of the jokes made me laugh out loud, the fic has decently humorous moments. There is just one aspect that made the whole thing less entertaining to me than it could've been and that is how Pinkie feels uncharacteristically stupid. Obviously she is a completely ditzy and, at times, unhinged mare, but this fic takes it to another level with her being so completely oblivious to everything happening around her, that the reader starts to wonder if the spell made her brain disappear too. While there are situations in the fic she could have not foreseen or reasonably solve on her own, there are at least two or three instances where it feels like the author artificially made her pick the worst possible solution just to drive the plot forwards. It doesn't make the story unreadable per se, but I personally far more enjoy comedy that is a bit less contrived.
To say something positive too, the chapters with Twilight were probably the highlight of the fic for me. Bookhorse Lesson Zero-ing all over the place, while Pinkie tries and fails to calm her down did get a couple of snorts out of me, and Pinkie's out-of-the-box thinking felt far more in-line with her character compared to how she acted through the rest of the fic. I also quite liked the imagery, while it was a tad confusing to read, the overall picture was pretty cool and could have even fit into a more serious story too.
Overall: 5/10 While it definitely wasn't a time-waster, the story itself left little impression on me and (maybe through a fault of my own) I had to completely disable opacity tricks to be able to read it. What can I say? It's a low-stakes, comedy SoL with a typographical gimmick. If such a thing sounds up your alley, can recommend.
The other anon's review is accurate.
Obviously the main reason why this story has gathered some attention in the first place is the "empty" field you see wherever it's displayed, and then blank story page that you can click on. But after testing it on three different monitors, I think that the text is actually supposed to be invisible by all reasonable metrics. I only managed to have any traces of text show up on one of the monitors (after bumping up the contrast and the brightness way up), and the fic was still effectively unreadable. I'm pretty sure you're expected to copy+paste it elsewhere or download the .txt. In other words, it's a complete gimmick.
What I'm trying to say is that you're most likely going to have to ignore the gimmick if you decide to read the fic. Without the invisible text, the story is just okay. There's no point in repeating what the other anon said, but I can't say that I recommend it. It's a cool April Fools joke, nothing more than that. Good joke, but 5/10 is about right for the mediocre SoL fluff. Don't bother.