Site Post » [Interview] Kkat's Fallout: Equestria · 1:17am Oct 18th, 2012
Originally posted to the Vault on 7/16/12.
This is arguably the biggest fanfic in the fandom. It's spawned over 250 side stories, translations into multiple languages, and countless pieces of fan art and fan music, and was considered notable enough to be mentioned in Fallout's Wikipedia entry. You can check out all the fan content at the Fallout: Equestria Resource. Marshmallow ponies and post-apocalyptic wasteland... who'd have thought?
[Adventure][Dark][Crossover] • 607,200 words
Fallout. With ponies! Set in an alternate future, one pony must learn to survive in a blasted, poisoned land... and possibly, with the aid of friends made along the way, bring new light into the darkness of post-apocalyptic Equestria.
Hit the break for an interview with Kkat (of which there have been quite a few), and links to Fo:E out on the ponynet. And of course you can grab ebooks suitable for your terminal or PipBuck over on the Vault's Downloads page!
Pony Fiction Archive • Equestria Daily
Where do you live?
The United States. Pacific Time Zone. I'm afraid I won't give more than that. I like my privacy.
What kind of work do you do? (i.e. are you a student, do you have a career/day job, etc)
I graduated with a minor in English (Creative Writing) and a BFA in art. However, both art and writing are hobbies of mine, not professions. My day job (well, night job) is unrelated to either.
How did you discover My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? When did you realize you were a fan of the show?
I hate to admit it, but I was teasing a friend of mine for loving My Little Pony. He rightly pointed out that if I hadn't seen the show, I had no grounds to judge it. So he challenged me to watch five episodes, just a couple hours' worth... and then, if I still wanted to mock him, he would willingly take it.
I have a lot to thank him for. Not only for introducing me to such a wonderful show, and by extension this community, but for hammering home a crucial life lesson about not judging something without having taken the time to experience it.
Do you have a favorite episode?
Green Isn't Your Color. The story spotlights my two favorite ponies, plus it has all manner of Pinkie Pie goodness. And I love the fact that the central problem is created by the characters hiding their feelings because they care and they would rather sacrifice their own happiness than hurt their friends.
Who is your favorite character based purely on the canon of the show itself? Would your answer change if you considered the fandom in its entirety (i.e. art, fanfiction, memes, etc)?
Rarity.
Bronies are a highly creative group, filled with artists, writers, musical composers and more. A great many of us want to give back to this wonderful community of friends that we find ourselves part of. Likewise, Rarity is an artist. And in Suited for Success, we see her desire to create something beautiful for her friends. We see the effort that went into this labor of love. And we can relate.
Likewise, we can empathize with the hurt of pouring ourselves into a project only to receive a lukewarm reaction. We know the frustration of trying to get proper feedback. (Virtually every artist understands the need and emotion behind "Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!")
The reason Suited for Success was such a marvelous episode was because it wasn't really about making dresses... it was about generosity and giving back.
And then, Rarity went a step beyond that, sacrificing her career, her livelihood and one could even say childhood dream in order to give her friends what they wanted. And when everything came crashing down, she still walked out onto that runway and took the blame.
Rarity may be occasionally greedy and a drama queen, but where it really counts, she is the soul of generosity, and a character who I can not only empathize with but admire.
I do not believe my answer would change even considering the entirety of the fandom. (Although I must admit a soft spot for the fandom's Derpy Hooves/Ditzy Doo.)
How did you come up with your handle/penname?
Eerie Kkat was the name of the first character I ever played in a tabletop roleplaying game. When I played a male character in a subsequent game, the other players joked that the character was a "Kkatman". I started signing my emails that way, and the name became my nom de plume shortly after. Years later, I shortened it back to the original Kkat.
Have you written in other capacities (other fandoms, professionally, etc)? When did you first start writing?
I have been writing since childhood. I have written as part of shared-universe writing groups. But Fallout: Equestria is the first story that I fully completed since graduating college. Most recently, before becoming a brony, I had written "PipBoy Diary" journals -- a sort of written "Lets Play" for Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. These journals, while never finished, were a precursor to writing Fallout: Equestria.
What do you like to do when you're not writing?
