Re: Fallout Equestria: Murky Number Seven

[OneMoreDaySK]

@Fuzzy
Yah the focus of the story wasn't affected too much, and the the readers are going to be less inclined to mob you. I might even say the focus was tightened on the character rather that the <a href=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil>act</a>.

[Fuzzy]

Why did you have to link me TV Tropes? D:

I'm glad it had improved that manner, it's exactly the thing I was seeking.

[Moodyman90]

Because Murky Number Seven needs it's own page on that site?

[Fuzzy]

I have seen that there is an empty one with no work on it, never seen anything added to it mind. xD

[Moodyman90]

Funny thing I've noticed about TV Tropes. Unless the page use to exist but red linked, nearly anything you type in the search bar with bring up a black page simply with the text "Need examples please" or something like that.

[OneMoreDaySK]

Need to remedy this. Wanna start drafting tropes here?

[Moodyman90]

Complete Monster-Shackle, Barb, Brimstone during his Raider days.
The Atoner- Brimstone again. Possible could count Glimmer as well.
Broken Pedestal- Murky hearing about Arbu, followed by how she never really escaped.
Driven to Suicide- multiple examples
Break the Cutie- need I say anything?
Laser Guided Amnesia- what Glimmer does.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold- Weathervane as well as a few others
Fate Worse then Death
Reasonable Authority Figure- possible Protege and any slaver who isn't trying to work the slaves to death.
Groin Attack
Cough of Death

Heh, got a bit carried away. I can think of them but I've never been able to actually type them. I look on the edit page and my brain shuts down out of fear of messing up.

[OneMoreDaySK]

Well that's a start. Also need to figure out what point to spoiler out stuff.

Here's a couple off the top of my head:
Hope spot - too many to enumerate
Exact Words - Take him to Unity

[Moodyman90]

Exact Words, Laser Guided Amnesia, and Broken Pedisal are spoilers for sure. If not the tropes themselves then the examples.

I'll be honest, it's been nearly a year since I read the original FoE and the fact Littlepip didn't really escape but was released by Red Eye caught me by surprise before I remembered that yes, that's what happened and had to prevent myself from banging my head against my desk.

Hoisted by his own Petard- has Barb all over it. He almost always tried to avoid a straight up fight with anybody and use stealth and sneaky tactics because he was smaller and weaker then most of the other raiders and ponies. So what does he do with Murky? Tried to fight him head to head because Murky is smaller and weaker then him despite that Murky uses the same tactics. Plus the fact Barb was wearing that multi pocket coat which just begged for a grenade to be put in there.

Brick Joke - "Is not safe. Is gun!" and a few others I'm sure.
Running Gag- Murky being mistaken for a mare, plus others.
Gosh Dang it to Heck- Murky's inability to cuss.
Cluster F Bomb- Weathervane

[OneMoreDaySK]

All of the Other Reindeer - Murky for the most part
Plucky Girl - Glimmerlight, with some spoiler explaining why.
Dysfunction Junction - Starting to think this is standard for Fo:E stories
Air Vent Passageway - Murky
Anyone Can Die - obvious
Apocalyptic Log - Sundial and the memory devices
Darkest Hour - Current chapter
Retcon - not sure if I should mention this

[Moodyman90]

I think Retcon is up to Fuzzy if it's included or not.

Foregone Conclusion: Red Eye's and Stern's death, Chainlink's plan with the other slave masters in the long run. If not directly from the attack on Filly during FoE then soon afterwards for sure.

[Fuzzy]

I'm happy with retcon being used in there. I don't want to try and hide away what happened and pretend it didn't, after all. :)

Really, I've beengrinning like a maniac reading these. TV Tropes is such a cool way to see what people think of little "moments" in the story (even outside of what people consider the "Crowning Moments of Awesome/Tearjerking/Heartwarming") and is almost a hugely beneficial feedback element for me to look at. Helps me see what's being noticed.

That's some awesome stuff, folks. Really good work.

[Moodyman90]

All that are stuff I can pull off the top of my head and I don't feel like I'm giving the story justice.

[OneMoreDaySK]

Of course, we're barely scratching the surface of all the tropes in the story, not to mention that the story is not over yet.

Darker and edgier - Goes deeper into the life of a slave in one of the worst areas in Manehattan
Dark and Troubled Past -
Despair Event Horizon - Latest chapter
Door Stopper - while it hasn't reached the length of the original story yet, the chapters are quite long.
Due to the Dead - That little bit in the Stable
Footnote Fever - Adds, or more correctly, removes perks and sometimes adds bad ones to the character

[Moodyman90]

I really should go back and look myself, but I forget how often Murky get's level based perks rather then story based ones.

