Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[OneMoreDaySK]

@cobalt
Interesting detail on the creative writing. A shame I never had time in my schedule for those classes; they always interfered with my core classes.

As for the tropes, having a professor who also lurks the trope page helps. He demanded us to use the tropes as tools to explain further. Note that this is a video game class, but whenever we try to explain in a trope, he asks why we believe so, what evidence points to such a conclusion, why the creator/storywriter made such a decision, and how does that affect the story. Man, that class was fun.

[Moodyman90]

Granted they wasn't high level courses, but I've brought tropes into literally classes before. Usually to the bafflement of professors and the class, which leads to an explanation of the trope, how it relates to the current story and goes deeper from there.

Yeah using tropes as a shorthand to avoid discussions and critical thinking is a problem and should be avoided, but used correctly they provide a jumping off point for discussion and critical thinking and helps others join in. At least in my experience.

[Scienza]

@cobalt
Care to give an example? I'm partially guilty of bringing tropes into a classroom setting, though it was for a video game analysis course, rather than traditional Eng Lit / Creative Writing. Also, what's a creative writing course like? Never managed to get into one.
 
@swicked
Nice. My college doesn't have an EE degree, unfortunately, so the closest I got to that was taking physics courses for fun. Stoped being fun when expected to memorized a couple dozen formulae and when to use each. How are those classes like? I might consider getting an EE degree eventually, after I'm done with Comp Sci.
 
Also... why is this even in this thread? I thought the chat thread existed for a reason. *shrugs*

The chat thread and this thread have gone their separate ways, a bit. I don't really mind, personally, as the chat thread was specifically done to shunt off ultraspammy discussions of the chain-pun sort. Anyway, the tropery usually doesn't happen in high level crit lit courses, at least, but in lower level ones you sometimes get someone going on and on about how Dickens' character X is a Mary Sue, and it's like - well, yeah, probably. So what? Go deeper. Notice the pattern that the middle-class passive woman is portrayed as a saint but the lower-class active woman is actively demonized and her sexuality linked with violence, stuff like that. The problem seems to be that people use them as shortcuts to nowhere - in place of explanation and critical thinking, they invoke a "trope," and then they don't do anything with it. It's one of those situations where I get embarrassed for being someone that uses the internet.

Literary tropes do exist, and in fact play an integral part in what our society reads and writes, but discussion shouldn't stop at just the trope itself (While you could very persuasively argue that pre-Birthday Blackjack is Oedipus, there's a lot more going on than just the archetype). TV Tropes is useful as a starting point for deeper analytical thinking and understanding, but said analysis and understanding has to occur. Personally, I use it for a laugh while procrastinating ("My, look at all the blatant violations of standard weapon safety") and for finding new works ("Cynical Steampunk Novels with Shoehorned Lesbians? Check").

Also, if anybody says the term "Mary Sue" in a classroom context anywhere, I fully support your right to punch them until they have a single "crippling" character flaw.

[Icy Shake]

Good. TVTropes is a shitty website that tricks people into thinking they know how to talk about books. The most agonizing thing is when someone brings up "a trope" in a lit crit or creative writing class. Urkgh.

As an engineer, I took my last creative writing class long, long before TV Tropes was even imagined.
But I can imagine the annoyance.

-unrelated question- What kind of engineer are you?

Degrees in computer engineering and electrical engineering. Starting mid-highschool everything was pretty much just math, math, math.

Also unrelated, but that's actually what I plan to do too! Any recommendations?

...for what?

Computer engineering. I suppose advice would have been a better word.

Could you possibly be more specific? You're talking about five years of my life. It involved a lot of things and I can't think of any general advice beyond generic college student stuff like... always looking over an assignment, especially long-term ones, immediately to try and figure out how long it will take so you don't procrastinate 'till you've days left and find you need weeks. To start studying for tests multiple days beforehand so that the review the day before is more of a confidence-builder. Etc.

@swicked
Nice. My college doesn't have an EE degree, unfortunately, so the closest I got to that was taking physics courses for fun. Stoped being fun when expected to memorized a couple dozen formulae and when to use each. How are those classes like? I might consider getting an EE degree eventually, after I'm done with Comp Sci.

They are difficult, mostly. Some are cool difficult, like robotics, others are boring difficult, like formal methods. Not sure what else to say...
 

ECE/financial engineering degrees, now working as a software developer. Make sure you know differential equations. If you end up in a number theory/discrete math course, have fun with it—if the instructor can't make it fun, they're doing something wrong! Python is your friend and, at least in my opinion, M/MUMPS could make a good learning language for the basics (it's very clean), if you don't have them down. Even if it's not required for whatever degree you end up with, computer architecture is worth knowing (or more generally, one level of abstraction below wherever you want to end up).

