Rufus is a griffon merchant that got caught in a raider ambush, losing everything he had and being wounded in the process. Falling close to a abandoned settlement in the middle of an aircraft cemetery, he's rescued by one of its denizens and given medical treatment. With his wounds, he's got no choice than help the small village made of scrap and airplane pieces with everything he's possible to do.
Razor's Edge isn't a story about violence, or destruction. It's a story about remaking society, of standing up against all odds and thrive, about political warfare and secret plots.
It's the story of a merchant turning himself into a leader, and a leader turning himself into a legend.
Chapters (4)
Welcome to the Fo:E heard!
Don´t forget to take a look on the Fo:E G-doc
Hum Fallout Equestria with a griffin as the main character. Color me interested. This will go to my read list.
1932639
Thanks. I'll take a look at it.
1932655
These are kind of rare, compared with the sidestories I've read, as well as a character without a PipBuck. I guess it's a good differential.
1932656
Thanks, I drew the cover myself, though there are too many mistakes and it is, overall, pretty bad.
I hope all of you like what you read here.
Intresting story, ima fav dis. There is a few flaws, but they are mostly mispelt words, great job at writting English! I'll give you 20 bro points, use them well!
hmm, a new FO:E fic, and from the perspective of a griffin, looks to be interesting...
you want a critique? I'll give you a critique, here are my points in decreasing order of importance:
first off: line breaks, right now the story looks like/is a massive wall-of-text, and is therefore somewhat hard to read (I had to make a conscious effort to maintain my place, but that's just me, I generally can't read huge unbroken up pieces of text), the solution: add an extra line between every paragraph, it'll improve the readability of the story by a lot
second: whenever someone different speaks, that's a new paragraph, this helps the reader keep track of who's speaking as it becomes quite difficult inside of massive paragraphs, it also helps to alleviate the wall-of-text feel, because you're breaking the story down into smaller chunks
(here's an, in my opinion, easy to understand guide to Dialogue Rules, because I'm terrible at lengthy explanations)
third: grammar, spelling, and word choice, there's not too many errors, you did a pretty good job actually (I've definitely seen worse, mainly from native english speakers), unfortunately due to the wall-of-text-ieness, nitpicking every line is much harder so I'll probably miss a lot:
in order starting from the beginning of the prologue:
period goes inside of the quotes
I'm pretty sure there are general dialogue punctuation errors for every bit of spoken dialogue, so I'm not going to list all of them, suffice to say, if you're following the dialogue rules from that link I provided you, all these errors should easily be fixable
generally griffin is the accepted english spelling of griffon (though both spellings work), and is the accepted spelling in this fandom (despite the episode title "Griffon the brush off")
chapter one:
odd choice of words, I didn't even know 'shocks' was a synonym for 'sounds', it's not how I would word it, but it is your story
is it just me? or did you forget to describe the, what I assume to be, piece of cake? again, not how I word word/tell it
personally, I would correct this to 'showed'.
one extra space between 'worry,' and 'you'll'
I think you mean 'click'
I think you mean 'mare'
um, how would Rufus know the ship is a cruiser? unless he studies old-world ships or has had some kind of formal education (which I doubt). Just a single phrase like 'I recalled a bit of knowledge I'd picked up', or something similar would work
personally, I would replace 'that' with 'through which', 'saw' with 'seen', and 'crossed' with 'entered'
personally I would reword this to say: "all hell broke loose"
and finally, you forgot the 'h' in 'where'
and that concludes my critique on the raw text of this story, as for the story itself, it's pretty good, characters seem fleshed out/unique enough, plot's also fine, can't wait to see where you go with it. Just wondering, did you ever mention Cherry Cake's coat color? because you described everything else about her, just as a piece of advice, whenever introducing/describing a pony, try to include the sub-species (unicorn, pegasus, earth pony), unless it's not obvious, and their coat color as it's their most striking/recognizable feature usually (just how skin color/ethnicity is usually the most apparent feature on a human)
also that's a pretty good cover image, considering you made it yourself
and finally, ignore any random down votes/hateful comments, there are a couple of trolls/haters who down vote and/or flame every FO:E fic on this site
1935396 Wow, thanks! It's nice to see so many tips. I tried to correct everything you said, mainly the wall-of-text feeling and the dialogue.
