At the bottom of Stable 10, the great generator that has kept its residents alive for centuries is beginning to fail. As solutions are sought within, one pegasus sets her sights on the very ponies who built - and possibly sabotaged - her home.
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The Pony/Zebra war parts make me more depressed than reading about the adventure in the wasteland. Sometimes it’s harder to read about the downfall, especially of beloved charters we’ve known for years. It’s easier to watch the new characters we are getting to know be met with challenges and rise to the occasion.
All that being said , I find myself both with a distaste for what Gallows did, and pity for him. I can’t decide if what Aurora did to him was justified or unnecessarily cruel.
Mmmmm, some good ol'-fashioned cannibal fun. No regrets except for the ammo expenditure.
...Twilig, y u so racist? smh
I both like and hate this depiction of others having to end run around Twilight to get some stuff done. Hate mostly because I am fully familiar with having to do such things.
Will we ever be privy to those reasons, I wonder? :V
10053609
Honestly, I wish I would have started feeding in the direct flashbacks much earlier than I did. It's an absolute blast taking the old guard and placing them in a situation where they've been forced to grow up much too quickly. It's tempting just to dedicate entire chapters to writing those scenes - they just flow so easily because you're working with such established personalities. Can't do it though. Breadcrumbs, not loaves.
I wanted to leave Aurora's motivations less than pure with Gallow, for sure, and I didn't exactly like the idea of having her come out the other end of the encounter a clear moral victor. That felt like the obligatory route when the suggestion for a cannibal chapter was sent my way, and that's why this thing required so much time. I kept trying to write it out where Aurora & Co. defeat the big bad cannibals - initially a small tribe, then whittled down to a family - and huzzah, loot some goodies and be on their way. But when it was all said and done, the entire thing felt like a speed bump instead of an important arc. I wanted to make Gallow and his nameless mother relatable in a small way, without giving either a great opportunity to explain themselves. Same with Aurora's botching of Gallow's death. Aurora says he didn't deserve a clean shot, but that's clearly what she wanted to do from the outside. But she screwed it up, panicked, made it worse and effectively tortured someone who wasn't going to hurt her.
10053660
Believe me, I live that life at work fifty hours a week. There's always someone in management that has too strong of a personality for any given situation, and if there's not someone there to rein them in... ugh, yuck. Twilight's always been the show's staple beacon of goodness. It's refreshing to write her struggling to represent that so many years later.
Re: Rainbow Dash still wearing her element, I briefly touched on that in an earlier flashback but honestly it was a really light touch. I think I know of an upcoming scene where I can slip in a clearer explanation, maybe in the form of some direct dialogue where it becomes a focus of discussion. Thanks for asking the question!
"a discussions he had in"
"a discussion she had in"?
"refusing the let go despite"
"refusing to let go despite"?
"One in which I particularly hate."
"One which I particularly hate."?
Ow, on the last line. :D
And of course we don't get to see that new message this chapter. :)
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10053719
I do find it interesting to consider, after reading these comments, what seems like a likely connection with Zecora's first appearance in the show. Both here and in Bridle Gossip, it could be said that Twilight is relying heavily on what she's read... but while the biased sources available to her say zebras are people from a foreign land and not strange Everfree monster-ponies, they don't place them as equal to ponies, either.
10054395
Ooh, let me get those lines corrected, thanks for pointing them out!
Re: Twilight's personal views on zebras, I'm definitely trying not to bang the oblique-racism pots and pans together too hard. I'm trying to walk that line between her knowing and trusting Zecora based on previous experience, but also allowing the stress and anger the war creates to darken her overall opinion of zebras as a whole. It bleeds into how she treats Zecora, but not enough for her to cross any red lines. I'm not sure if I do a *great* job walking that tightrope, but I'm trying to feel my way through it.
10054395
Edits made, thank you!
Oh, and yeah, that last line kind of came out of the blue (no pun intended). It just felt right, even if it's a little on the nose.
10055188
You're welcome. :)
I'm not sure I got quite that, but it's about right, at least, I think.
10055192
And you're welcome again. :)
Heh. :)
Wow that Gallows twist had so many red flags it may as well have been a full gathering at the United Nations. I don't know why I didn't see it.
The only thing I didn't like is how weak the group feels, I mean... 1 old lady with a laser pistol against 2 hardened wastelanders and a getting there dustwing. Just seemed too contrived for them to even need Roach to use his magic. Stats wise, the laser pistols early game do like 3 damage, but this one managed to hold all three at ransom? Why?
Other then a small niggle, keep it up. Love the take on Kkats original masterpiece
10062981
I can see where you're coming from regarding the 1-on-3 odds against Gallow's mother, though part of what I wanted to do with this chapter is give the characters opportunities to be imperfect and make mistakes. Roach trusting Gallow, Ginger casting her shield giving Gallow's mother time to regroup, and Aurora's botched attempt to execute Gallow. If anything, I should probably spend some time polishing up the beginning of the scene surrounding Ginger's shield and the unintended effect it had of evening the playing field between the two parties.
