know this is an ancient post but I’m still trying to figure out what this picture means by ‘sabatoged an anti-insurgence campaign’ because I’m like. Extremely obsessed with FOE as evidenced by the fact that I’m even here commenting on ancient art, but I cannot a single event in the book that could reasonably be described that way, or even described that way in bad faith.
But actually what I find funny about this picture is that there’s ample evidence the book actually agrees with this view of Littlepip; at almost every point a karmic action in the original Fallout is referenced, Littlepip is associated with the evil reward. She has Xenith as a companion, who is based on a slave woman named Clover, who is only available to be a companion to an evil Lone Wanderer, she has the suite in Tenpenny/pony Tower that you only get for blowing up Megaton, she’s banned from the analogue to Megaton/Goodsprings… like the book actually implicitly tells you that based on the karma system of Fallout 3, she is evil. It’s just up to you personally as to how you view her actions, morally.
Wow. That was one long comment thread.
All I’ll add is a Raider can always stop being a “Raider”.
In my mind Raiders have always been a specific type of bad. Drug addled, insane, loves murder, torture, rape and horrible taste in decor. Just stop doing that.
At least be a Bandit for Celestias sake. Drop the drugs and Horrible decor and you might just not be the least morally questionable kill in the wasteland.
And honestly. Raiders in the story kinda drop off after a bit. Littlepip becomes to strong so they move over to mercs and well armed bandits. Only really seeing Raiders as pawns and basic workforce for Red Eye at the end.
It sure would be nice if they where more fleshed out and some are “forced” into being raiders.
But really. If you stay a raider you can’t really complain when you get slaughtered by the people effected by you raiding.
Ah yes, but when any FoE story tries to write not only a moral MC but also one that gets karmic punishment for the bad things they may have done, everyone mocks that.
Its like the community wants MCs like Littlepip. Hypocrites that get away with being monsters, calling others monsters, while being monsters themselves.
I so agree with that… I didn’t like Fallout Equestria because it felt like a video game… blood, death, guts everywhere. Almost every chapter she killed something… and this is the world where most of the populace died in fallout? Where settlements are rare and spread out? Yet there’s always a raider lair, or few, around each of them…
Why? Because this story is written like it would be a game! Where killed enemies are not real people, but a bunch of pixels that will cease to matter once they leave player (in this case reader’s) sight.
My snapping point was after Pip killed like 14 pegasi with those two gryphon mercs… and then proceeded to talk to last survivor, sparing him because buttons, flowers and puppies. Yeah.
@Exedrus
What a typically fanboy thing to say. Accusing everyone who’s critical of something that hype has pushed under their nose is guilty of seeking it out on purpose.
He did seek it out on purpose, which is why he posted here in an attempt to insult those who liked it.
The story is about the character’s development and how these situations changed them.
If you’re reading a story where the simple theme behind it is character change and development then the only honest thing I have to say to this is The Jungle does it better.
Honestly when I first read FoE I was on the boat it was the best thing ever produced in the last five years or so. But since then I started reading more and exploring novels both written in the past century, two centuries, or even five to ten years. I’ve since discovered the magic of the minimalist prose of Kenziboru Oe and his novel Death by Water still haunts me.
Literature - whether modern or classic - isn’t defined by Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey, or innumerable Penny Dreadfuls and if we’re comparing Fallout to those then easily yes: it is the better block of narrative, especially for free. But when you have to put it up against the vast sum of other works that are just as available to read then it loses its own value and the relative shallowness of the thematic philosophy behind it and the particular blandness of it shows through; more so Project fucking Horizons. Even against Death by Water where the heaviest criticism I’d throw at it after the fact is that the characters say, “anyways” far too often.
I think if we had to pull anything from this discussion it’s, “Read more”. And to read more outside of genre fiction.
The issue with this being what someone does and doesn’t like is variable. And that the experiences they receive do not become invalidated if something of higher quality comes around to them.
The story is about the character’s development and how these situations changed them.
If you’re reading a story where the simple theme behind it is character change and development then the only honest thing I have to say to this is The Jungle does it better.
Honestly when I first read FoE I was on the boat it was the best thing ever produced in the last five years or so. But since then I started reading more and exploring novels both written in the past century, two centuries, or even five to ten years. I’ve since discovered the magic of the minimalist prose of Kenziboru Oe and his novel Death by Water still haunts me.
