Rereading Fallout Equestria

Chapter by Chapter Commentary on Fallout Equestria

[stabletwooriginals]

CHAPTER FOUR: Perspective

LittlePip had the bright idea of looting a building she is way too underleveled for. That's not really a Gamer Joke, as FoE really does seem to take a lot of rules and mechanics from the Fallout games. But it's also funny.

Her opponents are the classic brain-bots we know from the games, made more horrifying with the simple detail of sounding like children. "Come on out. We only want to kill you for trespassing!" also reminds me of the turrets in Portal.

This is also where we get our first reference of the zebras as the enemy, via the intercom playing an ancient, automated message. Oh, and the first mention of the Minstry of Technology too!

The Mr. Handy equivalent of a plasma weapon is said to look like a unicorn's horn. That's cool.

While trying to escape on collapsing catwalks we get the first instance of self-levitation! That's a creative use of the canonical ability unicorns in the show possess. I'm not even sure if a unicorn levitaed *another* pony in season 1. But I think they never levitated themselves? This also gave me flashbacks (or rather flashforwards) to all the cool stuff LittlePip can do later with her levitation, I'm excited to get there.

 Oh fuck me with Celestia's forehooves!

The first instance of a PipSwear! Now, I love them. They are iconic. But heck, gosh, darn it if they don't sound awkward when said out loud. Which kinda makes them not work as swears, in my opinion. But for me, they are dumb fun and sometimes that's enough. Her remark that she picked these exploitives up from the raiders is a nice touch. That she keeps them up and builds on them is all her, though.

IRONSHOD FIREARMS How do you like *them* apples?   I didn't get it.

So, I am not a native English speaker. I know this saying, but I was curious where it comes from. *Apparently* that's not really known, but according to this article the phrase was used like this in 1895 already. However, it was also used to refer to anti-tank granades in World War I, for their apple-like appearence. Since granades also look like apples in FoE, I will take the risk and say that I think I do get Ironshod Firearms' slogan.

The anti zebra propaganda found in the factory overmare office is both creative and glossed over. The slogan ("Better Wiped than Striped! Join the Equestrian Forces Today!") is heavily reminicient of the German rhymes of similiar racist nature from the world wars. And the depiction of the zebras as some dark creatures with evil glowing eyes is over the top, but only a reread might reveal this as the neon sign it is, as the zebras have not yet been introduced as the enemy force properly.

In the overmares office Littlepip finds a ton of useful items, from spark batteries , a StealthBuck and gum (which could be the first instance of MintAls, altough not called such, as LittlePip doesn’t know them yet (and if they aren’t, she finds some later in this chapter in an abandoned camp under a bridge), to the one, the only: little macintosh. This revolver will become LittlePips iconic weapon that she keeps until the very end of the story. Presumably made for or at least by Applejack, so this also gives Littlepip a neat little tie to one of the original shows main characters.

Hacking the terminal LittlePip discovers that she could have opened the safe she picked with a bobby pin remotely from there. Intentionally or not, this is a dig at Fallout 3′s design philosophy of giving you several ways to open locks, making only learning one of them enough, while skilled characters are left feeling a bit overqualified.

Leaving Ironshod Firearms, LittlePip admits to having given up on finding Velvet for now and being set on just exploring the world instead. Again, very Fallout 3 in my book.

Past a playground that became a graveyard for little ponies (dark!), she finds a “Sparkle~Cola” vending machine. This becomes LittlePips favorite drink and when I first read it, I was super happy about that for some reason. The book keeps mentioning how she sipps on carroty cola sometimes and every time I remember thinking it was a fun detail. I have no idea why.

Resting on a bench closeby we get a description of this poster:

(Art by Droakir - DeviantArt)

First mention of the Ministry of Morale, first instance of Pinkie Pie and a really fun description of how her graying mane makes it look like a candy cane. Like the poster on the zebras, this is also great, classic propaganda writing. Obviously it is a reference to the episode Green Isn’t Your Color, but while I feel that it is referencing some real life propaganda, I do not know a specific one.

Watcher suddenly is back, helpfully explaining that the MoM is “another well-meaning idea that was so much better on scroll.” What a fitting description of pre-war politics in FoE.