I'm more used to writing descriptions than I'm with dialogue, as I'm used to use colors to describe who's talking. I'll try to follow those dialogue rules every time I write from now on, thanks for the link.
You've helped me a lot with this. Keep up the good work!
1936261 Glad I could help, the story much more readable now
"Dis plane is our plane now :U"
hmm, a solid chapter, lets see what happens...
wow, raiders who can sort of be negotiated with? that's rare...
the wording in this chapter is generally pretty awkward, but that can be chalked up to you learning english
this should be 'on' not 'in'
same problem as above.
small grammar error, you mean 'her', as that's the object form of 'she' (subjects are 'he', 'she', 'it', and 'they', objects are 'him', 'her', 'it', and 'them', if I recall correctly)
think you forgot to capitalize the 's'
if I recall, a antler is made of bone, so saying that's rather redundant, you could probably just say "antler." and drop the bone all together
another small grammar error, remember that the adjective (in this case, 'weapons', because it's describing what kind of merchant he is) usually right before (or sometimes afterwards the noun it's describing) so it would be "travelling weapons merchant"
(here's a good article on how adjectives work: Adjectives and noun modifiers in English, it is rather technical/jargon-y though, because it was meant for providing help for those teaching english)
not quite the right word to use, given it means 'but', 'except', and 'except for', you could use 'beside' instead, but I can't think a better wording right now
again, not quite the right word to use, I think you meant 'rebuked'
I think you're missing a 'good' before 'enough'
I think you're missing a 'the' before 'direction'
you could probably add in 'of foals' after 'trio', just as a quick reminder of who we're talking about, given that it was a chapter since they were mentioned, but that's up to you
I think you may want to add an 'in' before 'there', depending if the area you're talking about is an interior area
'in' needs to become 'on', also 'big' is probably the wrong adjective to use here, I believe the correct one is 'large' though (here's a short little lesson/exercise on the topic: Big or Large?, the whole site is user generated content, so the quality of the lessons varies a lot)
drop the 'a' and change the 'the' to 'a'
you could drop 'uttered' for 'said', but that's entirely up to you, because they mean the same thing, you just don't see 'uttered' very often
as I said above, you mean 'her', as that's the object form of 'she'
you could drop the 'al' in 'electrical' to make it just 'electric', which would also work just as well
I do believe the correct term for the front flexible, hand-like, claws on a griffin is 'talons', because they are part birds-of-prey (a.k.a. hawk, eagle, falcon etc.)
into what?
pretty sure 'got' should be 'went' and 'forward' should be 'front'
'directing' should be 'leading'
'on' should be 'in' and 'track' should be 'tracks'
don't think you need the 'of' in there
you could possibly split this into two sentences replacing the comma with a question mark then adding 'Plus,' instead of the 'and', also you have the same problem as above with 'antler's bone' being redundant
I think you mean 'business', because Rufus is interested in it
I think you meant 'flying'
'bone yard' is supposed to be one word
I don't think you need the comma there, though I could be wrong
'the' should be 'his'
you need an 'ed' at the end of 'braid' as it's past tense
this should probably be rephrased to say 'probably made from scrap metal from the planes welded together'
who's talking here? Bonelord or Stunner? I'm pretty sure it's Stunner, but it's better to be clear then possibly have confusion among your readers (unless that what you want)
could be rephrased to say 'One less mouth to feed', which works better, at least in my opinion
'will' should be 'would'
'by' should be 'in'
this sentence should be rephrased to say 'We are finally armed enough to outstand(?) and awe the Remnants!' (I don't know what you mean by outstand, as it isn't even a word, do you mean outgun, or overpower? because those a few words which seem to make sense in context for me)
'does' should be 'did'
