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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Really digging this story, Ellie.
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Glad that you are!
Mmm, meat. Spritebot still a mystery though. Did someone program it to just stay in front of the caravan and warn everybody, or is there actually someone following along with it and manually warning? Makes me think...probably another pegasus would be best at that?
snrk. Oh no, her data bill's gonna be through the roof!
Interesting though...I guess the Enclave is maintaining infrastructure that provides updates?
I dunno, I think there's gotta be some sorta magic in Sparkle Cola for it to stay even marginally quaffable after all this time.
Also, now I'm wondering how long a jar of pickles can remain edible or even just recognizable. Alas, no luck googling it...
It's okay Aurora, I'd stare at nearby mare ass too.
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More to come on the Spritebot, and I blame Whinnydows 8 for all the dang updates. ;)
I've hayed and hawed about whether or not I wanted to include some sort of magic property to the beverages in Renewal, but I ended up settling on them being normal everyday drinks. If I remember right, Nuka-Cola was still safe to drink due to some preservative property in the original drink, but the drink offered so minor of a benefit in-game that I didn't want to enhance Sparkle-Cola's positive properties. Otherwise I feared I would run the risk of writing myself into a situation where Aurora & Co would be shotgunning sodas for a temporary health boost during a fight, and oh boy that does sound silly. :)
As for the pickles... guh, writing that scene made me nauseous. Blech!
Fantastic read again. You nailed some of the smaller details with the lighting, and the temperatures, and the feels that are in there. It really made it fully emersive. I want that cabin. I've been wanting one for years, but you put what I want into words. There's just something about a fire that helps you open up and lose a bit of your inhibitions. It was really a lovely scene although steeped in overcoming tragedy.
Brindle got shot so hard that Delphi fell out of her chair! Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I may have caught a name change.
And then I proceeded to accidentally point it at all my friends, because I'm an idiot...sorry, self projecting. Gun/Trigger disciplines are so hard for a new person. Been there.
https://i.imgur.com/P9Z91Kj.png
Ah, tech and the updates to download. Don't worry, when you're done downloading, next come the restart and updating. That's only JUST AS AGRIVATING! And then what did you get? Oh, a slightly different background, but it's all essentially the same. Thanks for that!
Great details and a fun read again! I look forward to the next!
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Brindelphi: Good catch on the Brindle/Delphi moment! That's slushy writing on my part. It was meant to convey her seeing Delphi's suicide in her head rather than Delphi being time-traveled in front of Brindle's bullet. ;)
Boomsticks: My sister of all people is the gun nut in the family. I'm honestly pretty green to them up until very recently. We went to an outdoor range with her Remington 700 which is what Aurora's rifle ended up being modeled after. I am a shit shot. I am also a liability with anything that goes boom. ;) Don't expect Aurora to start plinking bottles at 1,000m because I can't even put holes on paper 250m away. Guns are *hard!*
Bottlebug: I nearly nixed the entire scene with Roach using his leg-holes as horrifying bottleholders, but dammit if the mental imagery didn't stick hard enough for me to leave it in. :)
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Magic Bullets....wait...Aurora was hiding in a grassy knoll!? Time for some conspiracies!
I'm a fan of some good hunting, but I'm sure not going to be feeding a village with my shooting skills. The run and gun is one of the silliest parts of these fallout games and stories. With a sight that stays pretty still in movement and running, all the characters must have bodies and arms of STEEL! Two legs are tough; how smooth they can be with four? With that question, does a dressage horse make a steadier run and gunner? Fabulous horses are truly more dangerous.
And now something I forgot to mention earlier...
i.imgur.com/iI5cYbg.jpg
Dammit, kids these days. Back in my day (which I guess would be around 200 years ago), we wrote in the Kings English and did math the RIGHT way. And what the hell is a YEET!? Get off my lawn!
I got a hell of a laugh from that exchange. A couple of lines and you're shown your age, Ellie! Maybe this is the reason why there isn't a whole lot of doctors and pharmacists in Post-Apocalyptic Equestria.
I'm obviously working on my linking. I'll get the hang of this thing one of these days. (Loved the holes gag, 5/7, would totally do that too if I had holes in my arms)
Just blasted through the whole thing in one sitting and mMMmm.... Good stuff, this. The tone of the characters is a bit different from the usual FO:E tendency to run with "Every character has ALL the edgy backstory/secrets/It'sBeen600kWordsAndWe'reStillLearningAboutOurMainCharacter'sBackstoryWTF."
