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

Unknownlight Since: Dec, 1969

Aug 19th 2013 at 11:51:55 PM

sigh

I'm glad you're reading this so I don't have to.

RN452 Since: Dec, 1969

Aug 20th 2013 at 10:09:12 AM

"Also, I read something from the author's fanfiction.net profile from earlier in this year. A Deep Space Nine fanfic where a self-insert Trekkie gets into a car crash and inexplicably finds himself in the Star Trek Universe. And here I was thinking that only happened on Fimfiction."

It's because you didn't see the Touhou section. There are so many self-insert that it spawned its own genre, namely "gappy" fics^note See an analysis here, I'm responsible for the part with the case study (it's not complete).. Or the Mass Effect section, you type in fanfiction search "self-insert" and it returns 110 results saying in the summary that its a self-insert fic, so it doesn't count the ones who don't say it.

Sereg Since: Dec, 1969

Aug 21st 2013 at 3:11:34 AM

Good to see the author has no sense of irony.

I laughed.

And YAY! Assasinating Neville's character!

(Actually, that "Neville had his memory erased" isn't a new thing in the fandom)

Pannic Since: Dec, 1969

Aug 21st 2013 at 11:41:00 AM

Not new, eh? Well, if it was a commonplace in fandom prior to Half-Blood Prince, hurray for the author being more unoriginal!

It wouldn't be the only time he ripped something off from another fanfic. In Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Future Past or whatever that's called, there's this magic gun that comes up what has its own magic cleaning spells and stuff on it to make it more dangerous and effective 'n' shit. The author decided to throw it into his own fic, not that it ever actually did anything as the author apparently gave up once Deathly Hallows was released.

Escondido Since: Dec, 1969

Dec 21st 2021 at 12:01:53 PM

Oh, and guess who the Oblivator that wiped Neville\'s mind in this fic is revealed to be. That\'s right, Gilderoy Lockhart. Even worse, Ron\'s broken wand is removed from Halcyon\'s version of Chamber of Secrets (since the Weasley car isn\'t stolen anymore), so Rose casts some kind of spell that makes the Memory Charm rebound upon Lockhart. And worst of all, in Rose Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Neville\'s boggart isn\'t Snape anymore, it\'s Lockhart.