'abysmal' works as an adjective, but, at least in my opinion, you could use a different one, as abysmal has 'Extremely bad' or 'appalling' as it's first definition and 'very deep' as it's second, so perhaps 'unending' would be a better adjective
not sure if you know this or not, but there is already a Remnant that already exists in the wasteland, it's just not part of the original FO:E, it's a part of Project Horizons, a major FO:E side story, and it's the actual remnant of the Zebriacan military, and I've seen several other FO:E fics use it to soem degree, so some readers might be confused, though you clearly introduce your's as a completely separate faction, I'd recommend either renaming your faction, or some how integrating the "real" remnant into your fic, though all this is up to you, it is your story after all
'strenght' is misspelled, it should be spelled 'strength' (I think that's the first misspelled word that I've found in the entire story so far)
'of' should be 'in'
drop the 'ly' as it's not being used an adverb
'at' should be 'to'
drop the 'to them' as it's unnecessary
'to' should be 'for'
last time I checked, there weren't any humans in FO:E so using human terms is completely out of place, try coming up with either a pony term (ponies, mares, stallions) or a somewhat neutral term (like tribesponies or members)
this wording is really awkward, but it's too late for me to come up with a solution, watch this space in case I figure out something
um, don't you mean 'violence' instead of 'peace'?
small grammar error, it's supposed to be "Stunner and I", just a weird quirk of english, here's a hint, it's 'Blank and I' if they are doing the action and 'me and Blank' if the action is being done to them ('I' is the subject, 'me' is the object (I think I have that correct))
this could be re-phrased to say: 'Stunner finally began to speak'
'fighted' should be 'fought' as 'fighted' isn't even a real word, and 'fought' is the correct past tense of 'fight'
not sure what you mean here...
do you mean 'half' or is this an intentional bad spelling?
not quite sure why this is in there/phrased like it is, but it is late
hope that helps!
couple of last points, you don't have to put all of Rufus's S.P.E.C.I.A.L. values and skills at the end of every chapter, most authors just put perks at the end of every chapter when the character(s) 'level up', and only post the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. values at the beginning of the story, as sometimes tagged skills could reveal some aspects of the character before they want to reveal them
also, if you ever want me to justify an edit, I can/will, it'll just take a some time to find a good source
1940883 Again, thank you for correcting me. You don't have idea how much this means to me, and how much this helps.
I've corrected every point you highlighted and reworded some of the more confusing things. About the Remnants, I'm not a big fan of PH and how Somber treats his own characters, but I've read long after they're introduced, and it's deliberate. Following PH, they're only active around Hoofington, and they're specialists at not leaving trails when they do act.
Hoofington too is, from a commercial standpoint, stranded: Close to the zebra's borders, with nearly any incentive to go to. News aren't that fast by mouth-to-mouth spanning a whole continent, and Razor's Edge is near the southeast coast, pretty far from there.
If you want to compare, compare the Brotherhood of Steel's east and west factions: Both have the same ideals, though different modus operandi. Hoofington's Remnants are extremist, still fighting the war; Razor's Edge Remnants' line of thought is closer to the Enclave Remnants of FO:NV, rebuild themselves to their old glory through new ways.
And it's funny how this chapter had a lot more mistakes than both the prologue and first chapter combined. That's exactly why I thank you, because many (if not all of them) would go unnoticed for a long time if it wasn't your critiques.
You my good sir have just earned yourself a spot on my read later list, and are going to be moved over to my review list when I have read some more of the stories that already are on it, so that could be between 3 to 5 weeks as things looks like now... Sorry but news are news none the less.