Literature - whether modern or classic - isn’t defined by Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey, or innumerable Penny Dreadfuls and if we’re comparing Fallout to those then easily yes: it is the better block of narrative, especially for free. But when you have to put it up against the vast sum of other works that are just as available to read then it loses its own value and the relative shallowness of the thematic philosophy behind it and the particular blandness of it shows through; more so Project fucking Horizons. Even against Death by Water where the heaviest criticism I’d throw at it after the fact is that the characters say, “anyways” far too often.
I think if we had to pull anything from this discussion it’s, “Read more”. And to read more outside of genre fiction.
@Exedrus
What a typically fanboy thing to say. Accusing everyone who’s critical of something that hype has pushed under their nose is guilty of seeking it out on purpose.
@Exedrus
Nah, i don’t insult them. I just observe them.
The whole fandom is a clusterfuck, mind you, and each sub-fandom gets worse.
The worst ones i found are the fluffy pony people.
The only reason i didn’t immediately forget about it like any other fanfic is because of the fanbase it’s spawned, which is a clusterfuck of truly Hegelian proportions.
Ah, so you follow so that you can denigrate those who enjoy Kkat’s work. What a noble calling.
@Exedrus
See, the thing is, i love dark and disturbing fiction too, but it just felt so forced. Eden Eden Eden is darker, and deals with similar themes (rebels instead of raiders, slavery, mass murder, zealots, general atrocity) but it’s nowhere near as forced, perhaps because it wasn’t an ill advised attempt to mix two franchises that are both not particularly story driven and making a 1.1 million word monstrosity out of it, while the writer of Eden Eden Eden was familiar with the subject matter.
The only reason i didn’t immediately forget about it like any other fanfic is because of the fanbase it’s spawned, which is a clusterfuck of truly Hegelian proportions.
@habitantunholycity
Yeah, Fallout was never going to be the TellTale of gaming. It’d be pretty difficult to work a deep story into free-roaming RPG. And when in doubt, the video game devs relied on what they knew best, making an engaging/enjoyable experience for players.
Perhaps it’s just my distaste for post apocalyptic fiction …
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ At the end of the day, what you’re willing to put up with and what enjoyment you can glean is kinda the luck of the draw. I love grim, post-apocalypse settings, so this was right up my alley.
@Exedrus
Yeah, but they’re single individuals, not an entire group. As soon as the bugpones discover what Chrysalis is up too, they drop her from the throne pretty much immediately.
Fallout can get away with it because it’s a video game (and in case of Fallout 3, which to my knowledge was the main influence on the story, not even a well written video game).
Perhaps it’s just my distaste for post apocalyptic fiction, with a few exceptions (which completely avoid genre fiction cliches), they often times feel so… trite and forced.
@habitantunholycity
It’s true that Raiders aren’t deeply characterized. I see this as a tie-in to the Fallout franchise which often portrays them as the generic early-game baddies. And for that, they serve their purpose; they establish the dangerous, lawless state that Equestria is in. Then, later in the story, I saw them as a way to show how many good ponies just don’t care enough for one another to band together and eradicate them; which was symptomatic of the sorts of issues that were really at the core of the Equestrian Wasteland.
Also, there are other more interesting factions (Red Eye/the Enclave/Alicorns/etc) that appear later in the story. And they do help to get the story’s momentum rolling.
No such group or faction exists in the show.
Tirek, Chrysalis (so far), and Sombra are all pretty generic evil that ponies are cleanly united against. They may not be “endlessly slaughtered”, but they occupy the same archetypal moral position.
“The very cliches you argue make the story bad (and quite frankly I never had a problem with the pacing of the writing) are also present in this show.”
One of the criticisms i held towards it was that the raiders are essentially an always chaotic evil race for the protagonists to endlessly slaughter without moral dilemma.
Sure, however these ‘characters’ are also not the only thing going on in the story. There are more then one faction in this story and the raiders as a whole are practically irrelevant. They’re more of an example of the retardation caused from the lack of order. In fact one of the ‘evil’ characters that littlepip fights against can have arguments made for him that what he’s doing is right.
No such group or faction exists in the show.
