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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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So. This chapter.
There are some pretty gruesome bits in this chapter. I want to repeat what Whisper says: those details got the attention they did because they are important. Violence is never pretty, and this is Whisper's first long, clear look at its aftermath. There may be other graphic scenes later on, but I want to assure you that isn't what the story is about. It isn't gore for the sake of gore. It's there because I felt it was one of the aspects of the Wasteland that deserved to be done right, and because it contributes to Whisper's experience.
There are a few things I wanted to portray as well as possible in this story. Death is one of them. It's rare to see a victim of violence that is well described as just "a body", and such a sterile and casual description strikes me as softening or even hiding away the violence. At the same time, while I don't want to shy away from depicting violence and death as it is, that's completely secondary to telling Whisper's story. The detail put into any part of the story depends on how significant those details are to Whisper. Right now, they're pretty significant.
Sickle sounds like a bored lvl50 player character.
Nice touch of realism with the descriptions while they are salvaging, sorting things into "yes" "no" and "maybe" piles. Because 200 years of sitting on a shelf will not do any favours to anything.
And "Crows have to eat too." strikes me a bit. It's just five words, and they sum up the situation all too well.
I'm loving Whisper. The perspective of a pre-war changeling spy lets her zero in almost immediately on things that took Littlepip the better part of 1M+ words to realize. She's going to have a lot more of the story's timeframe to let that cook.
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Funny enough, I had the same thought after I wrote this. I even started up a play-through of Fallout 4 with a character inspired by her. It's... not going as well for that version of her. Going with an intentionally sub-optimal setup can be challenging, especially on survival difficulty. She's only about level 20 at the moment, and while she kills far better than my first character did at those levels, she kind of has a dying problem. Probably goes with charging people with guns and trying to fight deathclaws with a powerfist.
Though my first play-through had far more dying problems at those levels, before becoming pretty strong at higher levels. That character was named Whisper.
I'm glad you like the detail about the salvaging, too. It was another one of those things that I wanted to get the details right, because, like you noted, 200 years is a lot of time. Metal rusts, lubricants dry up, etc. I suppose it's similar to the depiction of the dead raiders; in a way, it's showing the decaying remains of Equestria.
Plus, Starlight's is a practiced scavenger, and Dusty knows his guns. I like being able to show off characters' skills!
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She's certainly got some advantages Littlepip didn't. Whisper has training in stealth, espionage, and other related fields, as well as access to an array of information that even the few war-time ghoul survivors are unlikely to have. Knowledge is her biggest advantage, and she certainly has a leg up on Littlepip in that regard. On the other hoof, Littlepip has much stronger magic (And only slightly more limited in scope than Whisper's), has a fully functional PipBuck with EFS and SATS, and very quickly picked up skill at firearms, all advantages that are probably a little more practical for survival in the Wasteland. I'm really enjoying the differences between the two while writing Whisper, since it should let me do some things differently with her. And I have to admit, it's kind of nice having her know much of the history behind the war, rather than having to dig around and slowly discovering what we already know. She has her own unknown history stuff to uncover.
(So many pony emotes. These silly little things are addicting.)
The thing that strikes me the most is the nuance of a soldier to a spy.
More than anything, that perhaps struck me most.
As for fallout 4, eh, its an action fallout game, sadly in that, sneaking near next to useless (And I loved the infiltrator approach in 1-3 and nv, because it was a great way around 99% of your problems). I kept focusing on the power armor and just the custom power of science to ensure that everything was kept safe and secure. (Even if the BoS are complete arses.)
6775955 I tried writing a Fallout crossover where the main character was a changeling. It wasn't set in FoE though.
Did I mention I gave up immediately? So I'm jealous you can actually do this when I can't.
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I don't know, I'd say that sneaking (Or more specifically, stealthy take-downs) is one of the most effective tactics to use. My Whisper playthrough had more problems because at first I planned on being a more talky, less shooty type character, but that doesn't work as well in 4 as it does in, say, New Vegas. So "Whisper" quickly became "Kinda-Whisper"; less of a tricky, fast-talking infiltrator, more of a soldier, although typically a sneaky soldier. Even if she ended up in power armor most of the time because one endurance is horribly fragile in survival difficulty...
6776341 it may be, but well, the nuance of how good high end and cheap to make power armor was in that, well. It just lets you do things you shouldn't be able to far before. But it's not the good sneaking that earlier fallouts were really. Which is more what my lament was about.
And here you show it, because when you can observe and watch, you can apply the proper motivations.
Looooove it, want more!
Wow... things didn't go wrong. I'm legitimately surprised, but I'm actually happy about it. I really liked this chapter.
That is a really good line, but I think it's slightly hurt by the following comment about black forms feasting on ponies. You might disagree, but I think that line beats you over the head with the metaphor too much, while "We all have to eat" gets across the point just as well. I dunno, just something I noticed.
