Fall of Equestria · 7:31pm Dec 31st, 2016
So, I touched upon this in Sunset's Return, but as of late I've gotten a bit of a fascination with the Fall series.
Initially, I was just in awe of how bleeding bad it was. I mean, we've all seen or at least heard of porn with little plot and MLP clop is no exception, but this? Now, I wouldn't care if it didn't try to be more than it is-male domination clop-but it didn't stop there. The founder of the Fall group, noncreepynickname, went on to deliver some of the absolute worst justification for the invasion. He even told me (before I questioned things too much and his tendency to delete anything he doesn't agree with whereupon he subsequently blocked me and banned me from his rotting group) he considered the stories within Fall of Equestria to be a tragedy.
Let's insert my reaction here:
Tragedy requires an excellent grasp of both setting and character, to make the readers' understand the characters and the fate that has befallen them. Of which noncreepynickname has absolutely none, and that is a statement I will stick by.
During my research into the setting, I found that the story's that initially formed this setting's image all had to be edited and approved by noncreepynickname.
Here's the gist as far as I can tell of what he demanded for any story to be considered approved for "cannon" Fall of Equestria stories;
1. The Caribou can never be seriously challenged in any meaningful capacity. Any and all actions that may make them look bad or less than conquering universally overly muscular warriors.
2. Characterize the Caribou, but never really "look" at them; he's there for the clop, not to learn about his setting's villains.
3. All non Caribou characters must never show greater ability, strength, or intelligence than the Caribou.
4. Never question him on the setting, Discord, or plot holes on penalty of being ignored or banned.
Yeah, I think you see the issue here. He's strangled his own setting. I don't even think it's most of the authors who did write for the setting fault. With him breathing down their necks, I don't think it would be possible to write something approaching "good". Schorl Tourmaline is one of the few who did, and she tricked noncreepynickname and ultimately left his group to actually make a good story. Check out her story Bruised Apples if you get the chance-it's actually quite good.
Noncreepynickname seemingly also came up with most of the setting's lore, but, well, here's a highlight.
The Caribou in the cannon stories number 15000 as a result of surviving and fleeing a cataclysm in their homeland, with an approximately equal divide between genders. In Caribou society females cannot serve in any military organization beyond maybe cooks or maids. This means that they conquered the entirety of Equestria with only 7500 soldiers. Furthermore, they not only conquered Equestria, but lost very few soldiers in the relative limited fighting.
Equestria can be argued to be bigger or smaller (I personally think it's a continent spanning civilization), but I guarantee it's a hell of a lot bigger than 15000 people-hell most ancient, relatively small civilizations had more population than that.
The setting also utterly ignores the ramifications of crippling half the damn population of their magic. Think about it: Equestria micromanages its weather, and you're suddenly crippling half the entire nation's population that is capable of doing this. Equestrian agriculture likely depends on this weather manipulation, and most don't know what to do if rains are late, don't come, or if unplanned weather wrecks crops. This, combined with the sheer amount of feasts and parties depicted in the stories means that Equestria should be starving within a year and the Caribou left wondering what the hell happened to this verdant land of plenty when a loaf of bread cost more than sex-an unthinkable thing for the Caribou, who have ungodly amounts of sex in the stories.
The Caribou themselves-the big villains of the entire series-have so fucking little characterization that you could replace them with floating dicks that telekinetically wield stun rods and shot "cunt" or "bitch" in the presence of females from time to time.
I'm not going to go into many more problems with the setting because there's so damn many that noncreepynickname has absolutely zero interest in solving or only answers with cryptic bullshit that narrows down to "magic"/deus ex machinima because he says so. If you're curious check out the post fall group-plenty stuff there.
Despite everything else, I still think the setting has potential, and I love world building and a good challenge, so I decided to set about reconstructing the entire setting, ripping out what doesn't work, repairing or reinforcing what does, and replacing or creating new things for it.
That's led to now, and I've got an image of an entire AU of my own, both here with Sunset Shimmer and beyond.