[Silver136]

Good. TVTropes is a shitty website that tricks people into thinking they know how to talk about books. The most agonizing thing is when someone brings up "a trope" in a lit crit or creative writing class. Urkgh.

As an engineer, I took my last creative writing class long, long before TV Tropes was even imagined.
But I can imagine the annoyance.

-unrelated question- What kind of engineer are you?

Degrees in computer engineering and electrical engineering. Starting mid-highschool everything was pretty much just math, math, math.

Also unrelated, but that's actually what I plan to do too! Any recommendations?

...for what?

Computer engineering. I suppose advice would have been a better word.

Could you possibly be more specific? You're talking about five years of my life. It involved a lot of things and I can't think of any general advice beyond generic college student stuff like... always looking over an assignment, especially long-term ones, immediately to try and figure out how long it will take so you don't procrastinate 'till you've days left and find you need weeks. To start studying for tests multiple days beforehand so that the review the day before is more of a confidence-builder. Etc.

Nevermind, it's not all that relevant. Like i said, I plan to go into computer engineering so I was just curious if you had any advice.

[Evilgidgit]

A question I've been meaning to ask to Somber directly or any of his wonderful editors, did Somber plan out of the whole story of Project Horizons from beginning to end before writing, or did he plan a few arcs then write them, then continued in that format?

[Guest]

Also... why is this even in this thread? I thought the chat thread existed for a reason. *shrugs*

The chat thread exists to shunt spam, mostly. This thread can still be used for discussions, in my opinion.

That thread was created because there were in my memory numerous complaints from people wanting to see if there was any news on PH and finding pages of stuff that was irrelevant to the story. In my opinion any discussion not directly related to PH doesn't belong here.

[Somber]

A question I've been meaning to ask to Somber directly or any of his wonderful editors, did Somber plan out of the whole story of Project Horizons from beginning to end before writing, or did he plan a few arcs then write them, then continued in that format?

I had the ending in mind first... before FoE was finished or I knew anything about FO itself really.  On reflection, if I had, I might not have done PH as a FoE story.  From there, I thought of an antagonist that could pull it off.  Then I came up with a heroine.  Blackjack was... wait for it... a lesbian maintenance mare of a stable.  Yeah... can I be derivative or what?  Fortunately, I realized before I wrote chapter 1 that she should be different.  So then she became Scotch Tape, the daughter of a maintenance mare, and THEN I thought of a pony who was assertive, bone headed, and desperate to make up for her many personality flaws.  That was Blackjack.  Then I wanted a foil for her... and that became P-21.  P-21 and Blackjack evolve inverse to each other.  He learns peace, she learns maturity.  Rampage is Blackjacks self destructive aspect reflect back at her.  Lacunae is a surrogate mother figure, both selfish AND selfless, trying to help Blackjack, but also using her for her own relief.

[RoboRed]

Also, if anybody says the term "Mary Sue" in a classroom context anywhere, I fully support your right to punch them until they have a single "crippling" character flaw.

Amen.

[SilentCarto]

Mostly due to a guy named Seraphem, who constantly bashes Horizons.  Not a big deal in and of itself.  I mean, 4chan has people who specialize in bashing it.  The difference is every one of them has at least read some of it.  Seraphem hasn't, and more importantly, has said that he will never read it... which is fine... except that he's always bashing it.  This weekend's been REALLY bad for me, so I got fed up and called him on his passive aggressive games... and I used some foul language... and got banned.  End of story.  For good.

Let me tell you about parrots.

When a parrot does something you don't like and you punish him, you're rewarding the behavior. Let's say he yells, so you hop up and move him to the closet. That means he's more likely to yell next time he wants to see you jump up and make a big fuss. (God help you if you yell back, that's parrot-ese for "I approve of this behavior and I'm joining in.") This is why a lot of birds learn to curse -- when they drop that particular word, everyone reacts and gives them attention in a very satisfying way.

Trolls are exactly the same way.

As much as I would like to take your side, Somber, you just can't let trolls provoke you like that. They don't care what your response is. There's nothing you can say to make them feel bad or change their mind. That's not the game they're playing; the fact that they got you to respond is reward enough. The only winning move is not to play.

And you got permanently banned for one bit of foul language, while they had no problem allowing Seraphem's constant attacks?  Am I being paranoid to think that this may have been a plot against you?

