FimFiction Link - Short ID: 506691/the-girls-go-danger-very-close
Published: Nov '21
'The Girls go Danger (very) Close' is a four thousand and four-hundred word comedy oneshot, in which the M6 act as a howitzer-team fighting in a Pony-Griffon war. The horrors of war caused all of them to be fairly on the edge and thus most of the story's first half is spent with crude jokes and snapping at each other, before a shelling order arrives. Several miscommunications happen, which ultimately lead to a very different kind of ordinance flying to a very unintentional target.
The author is very clear in his intentions: Expect no detailed explanation why the war happened, how it affected the nations, or how the logistics of war works. This is a dumb comedy that doesn't really want to say anything profound, just make the reader laugh through the absurdity of the M6 fighting in a war and how incompetent they are. For what its worth, I think it achieves this well. From turning AJ into an alcoholic, to Pinkie into a haunted philosopher, to Twilight into a somehow even more jittery version of herself, the fic deconstructs and distorts each of their characters in a fairly simple, yet amusing way. When Twilight said "Pete" and Rarity - whom in this story is almost deaf from operating the artillery - praises her on her knowledge over slang and picks up a bag of white powder was a morbid yet hilarious moment, especially when you realize what the target ultimately turned out to be. Similarly, when Twilight snaps and nearly shoots one of her friends because that's the best way she can think of to defuse an argument was also pretty funny. However, the best joke, in my opinion, is Fluttershy's - and in turn Twilight's - slow realization of how much they just fucked up.
Interestingly, despite this being a very non-serious story, the way the team operated the howitzer was still surprisingly detailed. I'm sure warfic veterans could name a hundred stories where it's even more extensively described, but I didn't expect this from a story that claims (and I quote) "a general level of intelligence about five standard deviations below the mean." But then these weapons already fit the rule of cool, so I perhaps shouldn't be so surprised.
Overall: 7/10 Ultimately, your enjoyment of this story will come down to how much you like sex-jokes (which were surprisingly tame despite what the description implied), lighthearted dark jokes, and how well you can stomach the characters acting wildly out-of-character for the sake of comedy. I personally had a lot of fun and can recommend this story.