What made me chose to add it to my list? Because I read in the group that it is about a whole town, and I plan to write something in the neighborood of that at some point
1941586 you're welcome
okay, so yes, your Remnants are a deliberate counter point to Somber's, well that clears that point up...
sadly, comparing stuff to the Fallout games, doesn't really work with me, because I went in reverse order, I read Fallout: Equestria before I played any of the fallout games, and sadly I can't play Fallout 3 or NV because I don't have a machine good enough to play them, but I get the basics of what you're saying
well, you did write this chapter in under a day, so that could be why you made more errors, plus I was focused on the big errors so I didn't nit-pick as much as I could've, which I will correct right now
also it's 'combined' not 'added' in your comment, as added is more for abstract numbers and when you're putting something into already existing, for example 'I added the cookies from the bag to the jar, while combined is where the amounts create a new unified amount, for example 'the clans combined to form a larger army'
prologue:
I would start a new paragraph, as per dialogue rules, because it's switching from Rufus's internal monologue to her speaking for the first time
onto chapter one:
not quite sure what you mean, last time I checked it was mainly posters that were everywhere, also what do you mean by 'strange outdoors'?
'in' should be 'on', the second part should be rephrased to say 'a set of utility barding' (or is it 'a suit of utility barding' in this context?)
'have' should be 'had' because it's past tense
'a' should be 'an' because 'accent' starts with a vowel
this could be changed to 'payed', but I'm not quite sure
'rose' should be 'raised' and 'to' should be 'in'
'into' should just be 'in'
'can't' should be 'couldn't' no matter the tense
human terms in a world which have none
I think you mean 'snaps'
same problem as above
you could replace this entire segment with 'gone'
I think this should be rephrased to say 'drunk on'
'sit' should be 'sitting'
'doesn't' should be 'don't'
'in' should be 'on'
'making' should be 'doing'
'used' should be 'made'
'a' should be 'an'
1942332 Many of those errors happens because I'm still thinking with my first language, and our grammatical rules are quite different, for example, one of my most frequent mistake is about when to use "in" or "on", because they're exactly the same here, in this case, "em", "no" or "na", changing with the object's gender.
Again, I corrected everything highlighted. Thanks for your time, StringTheory!
1942406 yeah, I expected that to be the reason, english has a lot of weird quirks that seem rather pointless, even to us native english speakers
what's your first language, anyway?
1942418 Portuguese. I think its problem resumes to "Too many rules over rules". Seriously, there's a rule for everything, and every rule has a rule that adds something to another rule and everything is confusing as hell. You know something's wrong when you need to classify sentences and you need a book for comparing them with more than thirty individual types.
1942458 hmm, I don't remember learning sentence types, though that's probably because I'm a native speaker, but yeah, english does have a bunch of somewhat pointless rules, like the one which says all the objects in a list must be the type (e.g. 'ski, snowboard, and sled', while 'ski, snowboarding, and sled' doesn't work as snowboarding is a verb and not a noun)
wow, you update fast
ah, giant chickens, one of the many dangers of the wasteland
now onto my corrections:
it's 'I'd' not 'I've' as 'have' is present tense not past like 'had', more subtleties of the english language
I think you meant 'I actually had a point', instead of 'I actually got a point'
think this should be 'state' as that's another word for health, and is often used in these situations
same 'have' vs 'had' mix up as above
first, 'thought' should be 'though', subtle difference, and second 'was' should be 'were' as it's past vs. present tense again
this should be 'would' if you mean this in past tense, not sure if you meant it that way (have another good grammar site: First, Second, & Third Conditional)
again, 'have' vs 'had'
you only use 'do' if you're asking a question.
pretty sure you mean 'this', because it's close at hand or would that be hoof?
This is a rather awkward sentence, do you mean 'We lived with ten more ponies before the attack'?
objects with no gender use 'it' as their pronoun, now because it's possessive it's 'its', 'it's' is a contraction of 'it' and 'is', in case you didn't know
this could be rephrased to 'sparkle of magic', because the sparkle is a property of the magic, not the other way round
don't think you need to capitalize 'said' because isn't it tying into the dialogue?
