Present Perfect vs. Project Horizons, Book 1 · 8:00pm Dec 6th, 2015
BOOK 1: 1-16 || BOOK 2: 17-33 || BOOK 3: 34-49 || BOOK 4: 50-62 || BOOK 5: 63-77 || EPILOGUE
I’m going to begin with a recap of my history with Somber’s Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons.
Way back when I wrote my review/lambasting of the original Fallout: Equestria (which, I should note, I am not proud of), the joke quickly became, “HEY PP, READ PH!” To which my response was a resounding “lol no :V”. Project Horizons loomed ever on the horizon like a black hole, ready to swallow my free time if I so much as glanced at it. Clocking in at over two Fallout: Equestrias long, it was too big and too bulky to even consider reading, because, thanks to that selfsame bulk, I would have to read the whole thing, per my own rules for these vs. posts. lol, no, indeed.
But eventually, my resolve wavered. As it reached conclusion, I became caught up in the spectacle of “PH is finished!” and later, “PH is on Fimfic!” Not since the original had made the jump to Fimfiction had this site been so excited about a single story. I have to admit being something of a groupie for a story I had never read and had no intention of reading.
Until VisualPony started his audiobook, that is. He had full plans to finish the whole thing; I was trapped, with no way out. So I devised a plan: the story is canonically split up into four five books (fuckshitfuck), so I will read them one at a time. If, at any point, a particular book stopped me cold, I would finish it and end the whole thing there. (Here's another by Plagen Shiki.)
And now, here we are. Head below to find out my thoughts on book one — chapters one through sixteen — of Somber’s Project Horizons. (Funny trivia: the sequel, Homelands, released the day I started reading this.)
I really like this story, and that concerns me, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Project Horizons started off in a very, very good way, by making Blackjack’s life in Stable 99 inherently interesting. The Stable itself is set up as a dystopian matriarchy, and more importantly, there’s stuff going on. Blackjack has needs and wants within the context of Stable life. There’s a plot she’s slowly figuring out. All by itself, this first chapter is a nearly self-contained, entertaining story. Blackjack herself was endearing despite, and indeed, thanks to, her Snarky Main Character narration, and just dripped personality everywhere.
As for Stable 99 itself, we find out it was set up as yet another of Stable-Tec’s experiments: a fixed population of 500, where jobs are handed down from mother to daughter regardless of cutie mark or other factors, and males are kept around only as breeding equipment. When one reaches the peak of his usefulness, or another is born to take his place, the oldest is “retired”, which is to say euthanized and then recycled into the stuff they eat. (For all its societal faults, the place is very self-sufficient.) Males aren’t supposed to be educated, and there’s no mingling of the sexes beyond the breeding queue. Lesbianism is rampant. :V
This is all blown to hell by their power-crazed, and honestly crazy, Overmare, an incompetent, belligerent foal who’s been contacted by the outside and believes Stable-Tec is coming to save her and declare the experiment a success. This goes about as pear-shaped as you can imagine, with the end result of Blackjack stumbling out into the Wasteland with P-21 (that is, the earth pony breeding male who was about to be retired) and a file on her Pipbuck that a giant metal monstrosity called Deus wants to kill her for.
Things continue from there as Project Horizons leads us through a lot of the same motions as Fallout: Equestria, only generally more exciting than not. Here’s where I note that I can’t review this story without direct comparison to the original — and to be honest, I wish I’d read more (serious) sidefics than just Starlight prior to this one, so I had more to compare to — and I might as well just talk about how they compare.