The Fallverse is such a... strange creature. Like, off the top of my head, I could name a few ways to make it work. Problem is, they all require dastardly-smart villains and forethought and even worst of all, effort! I agree entirely that if it had just been a series of pictures or fics wherein the Caribou were already in charge and it never said how they won, I'd never have given it the time of day. It would just be silly over the top clop for the sake of clop. But then they just had to try and add a backstory. THAT is what kills me the most and why I hate this verse so much. It's not the fetishes. Hell, you do you, ya know? It's that the story is so god awful, riddled with plot holes and the most excessively Mary Sue villains I've ever seen, and yet people, not all but some, still defend it!
Yes, NCN is kind of his own worst enemy. I had a picture commissioned showing AJ, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle getting a bit of revenge after having toppled the Caribou. NCN all but t begged the Derpiborru mods to either remove it entirely or explicitly mark is as NOT Fall canon. In the end, I actually had to add a friggin disclaimer stating it was not canon to the Fallverse.
The setting is one of morbid fascination for me, and it ultimately ends with me getting angry at for pretty much the same reasons you are. But I also realised that I really dont like what its depicting, rape and slavery. I get people have their own kinks, but the whole Fall of Equestria setting is not kinky at all, I find it cruel.
I honestly am convinced that this universe is the result of someone looking at the Conversion Bureau in it's raw form and deciding to create the exact opposite
Any genre of creation requires effort, deftness and care if it wants to be successful and effective. Cheap imitations are cheap because they skimp on it all. "The Room" is flat and forced, vitiating the tragedy and drama. "Birdemic" removes all romance and all suspense, making it not effective. Comedy requires snappy words or exaggerated actions with appropriate pain and carefully constructed targets, making it actually hard to do. Horror requires more than gore and jumpscares, it needs a simmering pressure, genuine surprise, effective visual and some psychological element. Creepy McCreeperson the Creepy Creeper Who Creeps did not do any of that. He did not create a tragedy. As with all things he exercised a fiat and DICTATED that he had done so, like a tyrant slapping paint on a canvas and saying he painted a realistic masterpiece. At best (AT BEST) He created a tragicomic farce, he lowest form of cheap domination porn. You may as well see boom mikes, stiff emoting and the shadows of cameramen. The caribou and the whole collection of """"characters"""" are pointless. They cannot be taken as seriously as needed for a tragedy. You can't just say "THIS IS TRAGIC! BE TRAGICKED!" The victims evoke sympathy because we are empathetic beings and should naturally feel opposed to oppression and the salvaging of the innocent, but the doms are all hilariously horrible straw-beings that cannot speak on an adult level and act like the emotionally stunted children the creator seems to be. They are petulant basement-dwelling incels who are handed sex on a platter and never have to work or struggle. This is ignoring how these societies would actually work, which would be similar to the Republic of Gilead or real-life FLDS compounds. Older, more politically connected men amass harems, leaving whole generations of lost males who are teased with the prospect of sex to become cannon fodder, or are executed if they fall out of the rigid requirements of the fascist rule, or are expelled with no job skills or real education to flounder in the outside world.
I can't get over how cheesy they all are because their actual-seriousness turns the dialogue into complete garbage. Hilarious garbage. I may be alone in this but I find most sex talk to be ridiculous. Dirty talk has to be tongue-in-cheek or admittedly played for laughs or else its pure farce. "C
t bi
ch f
khole inferior pony take it" is a joke, it cannot be said seriously. Any earnestness renders it into low-wattage bathos . And it is bathos, to the hilt. He made a sloppy and stupid attempt at a beginner's failure at pathos (forgetting that pathos elicits sympathy and sorrow, to bring forth empathy and protectiveness toward the victim, rather than sexual arousal) and in that failure creates laughable bathos; as he did not intend it, we do not laugh with him, which we would do if he made effort, we laugh at him and all his failures. But again, this is me. I find all stern villains laughable. Their menace is dependent on on a respect I refuse to give them. "Can we laugh at god?" I say yes, because "With no fear of the devil there is no need for god." Every caribou and collaborator is a walking farce.
This is why my treatment verges on the bizarre. I've tried to keep the caribou as uselessly sex-obsessed and effectively talentless (victory was merely handed to them) but still make them somewhat useful as villains. So it's WWII with effective and clever soldiers against sexualized Nazis with all the intellect of Colonel Klink because any other method of interpretation changes them completely. They are a dangerous force mostly by fiat and dictation, to mirror how they are really portrayed (though I try to make them somewhat skilled, just routinely outmatched by elite soldiers, as in "Aerie Go Bragh", "Blue-Eyed Matador", "The Magnificent One" and "Ballad of the Last Arch-Magus.")
