What are you smiling at?
—The Prankster
Written as an alternate continuity to Eyes Without a Face, but still considered a big part of The Jubiverse (likely due to the story becoming rather popular).
After spending five years locked away in a mental institution, the infamous Clown Princess of Crime is let loose upon Manehatten. It’s become soft in her absence, so she aims to liven things up by getting her friends together and throwing a party!
Of course, when The Prankster throws a party, all are invited… but none survive.
WARNING: Smiling at the following Tropes could be hazardous to your health:
- A Day in the Limelight: After the first arc ends, we see the origin story of Twenty, as told from the perspective of Berry Punch.
- The Alcoholic: As expected, Berry Punch. Not portrayed as a Lady Drunk, however; she just loves her liquor too much.
- Alternate Continuity
- Ambiguously Bi: Pinstripe. Despite wanting to jump Stephen Scope’s bones and insisting he’s gay, he still seems pretty flirtatious with women.
- Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop: Berry Punch and Carrot Top, respectively.
- Berserk Button: Pinstripe hates the sound of laughter.
- Oh yeah?! Well, PINKS HATES IT WHEN YOU LOOK AT HER SCARS!!
- Big Guy, Little Guy: Soprano and Baritone.
- Blood Knight: Ballista.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: "Chapter 2 is about to end."
- Butt-Monkey: Digger. Moreso than Pinstripe at least.
- The Cameo: One of the strippers in the Ringer is a certain blue unicorn mare with silver hair, who used to be a traveling magician…
- One of the Tongueless is Derpy.
- Camp Gay: Holy crap, Stephen Scope.
- Carnivore Confusion: Addressed. One of the villains operates an illicit restaurant where sentient species are served for lunch.
- Dirty Cop: Berry Punch, very much so, although the other cops don't come off as very clean either. They're more of a government-funded street gang.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Pinstripe's mind seems to wander when he's around the female characters, as do his eyes.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Pinkie Pie is introduced to the reader as she plays a bizarre mind-game with Pinstripe.
- Baritone makes quite an entrance by flipping over an entire fleet of cop cars... just so he can "have a talk" with Twenty.
- Ballista's first appearance implies she's almost The Dreaded amongst her peers.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Blitzkrieg once offered Pinstripe a Tongueless to have sex with. Needless to say, he passed on the offer.
- Fate Worse than Death: When a member of the Shadowbolts disappoints Blitzkrieg too often to be reliable, they are "made" into a Tongueless: a dumb animal meant to pull their carriages.
- Hitman with a Heart: Despite being hired to kill Twenty, Wisp decides to let her go—and even gives her some fatherly advice while he’s at it.
- Huge Girl, Tiny Guy: A non-romantic, villainous example is found in the pair of griffins Grift and Lintsalot.
- Husky Russkie: Quite a few of the Stalliongrad ponies are pretty big. Even the mares!
- I'm A Carnivore: The majority of Pinkie's goons are meat-eaters. They eat Blitzkrieg as the admittedly violent climax of the first arc.
- Monster Clown: The Clown Princess of Crime.
- Naïve Newcomer: Carrot Top thinks of detective work like a comic book.
- The Nicknamer: Pinkie doesn't really care what their real names are. They're all Pins, Madame LeFlour, Rocky, Sir Lintsalot, and Mr. Turnip.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Thanks to the above trope, there's no way to know what their real names are (Except Pinstripe and Digger).
- Pet the Dog: One of the Oranges tries to do this for his guard dog Spade by letting him escort a female Diamond Dog, since the poor thing is rarely given anything worthwhile. Too bad for them both the female Diamond Dog was Madame Le Flour.
- Police Brutality: A common event in Manehatten, and also how Twenty lost vision in her right eye as well as her family.
- Pony of Mass Destruction: Ballista's ability is to constantly emit hot, raw magical energy all around her body, turning her into the closest thing to a living nuke.
- Putting the Band Back Together: Pinkie Pie's first goal.
- Tear Jerker: As mentioned above, one of the Tongueless is Derpy. Derpy!
- Theme Naming: Quite a bit going on:
- Soprano and Baritone
- Hammer and Sickle
- Rind and Pulp
- Token Minority: Pinstripe is the only zebra in the current group.
- You Have Failed Me: When somepony screws up enough in the ranks of the Shadowbolts, they get made into the Tongueless.