Blackjack vs. Littlepip is an interesting contest. BJ seems to be about half reaction to and half copy of LP, at least in some ways. She is, for instance, bisexual, where LP is a lesbian, but she’s also really horny. (I have yet to understand this.) Just like LP, she’s a unicorn who can only use levitation magic, she has mommy issues, and she’s into a black-coated mare at the start of the story. She’s a crack shot because the Pipbuck is basically a “win the Wasteland free” card, but it also helps that she worked security in the Stable. Where Littlepip got addicted to Mintals (still my favorite part of FoE), Blackjack seems to be developing into an alcoholic, not to mention getting herself addicted to everything else. Littlepip is the Stable Dweller and Blackjack is “The Security Mare”, or just “Security”. Where LP often declares herself “not a clever pony” out of self-deprecation (she did some dumb things, but she was also pretty decent at planning, as I recall), BJ considers herself outright stupid. And though she’s constantly bringing it up, she doesn’t mope about it; she embraces it. “I’m going to do something stupid” is all but a battle cry. About the only place Blackjack isn’t a powered-up Littlepip is in the whining department, and I only mention this because, at some point, BJ is pondering a DJ Pon-3 broadcast about the “Stable Dweller” and admonishes herself for being mopey, because the Stable Dweller would never just sit around and complain about how much everything sucks! :V Yeah, she has no idea. And though it gets annoying rather frequently, I think there’s a vein of portraying PTSD here that makes her whininess feel true-to-life, at the very least.
For all that they’re very much alike, though, they’re strongly different characters, and that is a clever segue into me talking about characters! :V First is P-21, a stoic, serious stallion with a metric fuckton of baggage thanks to his upbringing as a Stable 99 sex slave. Of course, despite this upbringing, he’s incredibly knowledgeable about a lot of things in the Wasteland, not least of which is his deft skill with lockpicking. This has been lampshaded somewhat in book one — one of the mares in his breeding queue supposedly taught him a bunch of things because she liked him — but it still lingers as one of the things bothering me. Contrast his worldliness with the depiction of Blackjack’s naivete and agoraphobia upon leaving the Stable — something that happened to Littlepip as well — and it’s easy to see why.
That said, his relationship with Blackjack is one of the most fascinating things about this story so far. As the book progresses, we learn that BJ didn’t exactly treat him very nicely in the Stable. She was, of course, just doing as she was told and didn’t know any better (though she later refutes this!), but we’re shown a number of recordings that depict her treating him like cattle, raping him, and even killing another pony in front of him. I’ll leave the specifics for others to experience; suffice to say, his backstory is deliciously tragic, and at the end of chapter 16, he undergoes a very satisfying round of forgiveness, made even more satisfying by not being all-encompassing.
Their second companion is Morning Glory, a pegasus from the Enclave Volunteer Corps, who are trying to help the surface, more or less under the noses of their more conservative superiors. Let me take a moment to say that the depiction of the Enclave in this story is more than a little confusing. Somber told me that the Enclave hadn’t quite been fleshed out in the original story while he was writing, so he more or less made a bunch of things up, and that goes a long way to explaining how triggerhappy xenophobes could even have something like the Corps. (Though I prefer to think they made it as a method of letting undesirables get out of their mane. Noting again that the Pegasus Enclave was one of my favorite parts of FoE.) Morning Glory, though, is one of my favorite parts of this story. She serves as the medic and, unlike Velvet Remedy, also air fire support with her beam weapons. (P-21 has steadfastly refused to carry a gun, out of fear that he’ll kill Blackjack for what she did to him. Again, he’s very interesting.) She plays the role of the classic optimist, slowly falling from grace as her neatly crafted world crumbles to bits in the face of unrelenting reality. So far, she’s gotten the lion’s share of terrible shit happening to her, and by the end of the book, she’s just a complete mess. Her losses are the ones that hit me the hardest.
Her relationship with Blackjack has been interesting, too, though it was rather a while in taking off. At one point, the three of them are separated, and after BJ storms an Enclave compound to rescue her is when they start getting closer. (I really hope they hook up, not gonna lie, nobody say anything about this.) Blackjack starts seeing herself as the emotional center of their team, doing the stoic “I have to be strong” thing for Glory, and proving that she’s at least capable of being a decent damned friend.