Getting jumped makes LittlePip call back to the slaver, that complained about sprite-bots sneaking up on ponies. If I recall correctly this will be one of the biggest sources of fun in FoE: Callbacks like this, that help paint the world in your mind by connecting the dots for you. Im certain some find this aspect annoying, as they rather enjoy doing that work themselves, but as a casual reader (of a very long story) I always welcomed it. I will also stop pointing them out from here on, unless they strike me remarkable in other ways.

A quick reminder of the raider armor she is wearing and some foreshadowing how it makes her look like “a nightmare pony”, before Watcher offers that she needs to find her virtue. This will be as important as in the original show, but also almost take LittlePip until the end of the story to really figure it out. Right now, she doesn’t quite believe him and his connection to the sprite-bot drops. Now we get a different voice from the radio the sprite-bots play, when Watcher is not in control of them. Similiar to President Eden of the Enclave in Fallout 3. This however, is Red-Eye, altough not named yet, giving a motivational speech about the posibility of rebuilding Equestria. Naturally, this confuses LittlePip even further, having seen no trace of any leaders or reconstruction efforts.

Well, technically she has seen slavers, so, unbeknownst to her, she actually has seen a part of Red-Eyes plan.

But it gives her the idea to look for settlements and actually finds one in the distance. A undamaged looking caravan is moving away from it, all in all a great disovery.

While a fun and memorable scene in itself, what follows is meant to reflect a corner stone of LittlePips character. As she approaches the settlement she gets mistaken for a raider by her barding and shot at. Remembering the caravan she collects her strength and stands up to her agressor, threatening to kill them if they attack the others. This reveals the misunderstanding -- her attacker thought she was endangering the caravan -- and LittlePip exits the chapter loosing consiousness from her insuries.

Footnote: Level Up. New Perk: Egghead -- You will add +2 skill points each time you gain a new experience level.

What a chapter! While it might feel like not much happened, so many pivital and iconic elements were introduced here. Even if a lot weren’t named yet. Like Calamity! It does feel weird that LittlePip just admits on giving up on Velvet like that, though. On my first read I didn’t mind, because I just enjoyed how similiar the experience felt to playing Fallout 3, which I liked more than any other entry at the time. Now it seems odd, but there are a lot of other things to focus on and enjoy in this and the coming chapters.

[stabletwooriginals]

CHAPTER THREE: Guidance

LittlePip wakes up to a brand new day. Which she never experienced before and we get some fun observations from her about.

I knew this was coming but I’m so relieved LittlePip finds one of Rarities dresses in perfect condition inside a locked chest.

The comment, that the dress is the prettiest and most cheerful thing she has seen since leaving is striking to me. She has had one terrible string of bad luck so far, but there are amazing things still waiting to be found.

Which is undercut somewhat by her discovery of the dead cats hung over where she slept. Absolutely terrifying. That doesn’t seem just for shock value, as it preoccupies our (and LittlePips) mind as she accidentally activates a land mine. Oops.

Watcher making his first appearing here, giving LittlePip life saving advice.

Raiders attack again. And we get LittlePips naive interpretation of grenades through a childhood memory of someone bullying her. This explains to us why she focuses on throwing the granade back next… killing her first pony.

We don’t get a lot of rumination on that yet though, as we get a scene break and LittlePip has managed to sneak out of Ponyville. What are these segmenting parts called, actually? Is it “Dinkus”? That’s a fantastic name.

The retelling of escaping Ponyville sounds like a stealth sequence in any video game, which I find amusing.

After a brief first encounter with a Bloatsprite - the mutated version of the Parasprites from the show - we reunite with Watcher and LittlePip get’s to have her first friendly conversation so far. (You might wanna count Velvet at the very beginning, but that’s up to you.)

“A friend.” I raised an eyebrow. “Okay, a passing acquaintance. But one that doesn’t mean any harm.”

This back-paddling is interesting. Why isn’t the “Friend or Foe” distinction enough here? My interpretation is that FoE takes friendship quite seriously. Since it is adopting “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”, in which friendship is the key to change the course of history, just the word “friend” has a lot of worth and meaning that can’t just be thrown around lightly. We don’t know it yet but the core mechanics of MLP, namely friendship and the Elements of Harmony, are still intact in this story.