'on' instead of 'at'
'in' should be 'around'
you could drop the 'that', but that's up to you
'to the' are unnecessary
'would not' could be shortened to 'wouldn't'
'have' vs. 'had' again
the proper word is 'cracking'
pick a tense and stick with it, if you're using present drop the 'was', if it's past drop the ''s' and add another 'was' after 'there'. You've been switching between past and present tense throughout the story, pick one and stick with it, if the story's a retelling sometime in the future, use past, if it's a running narration, use present, just pick one and stick with it, and please tell me which one it is, because I can properly correct stuff then
you probably should switch the 'just' and the 'drop', this one is extremely subtle, I had to enlist outside help for this one, and even they weren't quite sure
I think you might need a comma after 'outside'
should be 'falling'
should be 'in'
I don't think you need a capital 'A' in 'and', 'behind' could become 'towards', though you could rephrase the entire segment to 'she responded as she darted towards them', or something similar.
should be 'headquarters'
of what?
should be 'went', 'got' is for objects, 'went' is for places, the only time you use 'got' with a place is when it's your destination and your comparing the time of two things (e.g. I got to the house before my brother did.)
wait, isn't she a unicorn? couldn't she have used her magic to float it up?
if the story's in present tense it should be 'began trotting' or if it's in past it should be 'trotted'
'on' vs 'in', here's the definition of 'on' and here's the definition of 'in', if you need further clarification just ask, as both have some rather abstract usages
pretty sure no matter the tense of the story, this should be 'fell', but it's definitely 'fell' if it's past
pretty sure this should be rephrased to say 'his telekinesis', though both could work
'own' is unnecessary
this should be rephrased to 'bringing/moving my beak close to his ear'
'at' should be 'on', here's the definition of 'at'
'what' should be 'which'
this could be corrected to 'don't', though I'm not sure (If I interpreted my research correctly, 'don't' can be used as an imperative (e.g. 'Don't do that!') while 'can't' is an absolute (e.g. I can't open the door because it's locked.'), so you if you say 'can't', you're saying that Rufus will never be able to comprehend the reason, while saying 'don't' simply means he doesn't understand)
add 'side' to the end of 'along'
add 'where' after 'tower'
it should be spelled 'especially'
same problem as above
wait, was Rufus born above the clouds? because I doubt he has connections with the Enclave if he was born on the suface, or is this a metaphor for something I'm not getting?
um, the war had been going on for about 10 years prior to the formation of the ministries, though it was little more then border skirmishes before the tragedy at Littlehorn, after Littlehorn, Celestia handed over power to Luna, then Luna formed the ministries to run Equestria as the nation shifted into a war economy, then the razing of Hoofington coupled with the 'attack' at Littlehorn justified the switch to a 'total war' approach for Equestria. (I apologize if you knew everything in that little info-dump, and this was a purposeful mistake) (also, in case you didn't know, I do subscribe to Project Horizons's pseudo-canon, so do tell me when your working from the original FO:E's canon, as I just assume every new FO:E fic subscribes to PH's pseudo-canon)
you could add on 'one it was' just to make it flow better, but that's up to you.
what do you mean here? if you mean he can't remember which buildings were the ministries' then you should drop the 'ones' and put in 'buildings' just to make it clearer, but if you mean he can't remember the actual ministries then you should say something along the lines of 'I couldn't even remember what the names of the ministries were.' or 'I couldn't remember what each ministry did.' depending on which one it is.
So he has been above the cloud barrier, I wonder how he did that because normally the Enclave sends a strike force to kill/shoot down/capture any kind of unauthorized flier who goes through the barrier.
'where' and 'exactly' should be flipped
should be changed to 'that'
I think you're missing a quotation mark at the end there
should be re-phrased to something along the lines of 'what the Ministry of Awesome was supposed to fucking do' or 'what the fucking Ministry of Awesome was supposed to do.'
