Let's talk a little about apocalypse ideation.
Have you ever wanted the world to end?
Imagine if everything that was wrong with your life - every entrenched system of messed-up people and processes - was wiped away in an instant, replaced with the kind of problems you can just put a bullet in. Wouldn't it be nice, to know for certain that your actions matter? To walk in the middle of the road, without looking both ways?
That's the great lie of post-apocalyptic stories: that life gets easier.
Imagine if everything that was wrong with your life was suddenly replaced with the kind of problems you can make friends with. Wouldn't it be nice, to know for certain that you are the best at something in the whole wide world? To be adrift, in a sea of pastel?
The very idea that Fallout and My Little Pony could be in any way connected is inherently absurd. And yet, to a certain kind of person, they tell the same lie.
well only read the prologue, and your hero is a pessimist that might blame the main six. (not hate, hate is personal, simply blame them for every thing that has gone wrong, there is a difference, somewhere in there) so I see promise, not much, but enough to work on. It's mostly because so few pessimists are heroes in the F:E story's; ignorant yes, stupid yes, headstrong yes, but so far not any pessimists that I have seen.
I'll give your your story an honest read, and not just because I have been drinking, but downloading Fallout 3 is going to take me 8 hours, and I got to do something in that time. I'll let you know if you have something good after finishing chapter two, I hope they are long. or may a raider spare you.
Read "Fallout Equestria: Skyward" ch1, and it's not bad, could not stop thinking about "portal two" reading it, but that's probably good thing. so we start with a character and a mystery, nothing new, but it seems that the mystery is minor, and the adventure is the the point. will read the next CH.
ok I sill have some alcohol in me, but a can still say why this is good and bad, mostly with potential, but dragged down by the simplicity.
fist off, this chapter (ch2) needs more detale, bosth with what our main character is doing, and as well as what he is thinking. as far as I can tell, he sould ether understand that the world he has ended, or dose not understand it, and respond accordingly. It's a big thing; is he worried about getting in trouble with the pinks, or is he worried about getting killed by a savages, or dose he mind his own business, or force what he thinks what is wright or wrong.
Sadly this main character is still a blank slate, a good guy, but still not much to know or care about.
If I were to edit and re-wright, I would add more parts to chapter one to expand his character, more to explain why he acts the way he dose, ad we are reading about, and then expand apon it with ch2 is the morale point of helping or not helping.
simply put, I still dot remember the main characters name, and don't care, and that needs to be fixed. More to who the character is in ch1, and why he helps the pony in ch2 over looking for help. other then that you have a stranded F:E story, if you understand what I mean, so keep at it, you can only get better, well better then if I tried to wright.
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Wow, thanks for the feedback, I honestly wasn't even expecting anybody to even read this thing.
Firstly, the prologue needs some major edits. I put it up the way it was to see who people thought were talking. The answer is: It's not Firewall.
Secondly, the reason there's so little characterisation and background here is, well, I'm a noob. I'm going to go through these chapters and make some changes.
4665525 well it would be best is you did increase the word count by at least half, adding little things here and their. Dose he look for food and water, is he a picky eater, would he just take a brake ad sit down a bit, would he look in the other rooms, or dose he look for a radio. And you can do more of the same for ch2, but now outside in a wasteland, it would do your story some good going into the minor details, and once you have a second character then you can cut the small stuff in half, and replace it with chatter. You can also cheat a little and have the main character talk to himself a little, a way to do some social characterization when you just have one character to work with.
But this is just my opinion, so take it with some salt, but I'd suggest reading "Pink Eyes" if you have not already, the chapters a not that long, and the characterization is top notch. (the story also made me cry a bit)
4666720 Hah, funny you should mention Pink Eyes. I read that a while ago, and loved it. Indeed, like I say I have a few more chapters lined up, but they'll need a lot of edits before they're ready to be uploaded.
Firewall isn't the kind of pony to just let stuff happen, you're right. He'll try to work things out, and make sense of a situation before running into stuff.
4666767 and it also opens you up for some comedy, just small snippets, and with ch1 having a feeling of portal 2, it would do some good for your story.
also check this out, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptk93AyICH0 thought of your story when I saw this.
Y'know, ever get that feeling that your life is a series of coincidences?
OK, fair enough it is, but just yesterday I found this channel and watched a couple of its videos. Then, a day later...
Somebody sends me a link to one of their videos.
I read the writer's guide on this website, and noticed a lot of things I was guilty of. Hopefully that'll change with experience.
But yes, this video is part of what I'm getting at - there's a couple of things I have set up.
I fixed the prologue, which is meant to be dramatic irony. And I've gone and done some revisions to chapter 1, most notably that he discovers that something's wrong through the letter in the first room. From there, he just gets more suspicious until he's carrying a crowbar around. Now onto chapter 2...