I enjoy tabletop roleplaying games and a select few computer games. I also enjoy reading, but I am a terribly slow reader. I must admit, I also waste a lot of time browsing the internet. Lately, I have spent a lot of my free time enjoying the company of the wonderful bronies in the Fallout: Equestria community. They have been constructing rules for a tabletop Fallout: Equestria roleplaying game, and I've been participating in playtesting.
Who is your favorite author (published or fanfiction)? Do you have a favorite story or novel?
My favorite storyteller would be J. Michael Straczynski, with the epic television masterpiece Babylon 5 being my favorite story. Other favorite storytellers include (in no particular order) Joss Whedon, Stephen King and S. Andrew Swann. I have read Swann's Moreau series multiple times and highly recommend it.
Stephen King believes that every author has an "ideal reader" - the one person who they write for, the one person whose reactions they care about. Do you have one, and if so, who is it?
My ideal reader would be a reader who gives me polite, helpful and detailed feedback, whether praise or criticism. My favorite readers were those who wrote reviews and reading commentaries on each chapter as they came out.
Reader commentary was a major part of my writing process. The feedback and constructive criticism I received allowed me to continuously improve Fallout: Equestria as I wrote it. Likewise, those types of comments always helped revive my interest in the story whenever it began to waver. Without that feedback, Fallout: Equestria would never have been completed.
Do you have any tips for aspiring writers, or writers who are struggling with their own stories?
There are seven bits of advice I have to offer for people who wish to write:
First: Start writing. Regularly. The hardest part of writing is actually beginning. Once you've started, I've found, the words come more easily. But putting down that first sentence, or even just the title, can be the most daunting part of a day's work.
Second: Keep writing. Even if you don't like what you have written -- your writing will improve the more you do it. The more you write, the better you will become at it.
Third: Write about something you love. You will find writing a lot more fulfilling, and a lot easier to continue, if you are writing about something you enjoy or care about.
Fourth: If you are writing something complex, such as a fan-fic: before you write (whether you are writing the whole story or just a single chapter), take some time to plot out major themes, events and other important notes you want in that story or chapter.
Fifth: Read. Find authors whose works you enjoy and read them. Occasionally pause to think about what made writing work for you.
Sixth: Be familiar with some of the pitfalls that writers, particularly new ones, fall prey to and make it a point to avoid them. For example: know what a self-insert character is and what a Mary Sue character is and put effort into making sure your characters aren't either of those.
Seventh: If possible, find friends or other supportive individuals who will critique your work. This can easily be the hardest suggestion to follow, however. Don't be dismayed or dissuaded from writing if you can't find the response you are looking for. Continue to write; continue to improve.
These are by no means the only or even most important advice you can receive. So here are some links to some more great writing advice: here and here.
What is your typical writing process? (Do you work through multiple drafts, do you have any prereaders/editors, etc?)
I spent about forty hours a week working on the story, with only a few weeks off during the eight-month period it took to write Fallout: Equestria. About a quarter of that was spent in online proofreading sessions with a team of two editors and two-to-four additional proofreaders, although I didn't have that team for the first few chapters of the story -- not until after I had moved to posting the story on Equestria Daily.
With Fallout: Equestria, I'd have the bare-bones idea of what the next chapter would entail, and I'd use brainstorming to flesh out a list of scenes or tidbits that I wished to include. To do so, I would read all the feedback from the previous chapter. Then I spend a few days brainstorming and making notes for the chapter, creating what I think of as the "dots" for the chapter. Usually, this involved putting on inspirational music and daydreaming about the story, jotting down notes when inspiration strikes.
On days I wrote, I would be sure to have a good breakfast and a good supply of caffeinated beverages on hand. I would often play music in the background. I built up a sizable playlist of music that I would write to or that I would listen to when seeking inspiration. (For anyone interested, that playlist, with the addition of many songs composed by some awesome Fallout: Equestria fans, is available on YouTube.)
I refer to my writing method as a "connect the dots" approach. After each chapter was posted, I would read all the comments that came in and take a couple days to digest them. I would then spend the slow hours at work brainstorming and creating a list that included scenes I wanted, conversations that needed to take place, and critical plot points that needed to be touched on.
Those would be my "dots". When I sat down to start writing the new chapter, I would know all the "dots", which one to start with and which one to end with, and what the overall picture was going to be. I'd start writing at the first "dot" and proceed towards the next.
