FimFiction Link - Short ID: 197930/why-we-dont-teleport-bread
Published: Jun '14
'Why we don't teleport bread' is a three thousand-word comedy oneshot, heavily inspired by TF2's Expiration Date, (which came out seven years ago, it's a bit shocking. It feels like yesterday!). As the M6 prepare to travel to an archeological dig-site, Twilight wants to make sure that not a single one of them have any bread on themselves. Pinkie pulls out a gigantic sandwich, which Twilight promptly discards, deeply hurting the pink pony. In an attempt to calm her down, Twilight explains how teleporting bread causes green lumps to form inside it, but her explanation is cut short as A.K. Yearning and her rival, Ahuizotl, appear. The latter of whom has done nothing but teleport bread for three days. Suddenly a giant mutated bread appears from the sky and a massive battle erupts, decisively proving the issues with teleporting bread to anyone who was skeptical before.
It goes without saying that this story isn't exactly the most original in its choice of topic. Some of the jokes are even directly quoted from 'Expiration Date.' However, despite this, the fic is not bad. You won't suffocate from laughter, but the story is amusing enough. Aside from the bread-jokes, I also enjoyed how utterly exasperated Yearning acts when her nemesis appears, regarding him with little more than boredom.
Sadly, however, the plot itself is nothing to write home about. Most of the events that happen are largely just setup for the jokes and due to this reason, the author spends little time on elaborating on details. Also most of the M6 could easily have been cut from the story and nothing would have changed. Fluttershy and Rarity doesn't even have a single line for instance.
Finally, while I have no problem with the concept being almost entirely copied from TF2, I nonetheless feel like the author could have taken the concept another step further and put an actual pony-spin on it. Why not make the forbidden food hayburgers for instance? It could've worked as an extra joke of Twilight herself struggling with accepting that her favorite food is not teleport-compatible. Or perhaps Twilight teleporting the whole group away to safety, only to realize that that Yearning in fact had a sandwich on herself which promptly attacks them. Or anything similar. Basically, the reason why the fic is funny is because the source material was funny, not because it's a particularly clever adaptation.
Overall: 5/10 It's not a bad fic by any means, but the author could have taken the concept far further than they had. The story isn't a waste of time, but it's also unlikely to be memorable to anyone.