I got to say that ch1 looks a lot better, the addition of the self chatter, and some extra exploration makes it feel a lot more like a Fallout Equestria story. (though I don't know how much of it I had forgotten from my first read, alcohol can do that to you) keep up the good work.
Mkay, I'm going to critique this a chapter at a time for ya. I'm known to be a pretty harsh critic, but that's mostly because you can't correct what I don't point out, and I want to steer you to perfection. Also, I won't usually point out flaws in typography unless it severely hinders the story.
So far there's not much, but from what I gathered, the narrator is an AI, correct? It's an interesting route to take, and one that already gets me excited. The main flaw in this chapter is that its not very indicative of what's going to happen later, but its not a huge issue. Your grammar and spelling were actually pretty good. Anyway, on to chapter one...
Wow, I have to admit, I was surprised. Based on the like/dislike bar, I was nervous, I was really blindsided by how much I enjoyed this. Your style is incredibly unique: it's dull, but it's dull in such a way that it adds to the protagonist's charm and personality. Like Dice Warwick has already said, it has a very 'Portal' vibe at the beginning, so much so that I was honestly expecting a crossover. While I see that that's not true, I still sense a bit of Portal-esque humor. There is a drawback, though: while I wouldn't change much, not everyone will enjoy your 'action-by-action, thought-by-thought' narrative. Keep in mind that even if it's not going to please everyone, it definitely has its place and you should stick with it. Also, I feel that your style will probably be better in small doses, so watch chapter length.
P.S. Was the prologue from Firewall's perspective, or someone else's? Regardless, I would at least consider changing or removing it. The prologue didn't add much, and it felt like it didn't quite fit with this one. Other than that, you may wanna go back through and double check your grammar, just a little bit. I'll hopefully read more tomorrow or the day after.
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Wow, thanks for reading this thing!
The prologue has always had issues... I don't want to remove it altogether, but I will certainly edit it. It's meant to be from Spritebot's perspective, but yeah....
I'm a huge fan of portal, and thus underground facilities, robots, AIs and teleportation are going to play a large part throughout the story.
Also, for a Fallout: Equestria sidefice this story has incredibly short chapters. But I dislike when a chapter goes on and on, if there's a suitable place to end it I'll end it. 2500-5000 words per chapter is what I'm aiming for. Agreed, Firewall's comments get tiresome after a while, but that's part of his character.
Anyway, Chapter 8's under major editing because it sets up a lot of plot points for the future. I'll put that on hold 'till the prologue is absolutely right.
Kinda generic as far as FOE stories go. It just occurred to me how every story I've ever read has the moral question of killing raiders, and an explaination of Pip Bucks. Not a problem, but not a strength either. Also, your spelling is off in a few places like practise instead of practice and faeces instead of feces, and I think you misused the word caravan. Your grammar also deteriorated a bit since the first chapter, and you seem to switch between present and past tense. The teleportation was also really abrupt, we had no foreshadowing or other indication that he could do it, so it sounds kinda cheap that he could suddenly do it. Overall, I still like the story though, sorry I haven't been able to read it for a few days.
4790197
Just got back from being away, and it's a really pleasant surprise to see you found the time to stick at it and read this fic.
Honestly, I agree with pretty much everything you're saying. My spelling is good, but often I get one letter wrong and then don't notice when going back over the chapter.
About teleportation, I wanted it to be abrupt, but then again maybe I should add a passage in chapter 1 where he tries to teleport or something. Actually, that's a good idea, I'll do that.
Now, so far you've described my story as a generic FoE sidefic. That's because it is.
But I have one more trick up my sleeve, which should come into play fairly soon. As in, maybe next chapter or the chapter after that. It depends, my chapters tend to be too short to fit much in.
For some bizarre reason I have the urge to drop a hint as to why this should get a little more... unique soon. But I won't. Least to say, Act 1 is intended solely as an introduction, setting up a few characters and ideas.
EDIT: OK, Chapter 1 now has a few paragraphs which should make the ending of chapter 2 a little less cheaty.
4790197
This is a really late reply, but I was going back to edit this chapter and I realised I should mention why I used practise and feces. I'm British, for a start, and for a second:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=657371
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#ae_and_oe
I'm not going to make an active effort to make all my spelling and the like American. It would be a lot of effort for me, and it may have a detrimental effect on my writing in other things. Like essays. So yeah, excuses.
4910411 Ah, I was thinking that might have been it. I actually typed those into my spellchecker just to make sure that wasn't the case... but in retrospect, using an American spellchecker probably defeated the purpose.
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Hah, that's what I like about FIMFiction's spellchecker: it allows both spellings.
On a related note, I've only ever seen one other FoE sidefic written by a British person: Duck and Cover!
(damn that's a good fic)
4913226 It is..