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3985026 Thanks! I hope I can live up to whatever expectations you may have
Well here's chapter two! Please let me know if you see any spelling/grammar errors.
Looks good so far
Eheeh oh yes! You'll be my first story to judge!
Won't this be fun?
Alright let me start off with some things I didn't like.
The premise of the story seems a tad rushed. In some of the more highly acclaimed stories, such as Project Horizons and the original Fo:E, the problem at the beggining is typically pretty trivial. Find Velevet Remedy/ Follow P-21 out of the stable. In both stories, reasons to set the story in motion seem very simple and easily resolved, and when they get out in the wasteland they play 'hero' and dig themselves a nice big plot to fill up. Yours? It rushes into a pretty big conflict right off the bat. This is going to hurt your story farthet down the road. Why? The same reasoning with 'sequels are never better than the first one.' The starting conflict is amazing. And that's the problem, its just to amazing. Unless this is going to be a short story or you're going to drag and milk this story arc for as long as you can, you better have another pretty damn good plot.
Now here is a little world building hole you actually had. Assuming that Updraft is doing this around the the time that Pip goes out to find Velvet, the part where it says something about the sun beating down on her head should not exist. The original states, many times, that you can't see any solar bodies. So I find it doubtful she can even feel heat, since the atmosphere is clouded with smog.
Now, as much as I hate to say this, there's a part in this story I can barely stand.
The fight scene. There's 3 things in this scene that are completely haywire, and quite frankly, I'm disapointed.
First- The surrounding enviroment around the fight and the townsponies themsleves.
I'm putting a bit of 'two in one here, as the townsponies is the 'surrounding enviroment' I had the problem with. Apperantly, this small pegasus has just body slammed another huge, gangster pony. And what do the townsponies do?
Nothing, at least as far as I know.
This part to me sticks like a flaming torch, as the rest of the narration of this story is just phenomonal. Then we get to this part. The narration wasn't bad, the problem here is the lack there of. Hardly any narration how they react. Do they watch? Do they try to get help? Why arn't they trying to help? That's the other half of the problem I have. In the get go of the story, we get a bit of lore on the town. They had been fighting off raiders, slavers, and 4 other gangs, single hoofedly and when a mare starts getting pushed around at a bar suddenly they're powerless to do anything. Which brings me to my next point...
Second- You used the 'One pony army' cliché.
Oh man, you forced this cliché on this story hard. Coming off a bit from the last one, these ponies have survived and held off, much worse than 2 gangsters. Also, is Updraft the only kind of military/police force this town has? Everypony in this town should be skilled in some fighting, because Updraft can't possibly fight every other threat to their city. Are all the other gaurds asleep? Patrolling somewhere else? Neglecting the situation because they don't want to make enemies with the gang they're from? You made all of these ponies bad-ass as Gordon Freeman, and now they can't do anything about 2 gangsters?
Third- My biggest problem with this story is...
characterzation. You make out this pegasus to be very sensible, caring and quite the hard worker. She's a small pegasus, so she must not be very strong but very agile... right? So when I saw the evidence of a fight scene tapping itself in, I thought you were going to writre this bad-ass scene where she was going to win her fight with speed, agility and smarts. Like she would zip around, make them hit each other, wear them out. (Oh just a side note, you seem to forget your characters a Pegasus, she never really used flying to her advantage in the fight. Also, the mention of the Wing-Sabres, my first thought wasn't "Wow, that's creative and cool!" (Which it is) no, it was "why the hell isn't she wearing them at all times? She's a gaurd isn't she?) Anyway, it would've been really cool if you had done that. Instead, she body slams an Earth pony who, is not only taller but probably stronger than her, right into a wall. With no consequences.
WHAT.
THE.
FUSCHA.
Okay, I gotta breath. You get the Updraft here, right? From now have her use her strengths. Don't have her rush headfirst into a battle she should lose.
Yay! That was sorta fun! Positive time!
