Names are for friends. I guess that makes you all my friends. · 7:14am Oct 20th, 2012
For the record: no, the fact that I took the numbers off my profile name and am now just plain ol' "Aquaman" is not the main point of this blog post. I'm just hungry and terrible at coming up with titles. Sue me. Actually, there are two things I really want to talk about: the first, of course, is Harmony, and the second is the quick new project I'm working on that will push back my starting Part 3 of the Farmer's Market level by about a week.
I suppose it's no secret to all of you that Harmony, in the words of a very wise and speedy individual, is basically kind of a big deal. A really big deal, in fact: it reached over 500 likes and over 5,000 views just before I posted the most recent update, and shot up past 1000 favorites after it went up. Beyond that, I've recently gone over 250 followers (which, considering nearly all of you did so because of one story, I think is pretty awesome), and I'm right on the verge of going over 9,000 total story views across all my published works. In essence, I've hit a hell of a lot of big milestones in the past few weeks, so I want to take the time to give a huge thank you to everybody who made those achievements possibly. You guys are cash.
On the subject of Harmony, though, I'm going to break my normal rule of not talking about the story's development so I don't risk giving anything away, and address a point that was brought up by many commenters after the last update. In other words, I'm going to talk about why Ruby is coming across as a complete whiny jerkass right now, and why you interpreting her character as such is in fact exactly what I was hoping you all would do.
I've never made any secret of the fact that, while I harbor a great deal of admiration and respect for Kkat and what she accomplished with Fallout: Equestria, I still have several problems with how her magnum opus was written and constructed, and one of the largest had to do with Littlepip's adjustment to moving from the Vault she'd lived in all her life out into the completely different and infinitely more dangerous Equestrian Wasteland. There was something critically important missing from that transitional phase, and in two words, that thing was "culture shock". There was not enough serious attention paid to what Littlepip thought of the idea of killing other ponies to protect herself and others, or to how she got over the fact that she had gone from a world of metal hallways and automatic doors to a scorched landscape where the only ceiling was the clouds, or to the hundreds of other little things that would've made the Wasteland an utterly alien place for her. In my experience, people don't usually react that well to situations they have no knowledge or control over without both having a really, really good reason to suck it up and move on, and the intestinal fortitude to actually do so.
The biggest thing I would like to emphasize about the stage Harmony is currently at is this: at this point in time, Ruby is not a hero. She's not even close to one, actually. She is a 22-year-old mechanic with a list of emotional issues longer than her tail, who has spent her entire life living in a world where violent death and murder are not just rare, but virtually (debatably, literally) nonexistent. Thrusting a character like that into a place like Harmony is about the most extreme change of scenery imaginable, and so to portray her as getting over that shock and awe without significant effort and pain seemed to me to be patently negligent. Now, I don't want you to worry about that attitude sticking around: the underlying narrative of the story is Ruby's emotional healing and self-actualization (just as much as it is Link's own unique way of dealing with things and interacting with her), so as the story progresses, she will of course begin to pull herself together and become the heroically badass motherfucker that Harmony and Equestria deserve. For the time being, however, her moral compass is still pointing straight north by normal Equestrian standards, and that will have to change before she realizes how irrational she's being in the context of this new world she's stumbled upon. The time will come when she matures past her current emotional state; like all things of this nature, though, you have to wait for it to happen naturally.
Of course, by "naturally", I really mean "within the next two chapters". So don't go writing hate mail about that either. I have much worse fics to despise me for.
Speaking of other stories of mine that may or may not be terrible, I'm currently hard at work on what I hope will end up being a solid horror story I can submit to Equestria Daily's Halloween fan fiction contest, which is being run by my good pal/super-hetero Internet lover Chromosome. Check him out, if you somehow haven't already (for shame). Anyway, that will in all likelihood be done with by next Wednesday--at the very least, that's when the contest deadline is, so that's when I plan to have this thing finished. Once I've gifted the world with whatever monstrosity that turns into, it's on to Farmer's Market 3, which I can go ahead and tell you is the first chapter in which shit really starts gettin' real. Till then, keep it classy, folks.