This way, I didn't know everything that was going to happen in a chapter, not even as I was writing it. I had room for inspiration to take control. This kept the story fresh for me. I believe that if I had already known everything that was going to happen, writing the story would have become tedious.
After a chapter was written, I would pass it on to my team of proofreaders and editors, who would spend most of a day going through the chapter line-by-line and giving me lists of typos, spelling errors and grammatical errors to correct, as well as suggestions for alterations (usually regarding specific word use or phraseology). I would then make all the corrections, and carefully consider each suggestion before either implementing or rejecting it. Once it was finished would I send the chapter in for Seth to post.
What inspired you to write Fallout: Equestria?
The inception of the idea was an artwork by Dan Shive called "Pony Vegas". It was a wonderful piece, playing on my twin loves of Friendship is Magic and the Fallout series of games. But at the same time, it didn't make sense within the context of the show. My imagination immediately started trying to figure out how you could make the combination of Fallout and Friendship is Magic make sense both chronographically and thematically. I wanted to share Friendship is Magic with my friends in a Fallout online community, and thought that such a story would be a perfect vehicle to do so. (I only moved to Equestria Daily when the story failed to generate enough feedback to help me improve or maintain interest.)
Did you run into any tough spots or challenges when writing Fallout: Equestria?
The biggest challenge was writing the characters from the show. I wanted to capture their personalities and make them feel like the characters we all knew and loved... albeit older, more experienced versions of those characters who were now stuck in an impossible situation. I was nervous about my ability to properly write these characters, which is part of the reason that the first Memory Orb isn't viewed until Chapter Thirteen. I waited until I had immersed myself in the show and had read a few other fanfics, and until I was confident that I could write these characters properly and with reverence. The most difficult canon character to write turned out not to be one of the Ministry Mares... but that would be a spoiler.
Another difficulty was writing fatigue. Readers will point out that the speed at which chapters were coming out slowed down considerably in the fall. Part of that was simply because the chapters were getting much larger and more complex, so they took longer to write. But fatigue also played a significant role. There were a few weeks here and there where I didn't write at all.
However, as mentioned before, before Fallout: Equestria, I had a history of leaving works unfinished. I knew that if I allowed myself to take a break from writing for any significant period of time, I would likely never finish. And that helped drive me to continue. Even in the weeks where I wasn't writing, I was constantly making notes, reviewing ideas, or even just listening to music from my "Fallout: Equestria Inspirational" playlist -- a playlist of songs that I associated in some way with the story and that could help inspire me to write.
Infinitely more vital, however, were the fans. Comments which included detailed feedback and writing commentaries always helped revive my interest in the story whenever it began to waver. Without that feedback, Fallout: Equestria would never have been completed.
When you set out to write Fallout: Equestria, did you have any specific messages or themes in mind?
Fallout: Equestria was envisioned as two stories in one. First, you have the standard hero's journey of the protagonist. But this was combined with a sort of "in medias res" story about Equestria itself, from the start of the war to the path it was set to follow after the protagonist's journey is over.
I wrote the story with a few themes and morals in minds from the start. The first theme, as first stated by DJ Pon3 in the chapter "The Truth of the Matter" is that we have all made mistakes. We have all done things that we regret. There is a second half of that truth, but it isn't explicitly revealed until the "Epilogue".
The first of the primary morals, which is revealed in the chapter "The Heart of the Matter", is the classic wisdom that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" -- that by trying to do the right thing in the wrong way, you will likely end up doing more harm to yourself and others.
The second and more important moral comes from the words of the character Life Bloom near the end:
"We have to do better, don't we?"
The second moral, I believe, echoes back to why many of us love My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The show isn't happy merely because it is bright and colorful, but because the ponies in the show (for the most part) behave better than we do. There is a reason that the brony motto is "love and tolerance". The morals of friendship are largely about being better towards each other.
Fallout: Equestria has inspired countless artists and authors to create their own works based on your universe. Prior to completing your story, you refused to read anyone else's work - do you plan on doing so now?
I do. However, I am an abysmally slow reader and I have not only a lot of stories (both Fallout: Equestria inspired and otherwise) on my plate to read, but a lot of other things I am doings. So actually accomplishing reading the stories has been agonizingly slow.
Did you expect that Fallout: Equestria would become anywhere near as popular as it has?
