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

Sessalisk Since: Dec, 1969

Aug 20th 2012 at 11:08:58 PM

I just picked up the story at the insistence of a friend. I don't have much to say about everything else, since I agree with a lot of the stuff you said here. The things I do disagree with are mostly subjective as well*

For instance, some people find alliteration hilarious. I am definitely not one of them.

. I enjoy stupidly lewd, disgusting and inappropriate jokes a lot more than most people, because I'm about as mature as a glass bottle of grape juice. I understand that the vast majority of people would just be horrified by the things I find funny.

On the other hand.

"Rarity totally isn't gay but she likes the kissing and Rainbow Dash continues and Rarity says she isn't gay again and Dash continues with "hey just because we have sex doesn't mean gay" YES IT DOES YOU IDIOTS."

That just comes off as kind of bigoted - it's narrow minded, or inaccurate at the very least. It's clearly possible for someone to be a closet bisexual, and it's also possible for someone to experiment and find out that they don't actually like the same sex very much. To put that into more context, you could be like the gayest person in the world and only have relations with people of the opposite sex, and you might never be attracted to any of the people you're dating or fucking. It happens.

I'm not sure why the same can't be true the other way around, unless you're specifically defining a "gay" person as "any person who has ever had consensual intercourse with another member of the same sex, ever". I mean, clearly that's a pretty gay act right there, but it doesn't mean that the person is necessarily gay, any more than screwing around with the opposite sex means you're a straight person.