[GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

SilentCarto wrote: (Boo, just what the heck are you?)

Downfall.

Even if she's not a plant (which I'm still not 100% convinced is true) I can't shake the feeling that Boo is going to spell some serious trouble for Blackjack. Maybe it's how innocent she is. Maybe it's the pariah dog, and the implications of a sole, lucky survivor. Or maybe it's how she's intelligent and understands things, even things she shouldn't be able to see, but acts like an animal. Maybe she does so because she's genuinely underdeveloped. Maybe it's an act.

I dunno. But something bad is gonna happen, and Boo will be at the center.

Boo is just comic relief, in my opinion. Things can change though and I'll be surprised.

swicked wrote:...I dunno. Could she really be the occasional byproduct of the blank cloning process? We've never had any clue as to what makes her special. No hint that Sanguine tried anything unusual with the system in the weeks prior to his getting EC-1101. It would have made sense for him to start trying to hack his way in before going mad and attacking everything Blackjack ever touched, but yeah...

I somehow doubt that Boo was created deliberately since neither Sanguine nor Fury recognized her as anything special. On the other hoof, I can't really see Twist running hundreds of cloning cycles in hopes of finding a Boo to be her Peppermint, and it would seem unlikely that she'd happen to get one on the first try. On the third hoof, we don't really know how often a Boo gets cloned, since they'd presumably starve to death within a week or three without anyone noticing. On the fourth hoof, Boo's apparent superpowers.

It's a good thing I have so many hooves.

Regarding Boo's precognition and luck shield: I wonder if this is some alternate expression of pony magic. We tend to refer to Blanks as earth ponies because they lack wings or horns, but that's a little like saying someone's white because they're not black or asian. Earth ponies aren't just unicorns wtihout horns or pegasi without wings, they're their own fully-realized branch of ponydom. If blanks are truly blank, they should lack flight, magic, and the subtle characteristics that make earth ponies special. And if that's the case, what emerges in its place?

swicked wrote:Pardon, but superpowers?

The aforementioned precognition and luck shield.

SilentCarto wrote:

swicked wrote:Pardon, but superpowers?

The aforementioned precognition and luck shield.

Pinkie Pie had precognition.

Derpmind wrote:

SilentCarto wrote:

swicked wrote:Pardon, but superpowers?

The aforementioned precognition and luck shield.

Pinkie Pie had precognition.

 I read another fanfic called "The Immortal Game." It's on FimFic.

In that fic, pinkie pie was revealed to be a survivor of some (I can't remember the name) long lost extinct race of ponies who had precognition powers.

Good fic, that one.

Got the Goddess death scene finished.  I hate it.  It's horrible.  It's pretentious.  It was fucking hard to write.  But it's done.  We'll see about setting a brushing date hopefully this weekend or next week.

Yay. That's awesome news.

*thinks about death scene*

It was emotionally hard to write or..um...somehow else?

Just horrible scene and horrible writing and just general horribleness in general.

Somber wrote:Just horrible scene and horrible writing and just general horribleness in general.

You mean horrible just like the past 57 chapters? :)

Somber wrote:Got the Goddess death scene finished.  I hate it.  It's horrible.  It's pretentious.  It was fucking hard to write.  But it's done.  We'll see about setting a brushing date hopefully this weekend or next week.

*hugs you gently*
Just try not to dwell on it until the brushing, sir. If it is that bad, which I sincerely doubt, then I'm certain Hinds and Bronode will do their best to help.

Somber wrote:Got the Goddess death scene finished.  I hate it.  It's horrible.  It's pretentious.  It was fucking hard to write.  But it's done.  We'll see about setting a brushing date hopefully this weekend or next week.

Somber wrote:Just horrible scene and horrible writing and just general horribleness in general.

 I am excite.

Rock on, Somber.

Somber wrote:Just horrible scene and horrible writing and just general horribleness in general.

 Is it wrong that my internal reaction is _(yay!) ?

Somber gets a rough draft done, hates it as usual, I guess because Somber is unsatisfied with anything short of Cormac McCarthy-level prose, and a new chapter of my favorite current story is incoming. I'll be very surprised if it's below excellent, but I guess art comes from torture (even if it's self-torture).

Next chapter is going to be supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

I was just thinking today "Would Project Horizons next chapter be finished yet? Nah, it wouldn't". I'm glad to be proven wrong. I hope Somber's proven wrong in his opinion of the quality to.

Here's the thing.  There's going to be alot hinging on this chapter because this was one of the most pivotal moments of FoE.  Sadly, the original fic was a bit... mmm... lacking when it came to this moment.  So it's a touch awkward.  My take on the Goddess is very different on Kkat's.  For instance, it would seem that the only mind she read was Littlepip's.  She's extremely overconfident yet four names shake her.  Yet I find it hard to believe that she's forgotten her names.  So I have to find a way to make them more than her name.

This moment matters a great deal to me and so I want it pulled off well.  Fortunately a few people have read it and told me it was just fine, stop stressing.  Still, I can't help but think 'Oh my fucking God... it's going to be another Stygius!  FUCK!'

This moment matters a great deal to me as well- I've been looking forward to this for a large part of the story now. All I know is that you're a far better writer than Kkat, and I know you'll do this chapter justice.

HUGBOX ACTIVATE

Somber...


Don't. Worry.