Looking forward to the next chapter, as always.
Hmm, things didn't go wrong. I'm pleasantly surprised. I'm loving Whisper's perspective on things, it's a bit more outsider than littlepip's
Welp. You sure aren't holding back on the descriptions here. Yikes
Seems suspiciously empty so far...
Oh wait. Heads are missing. Heh. I think a certain uncivilized mare they met earlier came through here, and I don't think she had any interest in the loot.
I still think she's a bounty hunter. She just doesn't settle for ears alone. They really should've asked about her in Rust...
Yup... pretty clear. And since she seems to be a loner and not a gang, this is more evidence supporting my "bounty hunter" theory
Oh, he knows her?
...which is, again, why I don't think she's really a raider
How exactly is a gang of murdered raiders a "disaster"?
Saw that coming
Huh. I get the impression that, despite his demeanor, he's not a fan of killing.
Well, the poor machine wasn't a raider, and, despite being just as dead, probably didn't smell as bad
I don't think infiltrators were ever trained for situations like this.
Well, that's promising. They made pretty reliable tech.
Well, in Fallout 4, concrete is apparently a rather rare and much sought after construction material
Wrong question. You're still not asking the "why"
My guess, it probably involves fermentation
Oh, well, that's something at least.
Come now. It's all the rage in the wastelands!
...she says, literally while being manipulated by her. Oh, irony
Hm, Phoenix_Dragon, for some bizarre reason, some of the spaces in your text aren't spaces at all but A0 bytes. I noticed because I copied a piece out to quote, and the classic ctrl+left and ctrl+right shortcuts in Notepad to jump word by word simply... skipped over these. You got any clue what might cause that?
i.imgur.com/PA8rWBc.png
[edit]
Seems like they're unicode non-breaking space characters. (The A0 byte was what what's left of them after my copy-pasting) Weird...
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That's really weird. I have no idea, though I'd speculate it may have something to do with the import process from GDocs. Not sure why, as there doesn't seem to be any consistency. Three of the five are immediately following italicized text, which makes me wonder if it might be related to that, but the other two are not.
Copying the imported text from the "edit" screen has the same ctrl-right/left bug, as does copying from the .txt download. But I couldn't replicate it when copying from the published chapter page or when copying from the original GDoc (Or even when doing it in the GDoc itself). That has me rather stumped; it seems to occur from the importing, but I can't see anything in the original that's causing that behavior.
*reads the comments* Who's Littlepip?
Yowza, that's some gruesome violence.
Scythe made me think of one of my characters in Fallout 2, when u became bored, maxed out her level, equipped all the best stuff, maxed of all the skills and went on methodically slaughtering all the settlements available.
Reading this makes me sad that the newest fallout is a dumbed down action game. And that there are no changeling mods for f3 or nv.
Cya
Raziel-chan
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Littlepip is the protagonist of Fallout: Equestria, which is the story that created the setting I'm writing this one in.
Looking forward to Whisper getting some good gear and figuring out how to use her Infiltrator skills in this new world, partially so she stops talking about how fighting doesn't fit her skill set.
Imagine how easy it would be for a changeling infiltraitor to do something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR4N5OhcY9s
Doubt she'd do the disguise part while her friends are still in the dark about her true identity though.
Sickle reminds me of Nisha from Borderlands. "So she's a bandit that kills other bandits? That's awesome! She isn't... seeing anyone, is she?" -Handsome Jack
As someone trained to handle firearms and having that drilled into my head, I appreciate this mention.
Raider or not, some morals need to be asserted here. This world can only really be repaired through this kind of effort.
*This earth stained dripping,
Among pale blades of flurry
For the close of rest*
In wake of ruin,
solitude must not come to be.
Build a day,
a place of warmth—
supreme is the power of faith
that grants perseverance in trial and tribulation.
Let yourself rest amidst the stream,
through red, as cold and in brilliant light!
For only together
will you prevail.
We shall read on.
I think you accidentally a word.
I re-read Dusty's dialogue up to the conversation Whisper had about him being nice and I don't really see the same things Whisper did. Sure, he's a bit frustrated/skeptical of ponies, could stand to not grab other ponies' things uninvited, and said a couple things in a more abrasive/grumpy way than necessary, but what times did he "try to drive ponies away" or "get easily upset" the way whisper described?
Dusty just comes off rough around the edges and I actually usually side with him when he and Starlight butt heads.
Finally, we have a name, for a dog muzzled gace.
I like her even more now. Though I'm dissapointed her name ain't Helga. It really should be Helga.
Oh Gawd. Dusty is complimenting Starlight.
truly, it is the end times.
It's Cider. It's probably the most antiquated, fermented apple juice you're going to find.