You seem to be going with an "all cards on the table" approach; borders on telling rather than showing at times, but I'm chalking that up to rust. Different, and limits your characters a bit, but not necessarily a bad thing. The complicated relationships you've set up are fantastic, though you could have spent another chapter exploring everything in the Stable more fully for the sake of Show vs Tell. The brief period of relative peace at the start of every FO:E fic makes for a good place to establish characters at baseline, before we start putting them through the wringer that is the wasteland.
Essentially, I adored the complex relationships you established between Sledge, Aurora, and her father, but it would have been nice to spend more time showing those relationships and exploring them in a slower fashion. Leaving the stable is an inevitability, so the time spent in it is valuable exposition. The instant we open this fic, we know she's gonna be leaving the stable. Give us a couple of days to look at how the routine has shifted with Aurora's new knowledge that the generator is failing. Let her stew for a bit before going to her father, knowing that she's going to leave and HAS to tie up this loose end, or perhaps mull over Sledge's role as a second father/mentor figure that she chose over her own for her time in mourning/avoidance. Delicious, delicious character development and a chance to set up a few Chekhov's Guns for later (this is one of the things that FO:E Project Horizons executed masterfully; Chekhov ALL the things).
Getting more specific, you might consider touching up Aurora's decision-making process for leaving the stable. It makes sense, but it felt pretty rushed; like it was less generated by Aurora's thinking it through and coming to that conclusion, and more "Author/story demand I leave the stable so LET'S GO." Not a huge thing, but if she was thinking it through as early as learning about the issue with the generator and while saying goodbye to her father soon after, some more time spent reflecting on it and coming to that conclusion might help it feel a lil less rushed. Doesn't have to be Littlepip or Blackjack levels of introspective angst, just a paragraph or two of dawning horror and realizing that "It's the only way oh god, and no one else is gonna do it so it has to be me." Maybe a more drawn out scene talking it over, summat like that. Just a minor nitpick.
I think someone already pointed this out, but
RarityGinger throwing out "Darlings" can be a bit much; there are a couple of FO:E fics with Rarity/fashionista ponies (looking at you, FO:E Infinite Potential and FO:E Heroes). Not your fault, but you might have a hard time giving Ginger more of her own voice given she's stuck in a Rarity!box at the moment (and accurate even down to the bad romance novels, no less).There are some moments where deep instances of character development or backstory revelations seem to be coming on a bit too rapidly, such as learning Roach's story RE: Stable Stalking. It may be because I'm used to Character Arcs spanning hundreds of thousands of words courtesy of FO:E Project Horizons and Murky Number Seven, but that struck me as something that'd show up later on, when we had more of a grasp on who he is and how loyal/devoted he is to Stable 10 and the descendants of his family, or perhaps as a tie-in to one of the things that keeps him going/sane as a ghoul rather than falling feral (ie, Aurora gets injured/almost killed, he goes near-feral while believing her to be dead/etc, or struggling through the loss of the Stable or something like that).
Don't get me wrong! I think that a lot of the backstory and revelations that you've laid out are really neat and make for good motivating factors and pieces of your characters, but in the context of what I'm expecting to be a multi-hundred thousand word story they feel a bit rushed in comparison to the impact they could have in the future when we're more invested and attached to these characters.
It's like... It's the difference between starting a card game with a fantastic hand of cards versus working your way up through the course of the game into having a fantastic hand. In both cases, they're a good bunch of cards, but the impact is different. Playing your cards early makes for a short, quick victory, but if it's meant to be a long game it's not quite as rewarding/satisfying as playing your perfect hand at the climax of the game, when all the bets are in and it's time to find out who wins the pot. Does that make sense, or did the metaphor go too deep?
Put another way... If you've read FO:E Project Horizons, I want you to think about all the revelations we had about the main character over the course of the story, and then try to imagine those revelations happening at the very beginning.
I'm certain there's a TON and a half of character development and revelations in store for the future, I'm just wary about overplaying your hand too soon when you clearly have an EXCEPTIONAL grasp of what makes a powerful, gripping motivation.
(To be fair, I'm comparing your story to fics where the character development takes place over hundreds of thousands of words, in one case millions, so bear that in mind, grain of salt, all that. Please don't take ANY of this criticism as "You should write this XYZ way," because that's the last message I want to send. Write what you want and how, but I hope that some of this critique is useful to you and helps you to develop the story you want to tell and the skills necessary to craft it.)