So I was looking over at deviantart for some PH stuff, and it's amazing how much fanart there is. It's not an accurate measure, but if you search for Project Horizons there are 3822 results. (Fallout Equestria has 8719.) Another place to look is the Fallout: Equestria deviantart group, which has multiple folders for the main characters. Just compared to the dozens (hundreds?) of of artists who have made fanart, the few of us who use the discussion thread here are really just a tiny group.

And I still wish we had numbers on how may people view the Gdocs pages.

It really is.  I'm blown away that anyony wanted to do one pic.  I still remember Linedot asking me and I was left going 'You actually WANT to?'

I can imagine this particular chapter must've been a serious pressure inducer. Its tackling one of the biggest events in the original FoE, but from a way different perspective than Kkat gave us, and this whole thing had been building up since Lacunae first joined the party. I know I've certainly been wondering how this scene would go down since then anyway. Don't sweat it though, no matter how this turns out its going to be an intense read, and I think there'll be plenty of people who'll dig it.

Somber wrote:ust horrible scene and horrible writing and just general horribleness in general.

So... you saying you have a PhD in Horribleness?

Derpmind wrote:So I was looking over at deviantart for some PH stuff, and it's amazing how much fanart there is. It's not an accurate measure, but if you search for Project Horizons there are 3822 results. (Fallout Equestria has 8719.) Another place to look is the Fallout: Equestria deviantart group, which has multiple folders for the main characters. Just compared to the dozens (hundreds?) of of artists who have made fanart, the few of us who use the discussion thread here are really just a tiny group.

And I still wish we had numbers on how may people view the Gdocs pages.

Yeah, its truly amazing just how many people out there PH has inspired to create artwork. Its how I even learned about PH existing in the first place, but stumbling across dozens of pics of Blackjack and the rest of the party on deviantart while I was looking at other FoE art.

What is said:   "horrible scene and horrible writing and just general horribleness in general"

What I hear:

Spoiler:

Somber wrote:Just horrible scene and horrible writing and just general horribleness in general.

Woohoo! I can't wait to read it, then!

thatguyvex wrote:

Somber wrote:ust horrible scene and horrible writing and just general horribleness in general.

So... you saying you have a PhD in Horribleness?

I can imagine writing a part of FoE that Kkat left out (almost?) completely might be stressful. A critical part of FoE nonetheless.

Thinking back, I remember my first read through of FoE and refreshing the page/looking for some link I missed multiple times because in FoE, it was just like "Going to kill the goddess, now goddess is dead, moving on."

Vanilla FoE is fairly, well, amateur in its writing and storytelling to begin with. KKat seems to put more emphasis on tying it to the video game them first than worldbuilding or making interesting characters.

I started reading it again and Littlepip is even more boring and two dimensional than I remember and when compared to the slow, more realistic development of PH characters, the transition from LP being a nerdy nervous dweeb to killing machine in a completely foreign world is more jarring than I remembered. The first few chapters of the first volume are more focused on horse puns than anything and the entire introduction is so handheld and dry (introduction, prologue AND chapter 1? really?) that it's tedious to get started.

Of course later in the story it gets more exciting but overall it isn't really THAT great and feels dated by more interesting side stories. Most folks probably remember FoE when it was a developing ambitious project - the longest work of fanfiction combining two unimaginable concepts and making them work. To look at it today, its flaws are much more glaring and obvious. It's kind of a shame that KKat didn't go back and revise it before uploading it in sections to FiMFiction since it would have been an opportune time to use what she learned to improve on early flaws.

...As well as and the ending. Nothing I hate more than a "gather everyone we've ever met for a suicide mission who instantly selflessly unite for one individual goal." It belittles the characters to two dimensional core personality traits to act as meat buckets and elevates Littlepip to a demigod leader/general which she's shown no previous inclination to being. Then our big climax is told from a more or less third person perspective of the battle with all the side characters supercharged to say goodbye to everyone at once while minimizing the impact of Littlepip's sacrifice, which didn't even feel that important after so many characters urged her to seek logical alternatives. It just made her look suicidal and blinded by cause.

In that case, KKat should really have decided to just use Fallout as a setting with subtle allusions to story elements of the games. FoE is primarily pony first with the setting as inspiration so this should have been made clear. Video games are user driven vs the written word which has no element of choice. I understand that KKat wanted Littlepip to be a reader insert but the story isn't an active narrative so it doesn't work that well. Shooter games like Fallout are unrealistic in the sense that while the actual character you play as may be a nobody, the player is familiar with the mechanics of the genera and knows what has to happen to get from A to B. There is no clear and present threat to the player. It doesn't work like that in a narrative unless the protagonist is supposed to be a self insert power fantasy, which makes for bad fiction.

I get what she was trying to do with Littlepip but it really doesn't work that well to think of it that way. If she REALLY wanted it to be the way I'm imagining, she could have made it a second person narrative but even then it'd have to be written from the focus of a very specific individual. That's how most of the arguments of "x should have done this instead" start.

swicked wrote:You can't fix this

Eh?

O. Hinds wrote:

swicked wrote:You can't fix this

Eh?

More infos over here. Bummer about the bug. I didn't find any other info on it in the wiki, but it is a PC game so maybe there's a patch somewhere.

Ah, that might be it; I've never played Fo2 without the Restoration Patch, and that's probably one of the bugs that the Patch fixes.

And yeah, I think that New Reno is a good example of what you mean.