I know this is VERY late, but once I spotted that, I couldn't let it slide.
To be clear: 2 bodies, 1 rifle between them, and both of them died from a bullet to the back of the skull? That is impossible. After one of them was shot, how would the other get shot in the back of the skull?
Even if one of them was a unicorn or something, the rifle was laying on one of the bodies' abdomen. If they were levitating a rifle behind them to shoot themselves in the back of the head, the rifle wouldn't end up on their abdomen.
Four possibilities:
1 - A simple oversight by the author
2 - Someone was there after they died, and fucked with the bodies. Very unlikely, considering the door was completely intact, there were no notes of a hole in the wall or something, and the room was completely unlooted.
3 - One or both of them didn't die or lose motor coordination pretty much instantly. Very unlikely.
4 - This wasn't mutual suicide. Foul play is involved somehow.
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It's not an error or anything sneaky. It's terminal ballistics.
They weren't shot in the back of the skull. Generally speaking, entry wounds for bullets are pretty neat, and about the size of the bullet's diameter (Which is pretty small). A "gaping hole" would be an exit wound, where the bullet came out and carried a good chunk of material with it. The reason the rifle is laid across one pony's abdomen is because he "ate" a bullet (The classic gunshot suicides) which blew out the back of his head.
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I was under the impression that you should always have your gun chambered since you'll never know when you might need that split second it took you to pull the bolt/slide back. That's putting yourself at a disadvantage when one little disadvantage could mean your end
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It really depends on the situation. Whisper had been trained mostly for the contingency that she might need to use a firearm to complete some aspect of her mission, but that it would be extremely unlikely, rare, and planned ahead of time. She was expected to not carry a weapon for self defense, because that would arouse suspicion or extra consideration while doing fairly little to aid her survival deep in "enemy" territory. A "home invasion" would likely take the form of a full MoM raid, and an Infiltrator is not fighting their way out of that with a pistol. As such, the general focus was safe handling and storage. It's fairly comparable to a hunter or someone who only uses their weapon at a shooting range; you take it to the place you're going to be shooting at, load the weapon, do your hunting/shooting, unload, and go home.
Basically, she's going from a generally civilian non-self-defense mindset with the rare possibility for pre-planned use of a firearm, to a more military mindset where the firearm might see use at unexpected times and with little warning.
This is some high quality writting. I really appreciate how they are getting salvage that makes sense, not just random junk and hoping they can sell it. They know what the traders are looking for and can find it, also a great touch having them get the inventory to find the good stuff. It makes sense and adds depth. More of like a world then a story.
Le gasp! You don't say Whisper, you don't say! What is the next news, that water is wet and that radiation is icky? And yes yes, you are a lover not a fighter, we get it.
So I don't want to get ahead of myself, but with all of the missing pony heards, and a house that didn't get looted even when they tollay should, and her now getting a name, and we all know that when you name a pet can you never get rid of it since you have a connection with it now, do I think that the head bagging armoured pony from earlier is getting a return for some odd reason, I sure wonder why I think so.
Vinegar, it makes vinegar. Would not even be amazingly aged goodness since it was on glass flasks which gives it no extra taste, but pretty sure that we have gone past any alcohol and straight to condiment.
Fun fact, this is only the second FoE story that I have read where a character forces an door open trough other means than lockpicks. Its quite amazing actually how many lockpickers there is in the wasteland, when there are so many other means of forced entry, like the blowtorch in this story, or the electric drill that was used in the other story that I read... One have to wonder now and then if it wouldn't be possiple to simply lift the tumblers of a lock with telekenesis, but that is a whole other discussion.
Nitpick:
"The difference in context, however, was everything..." Since this whole paragraph is an explanation of infiltraters and soldiers, should it not be in present tense as the context is still true and valid when Whisper tells the story.
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Given the number of times I've been blocked in games by a locked door that looked so flimsy that I probably could have broken it open with a strong sneeze, I was definitely going to include some other ways of getting through locked doors, even if it was something as simple as reaching through the broken window to unlock it from the other side. I really appreciate the games that let you use alternate methods of opening doors, like just kicking them in. Heck, Fallout 1 and 2 let you breach doors with explosives! And some games take it even further and let you breach walls!
Heh, yep. Well, depending on what kind of preservatives (Magical or otherwise) went into it. Could be as fresh as the day it was bottled! Just like so much other salvaged food and drink. Which... might be reason for concern. At least their methods of preservation are probably less unhealthy than whatever they use in Fallout. Probably.
Hmm... maybe. I think it works either way, but in this case, I feel like past tense might be better. She was talking about her experiences and the practices back when Equestria was still a thing, so I think in this context it's more past-tense. Still, something I'll think on.
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I'm pretty sure Littlepip has done just that multiple time. If I remember correctly in the second half of FoE she was able to pick simple locks without tools.