Also notable are a lot of the side characters. Bottlecap, who owns a big trading center, has a really fascinating speech about Wasteland economics. Dusty Trails is a pretty decent character, who I was sad to see not join the group; I could say the same for a zebra they rescue named Sekashi. An Enclave soldier named Wind Whisper served a very intriguing role during that chapter. A doctor named Scalpel is so far my absolute favorite, though. The fact that she and Blackjack sit down and have a lengthy conversation about the morality of rape goes a long way towards this. Suffice to say, that scene was far above what I expected out of an FoE sidefic, and I couldn’t think of a better way to comment on the original. It’s my absolute favorite part of Project Horizons so far.
And then there are the villains. For better or worse, Somber seems to be going the “grouped set” route with themed villains. We have not only the Four Horses of the Apocalypse (are you fucking kidding me) but the Zodiac Family (that means there are thirteen fucking siblings are you fucking kidding me). The latter I can say aren’t too bad; by the end of chapter sixteen, we’ve seen five of them, and Virgo especially, the first one we meet, is hilarious, a character who could out-Trixie Trixie. As for the Horses, they seem to be less unified; in fact, I’m not even sure if we’ve met more than Deus. (There’s a fight with a pony-thing named Gorgon, who I thoooought was one, but I’m honestly not certain. The relationship between the Horses and the Reavers or Reapers or whatever they’re called is a tad confusing.) Deus, by the way, is short for “Deus Ex Machina”, I’m not even kidding. He’s not much of a character, more a force of nature, and his downfall marks the end of book one, not to spoil anything. It’s a very satisfying (if icky) death, letting the characters finally let out a breath they’ve been holding for quite some time.
There are a couple others, like Lighthooves, who was good, and Sanguine, who’s one of those big, shadowy, only-ever-hear-about-him characters. His motives haven’t been revealed beyond the fact that he’s not even the guy at the top, but I’m hoping — really hoping — that he’s part of another set. I mean, anyone can do zodiac signs, or horsemen of the apocalypse, or deadly sins (c.f. Starlight), but the four humours? That would be something worthwhile.
With the mention of Sanguine, I should talk about the plot, since he’s one of the big things moving the main story along. Funny thing: there’s almost no main plot so far. The actual conflict is “Blackjack needs to figure out what’s on that file and not die”, but other than her mentioning once every other chapter that she needs to do this, I had a tendency to forget that was even a concern. Instead, we get sidequest after sidequest, and never once did I feel irritated or jerked around by this the way I did with Fallout: Equestria.
This is one of those things that concerns me. If I’m not invested in the main plot, how am I going to feel later when it no doubt starts ramping up and taking over more of the story? Hopefully, I won’t miss the faffing around; certainly, if the main plot comes with more good character interactions, I won’t.
One last major thing, the setting. Whereas FoE took Littlepip through all corners of the Wasteland in the name of worldbuilding, this story is interestingly set in one place. After a few chapters of wandering, Blackjack and P-21 come across a loading screen sign welcoming them to Hoofington, aka “The Hoof”, which is set up as basically a city-state. It’s a fortress of a city that was a major operating center during the War, and nearly a nation unto itself. That focus has been on this one place, and that there’s so much going on in it, is really surprising. (There’s an odd comparison to be had with The Legend of Korra, which I just started watching.) I can’t say I’ve got a really good feel for Hoofington, but part of that may reside in it just too big to fully comprehend. I mean, try understanding the layout of New York City sometime, I have a feeling that’s about the right scale.
I’m pretty sure I’ve covered all the positives, so let me move to the negatives. Number one? Blackjack.
For all that I say I like her, she’s also got some big problems. There have been little snatches where she seems more worldly than she really should be; this was more an issue in the early chapters, of course. My main concern is that she’s fucking invincible. When I’m troubling myself with keeping track of character power levels, something is very wrong with the story. But so far, she’s been infected with Taint, giving her night vision (because of course nothing bad could come of this), she’s bounced back from death’s door at least three separate times, and there was a scene where, after getting her armor upgraded with just some metal plating, she’s taking numerous shotgun blasts to the torso and simply not giving a fuck. She’s constantly able to heal herself, or get healed; when that fails, she uses drugs; when that fails, she just fucking cheats, like when she takes an energy weapon blast through the chest and doesn’t seem to care much. The only character who comes close to this level of Mary Sueishness is Morning Glory, who at one point saves Blackjack’s life by operating on her spine after — get this — having seen a similar operation once before. Not even participated once, watched. Medic op af. And I know, thanks to fanart, that Blackjack will eventually lose an eye and all of her legs, and that won’t stop her, either. I’m kind of looking forward to it, though.