To be honest, I've only ever read those of Fall stories that depicted the fall of the fall, aka the Caribou being overthrown. Usually they depict the Caribou as having special means to have achieved victory, since the canon explanation is retarded. How you describe the canon Fallverse sounds both sickening and retarded.
4366431 Caribou in my setting achieved their victory via deceit and their single greatest strength: an effective form of mind control. They can convert numbers of the enemy population to their side, and the deceit comes in when they brainwashed Shining Armor. From there they got access to the Crystal Empire, the heart and the population there alongside Shining's considerable knowledge of the military, fortification, tactics, and a way into the royal palace to disable Celestia and Luna before they could mount an effective resistance.
4363062 That sounds like him, to my knowledge. He does not anything that "disrupts" his setting, from people such as myself who actively try and make something of it to pictures that, again, don't match it his setting or show its downfall.
4363077 Well, it's incredibly fucking cruel because it is. To cripple pegusus flight you'd probably only need to take a few primary feathers, not the whole shebang, and horn rings exist in the setting that only the Caribou can remove.
I can understand it's male domination porn, but it also goes into torture porn for some bizarre reason. I don't find it kinky all that much for these reasons.
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That's pretty much how canon has it happening, AFAIK. They get to Cadence in dreams—because there is no powerful being in Equestria that can monitor and enter dreams, remember—then Cadence gets to Shining—because Cadence has never been evil and forced brainwashing on Shining before, remember—and through them the Crystal Heart—because it's them that powers the Heart, not the crystal ponies, remember.
Perfect plan!
4366469 And that makes sense. It's similar to another story I liked, focusing on Spike, it was a combination of a curse slash disease that attacks the mind, that made the current Caribou into what they are now, their King harnessing the power of the horn of Sombra, deceiving Cadance and Shining with a peaceful visit and infecting/brainwashing them slowly, then using the crystal heart to spread the effects over Equestria while also setting up a barrier to keep any other nations from assisting.
I also like this story because Chryssie helps the resistance. Some stories make me laugh since either her or other changeling Queens ally with the Caribou. I somehow doubt any sane changeling Queen would admit with a species that treats women like shit.
4366501 Don't even get me started with that ludicrous BS. Caribou mind control in my setting, once it takes, is almost instantaneous. You will go from resisting to thinking that, hey, they aren't that bad, and they know what they're doing, better help em out, why yes, my mare friend would look better with a black collar, wouldn't she?.
Basically, there wasn't a slow transition in my setting. They got Shining Armor, through him they got the empire and the heart, and through the heart they had the ability to broadcast their brainwashing spell , and, after Shining smuggled large numbers of troops via train into Canterlot, they activated the mind control, essentially taking control of 99% of the stallions and getting them on their side, pacifying some weak minded females, and instigated a large scale invasion from outside Equestria all at once while disabling Celestia and Luna (Shining did this personally, by the way-Luna never had a chance to resist as her guards turned on her in her sleep and slapped a ring on her horn while Celestia was literally stabbed in the back and through the heart by Shining Armor and before she could regenerate a limiter ring was put on her horn as well).
This is about the most likely way I've found that the Caribou could win, and it sure as hell isn't the vague BS of canon, although frankly I'm still not happy with this explanation.
I myself have always despised the Fall universe, and that was before I knew how much of an asshole its creator is. What's the point in allowing other authors to write in your universe if you're going to force so many restrictions on them? NCN is basically saying "keep writing the same story over and over, never add any personality or development or anything that could possibly be challenging to the reader" and I just don't get the point. I understand wanting to make sure certain guidelines are met when having other people write in your universe, but what's the point in doing that if you're not going to let them expand on that universe with their own interpretations and inspirations?
If I was the creator of the Fall universe, and I'm very glad that I am not, I would encourage people to take it to places I hadn't thought of, to bring in new stories and ideas.
4369933 NCN doesn't care about any of that whatsoever. He has one solidary vision of the Fall verse, and that's as a place where there is never any change-the Caribou are never remotely challenged in any capacity and mares are raped and tortured until insane or actually "enjoy" it. Frankly, if the fucking Space marines showed up in fall of equestria, as far as NCN is concerned the Caribou would pull magic out of their ass to defeat or reeducate the space marines to their beliefs and be their allies.