Oh my, no!
When I started writing Fallout: Equestria, I was posting it on a Fallout gamer community website. I doubted that I would get many readers, if any. I hoping for a handful of dedicated readers whom I might introduce to the joys of Friendship is Magic through the story.
Later, I started posting to Equestria Daily because the story was suffering from a lack of feedback. But even there, I was hoping was for a dozen or two readers and praying that I would get some who weren't shy about giving me feedback. I was, after all, fusing together Fallout and Friendship is Magic, two universes that most people couldn't imagine having anything in common, in a story that was both epic and completely serious. To top it off, Fallout: Equestria had the trifecta of (at the time) shunned tags: grimdark, crossover and OC ponies. I was rather surprised I had any readers.
I certainly didn't expect the story to blossom like it did under the overwhelmingly wonderful amount of support and response that I got from the brony community. The outpouring from this community so vastly exceeded my expectations that I still feel stunned, humbled and unimaginably grateful.
I was completely blown away by the Fallout: Equestria fandom and the welcoming and positive reactions from the brony community as a whole. I am deeply honored and thankful. I really love the brony community.
Is there anything about Fallout: Equestria you'd like to change?
There are many things I would fix or change if I went back – not plot points, but egregious typos and wrong or missing words; I would replace a lot of uses of "buck", I would reaffirm Littlepip's gender in the first chapter, I would change Deadeyes' name, and I would seriously cut down on exclamation points in the first third of the story.
However, three things prevent me from doing any of this. First, any artist could spend a lifetime continuously trying to perfect a particular piece. I know that a certain self-discipline is required to avoid endless revisions, to call a work "finished" despite its remaining flaws and move on. Second, the story is available in multiple formats from multiple sources, and there is no way I could "fix" them all. I want all new readers to experience the same work and not have to hunt down the "corrected" version. Finally, and most importantly, Fallout: Equestria is being translated into several other languages. The Russian translation is already complete and the six other language translations are many chapters in. I think it would do a disservice to the people working on those translations to go in and change things now.
Where can readers drop you a line?
I have accounts on FurAffinity, YouTube and FiMFiction. I don't check them often, however, and I get a lot of mail, so replies may not happen swiftly.
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
The brony fans of Fallout: Equestria drove me not only to continue writing, but to try to make the story the best possible version of the story that it could be. I was so overwhelmed by the positive responses, the art, the music, the side stories... and just the sheer love I was feeling from this community... that I knew I needed to do right by all of them. I needed to do my best, and always strive to do better. I owed it to them.
I love you all. This story is as much yours as mine. Without you, Fallout: Equestria wouldn't have been possible. What I will cherish most, however, are the friends I have found in this community over these last few months. Friendship is magic. Thank you so very much.
Oh lawdy, this sounds interesting.
Readin' dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Lyra2.png
Aaaaaand here comes the Horde.
429649
Pretend this is me, substituting FIMFic for Facebook, of course.
429649
Agreed. Although I'll admit it's deserved.
I do wish this would be published on FimFiction. Then I can properly comment on each chapter, just like I do with every story I read
429665
That I'll grant you. There's a reason I get a lot more people saying my BioShock fic is "the next FO:E" rather than "the best crossover fic ever". I owe a lot of genre-defining help to this fic for paving the way for grimdark adventure stories built around OCs.
429690
You know what sucks about this?
I now have to reread the story.
When I first read it, I was new to writing in general and it was just a cool story, now my appreciation of the art has deepened, and I know that I'll take a lot more out of the story if I read it again.
But I don't have time...
Stupid life taking time and things.
429713
I got through about 20 chapters or so before I lost interest. The story does deserve praise, but it had its fair share of flaws as well, the most predominant of which for me was its lack of narrative focus. Speaking from personal experience, Kkat's method of writing that she mentioned in this interview (i.e. giving your creative side free reign to dictate what gets included in each individual chapter) is a great way to have a story drag on for an unmanageable length of time. When I heard directly from her mouth that Chapter 25 would be about where the main plot started to kick in, I ran for the hills. There's a point where your story can get too caught up in itself and lose track of why it exists in the first place, and I feel like that's what happened with FO:E.