The big omission those familiar with the story will note is me not covering Rampage during the character section. Fact is, I’m pretty cold on her. Her introduction was decent enough, but she’s literally got zero reason to be hanging out with them. I’m sure her backstory will reveal itself in time, but right now, she’s a blackbox question mark of more-unstoppable-than-Blackjack pony killing and snarky comebacks. She doesn’t strike me terribly well, I don’t exactly trust her, and so she’s down around Xenith in terms of “FoE characters I dislike”.
The writing I cannot comment on, once again thanks to the audiobook. It’s kind of funny, VisualPony started releasing it in January of this year, which was just early enough for the story not to have finished, and then everything changed when the Fire Nation. Somber’s been updating things as it’s uploaded to Fimfiction, so I have to give him the benefit of the doubt in regards to most things I’ve noticed, like the LUS. I can at least confirm that some of the close repetition problems I’ve been noticing remain in the text, so there’s that. I can also grumble about how aware Blackjack is of her eyes. Yes, they’re freaky-looking, but you can’t actually see them!
The only other thing I can complain about is the memory orbs. In this regard, Project Horizons is (so far) outshined by its predecessor. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten most of the backstory for the world already, and I want to see what can be done in the present time. But so far the historical plots have focused mostly on Big Macintosh, his role in the war and his death, and they just haven’t been grabbing my attention. The one spot in book one that really dragged was a scene where he meets a character named Maripony (!), who eventually has his child. (Which, interestingly, we learn about first.) The scenes with “Macintosh’s Marauders” are mildly interesting at best, but I always found myself wanting more of the now than the then, which is a complete 180 from FoE proper. I mean, for all that Starlight treated Shining Armor like a plot device, I still found that historical plot more interesting. I suppose there’s room to improve, though, and at the very least, I can say that the story of Stable 90 was fascinating, and definitely the best use of dual plotting so far.
So from Blackjack’s origins in Stable 99’s rape factory — and I cannot overstate how well this subplot has been handled — to her gory victory over Deus, that’s my take on Project Horizons so far. There’s a lot of good characters, a plot that hardly ever lags, good action scenes, and even some decent humor. (One of the best exchanges I marked was “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” “No, but I kiss yours.”) The writing is really quite good (one section suggests the identity of a side character with a tiny amount of body language and nothing more!), and it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Somber wrote Simply Rarity, after all (and Rarity’s Rodeo!). He knows what he’s doing.
Oh, but wait, there’s one more thing. Remember how I said the plot issues were one of the things I’m concerned about? Well, the other is how many people have told me I will hate this story. Not dislike, I’m talking “PP, don’t read it, you’ll hate it, it’s got everything you hated about FoE but worse.” And yet, I haven’t seen too much of that. I mean, sure, there’ve been some off-kilter referential jokes (the latest one was the old fandom gripe about “does Octavia play a cello or a double bass?”; about the only way that could have been made worse is if the color of Vinyl’s eyes had been mentioned), and some show quoting (which undercut the tragedy of one early scene with a ghoulified show character, and nearly ruined a second), but it hasn’t been nearly as bad as in Fallout: Equestria. The gore and fighting are at understandably high levels, the rape is massively toned down and, as I said, being treated with considerably more decorum than in the original. The worst part is probably the video gameyness, and that’s (mostly) been less of an issue as things go. Though I groaned every time one of the fucking figurines shows up, and the way SATS is described in this story is literally how VATS works in the games. It probably doesn’t help that I know what’s going on now. (But I have to look askance at Blackjack charging after groups of Raiders, crowing about loot.)