Moving on... Some info seems a little out of place, like the Overmare knowing about the Vault experiments being a wider trend (strikes me as the opposite of the information security that Stable Tec was expert at), or the way Canterlot is used as a demarcation for Enclave activity, given they're cloud-based and Canterlot is a pink cloud wreck. Also pretty refreshing to see you're skipping over some of the FO:E Project Horizons canon; plenty of authors take that as written by god and engraved in stone.
Also unicorns OP pls nerf. Cider being able to near-totally incapacitate Aurora seems a lil over-buffed, but if you're running with OP unicorns that could make things pretty interesting, since our heroine is a pegasus and thus isn't going to be able to take advantage of that. Love a good Hardmode playthrough. I mention this because Cider/Ginger lifting/throwing around Aurora is a bit different from the usual unicorn shenanigans; in most other fics, unicorns aren't able to no-sell other ponies to the degree shown here. It's neat, and different, and I kind of hope you keep it that way, rather than chalking it up to Aurora being as under-leveled as a Bidoof facing down the Elite Four.
I'm liking the look of the update schedule, too. On that note, how do you value chapter length/flow versus update consistency? I'm not particularly concerned one way or the other, but numerous other FO:E fics have a tendency for chapters to balloon in length over time, which slows updates. Is there a particular method you favor, or are you still working that out? :)
Overall, nice addition to the FO:E library, looking forward to more. Characters are enjoyable, the conflicts believable and inching towards a larger adventure, and all the wonderful details with which you craft a scene make for vivid imagery.
EDIT EDIT: On the off chance you're still hungering for more FO:E, I'd Recommend:
FO:E Project Horizons (this one takes FO:E and cranks it up to eleven. It's a brutal, emotional roller coaster that manages to be darker and bleaker than the original, while keeping the themes that made KKat's story so powerful. Incredible uses of Chekhov's gun and long character arcs. Heavy, long, and highly recommended. Beware of archive panic.),
FO:E Murky Number Seven (also ridiculously long, but constrained in its scope in comparison to the sweeping journeys of most other FO:E fics; if you're a fan of main characters being out of their depth and outgunned, this is your meal. Beware of archive panic part 2),
FO:E Infinite Potential (This one is a bit hard to categorize; at times the main character comes off as a lil Mary Sue-ish, at other times it's attention-grabbing enough that it doesn't really matter. Healer in the Wasteland, with a twist),
FO:E Heroes (New Vegas, but FO:E. Pretty brutal at times, but has a wonderful array of well-written characters and some neat twists, also very guilty of slow-burn character development),
FO:E Pink Eyes (pure, sugarcoated poison that anyone with a heart will HNNNNGG to.),
FO:E The Chrysalis (Changelings! You might be interested in this one for the sake of ideas/seeing how others used them),
and of course Empalu's fantastic flash game, FO:E Remains (It's fun. Full-fledged RPG, pretty much; English localization is a bit clumsy in some sections, and some of the puzzles are difficult (There's a wiki, it helps), but overall I'd consider it a must-play for FO:E fans).
EDIT EDIT EDIT: Okay, okay, I'll shut up now. Hope the feedback helps!
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Woo, holy wow that's a long one! :) Thank you so much for the critique, I'm writing this on a newfangled telephone so I'll try to respond to your main points from memory!
Character Dev: Holding out some details for later makes good sense, but in terms of Roach specifically I wanted to start putting his backstory cards on the table earlier to establish why he's invested in the quest rather than just altruism. I worry that witholding that information could muddle his motivations in future chapters and wanted to get it in readers' hands early. :)
Stable pacing: I completely agree, the Stable felt rushed even as I wrote it. I got hung up on how much time I was spending inside and wound up getting self-conscious about the chapter count, so Aurora got shot out the door like a blow dart. I hope to remedy that when I find a natural place to skip back and work on edits, but I honestly don't know if that'll be sooner or later.