And for the record again: I suck at coming up with conclusions. I'm sure absolutely no one has noticed.
I am still the one watcher only watching you so I know the exact moment Breaking Bricks goes off haitus.
Conclusions? Bah. Who needs them?
I thought Ruby was acting perfectly reasonably... but then, I wasn't really expecting a bloodbath from our leading mare at the beginning. While gamers may be able to switch from "I can't kill anything!" to "HYPERKILL!!!" with the flick of a power switch, pretty much anyone else isn't gonna react that smoothly.
435142
That interpretation wasn't uncommon either, but I wanted to specifically address the people who were getting annoyed by her. Maintaining character integrity is all well and good, but I'd also rather not lose any readers over it.
lolneed.com/wp-content/uploads/girls/sexy-girls-pics5376.jpg
435165
Dat Batman looks gay. Quite literally. He looks as if he ...
I'm okay with this.
Like, everything you just said.
Also, it'd be nice to read that horror story you're cooking.
Seeing as I feel partially responsible for this blog post, I'll reciprocate by defecating opinions, inconsistencies and pseudo analysis onto what may turn out to be a megalithic post of 'Tl;dr'-ness.
Excited? I know I am.
I'm going to start off with the part about the continuing comparison of Harmony to Fallout Equestria, mainly because it annoys the ever-living hell out of me each and every time it's brought up. To my mind, both stories are trying to achieve different things; hopefully, this word-vomit should explain some of what I think that is.
Your point over the Littlepip's far-too-fast adjustment to killing ponies is a valid one, yet I can't help but feel it misses the main idea of what Kkat was trying to do. A fair section of the text of Fallout: Equestria was dedicated towards the underlying mechanics of gaming and Fallout in particular: we did not receive little to no detail on what Littlepip looks like, stat updates at the end of each chapter and jokes made about ammo found in the middle of desks for no reason at all. The idea of the main character feeling little to no guilt about the hordes they gun down is one intrinsic to gaming; indeed, it's one of the few universal agreements the audience makes with the artist (debate on whether or not gaming counts as an art aside) that is relevant to gaming. It's presence in FO:E was, in part, another aspect of the gaming mindset that Kkat carried with her.
Which makes it all the more interesting that you are choosing not to do so.
Bioshock was a game whose central twist relied upon gamers making this assumption. That the main character is fine with gunning down people in cold blood, injecting serums that alter his DNA into his arms and following the increasingly bizarre orders of a man he's never met doesn't really cross our minds as irrational because it's a mechanic of gaming that we all take for granted. We obey his orders because that's how we 'play' the game; we inject serums into our arms for the same reasons we chase after mushrooms in Mario; we kill other people because they're the enemies that we have to kill in order to advance the game. Thus, when the carpet is tugged violently out from under our feet, we're surprised; no explanation for why the main character was doing this was expected, and yet here's one that covers it chillingly.
Or, in shorter words, Bioshock plays around with this assumption; it's shouldn't really be that much of a surprise that Harmony does so as well. That Ruby doesn't make this assumption and that Link at least seems to speaks volumes about their characters. As I mentioned in what I can't help but think is the trigger for both this and all the other 'Ruby's annoying comments' (I'm just that important, you see) what she's doing makes sense and works brilliantly within the context of the fic.
Thus, I can see why it is being carried out. My complaint, though it was more of a comment, has always been that it annoys me, personally. Given the quality of your writing (Crazy Bitch was an enjoyable character study), I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you know exactly what you're doing. I will say this, though: It's a bold move. There aren't many people who would willing sacrifice character likeability (which is so a noun, screw you Google) for the sake of the story; you have my respect for doing so.
And because I can't really think of anything else to say, that Vinyl tag. You'd better characterise her right, or I swear to god, I will be back writing whinny, self-entitled comments on every blog post, related-story and chapter update you make. I make no secret of the fact that the Vinyl of Off-key has had the only version that I can cope with, never mind enjoy.
