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Pannic2012-06-30 18:18:12

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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
Aug 8th 2013 at 2:53:19 PM
After all this shit, reading Project Horizons may feel like a godsend.
Posey Since: Dec, 1969
Aug 9th 2013 at 1:18:13 PM
Pfft. It gets worse. So much worse.

Have fun reading Project Horizons, Pannic. From what I've read of it, I personally find it better and more engaging than the original story.
CCPrime Since: Dec, 1969
Aug 10th 2013 at 3:18:13 PM
Good luck with Project Horizons— according to what I've gleaned from reading parts of it and looking through the Project AFTER thread, it's a meandering, directionless mess of a fanfic that tries really hard to out-grimdark the original.

Of course, it's still infinitely better than Rose Potter, but then again pretty much anything else is.
Seraphem Since: Dec, 1969
Aug 10th 2013 at 11:05:46 PM
Well seeing how the original is in no way Grimdark, and is if anything, is the entire antithesis of Grimdark, one of those goals should be easy.
forsite Since: Dec, 1969
Aug 12th 2013 at 7:33:31 PM
I like how she tries to be smarter than Harry by not daring to open any book she doesn't understand fully, then immediately pulls down and reads a book a soon as it catches her eye...
Beacon80 Since: Dec, 1969
Jul 31st 2014 at 3:04:31 PM
So, Mc Gonagall told Rose to claim she's a druid, so she can sleep naked. Months later, she's only now telling Rose that it's a secret and she shouldn't tell anyone. And if druid magic is so awesome, why doesn't Mc Gonagall do it anymore?
IcyShake Since: Dec, 1969
Mar 4th 2015 at 9:15:54 PM
"The Girl Who Lived is really an amazing case. It finds new ways to suck. I mean, with Fallout: Equestria I could sometimes almost go entire chapters without really having anything to make fun of, but that isn't the case with this story. |Speaking of, I'm planning to start reading Project Horizons today. I probably won't liveblog it because of too many words. I'll probably just post my impressions/thoughts in the main Fallout: Equestria thread. It's slightly interesting because I don't know what I'll think about it. On the one hand, it sounds like it has even more angst, sex, violence, rape, and words than the original. On the other hand, apparently Blackjack is remotely likable.|

For example, this next chapter opens with a scene of Hermione asking Rose how to shave her pubic hair."

Okay, I like your stuff and everything (I've been rereading a bunch of the liveblog over the last week or so, so that should give an indication of what I mean), but either the stuff in the pipes was added after everything else as an afterthought and the following paragraph wasn't edited to take that into account, or the second paragraph is one of the strangest non-sequitur transitions I've seen in a while.
Pannic Since: Dec, 1969
Sep 1st 2015 at 8:31:20 PM
Hm. Obviously it's been like way over a year since then, so I don't remember exactly, but I'm gonna guess the former...
Escondido Since: Dec, 1969
Mar 30th 2022 at 7:26:27 AM
Actually, Pannic, the timing of that snowball fight...the original (canon) book has it so:

When Harry finally left the table, he was laden down with a stack of things out of the crackers, including a pack of non-explodable, luminous balloons, a Grow-Your-Own-Warts kit, and his own new wizard chess set. The white mice had disappeared and Harry had a nasty feeling they were going to end up as Mrs. Norris’s Christmas dinner.

Harry and the Weasleys spent a happy afternoon having a furious snowball fight on the grounds. Then, cold, wet, and gasping for breath, they returned to the fire in the Gryffindor common room, where Harry broke in his new chess set by losing spectacularly to Ron. He suspected he wouldn’t have lost so badly if Percy hadn’t tried to help him so much.

After a meal of turkey sandwiches, crumpets, trifle, and Christmas cake, everyone felt too full and sleepy to do much before bed except sit and watch Percy chase Fred and George all over Gryffindor tower because they’d stolen his prefect badge. It had been Harry’s best Christmas day ever. Yet something had been nagging at the back of his mind all day. Not until he climbed into bed was he free to think about it: the invisibility cloak and whoever had sent it.

So the snowball fight was AFTER the feast. In British English, “dinner” tends to refer to the midday meal, and the evening meal is “tea” or “supper”. Maybe that’s why Halcyon changed “meal of turkey sandwiches” to “tea of turkey sandwiches”. Anyway, I think you only got confused about the timing because Halcyon stupidly removed the paragraph break between the second and third paragraphs. That, along with the fact that he added some dialogue for the snowball fight.
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