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

Jul 16th 2013 at 11:25:15 PM

I don't get it.

How do you take a good book, copy it mostly word-for-word, and make it a bad book?

It's like taking a test with the answer key in front of you and still failing.

Pannic Since: Dec, 1969

Jul 17th 2013 at 10:12:00 AM

All it takes is a fundamental misunderstanding of how and why the story worked in the first place, and of how stories work in general.

For example, the best thing about the books, in my opinion, was the wonderful sense of humor. Things like the Marauder's map insulting Snape when he tried to read it, or "It unscrews the other way."

We've already seen in this story how the author is snipping away all the funny bits, because apparently fun is stupid. This isn't all that dissimilar to an attempted Avatar: The Last Airbender fic he did, which was also a retread fic with a dumb OC that had the stated goal of toning down some of the more cartoony aspects. Because fun is stupid.

TheOtherSteve Since: Dec, 1969

Jul 18th 2013 at 7:12:28 AM

Do you have a link to the Avatar fic? I'm morbidly curious.

Good liveblog, by the way.

Pannic Since: Dec, 1969

Jul 18th 2013 at 10:30:17 AM

Sure. It's called The Lotus' Blossum.

He only got a couple chapters into it before giving up. I chuckle a bit at the author's note. If you're going to do a "Methods of Rationality"-style rewrite of the story, why introduce a bland OC? Why not just use Sokka? He kinda already filled that role.

ILSS Since: Dec, 1969

Jul 18th 2013 at 1:00:21 PM

If you're going to do a "Methods of Rationality"-style rewrite of the story, why introduce a bland OC?

Because you're doing a rationalist rewrite of a story.

ILSS Since: Dec, 1969

Jul 18th 2013 at 1:16:49 PM

Oh, sorry. I read that as asking why you'd add a bland character, when the question was why you wouldn't just co-opt an existing one.

I'd have appended this to my previous post, but I don't know how to edit comments.

Pannic Since: Dec, 1969

Jul 18th 2013 at 2:08:34 PM

Ooh, hey, haven't seen you in a while!

Also, you can edit comments by going to the main liveblogs directory, clicking on the number of comments, and scrolling down to your comments.

RN452 Since: Dec, 1969

Jul 24th 2013 at 6:21:25 AM

About the copy-paste, I suppose this is against the rules of the site, so much that recently there has been a purge of those fanfics. The Cartoon X-overs section had over 5000 fics. Today there is about 3000 and it still didn't end. Even myself wrote those types of fic in the time I was a burging idiot.

EDIT: Nevermind, I didn't pay attention ot the fact that the fic has been removed from the site.

But, on the case of Victoria Secret, I suppose that could make sense if it were a parody fic, in the style of Airplane, but it's not. Unfortunately.

Beacon80 Since: Dec, 1969

Jul 31st 2014 at 12:53:39 PM

What really destroys the scene with Draco is that she has no real reason to dislike him so much. He's not insulting anyone, so she comes across as shallow, disliking him simply because he sounds arrogant. So does Ernie Macmillan, but he's a good guy.

As for Victoria's Secret... why? Even beyond the whole "Why did you think this was important enough to put in the story?" and "Why would a a teacher take this responsibility on herself?", why does Mc Gonagall assume Rose needs to buy underwear in the first place?

Oh, and if anyone cares, I have a sporking of The Lotus' Blossom here

Pannic Since: Dec, 1969

Jul 31st 2014 at 4:23:35 PM

Woah, I got someone from Das Sporking to comment on my blog? Sweet!