Point is, I’m finding little to hate, and tons to love. And that scares me. Because for all that there’s room for improvement over those spots I genuinely dislike, there’s also lots of room for things to get far, far worse. The only thing worse than a bad story is one that starts out good, only to squander its promise. And so it is with heavy trepidation that I creep my way into book two, where chapters are 20k words minimum…
At some point. Finishing this reading has meant I’m done with VisualPony’s channel, so I’m going to be adding ShadowOfCygnus into the mix and probably trying to get through a couple of Captain Sand’s long audiobooks before tackling more PH. But tackle it I shall! There’s at least one more book to read, folks!
Book Score: 4/5
Overall: 0.8/5
Off to a great start.
(And for those keeping track, I’m going to leave this date as the single entry for PH reviews, and use notes in the spreadsheet to keep track of dates and scores for those that follow.)
Oh man. Please, send me a skype message when you get to the scene where she turns to rubber and gets gang-raped to death. And then comes back to life as a cyborg.
I need to see your reaction.
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I...
See, this is exactly what I'm afraid of D:
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Dude, it's a wild ride. I didn't even make it to the end. Not even close, but I hear it got even wilder.
Contrary to some other people I did actually enjoy all of PH for all it's faults. I'll be looking forward to your next review.
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So, you haven't gotten to the part about the character created from Fluttershy's OC-bred failed abortion test-tube baby named Psychoshy who has butterflies with fucking razor blades for wings as her cutie mark?
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Fucking mod wankfest up in here.
I loved PH. I think of it as the sequel to FoE that I wanted at the end. Everything I loved, and tons more of it! Plus, I'm really good at ignoring little faults, so this is perfect for me.
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The name "Psychoshy" was in my notes somewhere, but I don't think I included any more context than that. >.>
So, I'm thinking of treating these summaries as vicariously reading the story, or at least getting an overview of it, as I don't expect to ever have the time in hand to read it myself.
Good idea/bad idea?
Fair warning, PP. Book Two is when shit gets real. If you can get through it and still feel like going, I'm sure you'll have no trouble finishing it.
Glad to see you've been liking it so far. Hope that continues, but I'm not about to stake any money on that or anything. I'm not too surprised the side-quests haven't been bothering you as much here, as like you say, they aren't so much distracting from the plot as acting as the plot themselves. Especially at this point, the story isn't so much about something the characters do as about the characters, and stuff they happen to do.
Won't go into the Zodiacs, but I'm pretty sure you can just drop the Four Horsemen from your mind; I don't think they ever come up besides the once. Suffice to say they are, as "Big Daddy's Four Horses of the Apocalypse" suggests, part of the Reapers.
LUS is/was undeniably rampant in the story. Close repetition I tended not to notice as often, but certainly from time to time. I don't think that either would have been changed in the move to FIMFic. The most significant changes I was aware of were 1) removing the word "buck" when used as a synonym for "stallion," 2) changing the post-chapter level-up/similar tags after chapter 33, and 3) changing what happened in a scene much later on than you are (chapter 45) in a way that had minimal material effects elsewhere. And that last one was brought up in the chapter's author's note here on FIMFic; however, VisualPony's reading includes the original version, not the updated.
3597860 Just how sure are you that Blackjack wouldn't only agree with the headline, but wouldn't have intentionally posed for the photo and proposed the headline herself?
3597999 Now, now. If you'd wanted to prejudice Present against her, I think you had an option that hews more closely to one of his particular issues, even if it only comes up later on. Actually, possibly two, given I either never knew or forgot (if he's ever published anything expressing it) his opinion on something else. Though now I have to wonder if he'll end up insisting she's a closeted/self-hating/in-denial lesbian . . . (Granted, the Greatest Short Story in the History of Fiction tells us that she must be.
)
3598086 Actually, come to think of it, you probably aren't going to like her introduction . . .
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We shall see! :O Although the first sixteen chapters might be worth reading by themselves. At least something gets resolved by the end!
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MY BODY IS READY
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My one regret is it will be a while until I pick up book two, so we won't be reading buddies anymore. :B
SOMEONE IN THE COMMENTS pointed out a spot where a character was taking a shot of stallion because of this. :D
3598105 Since the fics are amazingly not safe for Ferret, I'm doing the same. So i vote good idea.
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That shit happens. PH has a fucking awful rep for a well earned reason. It starts out good if generically grimdark, and goes off the rails around chapter 17. Hard.