Then again, based on what I know of it, you could say much the same about Lord of the Rings, and clearly that doesn't lack for enduring popularity amongst the reading public. Both LOTR and FO:E did an exemplary job building a unique and thoroughly engrossing world for their stories to be set in, and that's why they both have scores of derivative works, and a growth rate for such stories that shows no sign of slowing down. The problem for me, though, is that I'm a writer myself; I have no trouble coming up with fantastic worlds on my own. I look for well-developed characters, tight narratives, and strong, fluid prose in my pleasure reading, and while FO:E should be commended for achieving that first goal, it fell short in several places in attaining the latter two.
FO:E is a great fan fiction. In my opinion, though, it's far from the best I've ever seen.
I love this story so much. I read the entire thing over four days. At first I didn't like the ending, I wanted Littlepip to have a happy ending! But I thought about it, and after a while I realised that it was basically the ultimate conclusion to her character. It was kind of the perfect confirmation that Littlepip was a hero. It took me a while, but after a week or so I basically realised how great of an ending it really was. I still would kind of like to see a happily ever after for Littlepip, but as it is I think it's as good as it could be.
I still think that the scene with Blackjack and Littlepip in Project Horizons is one of the funniest and coolest character mash ups ever, though I have to wonder if Kkat gave that the nod, or Somber just threw it in.
429740
Fair enough. And having read the entirety myself I agree. The story lacks in many places. But (and it's a big one), it succeeds incredibly well in others, perhaps because of those flaws.
The characters are enormous, not only in the details that go into their creation (I think you could write a few thousand words describing Lil Pip's personality alone), the locations are alive, detailed, and all have their own interesting stories and reasons for being... I could go on, but I'll let the hardcore fans praise it.
Simply put, this story did more for the fandom than many of us will ever be able to accomplish. More fans joined us, more art was made and more love was grown thanks to this one story than any other in this fandom. That alone is commendable.
Now, I'm off to write something better than this.
I've never read any of the Fallout series, mainly because: 1. I never cared for crossovers and/or full OC stories, 2. I wouldn't know where to start, and 3. Way too much to read not including the spin-offs.
*sigh* I'll get to this eventually, but if it's anything like most stories overblown by the Brony fanbase, it won't be worth my time.
There was a point in FO:E when my heart said, stop, go no further. (Silver Bell and the Pinkie Pie museum, if you must know). The story simply hurt too much.
But I came back to it because I found Littlepip to be such a compelling character. I had to know, what happens next with her? And that's about the highest praise I could offer a writer.
429740 This sums up a lot of how I feel about the story. It's certainly impressive, and I definitely respect kkat for being able to turn out something of this scope (I could never write something this epic), but it's just not my kind of story. I've never been a big fan of any story that includes so many grimdark elements, but this one was so popular I felt obligated to take a swing at it. I got about 20 chapters in and it just didn't hold my interest. Not because it's a badly written story, but because it's simply not really what I'm looking for in an MLP fanfic.
It really set in when the canon characters started showing up; I just felt like the characters had changed too much from their canon selves for me to really enjoy reading about them. I can't say that it was bad, but when you have stuff like Pinkie turning into a Big Brother type figure, it just hit that point of "this isn't the Pinkie/Twilight/Whoever I've grown attached to watching the show", and I realized that I just wasn't interested in reading stories that change the setting so much. I'm not saying that kkat is a bad author or anything like that (she's probably better than I am), but I vastly prefer fanfic that takes the characters and setting on their own terms rather than inserting all sorts of elements that didn't exist in the original show. The whole reason I read (and write) fanfic is to sort of interact with the canon characters and setting to see how they'd react to certain situations, so when all the darkness and whatnot gets introduced into the setting, it hampers my ability to enjoy it. Simply put, I vastly prefer Original Flavor fanfics to things like this, and as a result, I just didn't find this one as amazing as a lot of people seem to. It may very well be an amazing story, but it didn't really feel like MLP.
Again, I don't want to imply that I think FO:E is a bad story, or that kkat is a bad author, but I've never really been able to connect to the story, and after hearing so much about how awesome it was, I felt a bit underwhelmed. It's just not the type of story that I'm usually interested in reading.
(Also, holy crap, how on earth did kkat find time to work 40 hours a week on this!? I consider myself really lucky if I can get a quarter of that in.)
EDIT: I totally did not realize this post would be so enormous.