'have' vs 'had' again
wait, was this after the bombs fell? because the SPP towers were completed before the bombs fell, so I'm pretty sure Stunner would've seen at least a couple more peagsi after the tower was completed, because the peagsi only closed the sky right after the bombs fell to protect themselves from the radiation
I'm pretty sure you can just use 'it' here
I think you accidentally pressed the '0' and not the 'o' key by mistake, do you even re-read your work before posting it? it would help to catch small obvious errors like this one
also you could add 'shotgun', right after 'sawed-off' as some readers might not immediately know it's a shotgun
'talons' not 'hands'
final points
well, it seems you traded one set of grammar errors for another, well at least it looks like you're learning
I'm patiently waiting for the shit to hit the fan and everything to go to hell for Rufus, because so far everything has been going pretty good for him, injuries non-withstanding...
now to wait for the next chapter
1951863 Again, thanks for everything. I try to learn with what I miss, though it's difficult. The "sawed-0ff" was a sincere mistake, as I didn't even notice I'd missed the key, sure that I had written it correctly.
About the inconsistencies on Rufus' story, it's actually purposeful, as these kind of memories can change themselves over time, if he doesn't remember them constantly. It's something that really happens, for example, when someone's trying to recall their childhood.
Fetlockville was planned during the skirmishes, but it was put into motion by the ministries. The city's unfinished, only its core completely built by the time of the end of the world.
Stunner actually saw a lot more pegasi after the SPP tower was completed, as they'd used its surroundings as an airplane cemetery. The only pegasus that he remembers (and that was actually meaningful to him, as there wasn't any interaction with the pegasi soldiers discarding the airplanes) after that was Ditzy, though.
And it'll take a little while for the shit to hit the fan, but you can expect it to happen when he goes to Fetlockville, little after Razor's Edge is established.
1952477 I don't doubt that it was a sincere mistake, but that's why you re-read what you've written, in order to catch those small errors, it's a form of self-editing.
hmm, well that makes sense, I do hope we'll get to learn the truth.
remember that bombs fell around seven years after the ministries were formed, so it was being planned/built for 8+ years, that sounds like enough time to throw up a good sized city especially if you cut some corners (but then again everything built during the war seemed to have been over-engineered), even during wartime, remember that Brazil started using Brasília as it's capitol in just under four years of building (are you Brazilian?) and had a population of 140,000 at that time, so depending on how many resources they put into building it, especially if it was mostly hotels/casinos and restaurants for visitors
well, that makes sense.
yeah, your pacing is a rather slow in comparison with some other FO:E stories, but it's a nice change of pace.
you never answered my question about which tense the story is in, it would let me do further corrections, and make the flow better
So... I am rather split now.
The dream sequence looked rather good, if it is one that is. It made me want to learn more about our griffin friend, made me really want to know where the heck he is since there is salt water, and what he did to piss someone off to do such a thing to him. But the part after... There is so many tense shifts in it, each sentence look somewhat out of place to me. Like they all are missing a little words, or something else to make all the small links into a real chain that can run smoothly.
That it was some asshatery to make such a dream sequence and then jump to such a scene is something else, and tolerated asshatery, but after such a kick to the balls, such a promise for hectic action as you fight for your life, and then the drop down into that scene...
I will follow this some more later on, but mostly because of the premise, and not so much what I have seen here, sad to say.
Nitpicks:
"Somepony older than many of us said that "life is like a cake box." I think that you want an once somewhere in here.
"You know that a box is a box. You know that a cake is a cake." I think that it would flow better with the first a in each of these sentences being switched out with a the
"I reached for my hindlegs" Griffins have a pair of legs and arms, so there is no need for the hind here.
"I don't have a lot of oxygen to begin with, and the little I do can't be lost into something so trivial," You have a tense shift here, should be in past tense.
"and I salivate." Tense shift.
" She notices me, I shiver and close my wings around myself, " Tense shift.
"I woke up, still, I wasn't feeling well." I think you want to re work this whole part, because it is rather clunky.
"as soon as I notice something's wrong" Tense shift
" I cover my mouth barely before coughing" Tense shift.
"and wetness in my talons alerts me." Tense shift.
"A quick look and I confirm that it's blood. " This is a bit clunky as it is, would "A quick look confirmed that it was blood" or something like that not fit better here?
" it's going to worsen your condition" I think that there is missing a only here, because I have never heard that sentence without it.