Unicorns OP: I honestly prefer a stronger flavor of unicorn magic, especially when it puts Aurora at a distinct disadvantage. I'm a smaller gal and being overpowered is a reality I'm aware of. It's a huge risk for Aurora but she's clever. ;)
Schedule: Right now I'm pushing myself to stick to a chapter every 1-2 weeks, allowing for that 2nd week in case I risk burnout. I try not to watch the word count and instead chop up chapters based on the events that take place within. I'd rather not put out 20,000 word beasts and lean on that as a measure of success, nor do I want Renewal to become an unwieldy millions-long wordcount. I have the story's events mapped out from beginning to end and plan to stick to that. I'm guessing maybe 25-30 chapters tops.
Rarityisms: Yikes, Ginger is definitely a Rarity fan. I should have assumed that might be a popular trope. You'll see her dropping the frequency of "darlings" the longer she's away from her store. There is a why for that which I'll start to dive into soon. Ginger does have her own backstory, and it happily doesn't involve seeing a sonic rainboom in her Manehattan apartment ;p
Non-canon: I do plan on this being it's own standalone story, and not one that takes place in Littlepip's universe. I'm borrowing some tropes for flavor but regarding the events and characters of FO:E Classic, this won't be canonical. Trying to stitch a story to the hip of another work is far beyond my abilities, and keeping track of it all would drive me batty.
I've got to get my butt up for work, but than you so much for the notes and recommendations! Had I known the FO:E library was so huge, I would have done a bit more reading before I dove in!
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I know that it was a bit long, and full of criticism, but I also want to stress that your story is a fantastic first showing on fimfic!
FO:E Library: Those're only the ones that I've read so far, to be honest. There are numerous other fics with well over a half million words, and I think FO:E Commonwealth (FO4) is rapidly approaching 2 million, and plenty of smaller stories and series. That said, if you have to start somewhere I would highly recommend FO:E Project Horizons. It'll place a lot of what I said in the above review into context, and it's a damn good fic if you don't mind the length. :) I listened to it as an audiobook while pulling long hauls and it kept me busy for quite some time. In any case, they're not mandatory reading by any means, though I know plenty of authors use those and others as a basis on which they build their own canons. I think I noted this above, but FO:E PH is especially popular for that, in part because Somber went to great lengths to connect their story to FO:E's canon, and in part due to their fantastic world-building. Anyways, I'll shut up before spoilers happen.
Canonicity: Okay! I'm not really a huge stickler for sticking to source material (it's fanfiction of fanfiction, for god's sake), but knowing that clears up a lot of potential questions later on and definitely leaves you broad leeway for world-building. I'm honestly looking forward to seeing what you end up doing with all the freedom! If on the off-chance you decide you want to toss in FO:E references/cameos/etc. (a lot of FO:E authors do this, but please don't feel like you have to) there are a number of resources available, including a wiki and some fimfic groups that focus on FO:E. Obviously, spoilers galore, but better to have it and not need it, all that.
Rarity Ginger: Hey, it's not your fault if you haven't been following FO:E trends for the past X years! It sounds to me like you're pretty new to this particular area of the fandom, so I wouldn't treat a trope like some kind of sin that must be scoured away. My main concern was that it might stifle Ginger's ability to stand out as anything other than a Rarity!clone, but if you have plans for that issue I'm certain it'll be fine. You've definitely shown you know how to write a good character, so I'm not really concerned.
Schedule: Okay, thanks! Splitting by events can leave some chapter lengths a bit weird, but honestly the content is more important than the number. ...As long as you don't start consistently pulling cliffhangers, all is well.
Fair and BalancedTM Unicorns: I'm genuinely looking forward to the challenge this presents our merry band of heroes, especially when/if the
AlicornsGODDESS shows up. Given that unicorns are already showing themselves to likely be one of the most difficult enemy classes for Aurora, the absolute levels of bullshit achievable by a hivemind of high level spellcasters boggles the mind. Good thing they have Ginger, though I hope she doesn't end up carrying the party like a Level 100 Wizard saddled with a bunch of scrubs thanks to the wonders of Public Matchmaking.That does bring up an interesting question, though. In other fics, and indeed in FO:E Classic, separating characters from the party is a pretty common occurrence. I'm hoping we get to see how Aurora copes without her tentative support system, and how she improvises, adapts, and overcomes the challenges thrown at her. We saw a lil bit of this in the Cider fight, but that was a newbie scoring a lucky crit on a sealclubber by my reckoning.
ALSO!