Yes. If I may quote from the TVTropes Forum FAQ:

Personal attacks are prohibited. If you're debating with somebody, attack their arguments, not the person.
...
There is a yellow "holler button" above every post, which can be used to report that post to the moderators. We encourage you to use it whenever you see a disruptive or rule-breaking post.
...
Please do not attempt to engage a troll in an insult-slinging match, or make posts about how so-and-so is a troll, idiot, etc. These are still personal attacks, still off-topic and still disruptive. Instead, simply hit the holler button and report the post in question.

There is a proper response to this behavior, and it's never profanity. I'm truly sorry you have to deal with this crap, Somber, and I feel bad that I have to side with the staff on this. I wish I could tell you they were being unfair, but... well...

Maybe perma-ban is an overly harsh response, maybe not. I didn't see the post in question, so I can't judge. I'm inclined not to second-guess the "boots on the ground" in a case like this, though. You might be able to appeal the decision?

Edit: Geez, that still came off sounding pretty negative. Please don't take this event as some kind of personal failure. You made a mistake, you got punished for it. It happens. Unlike video games, real people gain more XP when they mess up than when they succeed.
Next time, you'll do better, right?  

[Evilgidgit]

A question I've been meaning to ask to Somber directly or any of his wonderful editors, did Somber plan out of the whole story of Project Horizons from beginning to end before writing, or did he plan a few arcs then write them, then continued in that format?

I had the ending in mind first... before FoE was finished or I knew anything about FO itself really.  On reflection, if I had, I might not have done PH as a FoE story.  From there, I thought of an antagonist that could pull it off.  Then I came up with a heroine.  Blackjack was... wait for it... a lesbian maintenance mare of a stable.  Yeah... can I be derivative or what?  Fortunately, I realized before I wrote chapter 1 that she should be different.  So then she became Scotch Tape, the daughter of a maintenance mare, and THEN I thought of a pony who was assertive, bone headed, and desperate to make up for her many personality flaws.  That was Blackjack.  Then I wanted a foil for her... and that became P-21.  P-21 and Blackjack evolve inverse to each other.  He learns peace, she learns maturity.  Rampage is Blackjacks self destructive aspect reflect back at her.  Lacunae is a surrogate mother figure, both selfish AND selfless, trying to help Blackjack, but also using her for her own relief.

Awesome. So Scotch Tape was the original protagonist? And how does Glory and Boo fit into the puzzle?

[Luminous Lead]

Awesome. So Scotch Tape was the original protagonist? And how does Glory and Boo fit into the puzzle?

If memory of past posts serves, I think Glory was scheduled to die way back at the "PLAY" hospital. Instead, we got one of the most visceral scenes so far, where Blackjack crawled disemboweled across the operating room floor in order to shut everything down.

[Scienza]

Awesome. So Scotch Tape was the original protagonist? And how does Glory and Boo fit into the puzzle?

If memory of past posts serves, I think Glory was scheduled to die way back at the "PLAY" hospital.  Instead, we got one of the most visceral scenes so far, where Blackjack crawled disemboweled across the operating room floor in order to shut everything down.

So does that mean that GloryJack, and all it's romantic adorableness, was unplanned?

[Icy Shake]

Awesome. So Scotch Tape was the original protagonist? And how does Glory and Boo fit into the puzzle?

If memory of past posts serves, I think Glory was scheduled to die way back at the "PLAY" hospital.  Instead, we got one of the most visceral scenes so far, where Blackjack crawled disemboweled across the operating room floor in order to shut everything down.

So does that mean that GloryJack, and all it's romantic adorableness, was unplanned?

Yes. As I recall, Somber at some point said the original plan was BottleJack.

[O. Hinds]

I'm afraid that I don't recall thinking to ask about romance prior to seeing the first hints of Gloryjack.

[Meleagridis]

Oh, and anonymous "Flak Jacket," their immediate superior on the ground, I guess? As far as I know, he never shows up again.

Think that's Apple 'Never Use the Real Name' Snack

[Icy Shake]

Oh, and anonymous "Flak Jacket," their immediate superior on the ground, I guess? As far as I know, he never shows up again.

Think that's Apple 'Never Use the Real Name' Snack

Of course it is. The gang was all there. I just forgot that he was a Marauder . . . for the last several months.

Edit: Well, the name gets used plenty of times, just not so early, when it could play spoilers, I guess. Incidentally, I notice on a quick pass that he never seems to be very completely described, in keeping with what FoE appeared to do: I only see him called "green" (arguably a step down in detail from "apple green," in fact, but then apples can be various shades of green anyway), and I think "burly" or something along those lines at some point. Didn't feel like taking license, even after Kkat was done?