Yes, it's that stupid.
I've thought of several ideas for stories that he showed zero interest in that would have still kept up with the clop. For one, I threw an idea at him in the form of a Luna story in which the Caribou get frustrated in that she won't break, hire a professional, and when he fails his life and career is ruined by a mare, and Luna gets to be known as the unbreakable. It would have had room for clop, and while I personally didn't have an interest in writing it, Luna could have even felt pleasure-she just would never waver in her hatred of the Caribou or their treatment. Basically, while her body may feel pleasure on occasion, her mind remains uncorrupted and she is still winning. Her defiance would have led the Caribou trainer to have started rethinking his ways-perhaps some females are as capable as a male, maybe they aren't completely in the right.
It would have had character development and clop, a duo you rarely if ever seen in the series, and you know what NCN said to me? "That's not what Fall of Equestria is about", which translates to as it's not something he would accept as cannon.
...
About this point I lost most respect for him and stopped bothering to be excessively polite in the group-basically I started pointing out flaws and no longer bent over backwards to not irritate NCN. I was banned about a week later.
Wow, I knew that FoE-verse was (obviously) f*cked up, but it's creator is seemingly even more so. Only version's I have read of it (out of curiosity before joining here), where "fall of fall"-storie's. And they had some kind of explanation about how thing's went tartaru's. But that canon-one is just load gary-stu enemies and deus ex machina; equal's BORING in the end, despite different perspective's of reader's.
So in the end, FoE main canon seems like a "plot-hole-Blackhole", with NCN's rule's digging itself deeper and deeper in it's hole. And I usually think that karma will hit caribou hard (preferably in the nut's). Like in fic "Return of Evil" by Dark Star2014 , where they got 2 chapter's.
i could actually imagine a why changelings would help the caribou. the changeling would help the caribou from the shadows using mind control, then when the caribou have taken over, come in and be big damn heroes, killing all the caribou and releasing them all from the mind control. this would cause the ponies to be eternally grateful, and they'd never have to starve again.
pretty cunning, don't you think?
Lemmie just repost what I've said in Fall of Equestria: Meet Thy Maker (Which is a sequel to the much better made FoE story as both stories cut into the Fall of the Caribou as well as show a much better world building than what NCN could do)
Normally, I didn't pay any attention to the Fallverse, but now that I'm starting to look at it, its just making itself look stupider and stupider to continue making any fanfiction outside of art.
The story is just some shameless clop with increasingly obvious plot holes and Deus Ex Machina just to satisfy NCN's mind of how My Little Pony should be running. It's even horrible at being clop because it's just so BORING. It certainly suits it's position as tragedy because the series by itself is just tragically, badly made.
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I couldn't have put it better myself. Again, I have no issue with the series if it's just trying to be porn, but it tried to justify itself and then did it so utterly badly.
Now, that being said, good Fall stories are being written. I've tried my hand at a couple (which I need to update), but none admitted into NCN's group have qualified past mediocre at best.
4680345
And through that mediocracy, sadly points to equal mediocracy.
I am totally agree with you 👏
Dainn's kingdom should have ended up like the once-ler in The Lorax. He turned a land full of beauty and life and color into a perverted uninhabitable wasteland.
The caribou had relied to much on brainwashing. the caribou are so reliant on the stallions they must have gone lazy. With females doing all of the labor work and brainwashed stallions and caribou slack off and do nothing but stick their dicks and fuck they should have gone fat and lazy while the females grew stronger in strength.
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That implies they were ever designed with some logic. They're not.
It's been a while since I thought of this setting. I've honestly put it behind me, at this point, but I think a lot of my points still stand. Its a setting strangled by its creator and, at its core, it's a male dom fantasy with poor worldbuilding and plot.
That's all it is, as far as I'm concerned these days. There was a lot of rage about the series way back-some that I jumped on, but, well, these days I can see it's part of a specific fetish. Noncreepynickname still strangled its plot and didn't deal well with criticism, but I can somewhat understand someone liking maledom porn. People can have fetises for stuff like that as long as it doesn't hurt others. The main thing here is this setting was just awful and wouldn't hold up to any close scrutiny longer than five minutes.