Leveling system, perks, so on? (This is for FO:E Classic, but PH and Heroes make good use of this as well) This might be something you choose to ignore, but leveling up and perks are pretty popular in FO:E fics. Some use them to track their character's progress and growth, hint at potential plotpoints, and justify certain actions in the story. It's not a Must Have mechanic, but I've always enjoyed reaching the end of a chapter and seeing some event called back in the listed experience gains/perk choices as our hero goes from Lvl 1 Stable Peasant to Lvl 30 Legit Badass. Since you haven't been doing it up to this point, I'm not expecting it, but it's another tool available to you that I think you could have fun with/make use of. I'd encourage you to take the opportunity and make use of it, if only because it's not a tool available in most fic settings. FO:E PH, Heroes, Classic, and I thiiiiiiiink Ourouros (another good one, slow updates though) all used this to great effect, but it depends on how much you want to pull from the toobox.
Stable Relationships: I'm really glad that you already had this in mind; it's one of the most common issues I see in FO:E fiction, so the fact that you're planning on going back at some point for touch ups is heartening. Stable 10 clearly has some incredibly rich opportunities for exposition and getting a feel for who Aurora is as a person, so I'll look forward to seeing what you add. I missed the Prologue days, but the Stable 10 chapters might give you a chance to use some of the material there, or otherwise build on the world and potentially set up some extra differentiation from the source.
One Roachy Boi: Ah, okay. I can understand where you're coming from, with that. Working with a character who doesn't have clear motivations is difficult and sometimes confusing, especially in a world where "altruism" is a dirty word. It DOES make him much more understandable, but to some degree it goes back to showing versus telling. At this point, it feels a lil like this isn't Ginger's story to tell, and we haven't gotten an opportunity to see the incredible, Herculean amounts of Determination/Focus that Roach has likely dedicated to this end. I mean, there's the guarding and the tunnel, but... I dunno. I think it's one of the weaker areas of backstory exposition, though I understand why you went with it. Again, write it how you like, and don't get disheartened! All cards on the table is a much different approach compared to what I'm used to, so this might just be my biases coming into play. Still, I wonder if there exists a best of both worlds approach for this?
EDITS 4: THE RETURN OF THE REVENGE OF THE WRATH OF THE DAWN OF THE DAY OF MORE EDITS: Forgot to include FO:E Orobouros!
Another Edit: Fuckin' mispelled "Ouroboros."
Edit: Misspelled "misspelled."
Edit Edit the Eight: Crap, also wanted to at least mention that the environments you've been crafting have been well-handled. One of the things I believe we agree on is that the landscapes for Fallout tend to be too... uh, dead, for lack of a better word. The vegetation and attention to detail for the urban settings (mismatched wooden planks, an outhouse vs functional plumbing) has given it much more life, and things like the forest hints towards more potential wildlife encounters/role for that sort of thing. Also there's only so many ways you can describe a gray, barren landscape. :P
Extra CrEdit: Since you already have the story planned out, please disregard any of the thoughts/spitballing I toss out in these feedback posts! When you're writing, post-planning phase, do you usually leave room for whims and fancy, or do you tend to stick like glue to your initial plots?
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Library: I think once I'm closer to having this story wrapped up, I'll take a look at Project Horizons. You're right, I'm not exactly well-traveled in this side of the fandom. I've been pretty solidly grounded in the fan comics, artwork and animation end of things. It wasn't until earlier this year that an Imgur user asked me if I'd read Fallout: Equestria and absolutely badgered me into doing it. I found that I very much enjoyed the story, but more for the darker after-the-end setting than anything else. When I play Fallout, I'm a sucker for reading the notes and getting deep into the lore instead of getting levels, which may be why I suck at Fallout games. ;)
Cameos: I thought about tinkering with a nod toward Littlepip & Co, but without getting spoilery, I don't plan on her actually existing in this universe. The most I'm planning to do is play a little bit with Watcher, albeit in a limited capacity. I'm a sucker for the Watcher mechanic because ED-E was a favorite character of mine. Tempting as having Aurora notice a pony in a Stable 2 jumpsuit, it would negate something I plan on adding in the later stage of the story.
Alicorns/Mane 6: ;) There are exactly two alicorns in this story, and they are presently dead. The deaths of the Mane 6 in FO:E Classic aren't the deaths of the Mane 6 in Renewal, so no goopy Twilight/Trixie alicorn-spawning monstrosities in this one. I'm still in the air about how detailed I'll get in detailing the where/when/how of their deaths. I really didn't like the idea of memory orbs in FO:E as exposition dumps, so I'll likely be utilizing holotapes and characters to tell those stories. We'll see!