[SilentCarto]

Yes. As I recall, Somber at some point said the original plan was BottleJack.

Bottle...cap? At MegaMart? Huh. I had not heard that one.

(P.S. After Caprice... ew?)

[Somber]

Boo was an accidental character... really.  I never intended her to be a part when I started out.  Nor Psychoshy either.  Folks liked them though so I changed my plan and kept both of them alive rather than killing them off.

[WavemasterRyx]

I'm sorry, sir...

[Icy Shake]

Yes. As I recall, Somber at some point said the original plan was BottleJack.

Bottle...cap? At MegaMart? Huh. I had not heard that one.

(P.S. After Caprice... ew?)

It hasn't been brought up here too much since 2012, when Somber, Sindri, and Swicked talked about it a few times (wow, there are a lot of "S" names here, aren't there?).

Boo was an accidental character... really.  I never intended her to be a part when I started out.  Nor Psychoshy either.  Folks liked them though so I changed my plan and kept both of them alive rather than killing them off.

So, that raises the obvious followup question: was Stygius originally meant to stick around, but then written out because of the backlash? Have any characters been?

[SilentCarto]

Boo was an accidental character... really.  I never intended her to be a part when I started out.  Nor Psychoshy either.  Folks liked them though so I changed my plan and kept both of them alive rather than killing them off.

So when was Boo originally going to die? When the Ultra Sentinel busted in?

While I can understand having to kill Boo off since she can't really survive well on her own regardless of her ability to sense danger coming and hide, I'm not sure why it would have been necessary to do so for Psychoshy.

Well, I'd assume that version simply would have had Sanguine's admission provoke a violent response, and she'd end up with a face full of Pink. She functioned as Sanguine's Dragon, so I could easily see her going down with that ship. As she said, after Hippocratic, she was just sort of drifting along with BJ's group because she didn't know what else to do with herself.

[Somber]

Stygius was taken out of play because I realized that when they rejoined the other characters, I'd have eight.  I already had a hard enough time giving Lacunae notice, and there were times I forgot about Boo entirely.  So I needed to peel them off.  They'll be back at the end of the story, though.

[OneMoreDaySK]

So Boo is technically a happy little accident?

Why do I get this dreaded feeling we're going to get some kind of shounen-anime-esque climax where everyone lends Blackjack support to finish off the final big bad?

On cast size, well at least you keep the POV to one character. I've read tried to read a story with multiple characters, but POV keeps jumping all over the place and so I had to just put it down. When a story requires you to make two charts just to keep everything straight, I think you're telling the story wrong, or at least not telling an engaging story, but rather a challenging puzzle of one.

[Derpmind]

Boo was an accidental character... really.  I never intended her to be a part when I started out.  Nor Psychoshy either.  Folks liked them though so I changed my plan and kept both of them alive rather than killing them off.

I don't believe you. Most of your plans don't survive first contact with the characters.

Why do I get this dreaded feeling we're going to get some kind of shounen-anime-esque climax where everyone lends Blackjack support to finish off the final big bad?

Link in case the embed doesn't work.

That's why.

[OneMoreDaySK]

Oh. Well, as long as Blackjack doesn't go trying for a Spirit Bomb, I'll be fine. Though I'm more inclined to see her get hooked up with a giant mech to fight an equally giant abomination.

[Scienza]

Stygius was taken out of play because I realized that when they rejoined the other characters, I'd have eight.  I already had a hard enough time giving Lacunae notice, and there were times I forgot about Boo entirely.  So I needed to peel them off.  They'll be back at the end of the story, though.

The other thing is that unlike most of the other characters, Stygius effectively had no problems. It's odd that the most stable character would be the weakest from a narrative standpoint, but his personal conflict and character develoment was pretty much over before he even met Blackjack. He added stability when she was at her most troubled, but it was right that he stood aside to allow the rest of the group to continue their journey.

[Derpmind]

Oh. Well, as long as Blackjack doesn't go trying for a Spirit Bomb, I'll be fine. Though I'm more inclined to see her get hooked up with a giant mech to fight an equally giant abomination.

So instead of turning the moon into a spirit bomb, which it already kinda is, we should turn it into a giant robot?

[Moodyman90]

Personally I never understood the love for Psychoshy. I can see why people love her, but she was just kinda there for me, never clicking like she did for others.

[O. Hinds]

Hmph. Why does everyone think Glory is boring? :(

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