Something of note, I'm not approaching the weaponry aspect in the same way the games do. A pipe rifle can potentially be as lethal as a plasma gun insofar as the story is concerned. In terms of efficacy, I'm looking more closely at the individuals wielding said weapon and the general quality of that weapon's construction.
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...
I think you need to read this part again:
I will never understand why some people think a slow and painful death is anything but too kind for monsters like these.
Helluva couple of chapters to catch up on, Elbow! I'll drop some more Thoughts™ later, this is just a flyby.
This hit me surprisingly hard. There's only been one time where I needed more than a single shot to drop a deer, but I can confirm that there's no worse feeling than needing three rounds where one round should have sufficed. Ponies aren't deer, but you take my meaning, I'm sure.
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...Because at the end of the day there's no such thing as monsters, much though we delude ourselves to the contrary.
Just people.
10086549
Incorrect. There are multiple definitions of the word "monster", and one of them is "an inhumanly cruel or wicked person".
Also, I would argue that deer deserve much less painful fates than mass-murdering cannibals. Have you even given a thought to the many victims Gallow murdered?
10086657
It's a dehumanizing term intended to reduce the value of another person to make whatever is done to them more conscionable. I wouldn't necessarily say that Gallow fits that term even using that definition.
It's precisely because of thought given to his victims that he shouldn't be regarded as anything other than a person.
And it'd prolly be best to take this to PMs if you have more to say; I'd rather not crap up Elbow's comments with a tangential argument.
You know what, I don't even care anymore. I have no interest in continuing this discussion.
10086549
Agh, I'm glad that got through! I didn't want Aurora to carry out perfect justice in this scene, no matter how much it was deserved. I wanted it to go wrong, to get messy and maybe even get some of you to sympathize a little with Gallow at the very end. I think in this case, whether or not he deserved a clean death is up to the individual reader. The bigger question is what kind of stain that botched execution will leave on Aurora, and whether or not that will inform her decisions down the road.
Enjoyed the story. Looking forward towards the next update. Keep up the good work.
10102256
Thank you! More to come, Chapter 17 is finished but I'm hanging onto it until Ch18 is ready :)
That's some fucked up irony there.
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Ghoulish, even!
Damn, I wish it worked like that...
10210634
Hah, yeah, I might've gotten a little too adventurous with Fallout logic. Makes me glad armor doesn't stay irradiated after using Rad-Away!
Hey hey hey, stay outta my shayd! Great chapter. Horrifying Chapter. Catching up on this great work. I thought Gallows may be a main character that dies off....I guess I was half right.
10301129
Oh hey, glad you liked it! Gallow was a fun character to write, for as short lived as it was ;)
O-oh. Oh no. Nooooooo. Why.
“The way things are going, I’m going to live forever.”
Hey, I'm gonna need you to doesn't.
Aww this is so cute <3
The foreshadowing and leadup to this here definitely prepared me for something to go wrong, but Ill admit I don't think I expected cannibalism .
From a moral standpoint, I feel like Aurora "Delicacy" Pinfeathers could probably forgive eating of the raider due the raider's demise being due to self defense. Or if they only hunted raiders. Had the request to repair the harnesses been legit and she discovered the cannibalism accidentally, that would be a much more morally grey situation. The fact that they clearly were targeting innocent people and baiting them however is no bueno.
As someone who really does prefer their protagonists to avoid taking lives if they could help it, I do feel like the chapter would have felt better for me if she didn't go into the shed but rather, let Gallows go. Perhaps she could have a discussion with roach on whether it was ok to let him go and Roach could bring up how him now being completely alone is a greater punishment and that he'd be unlikely to re-offend. Then as they walked away from the area, they'd have heard a single shot from their camp/nest, after which roach would knowingly explain how he did anticipate that was why he asked for his weapon.
That being said, I do like how her panic was portrayed when she missed her first shot, and how she didn't intend to make him suffer. She's not sadistic, thank goodness. She just needed to be sure within her heart that there was no way he could hurt anyone else. (Fixing a problem) (The execution not being due to revenge, which imo is an ugly motive. Had she said "he can't get away with this" / "he doesnt deserve to live", the chapter would have felt a lot worse for me. Aurora isn't a judge or vigilante, she's a protector and a problem solver. A rescuer and preserver. The entire exchange between the cannibals and them showed that they wanted to "live and let live" and avoid killing entirely. I feel like her statement of "that monster didn't deserve a quick death" was more her panic-stricken heart looking to douse the negative feelings welling up inside with a justification she didn't really believe. Or perhaps to, in the spur of the moment, avoid harsh judgement from her friends, not realizing they were just worried about her safety)