As some of you may know, I have a set of rules that governs what fanfics I can read on this site. It is strict, limiting, and entirely arbitrary. One of the main rules, is that I am not allowed to read Dark, Romance, Tragic or Sad fics without some kind of loophole. This does mean that I have missed out on a great portion of the best fics available to us. Case in point, Fallout Equestria. It has come to my attention that there is an audiobook of the series on Youtube. This is the loophole I have been looking for! After all, I won't have to read a thing. However, I figure it would be too boring to just listen to it myself, so I spoke with Aquillo. He gave me tentative permission to pose a challenge to this group.

I want a race. All who want to join are welcome. Every night you listen to the audiobooks, post which chapter you have reached, and because this is SALT, I would like to see some attempts at editing the iconic story. Throw a short blurb about what you would have done differently, or problems with characterization, or anything you can think of. This is my attempt to attain a better view of how a story's mechanics work, and I would appreciate the company. Wadaya say?

If you are in, just post. Drop anytime. Resume at will. This is called a race, but it's more like Twilight's running of the leaves. Overall, have fun!

581108

Dang it, Aquillo set you up for this, didn't he? He and some others were just trying to convince me to read Fallout: Equestria, and I said I wasn't interested. Man, I gotta think about this. I mean, that sucker's huge, and I'm not terribly interested in the premise, and . . .

Ugh, how long do I have to think about this before you start your contest?

581371 I start tonight, but catching up/surpassing me might be easy, Audiobooks take much longer for me than a regular book. I'll give you about 9 1/2 hours

581379

*Sigh.* I just downloaded the PDF. Good night, it's over 600,000 words. How do these fan fic writers churn out novels six times as long as what professionals write, and in half the time?

Oh, right. By writing badly. I forgot.

581389 You seem so excited.

581398

I'm definitely not excited about a YouTube audio book, and I was planning to read Past Sins or Eternal next, but I just downloaded the Kindle file of Fallout: Equestria, and it turns out my new Android phone has a Kindle reader, so I guess I can make Fo:E my next piece of could-be-cut-by-at-least-a-third-without-harm work of pony fan fiction.

I admit it, though. There's some great work on this site, it's true, but whenever I open a story and see a word count over 100,000, I say, "Seriously?" I mean really, I'm sorry, but there is not a single writer around here who has that much to say.

In case you were wondering, I am using this to listen.

581371

The funny thing is that I was intending to set this up: Fire's query over whether or not a challenge could be posted in the group happened a while back, and I'd just recalled it when I was washing the dishes earlier on. In other words, I'd come in here intending to set this up only to find that serendipity had swooped in before me.

You go, serendipity. You go.

(581833

I've read Friendship is Optimal. I did not approve.)

Oh, and count me in for this guys. I've read FO:E at least twice, so I should be able to remember enough to comment.

I'd also suggest trying to read it a chapter at a time -- FO:E is just too... much for one burst.

582978 read the comments on Friendship is Optimal. That's where the cool stuff came in.
581403 It begins!

Day 1, Part 1) I listened to the introduction, prologue, chapter 1 and chapter 2. I feel like sleeping, so I'll leave more for later today. I have to say, it is UNBELIEVABLY easier to do editing on text. I can't see if he had enough commas, or if he happened to use the wrong which or there. Therefore, I will have to put down the impressions I got while listening. First thing to note is that the guy reading the story to me has a voice completely incongruent with the filly main character. First person is a very immersive, which seems to be working well for the story. I haven't detected any knowledge leak from a third person perspective yet. I did note that the main character called her mother a filly, when dam, mare or nag would have been more correct. I want to have cleared up how a shelter with a limited food production could have an unguarded bag's worth of apples lying around. I want to know too, how Pip knows the sound of insects, having lived in a bunker where they should not be able to penetrate.

Other than that, I had observations and questions that were quickly cleared up by the narrative, such as jarring time skips, and the pipbuck's knowledge of the farm and other landmarks.

I have 2 final things to comment on. 1) If Sweetie was put in charge of something, I would place odds on it burning to the ground, rather than last for generations. 2) I now know why I don't read Dark tag fics.

Expect more to come.

583387

I got through the prologue, so you're beating me thus far. The prologue read suspiciously like it was an altered version of the opening cut scene from the video game.

As soon as the narrator started describing the PipBuck in the first chapter, my eyes glazed over and I wandered off to do something else. So you've got a gadget on your foreleg that gives you info about everything and even manages the items in your pack? In other words, it's a deus ex machina device appropriate to explain a video game's interface but completely out of place in a novel.

I know I shouldn't quit before I've given it more of a chance than that, but still, my initial thought is, "The PipBuck is stupid."

583110

My complaints were more about the quality of the prose. I think this is one of the few grammatically flawless fics I've ever read that've still made me want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty teaspoon. The style in it was just... so bad. The ideas themselves were interesting (even if it was just TCB in another form), but lords was it painful to read.

583387

I'll comment on this later. The parts about the fic, that is; I can't really comment on what it's like to listen to it.

Day 2) I went through another chapter, and had a few problems with the prose used this time. The chapter started on a random word, almost like casting around for a topic. Near the beginning was a run of about 3 or 4 sentences that had nothing to do with each other, and just after explaining a grenade as a strange object, suddenly Pip knew the perfect label for the weapon. I wasn't particularly thrilled with the disgusting nature of the vivid descriptions, but they all seemed in order. Finally, there is a lot of meat mentioned as food sources for herbivorous equines. Even if the raiders developed a taste for it somehow, Pip should not have. The cake was a good idea, and the binoculars would have been the pair from Feeling Pinkie Keen, so at least the story is taking background elements already in place and using them.
I can say, I will be continuing to follow my rules on dark fics.

583937 Honestly, after chapter 2 of Optimal, I was not thrilled with the story myself, but I had a blast with the comments.I think you should check out the comments on each of the optimalverse fics. They are like reading a research paper fused with a debate. I find that hilarious, especially as I usually see those type of debates devolve into kindergarten fights, but this continues to attempt intelligent and reasonable points. I even threw in a few questions to keep the discussion going. It's much better than the story itself.

Day 3) Not too much to comment upon in chapter 4, but I did hear a few things. Once again it started on a random, one-word sentence. it's really odd, and I wonder if the rest of the chapters will follow suit. I noticed a single instance of neglecting to use pony vernacular. Correct otherwise. One thing did catch my attention though, and that was the sudden location jump, It seemed to have no transition at all, though it did happen between chapters. One moment sitting down to read, the next fighting off brain powered robots. Took me by complete surprise.

589811

The single word intros are a FO:E style choice; it's how Kkat introduces each and every chapter.

And yeah, there is a time skip over those chapters. KKat filled that in on the text reading, but I'm not sure if that was clear from the audio version.

634102 Thanks, that explains a bit. I had taken a short break from this, but I should start back up again after tomorrow night.

Alright, I will admit, I am a bit busier than I expected. A bit more time is needed. I guess it's a good thing for anybody trying to beat me to the end. I'll try to get a chapter done tomorrow at the least.

Chapter 5 is done, and I think it has improved a bit. Again, we have a sheltered filly casually killing animal hybrids at close quarters, but I am willing to suspend my disbelief a bit. I did notice a time gap that irked me. After the action, suddenly they returned to base camp. Some transition would have been nice. The only other gripe I had was the sudden intrusion of data on the chimera, but that was again explained as being from the medical files, and may have been indicated in the text, but not the reading.