So I've read chapter 21 of Fallout Equestria, but don't particularly feel like liveblogging. All I'll say for right now was "darn, you were going so well for the last three chapters."
Also I can't be bothered to continue in Twilight Sparkle in a Series of One-Night Stands, and The Unexpected Love Life of Dusk Shine has gone on hiatus, leaving the current plot thread dangling.
So I got another idea - why not take my acerbic wannabe Yahtzee shtick and apply it to my own shit? Shouldn't be too hard.
The story in question is titled The Book of Friendship. It's a crossover fic between this show and the popular Broadway musical The Book of Mormon. Except the author hasn't actually seen the musical, but that's okay because neither have any of the fic's readers. All just as well, because the fic has about as much resemblance to the source material as a peach does to an apple. They're both fruits and have seeds and come in various shades of red and yellow (and green in the case of apples) but that's about it.
So the first chapter opens with Brother White, who is at home, coming his hair. He is described as "the spitting image of white-bread-upper-middle-class-oh-no-I’m-in-some-sort-of-cheesy-family-sitcom-aren’t-I?" I hope you like that joke, because not only does it get repeated two more times in this scene, but it serves as more or less our protagonist's only characterization for the first few chapters. He's funny because he's a standard middle-class white guy (white people are funny, I know this from watching, or at least hearing about Friends) and he's about to be thrown into a shithole.
Brother White's distinguishing features are the fact that he has a smile for a cutie mark, and he's a member of an organization called the Joyous Friends of Princess Celestia. You know all those letters that Twilight and her friends sent to the Princess? Well, the letters all got published into a book, and now there's a religion that popped up around it.
We don't get all that much of an introduction to Brother White. He's just prettying up and getting ready to go out. Goes downstairs and says goodbye to his whitebread family that's even blander and more nondescript than White himself. Also, the narration and dialogue make it sound like he's going out on a date, because this story's humor runs off of gay jokes.
We are then introduced to our second protagonist, named Brother Scroll. While White is a confident, charismatic (supposedly) pretty-boy, Scroll is a dweeby loser. We can tell because he wears glasses and no one talks to him. Except for Brother White, who sits down at his table. Then we go into the "pairing you off for your mission" ceremony. And of course, White and Scroll are paired off. And then Scroll runs off and hyperventilates because that's what unpopular nerds do. He states that he's never had any friends, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense given he's in a religion based around friendship, but eh. In any case, this is clearly a massive turn-on for Brother White, because he starts up a massive buddy-buddy shtick immediately.
“I’d like that…” said Brother Scroll, smiling bashfully.
Anyway, because the story can't be bothered to take its time on anything, we instantly cut to them getting ready to get on a boat, whereupon Scroll delivers exposition about their destination: Earthquake Island, which White hasn't bothered to research because he's an idiot. As Scroll says, it's an island that's made up entirely of earth ponies, and there are "racial tensions" between them and neighboring groups of pegasi and unicorns. It's also stated that there are two other missionaries on the island: Brother Sky and Brother Shine.
You'll notice the author has a bit of a problem when it comes to coming up with names that are more than one syllable.
In any case, the missionaries arrive on the island, and it turns out there IS a pegasus there. And then a bunch of earth pony soldiers gun him down right in front of the missionaries. So after pretty much an entire chapter of buddy comedy bullshit we're hit with a murder. Hope you like fucking inconsistent tone in this thing, because this story can't fucking decide what it is. And so the first chapter ends with this:
“Oh, fuck, they have guns!”
Second chapter opens with Brother White taking a shower. He's going to be doing a lot of that in this fic, because he's all about hygiene and shit. Of course, the water is shut off because there's a water shortage. The water shortage comes up a lot, and y'know, it kinda makes White look like a bit of a dick for showering all the time.
But in any case, we're introduced to our main antagonist: General Quake. He's the warlord who runs the island, a big massive brute who says "fuck" every other sentence. He basically threatens the missionaries and says that if they do anything out of line then they're in for a world of hurt. Brother Scroll, however, counters by saying they have diplomatic immunity. I don't think that's how it works, but that's pretty much all we're given for the next fifteen chapters as to why Quake doesn't just stomp their asses into the ground.
Also, recall the mention of the other two missionaries? They're nowhere to be seen! Quake says that they've run off to be with the unicorns and pegasi. Hope that explanation cuts it for you, because if not then we've got a massive plothole.
In any case, Quake notices that the two unicorns are being extraordinarily buddy-buddy.
“Actually,” said Brother Scroll, “the Fraternity doesn’t like to use the word ‘straight.’”
Quake looked at him like he’d heard the dumbest thing in his life. White nodded to Scroll, encouraging him.
“Well…” said Brother Scroll, “the thing is, ‘straight’ means ‘morally upright.’ And if we were to refer to heterosexuality as being ‘straight,’ that would imply that others were morally wrong.”
“The Fraternity is accepting of ponies of all sexual orientations,” said Brother White, helping him, “be they heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, transsexual, pansexual…”
In any case, the missionaries do what any Mormon pony does: they knock on doors! And they are miserable failures. Hope you like failure, because our missionaries can't do a damn thing right. "Door-knocking" bits will be present in several future chapters. They largely consist of the missionaries knocking on a door, followed by the occupant rejecting them in an ostensibly funny manner. For example, when Scroll introduces White as his partner, the pony at the house asks which one of them is the top.
And just like last chapter, this one ends in brutality as the missionaries stumble upon and fail to prevent a lynching! Notice how these two chapters are in a fairly dull pattern - we have our protagonists, buddy comedy bullshit, and then whoops grimderp death.
Anyway, no idea if this was anywhere near as acerbic or funny as I wanted it to be. Self-deprecation isn't automatically good, after all. Anyway, I'll probably read that next chapter of Romance Reports sometime next week. Oh, the terrible porn I endure for no actual reason, like some sort of fanfic masochist.