[WovenTales]

Door Stopper - while it hasn't reached the length of the original story yet, the chapters are quite long.

Having downloaded the chapters of all three main FoE fics, Somber's range from 84 kilobytes to 276 KB of HTML, with very few being on the low end of 100 KB. Kkat typically rarely went much higher than 168 KB, but does have three chapters in the high 200's and even one (37) at 476 KB. Not sure what happened to that one. Fuzzy's smallest chapter is 196 KB, and discounting that (it's the first chapter; I'd say doing so's valid), that's pushed up to 272 KB. From there it's a nice gradient—no other outliers—up to 404 KB.
In other words, once we drop those outliers, there's only two chapters (both Somber's) that are longer than Fuzzy's shortest, and even giving Kkat hers back only adds four, three of which are on the low end of his range.

For a further, somewhat less helpful, comparison, FoE's at 5.904 MB total, PH takes up 10.232 MB, and MN7's already at 4.962 MB, despite having sixteen chapters to FoE's 45 plus intros/epilogues. (Since I don't like incomplete sets, PH is at 53) You're doing good, Fuzzy. It's all amazing writing. Thank you! (Even while these wings I seem to have just grown seize in pain. Again.)

While I'm here, some editing:

I will say that a snouted sounds like a fun word.

EDIT: I'll try to think of some more things to add to the TVTropes page, but I can't promise I'll be able to come up with that much, especially not until after the weekend.

[Fuzzy]

Thanks for the spots Woven. I'll get them done as I can!

But I bring something new to you now. MisterMech and myself have teamed up for a new Ask Blog entitled "Ask the Slaves."

Focussed around Murky and his friends in Fillydelphia, it's the only way to truly communicate with them from the outside. Mech's been incredible helping get this going and even offering to do it alone is worthy of so many thank yous.

http://asktheslaves.tumblr.com/

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

Yeah I totally had to say stuff to murky. Things I've wanted to say to him that even if they are wrong I wanted to say. You're a cool dude fuzzy

[OneMoreDaySK]

@Swicked
It was an attempt to add more emotion into the story through more brutal methods, yet became a distraction as a whole because of the event. So the actual event was retconned out of the story, but the emotions readers felt remained, possibly even more focused. Make of that what you will. Sorry if it's confusing as hay.

[O. Hinds]

Thanks for the spots Woven. I'll get them done as I can!

But I bring something new to you now. MisterMech and myself have teamed up for a new Ask Blog entitled "Ask the Slaves."

Focussed around Murky and his friends in Fillydelphia, it's the only way to truly communicate with them from the outside. Mech's been incredible helping get this going and even offering to do it alone is worthy of so many thank yous.

http://asktheslaves.tumblr.com/

Followed! No idea for questions yet, though.
Well, except for asking for details about the infrastructure that Red Eye has built/is building, but I thought that that might be a bit rude.

[Fuzzy]

Heh, that looks pretty.
If I think of any questions the versions of your characters in my head can't answer, I'll definitely give that a try.

...without going into detail, could you tell me what the big change was?
I downloaded the chapter but, before I got around to reading it (I still haven't, actually) you posted that major changes had been done to it, but there were major spoilers attached to it.
I have a copy of the new chapter downloaded, as well as the post you made on it, but I just haven't had time so far. Could you possibly say what happened in a non-spoiler-y way?

There was nothing that was actually written into the chapter, really. It was an 'off screen' event that happened to Murk that was brutal and harsh beyond anything yet. In the end, I realised that the fallout (heh) of the event would simply be too big to deal with and still continue the story at an acceptable rate. Also because having it be a threat of it rather than an actually 'have it happen' boosted Chapter 16's eventual end portion significantly.

You'll probably spot what it is in Chapter 16 fairly easily, so I wouldn't worry. After you've read I'll be happy to send an earlier version if you wanted to compare it. But there's really not much changed given it was all off screen anyway. If anything, his imagination under the threat of it is more graphic in the new one.

[RoboRed]

Finally caught up.

Would it be too much trouble to ask for a copy of the original draft of the chapter? I didn't get to reading till long after the edit.

[Moodyman90]

I really should go and reread the chapter to see the edit myself, but now I don't think I should just for the novelty of having only read the original version.

I'll reread it eventually though.

[O. Hinds]

Probably not actually a spoiler, but spoilered just in case people don't want to see it:

Also, I hope that you don't mind me putting this here, Fuzzy. If you like, I'll happily delete it. I don't intend to make a habit of it, anyway.