Sure, no ponies are cutting people up (because it’s a kids show). However they have shown actively trying to destroy the world as they knew it. And granted even in the comics there is actual dismemberment.
The entire purpose of the scenes is to show to the character as well as anyone people not familiar with the setting (if that’s possible) the immediate differences between the settings.
And an overuse of cliches can and often times is what makes a story bad, see Eragon for a perfect example of this.
Then it’s a good thing that isn’t what happens here. As already shown, you’d have no idea what cliches were and were not used in this story. And the ones that have been offered in this comment thread already have already been argued against.
“This character also has flaws which evolve as the story progesses, in fact if there wasn’t any this picture couldn’t exist.”
Again, i didn’t argue to the contrary. My point was not that they hand’t, rather was that the events that triggered such personal metamorphoses can only exist in the realm of bad genre fiction.
“I don’t like the way the character evolved over the course of a story I didn’t read.”
Well, I can’t really argue with that can I?
I guess I can take the same approach and say every example story you provided is actually terrible, at least now we would be on equal footing.
“What i’m here for” is completely irrelevant because i’m here to look at pictures, not to read. Regardless of what your philosophy on aesthetics is, I doubt you’d argue they’re the same for prose/poetry and visual arts.
Well no, as you use things that you describe as good for justification of why it’s bad. So by liking something that is bad by the same story requirements you’re contradicting your reasoning. Being animated does not remove the the presence of writing from a show.
And the difference is that i consider MLP entertainment. Entertainment is better suited for the TV, and 22 long episodes with endearing characters are the perfect model for this. The only common thing between all the examples i’ve given you is that they tend to stay on the more artful end of the spectrum. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with entertainment, but just like art, there is good entertainment and bad entertainment.
And in the same merit what is good and bad varies by person, so because you like MLP you’ve made an exception to the rule for yourself.
I’m glad someone still appreciates this piece. Thanks.
But actually what I find funny about this picture is that there’s ample evidence the book actually agrees with this view of Littlepip; at almost every point a karmic action in the original Fallout is referenced, Littlepip is associated with the evil reward. She has Xenith as a companion, who is based on a slave woman named Clover, who is only available to be a companion to an evil Lone Wanderer, she has the suite in Tenpenny/pony Tower that you only get for blowing up Megaton, she’s banned from the analogue to Megaton/Goodsprings… like the book actually implicitly tells you that based on the karma system of Fallout 3, she is evil. It’s just up to you personally as to how you view her actions, morally.
All I’ll add is a Raider can always stop being a “Raider”.
In my mind Raiders have always been a specific type of bad. Drug addled, insane, loves murder, torture, rape and horrible taste in decor. Just stop doing that.
At least be a Bandit for Celestias sake. Drop the drugs and Horrible decor and you might just not be the least morally questionable kill in the wasteland.
But really. If you stay a raider you can’t really complain when you get slaughtered by the people effected by you raiding.
Edited
60% what they already had.
25% what they are willing to do.
15% luck.
nah, Atom Smasher is your typical Fallout player
This was 200 years after “everyone” died.
Why? Because this story is written like it would be a game! Where killed enemies are not real people, but a bunch of pixels that will cease to matter once they leave player (in this case reader’s) sight.
My snapping point was after Pip killed like 14 pegasi with those two gryphon mercs… and then proceeded to talk to last survivor, sparing him because buttons, flowers and puppies. Yeah.
Fuck this story.
He did seek it out on purpose, which is why he posted here in an attempt to insult those who liked it.
@AaronMk
The issue with this being what someone does and doesn’t like is variable. And that the experiences they receive do not become invalidated if something of higher quality comes around to them.
If you’re reading a story where the simple theme behind it is character change and development then the only honest thing I have to say to this is The Jungle does it better.
Honestly when I first read FoE I was on the boat it was the best thing ever produced in the last five years or so. But since then I started reading more and exploring novels both written in the past century, two centuries, or even five to ten years. I’ve since discovered the magic of the minimalist prose of Kenziboru Oe and his novel Death by Water still haunts me.
Literature - whether modern or classic - isn’t defined by Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey, or innumerable Penny Dreadfuls and if we’re comparing Fallout to those then easily yes: it is the better block of narrative, especially for free. But when you have to put it up against the vast sum of other works that are just as available to read then it loses its own value and the relative shallowness of the thematic philosophy behind it and the particular blandness of it shows through; more so Project fucking Horizons. Even against Death by Water where the heaviest criticism I’d throw at it after the fact is that the characters say, “anyways” far too often.
