FO:E Let's Read: Chapter 1: Out of the Stable · 10:26pm Mar 25th, 2017
Now that the introductions are over,time to get into the actual story itself and see just what tale Littlepip has to tell, why she's explaining her story to us, and just what this Equestria Wasteland holds.
We start, rather melodramatically, with Lil'pip looking at a blank grey wall, and wishing she could have the excitement of watching paint dry instead. Or at least the results of it drying after the Stable's painter makes a mural on it. This fairly quickly sets up yet more about how dull and boring Stable life is, trapped in the same limited space your whole life, the same ponies, only one new song a week for entertainment. It is nice to see that the ponies recognize this for the most part, and try their best to find a solution, encouraging the artistically inclined ones to be creative, though we'll soon see even that has a down side. But right away, we can tell that just how things would work in this kind of environment has been thought out. The dull, tedious sameness, and yet also how rather then give into it, ponies try to make the most of it, do what they can to enjoy themselves, have fun, and entertain each other. We see that, despite what we've been told about Ponies falling in the past, in the Stables at least, these are still, for the most part, the ponies we knew and loved. Trying to make the mot of a less then ideal situation.
Suddenly, Velvet Remedy. Who seems to be the single biggest, if not only, celebrity in the Stable, and first we think it's just Lil'pip fan-fillying, till we get a bit more detail and learn just which way her barn door swings. But still it rather effectively shows that she has a HUGE crush on the older mare. Though at this point it's little more then any young adult's fantasy about a celebrity they like. 
Smooth line there Pip. At least you noticed it yourself to. Once her brain finally catches up with her hormones and allows her to speak full words she actually gets around to finding out why Velvet came to see her, getting the padding on her Pipbuck changed out since ti's starting to chafe a bit. This rather quickly sets up the plot-load of tools in Littlepip keeps in her outfit pockets, as well as showing that she knows what she is doing when it comes to Pip-Bucks. Laying the ground work for some of her later skills in a way wholly natural to the plot, and treated like just something normal.
After a long night of working extra hard on making her idol's Pip-Buck perfect, (further showing her skill with them) she realizes she's been played. On trotting to Velvet's room to return it, she finds a crowd gathered outside (side note, how the buck does a Stable with that small a population even HAVE paparazzi or know what they are?) making out from the chatter that Velvet has disappeared, not just lost somewhere in the Stable, but outright having left it. The Overmare's plan to send ponies to track her using her Pip-Buck tag shot down the moment she sees Littlepip holding it. Suddenly every pony turns on her for, you know, doing her job and not being a mind reader who could know Velvet was playing her. Granted it seems the Stable ponies didn't really have a high opinion of her to begin with. At least the Overmare makes a point of telling the ponies not to blame her, for all the good it does. And people wonder just why Littlepip would have so little trouble leaving this place.
Though it turns out Velvet picked the wrong pony to leave her Pip-Buck with, since not only is Pip an expert lockpick, but also a damn good hacker. She finds the access code for the stable in an old audio file deciding to head out and find/rescue Velvet. The full reasoning isn't given, but we already know enough, as well as her making this choice giving us enough, to have a good feel, as well as setting up the type of pony Littlepip is. She takes her responsiblities seriously, hates the idea of ponies being hurt because of her, and wants to do everything she can to set it right. But at the same time, she hates the life she's in right now. It's dull, boring, tedious, everypony ignores her at best, treats her like crap at worse becuase she just doesn't fit in. Her going after Velvet is as much for Lil'pip's need to go out and DO something, to actually matter, as much as it is for the sake of Velvet Remedy. (On a side note, I actually did not get the significance of that door code till the second time it was brought up. I blame having listened to an audio version the first time.)
After a bit of showing her ingenuity and quick thinking Lil'pip is out, with a final note of "if you leave you can never come back" from the Overmare, immediately followed by Lil'pip recognizing the bullshit of telling her that, when she had been all gun-ho about sending a full party out to find and bring back Velvet not a few hours ago, and here she was volunteering to go alone to do just that. Shows you yet another reason why Lil'pip had no real issue leaving that place behind. Though regret sets in almost at once as the very first sight of life outside the Stable, is a bunch of skeletons of ponies that had died trying to get in.
The entrance from the outside world into Stable Two had been cleverly disguised as the door to a humble apple cellar. And by disguised, I meant that the person who built it had been building an apple cellar.
Why is that line just so damn funny?
We finish up with what has become a kind of series tradition, end of chapter level up perks. This one fully confirming Lil'pip's sexual orientation, and not that Velvet was a fluke case of Single-Target Sexuality
I Like these, the add a bit of flavor to the story, flesh out details a bit, but never feel out of place or break the flow of the story. They more often then not are reflecting skills of abilities the chapter itself brings to the for or shows them gaining, integrating them into the story naturally, or are just cases of their overall skills improving over time. Never coming into a place where the perks effect the story save for those that are gotten through something in story itself. So a very fun idea that really works well.
Overall, good start, it goes rather fast, but does a good job showing why a pony would want to leave the Stable, though more so for Pip then a pony who had it all like Velvet. But really it's almost more prologue, just giving us some basic character info about Lil'pip, small, mostly overlooked, no real friends, talented with electronics, and just moves along as quick as it can to actually getting her out and into the Wastes, where the true journey begins. Some have criticized just how quick this is, how we should have spent more time seeing life in the Stable. While I'm very rarely one to turn down more details in a story, I do have to agree that while the pacing is a bit fast, there really wasn't anything else we could have been shown to make why Littlepip wanted to leave clearer. It likely would have just been longer stretches of Littlepip being bored, or being treated badly, and those would get old fast. While I do think the pacing was a bit quick, it gave all the facts we really needed and did so in a very logical manner, so it does work on the whole. Chapter title wise, it's very very direct and to the point, this is Littlepip getting out of the Stable.