Finding my apple, I levitated it up. “Thank you. And thank you for the warning about that… thing in the ground.” “Mine.” I blinked. “Y-you want my apple?”

I just want this on here.

We get some info on the Bloatsprite - mainly it’s name and that it is the result of something called Taint. Which, uh– and Watcher’s name. He is not a Spritebot himself, but located somewhere else and just hacks into them to interact with remote places of the world.

Finally he gives vital advice any newbie RPG player can use: Find better gear, learn about the world and make some friends! What? Yes, there it is again. Friendship.

For guidance LittlePip returns to Ponyville. Watcher told her a copy of the Wasteland Survival Guide should still be at the Ponyville Library. Twilight’s home! (Remember, we’re sticking strictly to the first season.)

I was convinced The Wasteland Survival Guide was a reference to an older piece of post-apocalyptic fiction, but nope, it seems to come from the famous quest line in Fallout 3. At least, that is what dominates the search results when I try to google it.

Quite some time is also spend on the horrific decoration, namely desecrated ponies. Mutilated and in pieces, stuck to the walls and hung from the ceiling. These displays of gore are reminiscent of how Super Mutants tend to gather in places with such bloody decorations in Fallout 3. That game reduced the Mutants personality from a faction, as they were in the previous titles, to little more than orcs. Which is a shame, as they mostly exist as canon fodder now. And help us get over killing them, it shows us with lootable sacks of gore that they deserve it.

The raiders here get painted in the same light and fulfill a similar role. As clear bad guys and somewhat as cannon fodder. Their psychology never gets explored much beyond “the Wasteland drove them mad”. They often even have ridiculous cutie marks, implying they have been born into being raiders and that being cruel is their special talent. Which, besides painting the saddest existence, is a shame, since they clearly form groups among themselves, can talk just fine and are/were, by all accounts, just ponies like anyone else. Except, they’re not. They have gone insane, mind you. They live in their own shit and sleep under fresh, dripping intestines. Because they’ve gone mad, you see!

My point with all that is, that the excessive gore in this scene takes away from my immersion, as it raises questions with no answers, and raiders holding slaves and killing ponies (without putting their corpses on display), again, would be fine enough to convince me of their evilness.

Watcher was playing LittlePip a little, as he knew it was also where a couple slaves are kept in cages. One of them is implied to have been sexually assaulted, which - while still despicable - at least makes more sense for raiders to do than the gore fest described earlier.

LittlePip glancing over the bottle caps the first freed slave offers her without a second thought is a fun touch.

Then a fight breaks loose!

I hadn’t just killed a pony–these raiders had given up any right to the title! These were not ponies, they were sick monsters that needed to be put down!

Which implies choice. Something I can’t imagine, choosing to be a raider like this, but fine. I’m sure plenty of FoE side stories go more into detail with raiders, FoE itself seems mostly comfortable portraying them as orcs most of the time. Until it doesn’t. But we will cross that bridge when we get there.

I didn’t realize until that moment, but I was mad! The pure evil of this place had shaken me to the core… and my core was furious!

Regardless of my feelings towards the raiders, Littlepip’s reaction to them has always been inspirational to me. I know, it leads to… problems later on. But joining in with unbridled rage of LittlePip is cathartic in ways I haven’t yet seen replicated somewhere else.

(what do you know, they do shoot with their tongues!)

Figuring out how horses shoot firearms is… it’s own entire discourse I am not very interested in. But it’s fun to see what ideas FoE brought to the table. And it’s even more fun to see high quality concept art of tongue-triggered pistols for the Fallout: Equestria fan game Ashes of Equestria.

The fight is fun, with brisk and clear descriptions and punctuation of humor (“Shouldn't you ponies be smarter than this? You live in a library!”).

LittlePip gets shot but finds the Fluttershy branded medical box. Love that decision. Also our introduction to healing potions – they work like Stimpaks from Fallout, but are actually more believable because magic actually exists!

I was even more pathetic with melee weapons than I was with guns.

Love that RPG progression being set up here.

It was a zombiepony!

Don’t be mean to ghoul Ditzy Doo. Don’t ever be mean to ghoul Ditzy Doo.

I can’t really place the note about why someone might need binoculars in a library. I assume it’s a MLP reference but I’m lost on that one.

