Live Blogs Pannic Reads Stuff He Hates

Pannic2012-06-30 18:18:12

In the event that you just clicked this more or less at random and have pretty much no idea what this is, allow me to explain:

Fallout: Equestria is a fanfiction, a crossover between the Fallout series of video games and the cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It may be the single most popular fanfiction in the entire fandom of the latter. The story is 45 chapters long plus an epilogue and an afterwards, clocks in at a word count higher than War and Peace (unless I'm mistaken one tragically misguided fan put the story on Wikipedia's "list of the longest books ever" page. Obviously it was removed), and has a large fanbase of its own, spawning fan art, fan adaptations, music, and even fanfiction of its own.

Fans have praised it for worldbuilding: the story actually does not go for the usual "character from video game meets ponies" premise a lot of lazy crossovers opt for, and instead works it into the backstory how we get from the universe in the show to the post-apocalyptic radioactive wasteland that we recognize from the Fallout games. Or I would recognize it if I'd played the games. As it is, I am waiting for a sale on Steam or GOG. The main characters of the story are all original characters, and they have been praised as "OC ponies done right" and "the best OC ponies in the fandom." In any case, the protagonist Littlepip is fairly instantly recognizable to many in the fandom, whether or not they've read the story. The story's length also qualifies it as something of an "epic." In any case, it has had praise heaped on it and is considered by many to be the best fanfic in the FiM fandom.

At this point, I have cleared chapter 13. I do not think the story deserves the praise it receives. I view it as horrendously overrated. As I go through the story, I will detail my problems with the story, along with general mockery.

The general Fallout: Equestria thread did not approve of my incessant riffing on the story and suggested I take it to a liveblog. Well, that's what I'll do.

A note that for the parts I have already read (the first thirteen chapters), I will be largely dealing from memory. As such, they will most likely not be as detailed as when I return to the stuff I haven't read. In any case, let's get started. Hopefully this isn't redundant as Perpetual Lurker is also doing a liveblog.

EDIT: It seems my complaining cannot be confined to a single fanfic. As such, I have decided to turn this into a multi-story liveblog!

Comments

KuroiTsubasaTenshi Since: Dec, 1969

May 20th 2013 at 11:20:34 AM

And then there's a bit where she orgasms just at the sight of Homage's crotch.

There are not enough face hoofs in the world.

I still maintain that if the original fic needs supplementary fanfic to build their relationship, something went horribly wrong.

And yeah, those relationships all sound pretty horrifying (Flutters and Celly aside).

As for the future, I wouldn't mind seeing you dissect other fics.

Pannic Since: Dec, 1969

May 20th 2013 at 3:15:59 PM

It doesn't even really add a whole lot to their relationship. It doesn't really show us anything we didn't know, apart from elaborating on a throwaway line that Littlepip made about not liking one of Homage's toy. Littlepip's in the relationship because she's horny and Homage is in it because she's got a raging hero boner. All this really does is articulate it and have Homage go on about how heroes have a habit of falling and stuff, which would probably have more impact if Littlepip hadn't already demonstrated herself to be a massive dick.

You know, one time I was discussing their relationship in the FOE thread on /mlp/, and I was expressing the predictable viewpoint that it was ridiculous that the story was asking us to take their relationship this seriously when it was based on so little actual development. The other person countered with a story about one of their relatives, who very quickly fell in love with a woman, went off to war, and then when he got back he found she'd hooked up with someone else, so he murdered the other dude and then the two of them fled the country or something. And all I can think is "that's not really helping your argument."

People also said that it'd be stupid for the story to waste time on relationship bullshit when Littlepip's got other stuff to do like assassinating leaders she doesn't like or destroying the only functioning large-scale agricultural system in the land, but I'd counter that if the story is going to spend three chapters on Littlepip going on a back-and-forth quest between Gawd and Deadeyes, it can bother to actually develop a character that's supposed to be important and a relationship that it wants me to believe is meaningful. Then again, the story did try actually developing a relationship in regards to Velvet and Calamity, but all that did was make me realize that they were the most annoying characters in the story.