Your narration and dialouge for this story is perfect. I didn't feel like I read 5,000 words because the sentences flowed so smoothly and was just so enjoyable.Story and Lore building are really good as well. Your attention detail is impeccable as well.
Dislikes- Small plot hole, slight world building mistake, fight scene.
Neutral- Updraft.
Likes- Everythin' else.
I'll keep an eye on this story!
I like it so far, but there's one huge problem:
The protagonist's no pegas...wait a second...
Pegasus protagonist!, that's cool, I like the winged ones.
Although I can't really imagine a small pegasus with a melee-battle-specialization being a town guard, I think some firearms would be better somehow (but I'm no expert and it's just my liking)
4075076 I follow you with what you wrote
4075076 Thanks for the critique! I always like a good second opinion on my writings (I don't have an editor/proofreader yet), and thanks especially for writing such an in depth analysis too. However I have a bone to pick with some of it.
Actually the whole idea regarding the way I built this town, was very similar to in Heroes. Desert Springs wasn't holding off such large gangs, but being protected by them. They provided the gangs with fresh, clean water, (a rare commodity in the wasteland, I might add) and in return the gangs keep the raiders and slavers away. (I believe I mentioned that the occasional raider did make into town despite this) I meant to convey in the premise that Updraft and Sandy are the only two town guards, so I'm probably going to rewrite it a little bit to better show that. That's the biggest problem with the town (which will come in to play later I promise) is that they never had to deal with any serious threats, as they have nearly always been protected by the gangs since the town's founding. So when the two drunk gangers start harassing Lily, almost no one in the town even has the fighting experience to do anything about it, and are all pretty much too scared anyways.
Not sure where you found that, unless you meant this:
The thing is (and I'll go into more detail about this in chapter three) that Desert Springs is located on the very edge of Equestria, it used to be a border town between Equestria and the Buffalo Plains. It's even farther west than Appleloosa, so the Enclave Pegasi aren't too concerned with keeping the cloud cover perfect that far out since it's so far away from any of their cloud cities. ('m also going to give a better context of when exactly this is taking place in comparison to the original pretty soon.)
But in regards to the fight, well I gotta defer to some personal experience there. See Updraft kinda sees Lily as like a little sister, or pretty close to it. Now when some jerks were harassing my little sister awhile back, I got a little upset. They absolutely refused to leave her alone, so after one of em threw a punch at me, I (being the 5'3", 18 year old, 103 lb. kid that I was...) threw a guy nearly twice my size almost completely over a picnic table. You'd be surprised what you can do when you're angry and running on adrenaline
And honestly the whole point in that fight was not to show you how good/bad Updraft is in a fight, (that's mostly shown in chapter 2) it was to show that she does have ponies she cares about in Desert Springs, which is going to be important later on in the 4th arc of the story. (and will be brought up in a few places sooner than that.) That's one of the reasons why she wasn't using her wingblades, or even an actual knife during the fight. She is a town guard, but she's never killed anypony before. She's always been able to avoid needing a serious weapon by simply being faster than anyone that tried to fight her. Not sure if you've read the second chapter or not, but as you can imagine being out in the wasteland away from the protection of Desert Springs is quite a wake up call.
But anyways thanks for the compliment! I spend a lot of time on each sentence (far more than I should honestly), and I usually end up with three drafts of everything I write (I hand-write it, then type it up on GDoc's, then I edit it again when I put it on here) so I hope it's at least readable
4076304 Yeah I thought of making Updraft a bit more violent, wielding a dual Gatling gun battle saddle instead of knives... but I decided to do something pretty much no one has done before. But hey if you want to see a Pegasus who wields some pretty serious firepower, if you'll stick with the story for awhile I'm going to introduce a character (in the 4th arc, so it'll be a ways off) that uses a lot of bullets... like more than Steelhooves ever imagined using...
4078739
I'm not saying I don't like Updraft the way she is, she doesn't need to be more violent or has to change her way of fighting (that's not what I meant with my previous comment). I'm planning to give my pegasus OC a little bit of a special hoof-to-hoof combat ability too, even if she's weak in melee-combat, but that's not the point.