I have an axe to grind against any story that tried for the whole 'rape 'em until they learn empathy' bit in the first place but the latter half of PH is just grotesque for the sake of trying to make a character seem heroic and to tittilate the gore porn audience.
Yikes. That reputation is exactly why I haven't invested the hours and days that would be required.
Not that I want to discourage PP from falling on his sword for Ferret and I, though, cause I would kind of like to know what the overall story implications for the FoE universe are.
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I think I own that anime.
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None, really. It's happening in parallel with most of FO:E. The casts cross at one point.
There is a lot of good stuff in PH. I don't remember enjoying the first bit quite as much as you did. For instance I actually liked the historical stuff. I thought it was a good way to do the same thing as the original (follow a set of characters in the war) without doing the mane six. It actually goes some interesting places with the memory orb historical stuff in my opinion. My warning to you was because in addition to the really good stuff, there's like a Fallout Equestria's worth of stuff I'm pretty sure you'll hate. Sure, that's only like 35% of the whole story, but a little bit of rape-y gore goes a long way.
Plus I'm still really annoyed that Blackjack starts off as basically a clone of Littlepip. There was such a good opportunity to give her non-lethal spells due to her training as a vault security pony and have her deal with the fact that non-lethal and the wasteland don't mix. It was a perfect chance to add the theme of the wasteland destroys morality.
On the plus side, it's pretty good when she gets her first set of cyborg limbs. From cool cyborg diamond dogs even.
Still one of my favorite bits of dialogue in the whole story. Or at least up to where I stopped reading because I had caught up at the time. Looking forward to it being finished on Fimfiction to read it again.
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Be my shield against the meanies ;_; They're trying to scare me.
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Nope. They are trying to prepare you for the trials that lay ahead. You chose to go into Project Horizons willingly and we are just trying to help you survive the experience.
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Oh, I'm sure I'll still be around whenever you get back to it. And I'm actually planning on going back from chapter 12 to somewhere in the 30s to complete my own thing.
That one actually read pretty funny, I thought, since it sounded like she was just biting a guy hard. I actually went back to the old version to check that that's not what happened, because it's a pretty believable thing to have happened in context.
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You might be the first person I've ever heard, especially someone not explicitly pro-PH, who's said that, unless perhaps just pointing out that FoE and only FoE is canon to FoE.
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Wish I could help out there too. But I've said before,
I love this story, but it isn't perfect (you could ask Somber), and it definitely isn't nice. I strongly disagree with the idea that it's gore-porn, and certainly with the idea that there's nothing else to it. But that kind of element, and others, are present to tell a story, and even that underlying story is something that might well be Not Safe For Ghost for its emotional tone, independent of the trappings. I hope you do end up liking the whole thing as much as you have the beginning, or more—like I said, I think it's worth it—but I remember your experience with FoE, and so think that similar problems might arise.
If there's anything I could say to provide that shield against the meanies it would be this: go in with optimism, because no matter how dark it gets, there's always hope to be found.
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Really, it's in good company as far as stealing scenes. Much of FO:E before it goes off into too self-absorbedly GRIMDARK to be taken seriously is
plagarized froman homage to Fallout 3's story. Frankly, despite my opinion on FO:E's status as a shit sandwich, I really wish Kkat had played more than just the very worst Fallout game before writing it. Maybe some of the humor of the originals might have rubbed off rather than the urge to try to be Darker and Edgier than a game that allows your PC to be a cannibal for kicks, and exists in a world that accidentally survived the apocalypse because Vault Tec was too incompetent to successfully make all the vaults fail.Determination.
I joke, but that's the closest analogy I can think of to what this story makes me feel. I liked it just as much as you do so far, for pretty much the same reasons, but I stopped years ago at this specific point and haven't mustered the will to keep going since. Half of that is the refrain I keep hearing that the story is going to get worse, and half of that is because I'm too sensitive to see these characters go through much more pain again. The scene where Morning Glory gets her Dashite brand damn near wrecked me, and I know it's only going to get worse for all of them.