After another short lived meeting with mines the fight is over and LittlePip decides to loot the bodies for armor. The bloody, tattered armor. To be fair, it is the best armor she has come across so far and we do stuff like this in RPGs all the time.

She finds bottle caps again and chooses to ignore them this time. Great tease. Love it.

She finds and identifies radigator meat. I’m not sure she should know their name at this point, but whatever. The narrative framing allows it.

Lastly, she confronts the sniper that has been on the balcony of the library the entire time. Here we get a better glimpse at AngeryPip, surprising herself with her audible confidence and malice. It feels like a different character, but since this is portrayed as a extreme situation this seems more adrenaline fueled to me, rather than pathological.

Leaving the library, LittlePip has a combat shotgun, an assault rifle, a revolver (which gets lost in the next scene), a knife and now a sniper rifle. Impressive for this early in the story.

An alert flashed on my PipBuck. Checking it, I discovered that it had labeled the gazebo in front of me: The Macintosh War Memorial.

First, harrowing. Love it. Secondly, I love the inclusion of the gazebo, which has to be the one we can see in the show. It’s cool to see how many elements of the show actually made it in here. Pretty unobtrusively too.

The Memorial specifically names Big Macintosh and his sacrifice. It’s obviously unclear how much of the story was prepared in advance, but the way the war started 200 years ago must have been among that. We get to learn later what Big Mac’s role in the war was.

And we end with LittlePip picking up “The Wasteland Survival Guide. By Ditzy Doo…”

Level Up! New Perk: Bookworm. Kinda nice how we went to the library this time, got a book out of it, the quote at the beginning was “Books! I’ve read several on the subject.”… So, this one feels more than earned.

[stabletwooriginals]

Looking forward to following along with you on this reread. I love Fallout: Equestria, and I try to make a point to reread it once a year or so. The writing is just so evocative, and the world building is amazing.

Thank you! Once a year is impressive. I’ve been meaning to reread it for ages and got three different printed versions just because I loved it so much the first time around. This blog is my excuse to finally do it!

The world building is indeed super impressive and I know I’ll have a lot of fun covering it in my commentary.

Thank you for writing in! I’m glad to know people are reading 💛

[stabletwooriginals]

CHAPTER TWO: Equestrian Wasteland

Panic attack! A surprising, yet well described reaction LittlePip has to the vastness of the great outdoors. The little ghost story about the outside just being a black void also comes back one final time.

The prospect of finding Velvet shrinking dramatically phases LittlePip surprisingly little. Instead she just kinda starts looking for her by seeking a high vantage point. This pro-active attitude and little time spent on feeling sorry for herself is endearing, as well. I think this is gonna change at certain points, considering all the stuff that is going to happen to her. But maybe I'm confusing my memories with Project Horizons, in which the main character spends quite some time feeling sorry for herself. (And considering what happens to her, I don't really blame her.)

I love the light emitted by a terminal described as "the soft green glow of a poisoned apple". Horse gonna think of apples.

LittlePip remarks on the sturdiness of the StableTec terminals, looking new while everything around it decayed in some form. I think this actually has a (horrifying) explanation in lore. But we won't get to it for a while.

On it, we get a message from Velvet asking, or rather pleading the reader not  to look for her. LittlePip's enthusiasm is curbed by it, but not her plan. While she is considering her options she gets distracted by a light in the distance. So, uh, the issue that Velvet doesn’t want to return just gets shoved to the back row until it has to be confronted again at a later date. Seeing as finding Velvet is the bigger issue anyway, that's not very hard to accept for now, at least.

Oh and there is a encrypted message on there too. We don't learn anything useful about it and LittlePip downloads it for the heck of it. In my opinion, a weird place to stick this beat, as it draws attention only to get pushed aside immediately again and the payoff it has at the end of the chapter brings a minor revelation at best. This information could have been given later as well.

Now I was forced to admit how foalish that vision was.

 Reading FoE made me realize they say "foalish" in the original show too. At least in season 1, which is all that existed during the time FoE was being written. Isn't that wild? Discord gets a mention very late into the story, otherwise all the world building is propped up on lore that existed *before* the fandom really reached it's peak!

And LittlePip runs straight into a slaver trap. I appreciate the effort to have her not recognize the shotgun and how the details of the situation slowly unravel until the dreaded clarification "They're slavers, you idiot". Makes it relatable that she fell for their trap.

