So, in the last chapter are heroes abused the hospitality of their mentally rattled orphan host by breaking into her safe, rooting through her stuff, and chewing her out. So this chapter starts with Littlepip having called in the mayor of Appleloosa and Derpy (who is referred to "Ditzy" despite the fact that this story has just revealed it has absolutely no sense of shame when it comes to memes) here to come pick up Silver Bell and take her away, because as Littlepip notes in the narration, she thinks Derpy could take good care of her and she genuinely wants to help her and feels compassion.
Too bad we don't get something like... actual remorse for what she did last chapter. A visible attempt at patching things up rather than a detached and completely impersonal "time to call the aderption agency" thing. Seriously, if the character is going to be pulling a 180 from "time to steal from orphans!" and "I am genuinely concerned for her well-being," please bother to show the fucking process. I think this might be an example of the "show, don't tell thing." It's like the character is only compassionate when she feels like it.
She also gets the Party Time Mint-Als recipe. What a crock.
Anyway, mayor of New Appleloosa informs her that she isn't welcome in the town anymore because she royally fucked up their relations with the slavers and got those train ponies killed. Actual consequences of actions. Nice. Too bad it gets all cleared up three chapters later. Then we get a thing on the radio from DJ Pon-3 where she thinks Littlepip is dead and gives the line "May the Goddesses wrap you in Their tails." Y'know, I'm not going to think about that too hard, just kinda odd and "what" and also that "geometrically shaped" object from the last chapter turns out to be a nuke that Silver Bell had put in with the fireworks.
Anyway, the journey moves on and we get a boring fight scene with some Raiders that is apparently the source of the "Calamity pulling a wagon while Littlepip holds a sniper rifle" fanart. Blah blah blah they clear the Raiders out, thank you for pointless action scene and moving on.
They're moving along in the Wasteland, trying to avoid a group of some folks who are awful mean-looking, but unfortunately they aren't sneaky enough and get caught by the leader of the missionaries, a tough griffon named Gawd.
Gawd gives them an assignment to sneak into the local penitentiary where a guy named Deadeyes is running a group of Raiders, we get a bunch of exposition about how the mercenaries operate and some kind of mental gymnastics that allows her to act against other folks she's supposed to be on the same side as, and mentions of a "Mr. Topaz" who's everyone's boss in the area. So Littlepip and Calamity go on the assignment and Velvet stays behind as "collateral", much to the dismay of Gawd, who worries that Velvet is another preacher.
Anyway, blah blah they go sneaking into the penitentiary to steal from his safe, and I forget the other details and can't be bothered to do more than skim the chapter. Chapter ends with Littlepip ogling a Rarity statuette.
Yep. These chapters are gonna be a back-and-forth quest chain.
Comments