429770
Interesting. I always pegged you as more the sort who don't like FO:E (Perhaps due to still mentally associating you somewhat with Chromosome whom I believe bashed it by name on his old blog). I'll admit I thought that was probably me (not having really read it save for a bit of the first chapter) but after reading this interview I may have to give it a second look, once I get enough time to be able to just sit down and read it. The introduction wasn't bad I just found it kinda boring but it sounds like it gets better.
Being a writer in the FO:E-verse myself, I must give Kkat a lot of kudos for creating the universe that I now find myself playing in. I've read this interview before, and I really enjoyed the insight into Kkat's writing process.
If you are unsure about diving into this story, even just a little bit, I implore you to just take that dive and do it. You may or may not like it, but you never know... it may just inspire you. There's a great piece of art floating around of Littlepip as one of those 'propaganda' posters, and the word it uses is 'INSPIRE', and I think that's very apt to describe FO:E. In the end, the story inspired a vast new universe that while it isn't considered canon to the original, gave us a shooty lookin Security mare (Project Horizons), a slave who only dares to dream (Murky Number Seven), a badass mare with a metal leg (Heroes), the one and only Puppeh (Pink Eyes), and so much more. There are many side-stories, art, tumblrs, and a gazillion other things out there that have expanded on what the original. And it all came from inspiration
If Kkat ends up reading this and any of these comments, thank you. So much thank you. Thank you for the inspiration to keep going. Reading these words simply affirms why I enjoy this story so much.
FOE is what got me interested in fan-fiction. After reading it, I realized that all the stories and novels you can find outside of fan-fiction are the same - they've almost all been edited to conform to a set of rules developed over centuries about what constitutes a good story. But they aren't really rules about what makes a good story! They're rules about what makes a story that sells. FOE breaks rules I didn't even realize existed before I read it.
I've been meaning to blog about why I like Fallout: Equestria. So here it is.
I wish I could like this fic. I really do. I just can't, though. It's not the grimdark that bothers me. It's the logic. Every shred of backstory on the setting just opens up more questions, plot holes, or out of character moments for the canon characters, and eventually I just couldn't take it. I like the main characters a lot, and the setting is interesting, but I just can't wrap my head around the many details in the backstory that don't make any sense. I'd list them off, but they're spoilers, and that would be rude.
429665
I'm replying to your comment for no particular reason.
What if I don't 'love' anything? Heck, what if I don't 'like' anything? What if I'm just a miserable sack of potatoes that has access to a keyboard and an overactive imagination that suffers from MPD and ADD.
430102
Then go in a corner and be miserable.
I'm too tired to wonder why you chose me.
In all honesty, this was the last thing I expected to blow up like it did.
Then again, we can kind of say that about this entire fandom.
And I still need to finish it.
430126
I picked a random number before I opened this. You were that number.
430130
I don't believe you.
430138
I never asked you to believe me.
430163
I still think it's suspicious.
Crossover fics tend to be my favorite fics, but I'll admit, I avoided FOE for a long time because of how big it was, both word count and popularity wise. I sure wasn't disappointed when I finally did read it though! I'm a big fan of the fallout games, so it was the world building that really did it for me. It was really slow to get going, it's true. I was able to get through that though because I kept wanting to see what element from Fallout would be translated into the MLP verse next, and how it would be changed to fit the setting. It was all beautifully melded together into this new and interesting version of the FIM verse, while still keeping very close to the feel of the fallout verse.
Well, except that one scene with the centaurs and the attempted tentacle rape. That was totally uncalled for.
Personally, I find the story to be a lot better if read as a fan of Fallout than as a fan of MLP.
Fallout: Equestria is the first fanfic I ever read and one of my absolute favourites. It's nowhere near perfect – the (often mistimed) attempts at humour via fandom reference are at best bland and at worst scene-ruining, the central ship is pointless and irritating (apparently I'd hate Homage less if I read the clop chapter, but I'm not reading a clop chapter), the fic really doesn't come into its own until at least chapter twenty, the very beginning is hokey enough to have made me stop reading before I started multiple times, and the entire main plot suffers from some misdirection (and that "Ah" thing in Calamity's dialogue tarnishes an otherwise very likeable character). I wouldn't buy a printed copy because it needs another editing pass. On a personal note, it's probably just above my upper level of tolerance for grimdark and gore. There were parts in chapter two or three that made me feel ill.