Thinking about the slavers LittlePip mentions her "repertoire of colorful metaphors". Interesting to tell us about it instead of letting us see for ourselves later. Because, well, she undoubtedly does have quite the repertoire of colorful metaphors.

I absolutely love that the description of the music the Spritebots makes captures the song Pinkie Pie uses in the episode "Swarm of the Century" to remove the Parasprites perfectly. Even the first time reading I had that song in my head at this point.

LittlePip being a swift learner is yet another endearing trait on display when she sees one of the slavers fire his shotgun at the Spritebot and notices how the weapon works. Let's hope there is some kind of fight soon where she gets to implement this newfound knowledge!

I wonder why the raiders decided to attack the slavers. The slavers clearly didn't anticipate this and I doubt LittlePip or Montgomery Jack (the other slave) are such evidently high-tier cargo worth stealing. But hey, I got my wish for a fight and establishing LittlePip's talent with a bobby pin and screwdriver to unlock her shackles is already paying off too.

This kinda leads into a larger question of what raiders are and what they want, but I'll save that for later. Once we met a lot more of them.

Well, seeing how the raiders are beating them up, that probably wasn't why they started the fight either. Also, like with the slavers before, they throw in a threat of sexual violence against LittlePip that feels kinda cheap to me. Like, yo, enslaving her and/or threatening to kill her apparently isn't enough to paint them as bad guys? I understand that this is mainly a taste thing, as some people don't mind a story that is painted this dark this casually. I just feel like the story would not lose it's tone without them, while being more upsetting than it needs to be with them. At least here, in Chapter Two.

LittlePip’s first fight is awesome. It's scary, it's fast and has a few surprises. The biggest one probably being that the question of killing others hasn't come up yet. If we are familiar with Fallout (at least 3 and onward) this shouldn't be a hard question to answer, but LittlePip tries to avoid it here.

Montgomery, like a more experienced Fallout player however, finishes the raider off and starts to loot them. Showing LittlePip the ropes of the game. How nice of him. Then he robs her. That's not how I play Fallout, but the games pride themselves with their choice of options, I guess.

That he instructs LittlePip to check the bodies, she therefore has to puke into the river because of it and sees Montgomery's shotgun reflected in the water behind her head is just great dramatic storytelling. I can just see the movie version of this in my minds eye.

However, LittlePip actually manages to get out of this with a little luck in finding the raiders shotgun next to her (which is a combat shotgun, unlike the regular one the slaver had and Montgomery is holding now) and by packing everything she learned about the two weapons into a convincing argument. Making her win the fight before it started, which is just genuinely bad-ass.

Finally LittlePip makes it into Ponyville -- pursued by a sniper. Can't catch a break!

No, she or he could just wait until I came out.

Something that might not be very noticeable yet is how FoE has kind of a inverted societal structure when it comes to gender. MLP had this too, to a degree, as it was targeting young girls. Here, we can see it transform the order pronouns are used in a common phrase. It might read as a typo or error but we will see that female characters tend to enjoy higher privileges and hold the highest positions of power. Of course that would affect their language as much as other phrases are transformed due to them being horses. See: "What the hay?"

 A pile of torn-up cloth rotted in a corner, smelling foul, like ponies had urinated on it repeatedly.

Nooo, Rarity's work and art :(

 Finally, we get to read the encrypted message from earlier. It's Applebloom’s final words to Sweetie Belle, letting us realize that at least some of the Apple Family has been in Stable Two when it closed and it's first Overmare was Sweetie Belle, Rarity's younger sister. That’s cool to know, but doesn’t affect much of our understanding of anything yet.

Level Up! New Perk: Horse Sense. As we saw, LittlePip is a swift learner. I usually feel like whatever LittlePip learned in the chapter influences the perk she receives at the end. But shouldn't a perk only affect her after she got it? The allusions to RPG mechanics kinda fall apart a little bit when you think too hard about them.

Since they are a "Footnote" I'll just imagine that LittlePip leveled up and received the perk sometime *during* the chapter. Ah, now the world is right again.

[stabletwooriginals]

Its been ages since I read it, this refresher is going to be awesome! Keep up the good work!