I just wanted to say that I can hardly imagine a town guard with no expertice in firearms.
Remember the two town guards, standing on top of the Megaton gate? That's how I imagine a town guard. But on the other hand, Updraft's a pegasus, so she's not bound to one position, making her more agile and...yeah, that works out.
4078971 true. Also, it's not like Desert Springs has a lot of outside trouble since it's protected on all sides by rather large gangs, so Updraft's main job was just to keep peace among the townponies.
This was my first story to critique, and I intend to keep with it.
First half of chapter.
Sweet Celestia that was some of the best writing I've ever seen!
I had one nitpick with the beggining. The raider with the flamethrower. Raiders, depicted in the original Fo:E, and by extent in the game itself, are incredibly dumb.
This raider doesn't only know how to work a flamethrower, but also had a pretty diverse vocabulary, and talked quite a bit. (For a raider, anyway.)
Headcanon time!
The raiders here arn't as 'affected' ( I tend to go with Project Horizons's canon here and like to think of it as a disease ).
They weren't really raiders, just a smart pony disgused as one, and is tricking the raiders. Which probably means we're getting a return of those 2 raiders. Further proved by the point that these raiders weren't eating other ponies, but real food.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Your narration is
P H E N O M A N A L
Once I started reading the second half, my opionon did the same thing sound frequency does.
It went up and down.
Why?
Well, I'll start with my minor nitpick. I believe I mentioned this a bit in my last one, Updraft is a tad Mary Sue. I say this lightly, don't worry. Still indescive about this point, but the fight scene at the end... I know it isn't hard to know 'pointy end kills ponies', but she seems really skilled with this knife. I realize in the last chapter's review I said that the town fought the 4 gangs, thanks for correcting me on that. But it still works against you, even more so. If the town is so envolped in peace, why is Updraft so damn good?
M A J O R P R O B L E M.
This was a paragraph about character morales, but now I realize your character is going to need a bit more work than that.. I can't speak for you, but I assume you knew someone was going to point this out and you probably already have an argument against this, but I still want to throw my hat into the ring. In the beginning, when her life was being threatened by a vicisious monster, she has a problem with killing him. The raider even had motives of rape and tourture, and she still won't kill him. But, when faced with 3 Slavers, who are in fact, completely living and not bloodthirsty, she goes all ninja and wipes the floor with them. Stabbing them in cold blood, and her life wasn't in danger! Slavers actually take care of the slaves or no bodies going to buy them. Sure, she probably wouldn't be much of a virgin anymore, but the raider had the same intentions! Also, after one encounter with some raiders, she knows what's good and what's bad. *EDIT* nevermind, I was over reacting on this point.
Urf, I also didn't like how you handeled the meeting of the slavers. She doesn't want them to find her, so she jumps down, fully geared and basiacaly tells them - "I killed those raiders so leave now." This is like playing Marco Polo, but Updraft is that one ballzy kid who screams Polo at the kid's face so he gets confused. Risky, and an unescarry risk.
Another major one.
Your two chapters arn't related at all. In Chapter 1 we see her being taken away to get forcefully married to Red Baron, and like in my last chapter review, I pointed out it was an amazing plot arc. Then I read this chapter... You could literally read the two chapters seperate and rename the OC in one of them, and any normal person would say they're two diferent stories. The plot arc of the first chapter is completely dropped, and isn't even mentioned.
I loved how in the first half she fought like a pegasus, by lightly beating down the raider until she could escape. I loved this, a lot.
World building is as great as ever
Your narration. So beatiful it nearly brings to tears.
As harsh as I'm being with this story, it's one of my favorite stories.
In other words, MOAR!
4141127 As always thanks for the critique! I'll keep every bit of that in mind.
The reason why Updraft is so good with her blades, is that she's had a ridiculous amount of down time to get used to them. Seeing as she had almost nothing to actually guard against, she spent a large majority of her time practicing with her knives and wing blades. True this doesn't exactly translate over to battle experience, she has had plenty of experience fighting other ponies (as shown in chapter one with the two gangers) even if not to any kind of lethality.
