I thought PH already had a sequel...

Anywho, if this is indeed a canon sequel to PH, why is there an alternate universe tag?

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The AU tag is because it is AU to normal baseline ponies.

7863052 But Fallout: Equestria doesn't have an AU tag, which contradicts your point.

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Tag guidelines on this are vague, and while could apply to original, could also not, some authors count FoE inspired fanfics as AU, some not, either way the tag guidelines specify AU as being AU from cannon.
Either way this is all pure speculation, only the author can say why they added that tag for sure . Anyway I hope you have a nice day!

When I was submitting some of my other stories, I was requested to add the AU tag to those stories. I assumed that was a good idea for this one.

derpicdn.net/img/view/2012/7/23/53557__safe_solo_twilight+sparkle_animated_reaction+image_big+eyes_the+stars+will+aid+in+her+escape_relevant+to+my+interests.gif
This is very surprising, but I'm intrigued.

>> SK1Tz See my comment because I'm bad at figuring out how this tagging thing works. >.<

When I first saw the story, with its 12/14 rating, I assumed it was just the usual crowd burning the book before reading. As it turns out, the story has interesting ideas, but comes off as bolted on from an outside source. And not gonna lie, it was kinda boring. The casual racist overtones the MC has really put me off the character as well. There are some other issues as well, but most of them stem from me not remembering stuff from Horizons, so it might not matter. All in all, not a great start for the direct continuation of the Horizon series.

aaahhh!!! i really love how this looks so far!!! Project Horizons has a special place in my heart, and -oh man, i hope this story continues. i wasn't so sure we'd see anything else from Blackjack's story, and i wasn't sure if i wanted to since i liked where it ended. but i'm already in love with this small pegasus.. the characterization is great. everything about this has me interested. like, i already want to see more of the heartmenders' empath abilities

Okay... interesting premis... didn't expect to get a story link in the midle of the new chapter of Homelands, but I guess I will have to jump in and read this as it has Sombers blessing.

Okay, with this chapter you have gotten my full interest. Threnody sure has her work cut out for her.

Mmm... well this is an interesting start to this, I find myself intrigued. I wasn't expect a link in the middle of Homelands, but eh... I figured why not? So here I am.

Not much else to say, other then our MC has her work cut out for her.
Nice job

More please. Good characterization. Pony therapy is a great idea. Blackjack is going to be a difficult patient. She started off bad and got a whole lot worse. The thing is she was terrible to begin with and didn't know it. She had the banality of evil, some neurosis and a twisted sense of humour. Her self rightousness and desire to do the right thing damn the costs and lack of wisdom in knowing what the right thing is made her a great character.

Self hatred and self destructiveness is her fundamental character trait. I hope you can pull this off. She has terrifying power and skills and her boundaries are only what is physiclly possible.

Just her life in 99 was bad enough to require a lifetime of therapy.

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I think you are being unduly critical. I think Blackjack's characterization was spot on. The tribalism is just part of the world of fallout equestria. And unicorns are neurotic. Pegassai and unicorns can both be snobby. I thought Grace and was also well characterized. We'll have to see what happens with Charm. It sounds like she has gotten put back together a bit, and grown or at least been traumatized into change.

And as i said... Blackjack was Blackjack. Security saves ponies. But can Security save herself?

Your story is amaising!
It's so cool to see BJ from another person's point of view. As well as contrast between Threnody's and BJ's tempers.
Looking forward to the next chapter!

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>///< I'm hoping that BJ's characterization is spot on, given that I have Somber help me write her! But I'm really glad that you're enjoying it, and that overall, it's peaked your interest!

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Actually, thank you for those comments. Um, would you mind PM-ing me more? I always would rather have criticism to look at what I'm doing wrong so I can make it better in future chapters.

'The Patient' will need all help they can get with what was traded away in that deal. I have fate in that Threnody will succeed, but the progress there will be interesting.

I enjoyed this. To be blunt, perhaps not as much as its predecessor, but I still enjoyed it. Will be eagerly awaiting the next chapter. At the very least, I love Blackjack and am interested to see where her story goes. Good luck!

More Blackjack can't be bad in my book . I really like your story so far and hope to see more chapters in the future. You really nailed Blackjack's character in my opinion.

Loved the original, very interested to see how this goes!

Well, finally got to reading this. Looks interesting, and it's nice to see you writing. :)

This is excellent! I'm proud to give you a thumbs up and I eagerly await the next bit!

Foalish little empath! Not even a computerized super psychiatric-AI was able to mend her and back then her psyche used to only be broken an not completely minced into dust!

Minus my insane rambling I have to admit that I've enjoyed the first chapter and am looking forward to the rest of the story ;3

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Empaths do tend to be silly. But she's also a stubborn teenager, so...

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Yay! Well, you won't have to wait long. I should have it up tomorrow!

This is Gona be a good story!!!!

“I’ve set pretty firm limits with ponies before. And if she disregards them, I’ll bite her.”