Roachi-senpai: That was painful to write. :) But yes, Roach will be getting more dimension as the story progresses. There's still the story of his prewar life to tell, as well as other goals he might have had but I won't confirm because spoilers before Aurora rolled the door open and got her ass bit.
Environment: I definitely dislike the Fallout 3 style of environment. Great, visually. Awful, literally. I'm still trying to balance in an area between Fallout 76 and Fallout 3. Fun fact, the area they're currently in as of Chapter 7 is based off of Wisconsin's driftless region. If you've driven through here you might recognize the bluffs and valleys. ^_^ It won't all be grassy areas of recovery, but it's a bit of what I'd set as a baseline. Plants are still growing but they're not having a great time doing it.
Schedule: Right now I'm dipping into that 2 week stretch because work and weather have conspired to send me home exhausted. I'd like to have this next chapter completed by Sunday, but I'm admittedly only halfway to where I planned a natural endpoint. Gonna jump on that..... now.
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Library: No no, that makes a lot of sense to me. I know that when I start a project, and start reading material from a similar genre, I end up having all kinds of new ideas that I want to implement into an already fleshed out plan. I'm easily distracted, however, so your mileage may vary. In any case, one of the best parts about this fandom is how bullshit huge it is. I'm STILL finding corners and bits of content that I've missed previously, and god only knows how much the animation, comics, and artwork side of things continues to expand. I absolutely love it. Though I must object: The only way you can suck at the Fallout games is if you're not having fun while playing them!
I do hope you get the chance to look at some of the other FO:E fics sooner rather than later, though, if only because they're all enjoyable reads and I'm curious to see what you make of them. :) Cameos are kind of a hit or miss, for me. Some of them can be neat, but other times they feel a lil forced. We KNOW this is part of the FO:E setting, no need to rub our faces in it, kind of thing. Not having the Alicorns definitely mixes things up, and only adds more questions; one of the things the Alicorns did well was to act as a sort of tie-in for the Super Mutants, as I recall, while Diamond Dogs were Deathclaws with fur. Are you planning on keeping that kind of "port" from FO to FO:E, but with another race/species/etc? I'm incredibly curious, but I'll prolly find out as we get more chapters.
I agree about the memory orbs; I always felt they were the weakest part of exposition dumping for the original, and for the other FO:E fics. They're neat enough, but the story I enjoy most is with the characters I'm reading about, rather than getting thrown back and introduced to reimagined/new characters that I know won't really exist beyond the chapter. It breaks up continuity, and they're easily abused as a "This character needs to know this info to advance the plot, so here! Please fellate this memory orb!" mechanic. FO:E PH abused this a lil bit, but that's one of the fics where it was hit or miss for me.
Roachy-sen-? How Dare You Make Me Read That With My Own Two Eyes: There's also the question of just what he's had to do to live up to his duty/loyalty, and the value he places on one Pegasus against the whole of the stable. Would he sacrifice Aurora, if it meant saving the rest? How does he deal with the uncertainty, and are there genealogical logs in the Stable he could look into? Are his loved ones buried in the gardens, somewhere? All kinds of questions, about him, still. This revelation still feels comparatively weak, but it's not a huge deal if it averts potential narrative issues down the line.
Environments: I haven't yet tried FO:76 yet, to be honest. I got turned off it early by the initial sh!tstorms, and I mostly play my Fallout for the single-player experience anyway. Combine that with some of the lore weirdness I've heard about it, and I'm left considering it pretty much an alternate universe (For reference, I'm a sucker for Fallout 2, and New Vegas; Fallout 3 was damn good too, but it always feel too drab, also fucking random encounter Deathclaws).
Still, post-apocalyptic greenery has always been a favorite for me, so I have to ask if you've looked at The Last of Us as a potential environmental inspiration? It's an incredible game, and I'd highly recommend it if you're a fan of the After-The-End aesthetic. Granted, it's more of a "Disease kills everyone, civilization is beginning to grow over and fall apart" sort of thing, rather than a "Some madlad actually pushed the big red button." Gameplay isn't anything groundbreaking, but the characters and environments DEFINITELY are. It's a PS3 exclusive, though, I think. There's some way to run it via PC, too, but I'd have to go back and look it up.
Scheduling: By all means! Don't let me distract you too much.