All that said, FOE managed to keep me reading excitedly all through its 600k-word length, managed to explore its characters and setting basically to completion and had strong, meaningful morals about trying to do better and be better. What's more, I often have to stop myself from saying "pipbuck" when I mean "pipboy". FOE has a very well-conceived and actually believable crossover universe. I really think its strengths overpower its flaws, or at least they did for me.
So, to everyone who enjoyed reading Fallout: Equestria, I am obligated, once again, to extremely heavily recommend giving Project Horizons a try. If you only read one spinoff of FoE, then don't read Project Horizons because it is such a huge step above all of the others that it's in it's own category. The author, Somber, creates an extremely engaging main cast of characters. There's tons of great backstory exploring and expanding on the original. The action scenes are phenomenal, exciting and even believable. There's a huge mystery at the center of Hoofington, lying dormant for 200 years. Hell, there's really gold comedy too! There's a huge list of things to recommend PH, and this is only skimming the surface There's also a few hundred spoilers that, were I even to mention to them, would hook many of you into reading the story but are just SO DAMN GOOD that it would be a shame to spoil them.
Most everyone says to read PH at the least through chapter 6. This isn't because "It gets really good at chapter X" syndrome. The first five chapters are comparable in quality between the original and PH. But the infamous chapter 6 really cements just what Project Horizons is all about, and how mind-blowingly amazing it is. Chapter six is the turning point of no return where you will keep on reading because it's so powerful. And the story has kept on becoming even better by leaps and bounds. (But seriously, take frequent breaks between chapters. It's written serially, just like FoE, and marathoning through too many chapters will cause things to blur in your mind, just like in FoE.)
This is not a story for everyone. There are those who get turned off by how Dark the story gets. But the chances that you will not only enjoy reading the story, random person reading this, but find it to be one of the best stories you've ever read, are too high not to charge screaming at you to give it a go. Warning: Has actually caused nightmares.
"Hush now, quiet now..."
This was a crazy long read, and the story that cemented me in the Brony fandom. It deserves a spot in the Vault above all others.
How would one say "Kkat"? Kay-cat? Kukat?
Cant help but express jealousy over the meteoric levels of attention FO:E constantly receives.
But I must stress,
Well, FO:E was the first fanfic ive ever read alongside past sins and paradise. I was hesitant biut readibg this story cuz I was worried bout the gd. Evebtually I read it anyways around update 20 or so.It quickly made me love fanfiction. I laughed through this story. I cried through this story. I yelled at their idiocy(once) and at some (spoilers) when they spoilered Spoiler in the spoiler. Thx for the ride Kkat.
Eh, my only complaint about FO:E at this point is that too many people are trying to ride on the success of it. I think we all can agree that there are a couple "spin off" stories that are just there to soak up a little of the spotlight.
430586
I think you mean 'she'
Mind you, I think she may have credited 'Josh' Whedon as an inspiration (if she's not being misquoted) so nobody need fret too much over misattributions.
As far as FO:E: firstly, hooray for making long novel-sized story arcs cool. I think it's possible I wouldn't be doing what I do without that example that folks COULD write extended narratives and they DID go over with an audience. You really don't get a sense of it on FIMfiction, and you don't hear about many other extended narratives, possibly because it's not an easy thing to do. I think I manage it, but you have to be mighty clop-friendly to learn that because that's how I tell my stories.
Secondly and as somepony else who loves the extended narrative: best book launch EVER. And by that I don't mean a press party, I mean the mechanism of how we get pulled into the narrative and how we engage with first small personal motives, and then gradually more and more, like a boot-loader. I don't do this nearly as well, I lean on other strengths (all about the book-endings, here) but I can recognize real greatness when I spot it, and I'm a sucker for the brilliantly executed beginning. The way FO:E gets underway is absolutely wonderful.
Three more books (or two longer ones) and I'll be matching the FO:E wordcount... better get back to work...
I here!
Kkat, I have been wondering, although I doubth he will respond, but perhaps someone that knows the answer will.
How come Fallout Equestria aren't on FIMFiction, it took me a while to hunt down a version I could read.
I first like to say.
I love you Kkat.
Second of all.
Thank You for inspiring me to write. Fallout Equestria really inspired me to write my own works, you are awesome and Fallout Equestria is up there in my most favourite reads.