I'll probably have to force myself to go through all of this later, though. It's not just because I kind of promised to on my blog here. I kind of neglected that promise because of my blog about original non-fic stuff. I also still want to write an FO:E fic and I think I might be able to learn something about how to make some things work and how NOT to do other things from PH.
Well, this could be interesting; thank you for reviewing the story, and I hope that you continue to like it.
I am VERY interested in your take on section three. That's the part that throws a lot of readers and I'm fascinated as to why.
But yeah. All I had of the Enclave were a few snippits and so I thought that the VC would just be a smart thing for the Enclave to do. It weeds out their idealistic troublemakers, gets them intel on the surface, and gets them materials they need. It becomes a problem. Half of book four exists because I had to deal with the Enclave.
3599175 Lesson 1: Tell ONE story. Horizons is three. The whole arc with thunderhead and Lighthooves should be its own story. The bit with Macintosh and the Goddess should be its own story. So much stuff just got left behind because the story inflated faster than they could keep up. So have a beginning, big parts in the middle, and an end.
Lesson 2: Try to stay as close to canon as you can. In book 4 1/2 or so, I started to conciously move away from canon to execute my own story and it bit me in the butt. Other things I did also earned me a lot of grief. If the main story says nothing, then feel free to explore, but the second you intentionally change x to y, you are in a world is hurt.
Lesson 3: FoE is about triumphing over the Wasteland for a moment. Horizons moved way outside this scope in the last book. Honestly, if the story had been shorter, clustered tighter together, I could have pulled off a decent FO ending. As is, things went to Godzilla levels. It was still a fun read for some, but it cost me some readers.
Lesson 4: The most interesting character is worthless if they don't fit in the story you're trying to tell. I get asked to read bits, and many aren't very good, because so much effort is made to establish the character without establishing the story. Character is vital, but story is even more important. The reader needs a clue as to what they're going to be reading, and why they should follow this character along. So have your ending in mind.
Lesson 5: Listen to your critics. Ignore your haters. A critic will say if something works or not, and more importantly, why. I just got solid gold criticism on my first section. A hater just wants to attack your worth as a writer, which is rediculous because you're writing something for free. When the personal attacks start, move on. Occasionally you should needle and beg for the stuff you're doing right and the stuff you're doing wrong. If you have critics who are really invested in your story, try to turn them into editors.
Lesson 6. Avoid references like the plague. They are seductive. They are easy. They will derail emersion every time. If I could, I would remove every single reference I put into Horizons not related to FoE or MLP. It was a huge mistake.
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Wow, I honestly wasn't expecting you to make such a thorough answer. All of that sounds like great advice, though I'm still going to want to do an actual reading in order to get specific ideas and plans from it. A decent part of my inspiration comes from seeing someone use an idea a certain way and wonder what would happen if it went another way. For instance, I've been thinking of a variation I could do on the basic idea behind Stable 99. I'm confident that its resolution would be a small enough piece of a greater whole to avoid breaking lesson 1, as well as having thematic ties to other subplots, but again, the only way I would know for sure where you draw the line in retrospect is to read PH and experience those Lighthooves and Macintosh stories for myself.
3599175
Painful as that scene was, worse for me was when she throws away her uniform. Because that's the signal that, for all that she was being naive about the Enclave, her spirit is completely broken and she has to accept reality.
3599392
Ahh, so I was right in thinking that!
3599397
I'm glad you have learned these things. :D This is all good advice.
Out of curiosity, how many stories are on your RiL last and what is the rate at which they are added? I'm interested to see what kind of a backlog occurs for you when you take on a story of this magnitude.
I mean, there looks to be at least three or four stories on the front page about ponies masturbating. You're probably going to be behind on ALL of them! :O
3600065
My RIL's over 5000 stories. I haven't been adding things very frequently lately, though. :B And while listening to a long audiobook like this, I try to read short things, and vice versa when I get into short audiobooks. Theoretically, it works out.
