And back to where I left off in chapter 17, wherein Homage had started her broadcast with exposition about Taint.
Shit, a joke from the protagonist that's almost actually funny.
Oh yeah, and earlier Littlepip gave Homage a record of old songs, which Homage happily announces to the listeners.
Then Homage reveals she hides her identity because she'd get kicked out of the tower if they knew she was a ghoul sympathizer... this raises more questions. I mean, if they know DJ Pon-3 is a ghoul sympathizer - which they kinda do because of earlier broadcasts - why don't they just try to figure out who it is and throw them out? What, is the law that you're allowed to broadcast whatever you like as long as they don't know who you are?
And now Homage has a quest for Littlepip, which she's hesitant to give, but Littlepip is super-eager.
Tell me (full stop) Tell me (full stop) Tell me (exclamation mark)
Doesn't quite convey the sense of quickness that was there in the actual show. And again with random references to lines despite the contexts not being remotely similar, making it an awkward and out-of-place. Not to mention that it's a bit of a jarring change from Littlepip's normal speaking patterns.
Anyway, Homage asks Littlepip to go somewhere crawling with Manticores to get some songs and stuff, and Littlepip agrees because she has nothing better to do. And because she's eager to please her soon-to-be love interest. But mostly because she has nothing better to do.
So before she meets up with her friends she's been bitching to the reader about because she resents them thinking she has a drug problem, she sneaks into the prison to talk to Monterey Jack.
Cheesey then goes into a speech about how "the Wasteland demands sacrifices," and grills Littlepip, asking her about how far she's fallen blah blah blah bet you weren't a killer when you first stepped out of the stable?
Well, took her about one day to turn into a cold-blooded gun-totting killing machine. Close enough, really.
So Cheesey says that you choose a virtue, in his case honesty, so you form one line that you don't cross. Hence Cheesey is going to die.
All throughout the speech we get interjections from the narration. For example, Littlepip's whole "breaking into an orphan's personal possessions" thing back in chapter 9. Eight chapters later and confined to one sentence of narration. Too little, too late.
And at one point in her internal monologue she mentions the incident from the day before, and how under Velvet's advice they'd given healing potions to the raider victim and... hold on, wait a minute. I am going to switch back to chapter 16 aaaaand...
That scene wasn't in the chapter. We cut right from Calamity's dark one-line to them walking through the town and Velvet being all shaken and shocked. So this thing, which is supposed to be highlighting a key character difference between Littlepip and Velvet, and the story doesn't have the decency to actually show it, instead just... mentioning it in a paragraph.
So Cheesey would rather die than tell a lie. And he won't lie by omission because that's still a lie - obviously we're supposed to get a contrast between him and Homage ("Sometimes being honest means knowing when not to be" - what the fuck does that even mean?). But that's not all. A big part of the reason he's doing it is because his kids hero-worship the protagonist like everyone else and he feels miserable because he tried to rob her and he can't mention that in front of his kids...
Okay. So, essentially, this character is willing to die because he can't live with the guilt of having wronged the protagonist.
Fuck you, Fallout Equestria.
So Littlepip is still on drug high and convinces the party to go along with her plan, then we get a thing of Calamity being pissed at the Enclave and SteelHooves basically saying that he's joined the group because he's bored. And off we go on quest. They go through the town, split up so Velvet is paired with Littlepip and Calamity with SteelHooves, Littlepip takes more drugs, and the author forgets to end a sentence with a period.
Oh yeah, and mechanical owls attack and we get a moment of Velvet running in front of Littlepip's loaded gun. Haw haw she is such a liability.
And then in the Ministry of Morale office we get a bit of a mind-screw when we see that the ministry has a cake and a birthday card for Littlepip, signed by Pinkie Pie herself. I admit, that's actually a fun twist.
Also, I must remind everyone that I hate narration like this:
Something like that might fit in a short comedy fic, but not in this. Or maybe it does fit because the narration is uniformly terrible. Whatever.
Velvet will not stop complaining about Calamity. And now... Velvet is... flirting with Littlepip... And now Littlepip is chewing her out on it. I have to characters that I hate being horrid to each other. I should find this more enjoyable. Maybe it's because the scenario is fucking stupid. Because that's what was missing from the source material: catty relationship drama bullshit.
And we are miraculously saved from this by another boring action scene.
Thing comes up and Velvet tries to apologize, Littlepip responds angrily, makes her cry, and then backs off and tries to give some advice and oh wow. She actually isn't completely unlikable here. Point. Okay, sure, it's kinda annoying "oh look at who's trying to play teacher" and shit, but still, at least she's actually demonstrating her supposed compassion for once as opposed to it being incidental to her shooting up dudes.
Anyway, now that I've recovered from the mind-blower of Littlepip not being completely unlikable for once in this miserable story I can continue. We get a recording from Pinkie Pie, blah blah blah she's going to a drug clinic, my, isn't this a marvelously apropos parallel to what the protagonist is going through?
Anyway, huh. For a brief moment there it seemed like the chapter had stopped being terrible. Anyway, drugs are starting to wear off, they're trying to traverse the area but manticores are everywhere, and Littlepip gets knocked out.
She wakes up and it turns out she's been captured. And the rape victim from the last chapter is there too! Lots of prisoners. Turns out there's a mad doctor who does evil experiments, and oh look Littlepip is getting OUTRAGED again. She kills the manticores, gets out, and heads for the doctor's office. Turns out it's a ghoul and he's completely insane, and... she stops in the middle of this to look at a memory orb... what? Couldn't you save this for after the thing?
Anyway, something something Scootaloo and the Cutie Mark Crusaders and talk about the stables and Ministry of Morale snooping and stuff.
Anyway, when she comes to, she gets captured and strapped to the table. And then the ghoul doctor is taken out by a knock-out dart from the rape victim from earlier, who then proceeds to stomp on his head until he's dead. And then some.
Time skip, we meet up with the party again, and they get the two demo recordings. Then they talk to Watcher about virtues and how they don't mean anything without friendship, they go back to Tenpony and give the recordings to Homage, who gives them the flux regulator that Calamity wanted, blah blah blah, and Littlepip stays behind and asks Homage if she knows any lesbians.
And whaddya know, Homage is one!
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