True most ponies/people would see raiders as being far worse than slavers any day, but Updraft has a very different view of things that I'm going to continue to bring up in later chapters. Though raiders are horrible, murderous, and downright sick, they always kill their victims, usually outright. Slavers however torture their victims and sell them to an entire lifetime, however short that may be, of serving others. They treat other ponies like they're actually worth less than caps, drugs or booze, so Updraft has absolutely no respect for them. Also in the next chapter (which should be posted as of now) I made sure to bring that up.
In regards to her just showing up instead of running (which I also mention in chapter three), I will defer to the fact that Updraft is not a very street smart kind of pony who previously walked up to a group of raiders and asked for food...
Aha! but you see I'm trying a very unusual writing style here. I actually never intended for anything in the first chapter to dictate the first arc of the story. All the plot points in the first chapter are simply foreshadowing a much later arc. The current story arc actually started halfway through chapter two when the slavers show up.
Well here's chapter three! Feel free to give any critiques and let me know if you see any spelling errors!
I think you see it.
Needs an ' before em. ex: 'em.
Don't believe they ever introduce themselves.
I like the rendition of "The best offense is a great defense."
Acytualllyyyy... This is a bit of lore nitpick here for me. Killing Joke is a heavily dramitized Poison Joke. Killing Joke doesn't always kill slowly. Xenith starts bleeding out, and in PH, Blackjack also starts bleeding to death. There is instances of it taking a long time, yeah, and it doesn't always kill you. (Exhibit A: Fallen Glory) Killing Joke grants your innermost desire, Blackjack wanted to die and Fallen Glory wanted to fly again. For Xenith it was triggered by something she said. Project Horizons does a great job of explaining a lot of things in this universe, so I'll be basing a lot of my nitpicks on it.
Ehh... I'm iffy about this. I liked the idea of a pegasus using magic, but don't at the same time. I liked the explanation though, but... didn't.
The part with the Magic is weird. Could be extremely good or bad.
I'm done. This one's short because there isn't much wrong, plot wise. Defenitly your worst chapter in spelling though.
Same as always, MOARRRR.
4157973 Thanks! I fixed those spelling errors and didn't find any more.
Yeah I realize Killing Joke isn't always the most threatening thing ever, but I'm talking about it through the perspective of somepony whose entire life was flipped upside down because of it, so I tried to exaggerate it a little.
In regards to the Pegasus magic, I figured this is where I'm either going to make or break a lot of readers. I spent a lot of time on this to ensure that I wasn't breaking Fo:E canon in the slightest, while still being able to conform to some of the ideas from the stories written by The 24th Pegasus. I'm going to explain it in more detail next chapter, so I figure if I still have half as many readers as I have now by chapter five, then I should be doing pretty good.
Thanks as always for the critique! I always appreciate the feedback
ahahaha! YES. It's out! I'll read and review this chapter soon. I'm fired up, honestly.
4551224 Can't wait! I love your reviews
Don't take to much offense to this review, but, I didn't particularly enjoy this chapter.
Surprisingly, the problem I had with this chapter was the narration, it was actually pretty lacking in this chapter.
The subject of Updraft having the use of magic was not mentioned in this chapter.
This isn't really a problem, but, the role you have for Finder seems to be the behind-the-scenes guy, or the ninja figure. This is weird, because Finder is an Earth pony, and the race that would better fit this role is Pegasus, or even a Zebra. There better be some pretty good backstory behind this, or I'll be sorely disappointed.
And I want to say something about Smiles.
Yet another character that you better have a good backstory for. Because if you're not careful, you're treading on Mary Sue on all of your characters so far and, to be honest, if you can't handle and diffuse this bomb correctly...
This story will blow up in your face.
Don't disappoint me.
Now for the more Technical aspects of this story
The 'while' is not needed. Makes the sentence seem like a run-on sentence. take it out or replace with a comma.