Thank you!! I can’t promise a schedule, since the chapters only get longer from here, but I’ll try my best to see it through! Comments like these make it a lot easier 💛

[stabletwooriginals]

CHAPTER ONE: Out of the Stable

I will stop pointing this out or these notes will be as long as the book itself but: The very first paragraph already uses a fun trick to efficiently get information across. We start with hearing about how clean the wall is LittlePip is staring at is and by the end we learn that they are clean because she cleans the walls in this room. Since this is just in a single paragraph not that much attention is needed and these little fun decisions register very well. Chapter One especially seems to have a lot of care put into its structure that later chapters will be missing, but generally Kkat (and their editors) are doing a great job of keeping the narration fun like this and the story a joy to read because of it. But yeah I'll shut up about that now so please just assume the next chapters do this too.

Stable life is pretty fleshed out already, despite the tiny amount it ends up mattering. I wonder if LittlePip attends the parties the Overmare throws to help stave off depression? If not, why not?

Velvet's introduction as LittlePip's star struck crush is great and makes for a fun and memorable first interaction. I must also admit that the first time around my lacking English skills or just... life experiences also led me to need some time to understand the amazing advice LittlePip's mother had for her crush on Velvet:

Velvet Remedy's barn door doesn't swing that way.

Velvet's Cutie Mark - a song bird with wings outstretched and beak opened in song - is only the first of a lot of iconography FoE will bring to the table. Most of it is either based on it's My Little Pony roots, like the pink butterflies on yellow pastel first aid kits, or on Fallout, like the Brotherhood of Steel's Symbol finding its way into the logo of the Ministry of Wartime Technology and subsequently the Steel Rangers. They are always descriptive enough to be iconic on their own and I love recognizing them in fan art.

I watched as her cutie mark disappeared around the doorway. Then she was gone.

Both a setup for Velvet's escape and how attentive LittlePip is at this moment cause of her crush. I think that's neat.

Finding out Velvet disappeared AND she went outside the stable AND LittlePip has her PipBuck so she can't be tracked is a triple whammy excellently punctuated by LittlePip bumping onto the Overmare, dropping the PipBuck and making everyone in that scene painfully aware of all three of those facts. Great buildup, holding of the tension and.... next scene!

Where we join LittlePip in sulking. Thinking about the world outside the stable and how the news that she is the reason they can't bring Velvet back will spread like wildfire, alienating her further from her community. Giving her one more reason to feel less attached about her birthplace.

And then she finds Applebloom’s pass code for the stable door. Allowing her to make the decision that seals her fate: She will leave the stable and try to bring Velvet back.

Since the book is written in the first person, I enjoy seeing intrusive thoughts enter the narration. As a filly LittlePip was told a ghost story that behind the steel door of Stable Two there was just a big emptiness. Only nothingness outside. That story periodically comes to LittlePip’s mind as she starts exploring the Wasteland and it's a fun touch.

Randomly, I found myself thinking in my mother's voice "Stable Two's barn door doesn't swing that way." The door to Stable Two wasn't supposed to swing at all.

Another example for a fun intrusive thought. They also allow even chapter one to have callbacks. Which, if memory serves, will become one of the most used devices in this story. At least I remember enjoying them a ton, especially towards the end.

Once LittlePip leaves she discovers the skeletons of the desperate ponies trying to save themselves when the bombs fell. The description of their hooves being cracked and shattered from banging on the Stable door is harrowing. Welp. That didn't take us very long to get to the first dark scene.

And we leave Chapter One at Sweet Apple Acres -- a hint at who was responsible for the Stables! But honestly, when I read it the first time I was just happy to see a location familiar from the show.

And we get a Level Up message -- a fun quirk of Fallout Equestria a lot of the fan-made side stories carry over. This time LittlePip gains "Cherchez La Filly", a Perk from Fallout: New Vegas. I love to take that perk in F:NV. I think it's title is dependent on the gender of your character there. But anyway, I'm pretty sure this is also meant as yet another clue towards LittlePip's sexuality.

[stabletwooriginals]

PROLOGUE: Of PipBucks and Cutie Marks

In which we get introduced to our main character via what she thinks defines her the most: The PipBoy -- but ponified: The PipBuck!

That half the features she describes are mainly useful for combat gets strangely glanced over by someone who only lived her whole life in a (seemingly very peaceful, albeit boring) fallout shelter.