>There was something critically important missing from that transitional phase, and in two words, that thing was "culture shock".
That sounds reasonable, yet I don't recall having that reaction. Here's a post-hoc rationalization: If you go to boot camp, or if you go to a combat zone (which I haven't, but I've read autobiographies), you're experiencing a little bit of what Littlepip did on leaving the stable. But people who've written about doing these things often don't write about having culture shock at the time. They don't have time to have culture shock. If you're a Manhattanite walking into a Waffle House, you'll think about how strange everything and everyone is. If you're jumping out of a plane for the first time, you're counting and wondering whether you'll clear the propeller and trying to make sure your hand is on the main chute cord and not the reserve chute cord, not thinking how strange it is.
435498
You've got a fair point about the difference in story mechanics that FO:E and Harmony were/are trying to achieve. I suppose it was a bit of an exaggeration to classify that lack of "culture shock" on FO:E as a bona fide problem. Rather, it was just something that bugged me personally, because it didn't mesh with my own personal headcanon regarding the Equestrian mindset. In addition, the other theme that went hand-in-hand with that subtle commentary on the instinctive behavior of gamers (the combination of which is the reason I will never stop arguing that BioShock is a work of art) was the power, and lack thereof, of choice. What's happening with Ruby and Link involves and will involve a lot of situations where it isn't entirely clear what choice is correct, rational, or really theirs to make in the first place. So yes, it is a risk to try to write a protagonist who has to work to make the readers like them, but as I said in another comment response: I like a challenge.
Also, there's a reason all my avatar images on this site feature best pony. I'm not going to half-ass Scratch's section in the slightest.
435593
Those are all valid examples within their contexts, but in each scenario you mentioned, the person experiencing it has at least some expectations about what they're going to find in the place they're going, even if it's a warzone. In our world, violence and death are something we are all accustomed to just by knowing it exists; the reality may seem grossly divergent from our mental image, and that can and does cause even soldiers to choke and freeze up in the heat of battle, but in general we at least are cognizant of what the thing is and how the basic rules of morality might apply. In Ruby's world, though, that kind of violence does not exist; there are no real-life wars for comparison, no movies filled with explosions and film reels of POWs being gunned down in the streets. The very concept of killing another pony by intention, even in self-defense, is abhorrent to her purely because she has never even comprehended that she would ever find herself somewhere where such an action would be required. She's still not entirely crippled by that paradigm shift, but I personally believe it should take any Equestrian citizen a lot longer to process it than a normal human being.
435498 To be fair in FO:E the Stable are not nearly as idyllic as the cartoon Equestria, Lilpip's mom was an negligent alcoholic whore. Really each stable was like a miniature Harmony without the inhumane experiments (sometimes) and the only reason the stable didn't have ponies running around and gunning ponies down was because Stable security had bigger guns, although there was still a few minor incidents through the years. Lilpips stable was better then the wasteland true but it wasn't a perfect utopia and Lilpip was not an idiot after seeing the bullets start flying once she left. There is also a 1-2 week gap between her leaving the library and her meeting Calamity during which time she read through the wasteland survival guide to get some idea of the outside world. And she did have her moments thinking that she would fall into the sky when she didn't see a ceiling for the first time in her life, just walking up to a campfire at night not thinking about slaver, and thinking a grenade was some weird armored apple for culture shock moments. Could have been done better but in all not completely unforgivable.
Fan/nerd rant over.
I always get notifications from you, Aquaman. A lot of notifications a week, including several, very active, great authors here.
But, dude, I'm sorry, I just...
Every time I see a notification from you, it's always when I'm not in a mood to read anything like a blog. I read every one else's, it's just, when you post it, it fits in that small time that I don't feel like reading blogs. It jsut happens.
Really, I'm waiting till there is a notification telling me of a blog you made, when I actually want to read a blog.
Okay