There need to be a comma after war, this grammar error actually took me out of the story.
Past this point, the story itself and grammar and yada yada is fine.
I like the character interactions between Finder and Updraft. It's smooth, and I can see the friendship building going on.
The scene with the raiders and looting them could've used a bit more description, but other than that it wasn't bad.
Also, from now on, in narration don't start sentences with and or but, these words join 2 sentences, not start ones. In dialogue, it's fine.
4562768
Though Finder is an earth pony turned cat-earth pony, so he can reasonably be explained as a ninja-type character. Part cat and all.
I agree that there are the ingredients for a story implosion, and considering the supply cache they can't possibly take with them... They need to find a safe-house NOT filled with corpses for the long run. Short term is finding the vault password and locking it up. They can't take it all with them to the death city, especially if they plan to bring back all those pipbucks.
Most towns have a bank, though, so when they combine it with a pipbuck map it'd be plausible to make a stash. On the other hand the raider leader could just detonate the building and that's that.
4562768 Wow a little harsh, but deserved and I'm grateful for every word
I'll admit the narration was certainly lacking for this chapter, and that's mostly because... well I didn't really like this chapter too much. I mean I love Fallout Equestria, but the excessive gore and foul language of raiders is something I don't really care for. It took me awhile to write this one because a lot of the things in here I really didn't want to write. However it's important for this chapter to be in the story. Updraft left her hometown less than a week before, and has almost no experience with what the wasteland is actually like. While Desert Springs is no Tenpony Tower, the town has yet to face any serious trouble. So basically imagine what it would be like for a Tenpony citizen to be suddenly forced into the wasteland; I'm just trying to get here acquainted with the "locals". (As well as mature her to the level the wasteland demands)
Heh just you wait, her magic is going to be very deeply explored in later chapters. Also in the next chapter it's going to be talked about a lot as well, I was just waiting for the opportunity, and it didn't seem fitting to talk about it while they were stealing from a raider fort...
As for backstories, don't worry Finder's past will be talked about in detail in the next few chapters, as well as Updraft's. Smiles however, is going to drop below the radar for quite awhile (At the soonest the next story arc) so I'm afraid you won't get to know much about hr for awhile. However I already have her character written out, and I can promise you she's much less of a Mary Sue than she seems. I'm intentionally making appear that way in order for her to leave an impression on Updraft.
You have no idea how many times I wrote and re-wrote that sentence, and I just can't seem to make it flow right
But even if I change it to this:
It's better, but it still seems too long and it doesn't feel comfortable to read... I think I've settled on writing it like this:
I think that one works well... thoughts?
As for any lack of description in the narration, I defer to my answer for the other narration problems.
Really? I was taught by my English teacher that it's okay to start sentences like that if your narration is in first person, because it's more of an inner monologue rather than an attempt to explain something. Difference in teachings, or am I missing something?
As always I appreciate your feedback, it really helps since I don't have a proofreader. I'll try to get the next chapter out soon!
Haven't read anything yet, just faving so my notifications are flooded with updates for this to remind me to read it.
5160475 Yeah I guess I just didn't think about it, I took a brief Hiatus from this story but I was working on some others
I only have anime and League to explain how long this took.
I had started a review, but it stagnated and forced me to logout.
*sigh*
So let's try this again.
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This one's going to be rather long.
We've run into a problem with differences in teachings again. I can't recall whether or not you've done this in earlier chapters or not, but when you narrate, you're doing it in present tense. I wouldn't say that's wrong, but it would look a lot better in past tense.
The intro is very good, reminded me of the original's intros. Although, near the end, it feels super rushed. Put a bit more description between that last part and the part before it.
Ah, here we are. The main point.
Her magic.
Here's my theory on it. Its a common agreement that all races have magic, and that unicorns channel it with their horns. I'm guessing Updraft learned to channel magic through her wings.
When you brought up Bora, I thought you might be making a cameo to Snowy from Fo:E Memories.
Also, you brought up Red Baron (I think that was his name...) and I must say, I'm glad you finally tied it in.
