Re: Fallout Equestria: Murky Number Seven

[OneMoreDaySK]

Miniguns would likely be bigger than he is. I guess that might be an alternative method of flight. Think Wall-E with the fire extinguisher.

Bwahahahaha. Dat iz funny tink. All he needs now iz sandvich and he'll be heavy weapons guy. /horribleaccent

[Fuzzy]

Absolutely lovely feedback, utterly honest too, which I really get into.

And truth be told, I actually agree with a lot of this, including some of the mor emoronic sentence structure errors, that normally isn't something I make mistakes on but I believe much of it was from some last minute editing I did, hence it may not have had as many re-reads.

Originally, Hive was actually a lot more like Slit, but she had a lot of dialogue changes to keep her from just being "Slit 2.0", as no-pony can really replace her. This may have been where that lack of "difference" came from. She used to have a stammer, t-t-this while speaking until she took the mint-al. In theory it's good, but prereaders found it annoying and it utterly broke her authority on first meeting her.

The wagon fall was really just falling off the earth ramp into the nests, the wagon shattering apart upon landing. That paragraph is a bit over descriptive though (this is a consistent writing element I am trying to address, Murky's artistic flourish on environment description is very deliberate, but this habit seeps into paragraphs it shouldn't be present in sometimes.

The air duct meanwhile, it was too cramped for him to say, turn around and face his head the other way. But he could still twist and roll onto his back to look down over his belly, which was how they reached him.

Murky very much had the idiot ball on the RadAway, but his mental reaction is to crawl off and find somewhere quiet most of the time. The unspoken intent was that he didn't want to look desperate in front of Sooty. This perhaps could have been stated. I sometimes like to test and see how well Murky's personality is judged by now, so it's interestig to guage the reactions.

Really, a big thanks for the feedback. It's stuff like this that makes me think and nod, even if it sometimes makes me bite my lip to have such things pointed out or questioned. Usually it ends with me going and editing up the next chapter to improve it or trying to get better in future ones, which of course is only a good thing!

[RoboRed]

Well, I finally caught up the other day.

I'm horrible at reviews, but bravo, Fuzzy. Anything that can bring out emotional outbursts from me is good reading. (I started pounding on my chair and shouting "FUCK!" when Shackles and his cronies arrived in ch8, and felt a little depressed the rest of the day, worrying about what would happen to Murky, Sunny, and Glimmer.) This is an awesome fic, and yet another one out there to satiate my taste for grimdark.

[Fuzzy]

Thank you, RoboRed! Chapter 8 was a blast to write, so hearing that people really enjoyed it just justifies the time it took!

swicked - Couple other wee things. That chapter 9 was written long before the Protégé
and Murk ship thing turned up, my intent was/is to show that to Protégé,
Murky is a lot more than just a slave. However, it doesn't stop it being absolutely hilarious to read it in that way. xD

The second thing is
chapter numbers, I know I have 12 written on the hub page, but that's
for space thoughts. The story is much longer than that, so don't worry
about the pace toning down for a chapter or two, that will pick up once
again!

[RoboRed]

The second thing is
chapter numbers, I know I have 12 written on the hub page, but that's
for space thoughts. The story is much longer than that, so don't worry
about the pace toning down for a chapter or two, that will pick up once
again!

Yeah, that's kinda what I figured. It seemed odd that it would just end now so soon (regardless of how long these chapters tend to be).

[Fuzzy]

Sure, no problem.

Sooty is something of an Irish term or nickname to some people. This pony is heavily based on Moriarty from Fallout 3, who has an Irish accent. Morass is indeed a swamp, but also has a more generalised meaning to indicate "something obtrusive or something that drags your efforts down."

The chapter quote is a line from the phenomenal show, Babylon 5. Spoken by a character called Zathras, it portrays his pretty lonely life as a servant to an old organic machine. The sort of reseigned "oh well, back to the grind" tone stuck out to me and I decided to pay a little homage to the show that taught me a lot about storytelling.

On a note, "Back to the Grind" was the original name for this chapter until I realised it felt too mundane and decided to concentrate on the LittlePip quest repeat instead.

[Cptadder]

The chapter quote is a line from the phenomenal show, Babylon 5. Spoken by a character called Zathras, it portrays his pretty lonely life as a servant to an old organic machine. The sort of reseigned "oh well, back to the grind" tone stuck out to me and I decided to pay a little homage to the show that taught me a lot about storytelling.

Ahh good old Zathras, not to get to spoiler happy but let me set up an equivalent spoiler thingy

Spoiler:

But Zathras is a major B5 geek character, he's not front and center he's off to the side the entire time, shows up late, leaves early but without him the series becomes darker.

[Fuzzy]

You are absolutely right on the hope angle, as mentioned before. If ever you see a chapter name that is anything but about hope or a "positive" note...you know there's some real stuff about to go down.

And most of the words you likely don't get I'm assuming are Brim's dialect? He uses a lot of traditional Scottish slang. I try to have Murky act as a "Huh?" question asker most of the time, but I do like to leave everyone in the dark sometimes just for the sheer hell of it. :p

[RoboRed]

I was getting a big Scottih vibe from Brim. Guess I was right.