(They call them stables here cause, ya know, ponified! You'll get used to it.)

Now, that's not me being a nit-picky asshole. Knowing how the story ends this actually makes all of the sense, which is a very nice touch for returning readers like me. New readers might not think too critically about this information at the very beginning of the book, so I don't think it comes to the detriment of them.

The prologue and the first chapter in general surprised me with their confidence in succinctly and entertainingly saying what it sets out to say. How PipBucks are these miraculous inventions to us, outsiders of the stable, but are the most everyday item for the residents of the stable is a great pivot in tone. And sets up the punchline: A PipBuck disappointingly graces her flank as her cutie mark. Followed by a little rant of how PipBucks aren't actually that great.

All of that characterizes our yet unnamed Heroine, as well as the environment she grew up in in a funny yet economic way.

In reality it was like getting a cutie mark of a cutie mark.

In reference to ponies only getting a PipBuck once they have their cutie mark:

Kinda tough to find what you're supposed to be good at when what you're supposed to be good at is something you don't get until you've found what you're supposed to be good at.

Love it.

This prologue also stealthily sets up her ability to pick locks, which she picked up (haha) as she was trying to get her cutie mark. Cutie Mark Crusader style.

Picking locks and hacking terminals is gonna happen a lot in the story, just as it does in the Fallout games. So, seeing this casually planted in a kinda-sorta novelization of these games is pretty cool.

In the last paragraph we finally get her name: LittlePip. Over the years, I've learned to absolutely love this name.

LittlePip's unease with fitting within the society of the stable and the structural hurdles she faced progressing into adulthood there set up her motivation to leave later, while also raising the question the rest of the story will try to answer: If everyone in Equestria is special in some way -- and we don't just accept that LittlePip isn't special -- what about LittlePip is special? Well! Stick around and let's find out :D

Pleased to meet you. Here is my story...

[stabletwooriginals]

Intro

[Here is a link to Fallout Equestria on fimfiction, if you need it.]

For the record, I am reading the 2019 Print by The Ministry of Image and The Traveling Pony Museum. (Let’s see if they cleaned up the typos, that were pretty prevalent in the original text and got carried into the fan prints by Absolutely Everything.)

The intro is a play on the intro cinematic of the Fallout games. They similarly focus on the radical shift from the old world to the new one.

Wow, it's only two paragraphs and just with what I remember from reading the story six years ago, really only paints with the broadest of brushstrokes. Especially noteworthy is this remark:

The details are trivial and pointless.

We will spend a lot of time on the details of the end of the world. After all, the key to understanding the present is in the past. What we learn will turn out neither trivial nor pointless, quite the opposite. But I get it, this is not the time to foreshadow, only to set the mood. Which is... bleak. Also not *very* indicative of the tone of FoE at large. While the story goes dark places and has its grimdark scenes, it still works towards a sum-total positive resolution.

This addition to the print by The Ministry of Image caught my eye:

Any resemblance to actual ponies, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cute.

[mlpmemes-and-mlpthings-123]

[stabletwooriginals]

Here we go!!!

[stabletwooriginals]

Introduction

Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria...

What’s this?

I intent to write a commentary of each chapter as I read them. If that sounds like fun, consider following this blog and join me on this ride!

What’s your history with FoE?

The last time I have read Fallout Equestria, the ambitious crossover fanfiction by Kkat, I was serving civic service. Not as punishment, mind you, but as the alternative to army service that was and still is mandatory in the country I live in.

So for about a year, this book has been my companion during stressful, anxious and bored times alike. A sweet comfort to distract from my involuntary servitude.

I was also 22 and not very media savvy. Nor politically interested. Or that familiar with Fallout outside of its third installment. I just enjoyed MLP at the heyday of it’s popularity.

Nonetheless I fell head over heels for the story, it’s intricate world building, the characters and the twists and turns of Littlepip’s Journey. It was the first story I read that had a LGBT protagonist. The first epic story I finished reading (sorry Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter). The first fictional world my mind would be completely trapped inside of for years afterwards.

So, rereading Fallout Equestria with my current experiences, understanding of broader media trends and tropes, deeper familiarity with the Fallout franchise and more defined opinions should be fun!