Overall, one of my favorite chapters so far.
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I hope the wait for the next chapter isn't so long.
....Elfen Lied made me cry.
5222831 Romg teh Reague of Regends! Trying to get some ranked games in before the eleventh?
And yeah I really liked Elfen Lied, it's a great story if you can get past all the... promiscuous visuals
Yeah honestly I kinda agree with you about the narration, but I've yet to see anyone else do it like me (at least with a story of this scale, there are a few one shots I seem to recall...) so I think I'll stick with it. Something to make my story a little more unique if nothing else.
As for the intro... the whole thing was a bit rushed honestly... I wrote the rest of the chapter and right before I was going to publish it I remembered I wanted to include for something important that happens later. I'll definitely go back and rework it before posting next chapter.
Ah yes, her magic is a quintessential part of the story. You're basically right, but it's far more in depth than that. There are three types of magic. Arcana, which is the magic a unicorn uses by focusing through their horn. It is the most apparent magic, even though it is also the most complex Endura is the type of magic an earth pony relies on to be so strong and fast healing. Endura is the most passive magics of the three, but there are a few notable exceptions in history. Empatha, is the magic pegasi are born with, and it's perhaps the most inherent of the three. The use of empatha not only requires extreme focus like that of a unicorn, but the way in which this magic manifests is dependent upon the emotions of the pegasus using the magic. Each pegasus is only able to use magic of a certain type (Fire, Ice, and Lightning, although a pegasus being able to use lightning magic is almost unheard of) which is determined by the type of person they are. I'm not going to put any spoilers here, but if you want to read more about it here's where you can. I didn't come up with any of this by the way, that's what I always thank The 24th Pegasus and LoyalLiar for because I got permission to include this in here. They actually have their own storyverse using this, and the world building they do is incredible
Bora took me a while to think of a name for, but eventually I settled on that one, meaning "a cold and typically very dry and often gusty katabatic wind (fall-wind) from the north-east." I haven't read memories yet it's getting hard to avoid spoilers!
Oh don't you worry Red Baron will get his fair share of screen time (that big jerk!)
Really? I thought this chapter was a little slow. I needed it to introduce some important things but I was worried it would just drag on too long...
5224813
Eheheh... Actually, no. I can only play during the weekends, and this Sunday I hit lvl 30 but got banned the same game. (Stupid internet...) I may be able to squeeze in my provisionals on the 9th. I have almost no doubt I'll make at least Bronze III. Since I hit about level 10, I've been playing against bronzes/silvers, since I had made a lot of friends that were already level 30. In effect, I've been miles above my elo for a long time now. We got a group of 3 friends and we all started around the same time, and I remember we had played a game with a friend of mine who was Gold V. He was quite suprised that level 15's were pinging an mia laner or that we actually warded.
Another funny thing, I always considered anime weird and generally stayed awar from it. Only recently have I started watching anime. I would say Elfen is my... 8th anime. I would defintly say its in my top 5 though. I love anything with a great story, so if you have anything, please send me a list of good animes and heck, while you're at it, mind PM'ing me your League name? You might make a good duo que partner.
Ah yes... The story.
Hmm... While I don't quite agree with your mentality of using a different form of narration to give your story an 'individual' feel, its not my story.
I like how this sounds.
I wasn't reffering to the story as a whole, just the intro. Besides, 5,000-6,000 words is a good cut off for chapter length. Not a million words long so I won't get bored, and not so short I'm unsatisfied.
I hope we get more of Red Baron, seems like an interesting arc.
Do you plan out your writing? Or do you wing it, writing down what comes to your mind?
6073691
Updraft: Hey I have a brain! Even if I don't really use it all the time...
Finder: Maybe it just isn't working properly, you know since you think you can smell sandstorms...
Updraft: Alright that's it! Come 'ere you!
Hey what did I just say about that fourth wall! Confound these ponies they drive me to drink...
Your book has been advertised on the new fo:e facebook group page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/foebooks/ :)