Blackjack’s reply came through the door, “I’ll enjoy the foreplay.”

I'm fucking dying. I haven't laughed this hard since Deus first yelled cunt in PH and that was 2015.
Thanks Shiney, this is some solid gold.

So if this mare was that much of a mess that she burned out one of the strongests mares I knew, how was I going to be able to help her? Just who was this new client of mine?

A living incarnation of guilt and self-destructive impulses

“There was no way. No freaking way. She was dead. She had to be dead! A freaking rock from space fell on her!” I said, my voice cracking into a squeak at the end.

Meh

Ok. Blanks I knew. They were kinda cute, if really dumb. But soul switching? Body jumping? What the hell had that mare gotten into?

A LOT

That got my attention. “How so? What’s been happening?” I asked. A variety of maladies raced through my head, the most pertinent, to me, being the one of survivor’s guilt and posttraumatic stress.

Oh like you would not BELIEVE

She said as she stared at me with a look... wait... she wasn’t going to shoot me? That look said she was going to shoot me!

Yay the shooty look, how i have missed it

I swallowed. Ok. You’ve seen drunken clients before. Nothing scary about them. She probably wasn’t going to shoot me. I quickly looked Blackjack up and down. No gun. Good start.

Probably should not tell her that Blackjack can shoot people with her mind

But soul switching? Body jumping? What the hell had that mare gotten into?

Girl, you don't know the HALF of it.

I liked the descriptions of BJ's eyes towards the end of the chapter. Very evocative. I also like the idea of BJ being a depressed drunk after Horizons. Er, well, I mean more of a depressed drunk. It's strangely ordinary of her. From fighting a giant world-destroying monster to... being a drunk recluse.

Wait a minute, Blackjack's only 18? That's the first I've heard of anyone in Fallout Equestria besides Puppysmiles getting an age... (I honestly thought she was little older...)

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She gave her age as 18 as of Cinnamon's initial assessment, which was 3 years prior to Speak, making her about 21 now. That said, time fuckery involved with the whole 'you were mostly dead for about 3 years' has kinda thrown that off a bit, that and Blanks don't really age, per se, so close enough?

That said, Somber and I have gone back and forth on her age, cause depending on his mood, he'll tell you somewhere between 16 and 24. XD

Capitalization errors abound and rampant numerals-instead-of-letters...

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I placed her at between 15 and 17 when she left Stable 99. Reason was level of her insecurity (no pun intended) and rebellous nature. Though, another reason was that similar thing was going with me when I was 15.

Wow, i am genuinly amazed by the way you are able to write in the style that is so close to Somber's style yet it's so much different.
I am going to enjoy reading this for sure! Good job <3
also:

“There was no way. No freaking way. She was dead. She had to be dead! A freaking rock from space fell on her!”

as if that would stop her.

I was extremely hesitant to read this, because I tend to be rather pessimistic in general about fanfiction.

It took me several years to finally let a friend talk me into reading Fallout: Equestria, but I was pleasantly surprised by it, and was even more delighted with Project: Horizons. They pretty well shattered my general expectations about fanfiction to bits. Even so, reading a continuation of one of the best-known fictions by a third party, which intimated that it would include trying to hash out the aftermath of that previous fanfic...Well, it sounded like a recipe for disaster.

One of the biggest things I despise about most of the fanfiction that I've seen is the tendency to take an established character and then wish-fulfill the hell out of it. FoE and PH both avoided that by deliberately distancing themselves from the characters in the original TV show. I enjoyed PH a great deal, so I was extremely reluctant to start your story.

Now, having gotten that out of the way, I enjoyed Chapter 1 a great deal (and I expected I would be disgusted with it!). Your characterization of Grace and Charm worked quite well, although I would've liked to have seen Charm exhibit a little more royal prerogative (and conflict between that prerogative and respect for someone who she seemed to think of as a friend as well as a healer/confidant). I think it might've cemented her character a little better, but that's largely because I don't buy her losing all of her entitled habits at the end of PH, trauma or no trauma. I was expecting more of a 'You can't go! I need you!' or similar, instead of which she came across relatively passive and hesitant. Which worked adequately for the purposes of this story (I don't see how having Charm threaten to break down or throw a tantrum would've pushed the story along further except in the sense of establishing Threnody's relationship with her clients, but you've done that well enough that such a scene isn't necessary. The hug works. It simply isn't how I anticipated Charm behaving.

As for Grace, I really liked the way you handled her. The conflict between royalty and concern, the touch of wisdom in telling the empathic healer that crying is justifiable (a very, VERY different statement from 'it's okay to cry!)...All of these worked to make her a believable sympathetic ruler speaking to a close counselor.

And then, the most critical element...The handling of Blackjack. Blackjack felt entirely believable and in-character to me. Good show. That was the part I was most concerned about, and I feel you did an exemplary job (I'm sure Somber helped...I admit that was the finaly tipping factor in me deciding to give this story a chance). Threnody's description of Blackjack's state, home and stare was marvelous. You have an excellent command of descriptive language.