Despite my dislike of long fanfics, since I don't have enough patience for it, I think I'm quite curious about Project Horizons now thanks to your review, PP. It seems the content is right up my alley :] I think I might give it a try.
3597805
You're talking figuratively about the whole "turned into rubber" thing, right? You mean like she was rendered immobile or unconscious through drugs or beatings so as to be incapable of fighting back, simply laying there, flopped about. Because being turned to literal rubber sounds like utter bolloc–
Actually, nevermind. I just figured out why she's missing the legs. Rather inventive turn of events, if that's the case. Hardly a consolation for her, those new legs, considering the events, but still rather inventive.
3599397
You could probably add an addendum that's very true for FO:E. Be careful with crossovers. In writing one, you are in a position to need to represent multiple sources well enough to be both recognizable and true to their spirit, and if you are perceived to screw it up you are going to get rabid haters.
This is even worse when your crossover is a sequel to another crossover, written by a different author. I can't criticize your writing chops, you have a very good grasp of most of what you're doing, but I really had issue with what came across as a conscious choice to out-do the already excessive FO:E with the splattergore and dark themes. It took away from what was shaping up to be an interesting narrative, and as you note derailed that narrative several times just to cope with the excesses within the story's logic.
3600361
Nah, her bones literally jellify.
Also, she's missing her legs because she dies. But then she gets put into a robobody that belonged to a friend of her's, so it's okay
Wow PP, you stopped this review right at the spot where most people think the story stopped being good.
I pity you.
3600539
Huh? So she's dead after the ordeal. So she gets turned into a afterwards ghoul? Or does shoving her torso into the leggy bot equal a necromancy and like some sort of post apocalyptic pony Jesus she rises on the grave cuz
David Bowieher diamond dogfuckbuddy had the sense to shove her into the model with rejuvenating qualities/sorcery. So yeah, the part about being dead then suddenly back alive makes me cock an eyebrow. Or she gets turned into a ghoul? Wut? Dammit, guess I'm gonna have to read the fuckin thing :BAlso, on the show whenever they have a filly doing walk animations, in my mind I'm always going, "Chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga, WOO WOO!" cuz their legs remind me of steam engine pistons for some reason. Yeah, gonna be doing that every time I see or read about Blackjack, pre rapiomurdered or after. Because she is one with the leggy train.
3601901
You know of the saying, "Only fools go where angels dare not tread"? Yeah, I'm sure PP has some appreciation for it.
Dammit. Now I can't get the image of a red squirrel with ginormous, pristine white angel wings out of my head.
Wait, hold up. Something just clicked in my head.
PP has been provided a number of content spoilers for what happens in Project Horizons, by Plum and Jake et al.
PP was also provided a number of content spoilers for my Twilestia fic, by myself at PP's request.
PP was too triggered to read one of those stories.
*stares at this review*
Y'know, I think I'm getting a perverse sense of pride from this. Like, an accolade that belongs on the inside cover.
I'm so hyped for this review series!!
Though I would suggest including 33 as the last chap of book 2 instead of the start of 3. It feels more... conclusive that way. Don't want to say too much, but... you'll know why when you read it. >;)
3625846
Hmm. <.< The chapter setup I have at the top of the journal is what Somber gave me. But VisualPony set up his audiobook as you suggest.
Now I dunno what to do. D:
3626221
Well if I remember correctly chap 32 ends with a cliff hanger explosion. Chap 33 brings several plot threads to a close with some character's forgiven and a couple of deaths. I think I remember seeing an interview with Somber where he said chapter 33 was originally supposed to bring Black Jack's character to a close and chap 34 onward was supposed to have P-21 and Scotch Tape be the main characters. But that's not what ended up happening and most of book 3 was greatly impacted by the choices and changes of chaps 33/34. Still due to that and how the chapter itself is executed it feels more like the end of book 2 instead of the start of book 3.
tl;dr: If you take the story as a whole 33 fits with book 3. But if you look at the chapter itself it was clearly meant to be the last chap of book 2.