I think if we had to pull anything from this discussion it’s, “Read more”. And to read more outside of genre fiction.
Edited
What a typically fanboy thing to say. Accusing everyone who’s critical of something that hype has pushed under their nose is guilty of seeking it out on purpose.
Edited
Isn’t PH like 1.7 million words?
Oh shit, it appears Fo:E is around 660k words. Well, I just have no excuse for that, my bad.
Now I know I might be asking a lot out of you, however I’d advise you don’t confuse this story with Project Horizons.
Nah, i don’t insult them. I just observe them.
The whole fandom is a clusterfuck, mind you, and each sub-fandom gets worse.
The worst ones i found are the fluffy pony people.
Ah, so you follow so that you can denigrate those who enjoy Kkat’s work. What a noble calling.
See, the thing is, i love dark and disturbing fiction too, but it just felt so forced. Eden Eden Eden is darker, and deals with similar themes (rebels instead of raiders, slavery, mass murder, zealots, general atrocity) but it’s nowhere near as forced, perhaps because it wasn’t an ill advised attempt to mix two franchises that are both not particularly story driven and making a 1.1 million word monstrosity out of it, while the writer of Eden Eden Eden was familiar with the subject matter.
The only reason i didn’t immediately forget about it like any other fanfic is because of the fanbase it’s spawned, which is a clusterfuck of truly Hegelian proportions.
Yeah, Fallout was never going to be the TellTale of gaming. It’d be pretty difficult to work a deep story into free-roaming RPG. And when in doubt, the video game devs relied on what they knew best, making an engaging/enjoyable experience for players.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ At the end of the day, what you’re willing to put up with and what enjoyment you can glean is kinda the luck of the draw. I love grim, post-apocalypse settings, so this was right up my alley.
Edited
Yeah, but they’re single individuals, not an entire group. As soon as the bugpones discover what Chrysalis is up too, they drop her from the throne pretty much immediately.
Fallout can get away with it because it’s a video game (and in case of Fallout 3, which to my knowledge was the main influence on the story, not even a well written video game).
Perhaps it’s just my distaste for post apocalyptic fiction, with a few exceptions (which completely avoid genre fiction cliches), they often times feel so… trite and forced.
It’s true that Raiders aren’t deeply characterized. I see this as a tie-in to the Fallout franchise which often portrays them as the generic early-game baddies. And for that, they serve their purpose; they establish the dangerous, lawless state that Equestria is in. Then, later in the story, I saw them as a way to show how many good ponies just don’t care enough for one another to band together and eradicate them; which was symptomatic of the sorts of issues that were really at the core of the Equestrian Wasteland.
Also, there are other more interesting factions (Red Eye/the Enclave/Alicorns/etc) that appear later in the story. And they do help to get the story’s momentum rolling.
Sure, however these ‘characters’ are also not the only thing going on in the story. There are more then one faction in this story and the raiders as a whole are practically irrelevant. They’re more of an example of the retardation caused from the lack of order. In fact one of the ‘evil’ characters that littlepip fights against can have arguments made for him that what he’s doing is right.
Sure, no ponies are cutting people up (because it’s a kids show). However they have shown actively trying to destroy the world as they knew it. And granted even in the comics there is actual dismemberment.
The entire purpose of the scenes is to show to the character as well as anyone people not familiar with the setting (if that’s possible) the immediate differences between the settings.
Then it’s a good thing that isn’t what happens here. As already shown, you’d have no idea what cliches were and were not used in this story. And the ones that have been offered in this comment thread already have already been argued against.
“I don’t like the way the character evolved over the course of a story I didn’t read.”
Well, I can’t really argue with that can I?
I guess I can take the same approach and say every example story you provided is actually terrible, at least now we would be on equal footing.
Well no, as you use things that you describe as good for justification of why it’s bad. So by liking something that is bad by the same story requirements you’re contradicting your reasoning. Being animated does not remove the the presence of writing from a show.
And in the same merit what is good and bad varies by person, so because you like MLP you’ve made an exception to the rule for yourself.
Edited