I expected to stop reading this after the first page or two. Instead, I've added it to my favorites on the basis of Chapter 1, alone, with the rest unread.

Good job. I hope you can maintain or better it in the future chapters.

Hmm, ok you have me intrigued! I just finished the main story marathon from Kkat and Somber, and I'm glad this characterization seemed in step. Here we go!

youngest by about 5 years

One thing, unless it's in a name or title or something you should write the full word. Five, instead of 5.

Bouillotte never found her to be that interesting.

The twins. God I hope Blackjack gets to meet them, at least once...

I'd also like Scotch to meet her brother and sister. But who knows if Somber will have her survive the Eye of the World or not?

Grace sighed softly before continuing. “You are being assigned to a new client.

When did Grace learn about Blackjack's survival? I recall she didn't know during PH's epilogue.

Being emotionally overwhelmed cause physical harm to heartmenders.

And Blackjack's an emotional balefire bomb...

“SANDALWOOD YOU COCKBLOCKING ASSASSIN OF JOY!”

There's our mare.

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Oh gosh I am so sorry I really need to fix chapter 1. Um, to answer the question about Grace, she didn't know. But the epilogue took place only a couple of years after PH. Speak, chronologically speaking, is about 9 years later. In the 'canon' of Speak, Grace and Elysium provides a lot of the funding to the Followers and the Heartmenders as they operate around the Commonwealth. As such, she's been let in on the secret after Blackjack's blank body woke up.

Fun to hear a more-or-less solid number on Blackjack's age. I was ninety percent sure she was a teenager in PH, since she both acted like it and had no foals from 99 despite the number of names on her gun indicating an average reproductive age of about twenty there, but it's nice to have a solid confirmation.

I wonder how much the heartmenders know about Blackjack's soul. There's no way they would know she left hers in the blank body when getting her original body back at the end of PH, so they could see her as a soulless copy while the "real" Security died in the Core, but they also might not know enough about souls to know that would be a concern in the first place. Or maybe they do. A group of magical empaths with a name like "Followers of the Apocalypse" could know absolutely anything about that kind of magic.

Anyway, editing roughness aside, this was a fun start. Good to see Blackjack still turns to the same old vices to cope.

WHAT DO YOU WANT YOU MOONFACED ASSASSIN OF JOY?!~ is still a quote my brother and I occasionally use. I take no exception with Blackjack punching it up a bit. She tends towards that sort of thing.

Quite the interesting start, and while I'm a bit far removed from Horizons at this point (hah, I did escape the Hoof after all, for awhile at least), I don't mind seeing good ole Drunkjack again. I do wonder where this can go... but I'll reserve my reservations and read on to find out. Odds are, I'll rant at this sooner or later. For now though, it's a good start and you have another reader and upvote.

Our protagonist... hmm... seems a bit of a chip on those scarred withers, or am I imagining things? I don't know how well her low opinion of unicorns is going to work out for her here... then again if she walked in perfect that'd be even more concerning.

Speaking of concerning:

I think you’re hurting, but I don’t think it’s bad enough that it could--

I am prepared to see her regret that particular line. It's also why I assume Blackjack threw her out. 'Nope, not letting another kid get torn in half, out ya go...'

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I love rants. Pls gib.

I like this. A lot
Also, I think it was at least three boats blackjack got hit with... though I might be wrong given how long project horizons is

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Huh.... so Blackjack is basically 27 years old..... our mc is 14..... Blackjack's kids would be around 8-9......... Blackjack just kissed a filly barely older then her own kids? XD or at least if what you said about 9 years after PH and what your story says about the age of Blackjack being recorded when her blank was discovered awake....

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So... argh. This is where some of my internal consistency breaks down, but I am going to blame Somber for that. XD Um, theoretically, only 3 years have passed since BJ woke up in her blank body. The age that she gave upon waking up was the age she was in Horizons - 18. And since she was kind of 'dead' for those 6 years, I kinda wrote it off as that. That would make her 21-ish as of Speak.

But I also get a different answer out of Somber every time I ask him about how old she was in Horizons. So as far as how old she really is? img00.deviantart.net/4560/i/2012/006/8/6/blackjack_shrug_pony_by_thelyra-d4liyrf.png

That said, the age difference is a repeated point of contention and frustration for Threnody throughout the story (minor spoiler), and I've written it in there for a reason that isn't necessarily what the Threnojack shippers think it is. Laughs in chaotic author with lightning going off in the background.

Pretty good so far; Threnody's delightfully awkward and Boozehorse's antics are I guess "fun" so far.

I always love to see more blackjack she's one of my favorite characters of all time. It's interesting to see a outside character looking in on blackjack for once to see how the world perceives her.

It begins...

I love the concept. As a student counselor it is intriguing to see how well you are introducing so much psychology into it. Besides BJ is probably my most favorite character ever, but with the trauma she went through I would be more surprised is she were not such a mess. Thank you for sharing g this story with us. I m looking forward to reading so much more of it.