It's the only crossover I've gathered to be good. I read it because I liked Fallout 3 and when I saw it I had to read it.
I'm not sorry for stumbling across the story.
The only part I have to say I didn't like was the ending. Sadly, I read 600,000 words of awesome, for the last bit to be an disappointing. I grew attached to Littlepip. I say that at least.
I would probably have never started writing my own long, dark crossover if Kkat hadn't shown me that there were folks willing to read such things. Granted my work is nowhere near as good, but at least it exists. Thanks, Kkat!
Also, thanks for how you handled Rarity. Tears.
430510
I always pronounce it "Kay-Kat", myself, but I guess we don't know for sure.
430665
My impression is that Kkat is more or less done with the story and has moved on. It's at the PFA because I asked permission to post it there, so there'd be a properly-formatted copy online that wasn't beholden to Google Docs.
430790 Holy crap I just had a heart attack from the sheer amount of awesome.dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Luna_lolface.png
430790
Does he has other project comming up, like "Command and Ponies, Brotherhoof of NOD" or or "Ponyhammer 40K" (actually I have a story I am working on with that theme).
429740
I'll agree with you, to a point. Many of the characters were very well done. I want to know everything I can about Calamity. His backstory with the pegasi has me thoroughly intrigued. Steel Hooves, as well, is very interesting. The stallion who caught AJ's eye, and has lived for all this time. I'd certainly like to know more about him.
However, for me, at least, FoE fell short on the most important character. After all, she is the main character. You see, I found Littlepip entirely bland. I could not find a reason to care about her, nor could I find a reason to wonder about her past, present, or future. I just didn't care. She came off as a very boring character.
I dunno. Maybe she develops a lot in the final 15 chapters, but I wouldn't know. A certain someone (430172) spoiled a certain somepony's death for me. The brain bleach has been applied in vain.
SPOILER
Am I the only one who was so upset how it ended that I cried?
I just wanted lilpip to find happiness
430801
I can't decide if a "heart attack of awesome" is a good thing or a bad thing.
430807
Not that I'm aware of; when we last spoke a few months ago, Kkat was taking the time to read other fics and helping to playtest a game based on Fo:E.
430856
Cool, personally I havn't read Fallout Equestria. I have calculated from a pdf I found that it will be about 2000 A4 pages. An average piece of paper have a thickness of 0,1 milimeter, printing on both sides gives us a little over 1000 duplex pages with a total thickness of 10 centimetres, that's some piece of work.
430872
In Times New Roman 12, it takes 1,510 8.5x11" pages, which would be about 16 cm thick. Though that's not duplexed, so you could cut it in half.
I rember reading about certain things in FO:E and just... staring at the wall.
430896
These numbers " 1,510 8.5x11" pages," don't make any sense are you talking about A4, A3, A5 do you prefer rarely used B or C series? but seriously A4 is the universal standard. It is 21cm * 29,5 cm
430934
They make perfect sense if you're familiar with different paper sizes in different countries. 8.5x11", a.k.a. letter size or ANSI A, is the standard throughout much of North and South America. A4 is the standard in most other countries, but it is by no means "universal".
430951
I would not say that A4 is universal par say, it is part of the universal system, it is exactly half of A3 and twice the size of A5, and its proportion match the golden mean.
The big problem is that USA haven't yet adopted the metric system which ALL other countries have or are in the midst of conforming to, because it is so much better then any other system of measurement as long as we use the decimal system.
The dozenal system is objectively speaking the best possible number system, but the conversion from 10 based to 12 based numbers are practically impossible.
However an intelligent species that do not have fingers (and thereby will not be inclined to base their number system on them) would naturally come to use a dozenal system.
While this will properly never need to be brought up I find it natural that that will be how they count in Equestria.
430971
The US doesn't "officially" use the metric system, but its use is widespread in science, military, and industry here. (I personally don't see what the fuss is about; I use either system at any given time depending on what I'm working on.) And adopting the metric system wouldn't guarantee adoption of the ISO standards for paper sizes: Canada, Mexico, Chile, and others are all on the metric system but still use letter size paper.
I'd always assumed ponies' number system would be binary-based, if they counted with their forelimbs like we do, or quaternary if they used their hindlimbs too.