[hawkeye92]

I'm super late to the party and only finished reading the latest chapter yesterday, but it's still some incredible stuff.
It was just brutal to see Murky get brought down only to find hope again and have it snatched away again. It's a shame about Glimmer's parents being at Bucklyn at the time 'Pip rolled in, which I reckon no matter what comes over the radio will probably not properly redeem her in the group's eyes (actually come to think about it Pip is pretty nasty sometimes. Not someone I'd particularly like to cross paths with).
Combined with the fact that Murky now knows she didn't escape that's his core gone, taken and used by the master in either his cruelest or second cruelest gesture so far. I guess all he has to cling to now is his friends, at least until Chainlink removes them too.
This chapter hasn't got the nerve shredding tension of some others, but it's on par with them in terms of the amount of feels generated.
Readig the little editiorial, I haven't read the original version but from a layman's perspective I think you made the right choice, making Murky's suicide attempt much more honed in on his loss of faith rather than rape, which would have seemed more shallow.
Sorry I couldn't write anything longer but I have a fairly heavy workload at the moment so I can't spare the time to write out long reviews, although this certainly deserves it.
Excellent chapter, thanks for taking the time to write it. The wait was well worth it.

[CamoBadger]

Okay, okay. I'm going to start catching up on this story again after stopping because school consumed my life.

I'm going to do the same thing I did with Broken Bonds and read 1 chapter a day until I catch up (unless I'm out of town that day or am otherwise busy). So I'll be caught up within a week or two.

Also, love your story Fuzzy, so awesome even with how dark it is. Keep up the awesome work forever.

[Fuzzy]

Probably not actually a spoiler, but spoilered just in case people don't want to see it:

Also, I hope that you don't mind me putting this here, Fuzzy. If you like, I'll happily delete it. I don't intend to make a habit of it, anyway.

I've yet to read the latest PH, maybe tonight. Been a little busy writing Chapter 18. I'm sure I'll spot whatever it is throughout it!

I'm on page 35 and honestly... the grammar on this one's not too good. At least, it seems that way to me.
Here's what I have so far:

Spoiler:

I'll certainly have a look at them. Honestly considering sending drafts to you before release at the rate you spy things. :p

I'm super late to the party and only finished reading the latest chapter yesterday, but it's still some incredible stuff.
It was just brutal to see Murky get brought down only to find hope again and have it snatched away again. It's a shame about Glimmer's parents being at Bucklyn at the time 'Pip rolled in, which I reckon no matter what comes over the radio will probably not properly redeem her in the group's eyes (actually come to think about it Pip is pretty nasty sometimes. Not someone I'd particularly like to cross paths with).
Combined with the fact that Murky now knows she didn't escape that's his core gone, taken and used by the master in either his cruelest or second cruelest gesture so far. I guess all he has to cling to now is his friends, at least until Chainlink removes them too.
This chapter hasn't got the nerve shredding tension of some others, but it's on par with them in terms of the amount of feels generated.
Readig the little editiorial, I haven't read the original version but from a layman's perspective I think you made the right choice, making Murky's suicide attempt much more honed in on his loss of faith rather than rape, which would have seemed more shallow.
Sorry I couldn't write anything longer but I have a fairly heavy workload at the moment so I can't spare the time to write out long reviews, although this certainly deserves it.
Excellent chapter, thanks for taking the time to write it. The wait was well worth it.

Thanks, I am too glad with how it went instead. It's more focussed on the element I wanted rather than the unexpected rush over what I didn't. Chapters 14-16 are possible the most dragging chapters thus far, but 17 is definitely going to start ramping it toward different directions again. 16 was the last of the "down in the dirt" chapters that made up this "Hope Lost" arc.

Okay, okay. I'm going to start catching up on this story again after stopping because school consumed my life.

I'm going to do the same thing I did with Broken Bonds and read 1 chapter a day until I catch up (unless I'm out of town that day or am otherwise busy). So I'll be caught up within a week or two.

Also, love your story Fuzzy, so awesome even with how dark it is. Keep up the awesome work forever.

Can't wait to hear what you think! ^^

[RoboRed]

Spoiler:

So, it wasn't a removal of dialogue, but a reordering of it?

[Fuzzy]

And that's Chapter 17 up over on the Hub! No FimFic release as FimFic is being its usual annoyingly terrible self...but we'll see what we can do soon!

[CamoBadger]

So, I was just trying to see how many pages the new chapter is (don't ask why, I have some kind of OCD about that), and I caught the end of the chapter.

Spoiler:

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