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I'd strongly recommend Fallout 76, despite the lore breaks. I play almost exclusively by myself and I maybe only bump into other players once or twice a day, and they're all pretty darn harmless on PC. The vast majority just emote a wave and carry on. Some might give you a hand, but for the most part it's pretty peaceful and the world is a beauty. I spent a good month distracted from quests just so I could wander around and find as many blueprints for CAMP building as I could. :) You'd be surprised how many players design their camps to be open, free resources for passers-by. Seriously, throw fifty bucks at it. It's wonderful if you're a fan of wandering.
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Hmmm. I'll have to give it a try, then. Thanks for the rec, good luck with the next chapter! :)
Okay, small things! Pointing toward the division in the caravan was neat, but back to show and tell. Maybe have them segregated into groups of leather pons and welldressed pons, or lil cliques of each? One group at front, one at back? Rude gestures to go with the sneers, or jeering. If you stick this stuff in during the argument, it could indicate some nasty tension beyond the dirty looks. Just a thought!
Also, my inner southern hick was screaming in delight at the way you covered firearms. Finally! Not just point and shoot! Little concerned about the ammunition usage, but ah well (hey! .308 is expensive!). Another lil tidbit, but collecting the spent brass for reloading might be a thing. I expect there's a decent market for reloading cartridges in FOE.
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Hmm, definitely worth exploring! I'll keep that in the back of my brain when I swing back for revisions, especially considering there will likely be little details I want to sneak in to reinforce what comes later.
Also, yeehaw, I was hoping I wasn't wasting page by getting so in depth with rifle practice! I really wanted to reinforce early that Aurora is a professional at one job, and that's fixing machinery. Outside of that, she didn't burst out of her mother's womb with two rootin-tootin six-shooters on her hips. ;)
I have a feeling that Ginger doesn't understand Cutie Marks. Or maybe they are different here?
I really don’t get it. What is with Fallout Equestria fics and the main characters being gay?
I’m not kidding. Literally all the Fallout fics I’ve read on this site, from the main fic with Littlepip, to this fic, to an albino doctor fic, hell even to a fallout-MC-gets-transported-to-Equestria fic, in all of them, the MC is a homosexual! I don’t get it!
Like, I get that there’s a gender discrepancy in Equestria, but of all the fics I’ve read on this site, Fallout fics account for 98% of the fics involving homosexual characters in general, not just the main character!
Not that I’m against homosexuality or even truly care about the sexual preference of the main characters, but I just wanna know why there seems to be a requirement for Fallout fics to have a homosexual main character. Frankly, I could say the same about the fact that most if not all of the main characters in the fallout fics are female and thusly lesbians. I’ve only seen, what, one fallout fic where the MC was a stallion? And it was the fic with the fallout MC being transported to Equestria so it doesn’t even really count as a Fallout fic.
Just someone please explain to me why in most if not all Fallout Equestria fics the main character is a lesbian.
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Aurora is bisexual, something that is touched on later in the story. That aside, I'm gay and writing a character with similar attractions in a story that features a good bit of relationship building is a better fit for me, personally.
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You may want to check out fallout: Equestria war does change.
Ah, yes, gay protags. A FO:E tradition at this point. Go get 'em, Aurora.
I really liked this chapter! The raider "mare in need" tactic has definitely been done before, but the massive raider/cannibal caravan follow-up was a surprise to me. I wonder what would inspire such an alliance between two groups that are clearly violent and obviously hate each other. Looks like yet another gun has been added to Chekov's collection. I like how it's also a consequence of Aurora's joy-filled flight. She got away with it this time, but next time her behavior might get somebody killed.
I like the cabin bit as well. A mysterious introduction leads into a heartfelt and genuine character scene. Roach's backstory continues to make perfect sense for his character. I'm curious to see if Aurora actually ends up being a descendant of his daughter. I'd prefer if she weren't, it makes their bond feel more chosen and less obligatory in my opinion. However, ten generations in a closed environment (if the daughter and her descendants each had two children, to replace their parents) means that Roach has as many as 1024 great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandkids running around in that stable, give or take a power of two. Given a population size of 1000-2000ish (Fallout's control vaults are supposed to have had around 1000, I think) it's plausible or even likely that Aurora is part of Roach's family.
Really strong stuff here. I'm not sure about the hinted Ginger-Aurora pairing, but I think it's definitely capable of being compelling.
Well done!
Also:
Got an extra space before the period.