[Cptadder]

By the by, Fuzzy, I'm slightly concerned with Murky killing that one Parasprite that he shot. He never kills ANYTHING. I was under the impression he'd be some sort of Fluttershy, incapable of hurting a fly, entirely subverting kkat's Melody character by being truly kind in every way as opposed to being capable of wanton slaughter if adequately enraged.
But he actually shot and killed one, even if the others more or less died in his attempts to simply get them to get off of him and go away.
Eh... well, at least he's still incapable of intentionally causing harm to another pony...

Obviously it was a second gunpony that made the real kill shot, the thought that Murky could have been the shooter is an obvious Ministry of Moral after the fact to find a scapegoat to pin the shootings on.

[Fuzzy]

The thought did cross my mind during the actual writing. As such, I decided to leave it just open enough that he may have been mistaken as to what he hit or didn't hit. He isn't known for his counting.

When backed right into a corner, he will fight for his life, but I can assure he certainly isn't an aggresor. Likely the parasprites simply swarmed at him and he pulled the trigger in a blind panic.

[Valikdu]

It's MADNESS! XD

No, that's not Madness.
Incidentally, this is.

[RoboRed]

It's MADNESS! XD

No, that's not Madness.
Incidentally, this is.

That right there is several levels of win.

[OneMoreDaySK]

Previously I've said that if Pink Eyes was FoE on easy, the original was on normal and PH was on hard, MN7 was on nightmare. This is false. MN7 is on Hardcore Hell mode with a mod to make it even rougher. Not only can every encounter or injury potentially kill him and he needs constant life saving efforts to survive day to day, let alone hour to hour, but on top of that he can't directly kill or defeat anything or anyone! It's MADNESS! XD

Also, no saves, less S.P.E.C.I.A.L., Pacifist run. The only thing going for him is that he's so messed up that he doesn't really mind going without food / water for a long time, except Radaway, in which case he's in the red at the start.

[Derpmind]

I don't really thing that Murky is a pacifist, just that he's been kept away from kill-or-be-killed situations for most of his life, and in some of those recent situations he's had others to save him. Killing someone is only one step past being willing to shoot people with a gun, and Murky was shooting at the gryphons.

[Moodyman90]

Well, until recently Murky has never really been in a position physically or mentally to even fight back, let alone kill. Now he's willing to fight back, and while he doesn't want to kill now, it's true that he has caused death through his actions. And eventually he will kill somepony himself. Most likely in self defense and spur of the moment, and he'll feel horrible afterwards.

[Mech]

Just felt like posting these here.

[Fuzzy]

I am eternally grateful for those two awesome pieces of art, Mech. I still just go and look at them every now and then to help get into a writing mood.

It's brilliant stuff I never expected to see of my story.

[Cptadder]

Ah MisterMech the person who produced the best Littlepip x Blackjack fanart and convinced me how awesome a buddy cop movie between the two of them would be. And as well manages to convey how utterly small Murky is for a stallion even when his mental mind makes the difference 100x greater.

[Moodyman90]

I finally finished the newest chapter. Made my Friday the 13th , a day I usually have my best luck on, a really good day.

What can I say other then I really liked this chapter. It wasn't completely soul crushing but still had moments I felt sorry for Murk.

Also really ramped up the tension at times. I'll avoid spoilers for now but I'm so use to everything going wrong, not saying they went right, there was moments I had to hold my breath till I got past that point.

Over all it was a good chapter and I can hardly wait the two weeks for the next one.

[Cptadder]

Okay missed the chapter yesterday because schedules? Who pays attentions to schedules! Oh wait... Fuzzy does... huh.

Anyway Chapter 10 reading time.

What I liked
The theme of Murky therapy via drawling, it's a good lenses for self reflection and the odd DJ-Pon3 broadcast

Little development for Weathervane, more details of the explicit state of Murky's injuries which are all well into the chronic stage. So he's addicted (Kinda) to Rad-away to prevent him from dieing, he's still got a crippled leg and some lingering general damage from the stab wounds, beating and explosions. Also Glimmer moves... quick in acquiring new stallion friends.

I like the slight inversion of Protege writing letters to Red Eye on them umm... Value of being a short sighted idiot who embraces the institution of slavery which produces nothing but instability for as long as one pony chains another you face the very real problem of requiring a percentage of your population to guard those in chains least they be broken and your new country drowned in blood.

Hello Shackles you sick fuck, you can not meet the business end of a riot shotgun soon enough, and if they have not riot shotguns the nearest blunt object will do
Sunny!.... fuck....

Ahah, it makes sense if you can take memories you should be able to implant them. It never made sense to me the memory orbs could be created and watched by unicorns from memories taking from anyone without some way to put the memories back into someone else. Shame Murky did not get some murder training.


Hah! “A LIE MOST FOUL! YOU WILL KINDLY ACCEPT BEING HURLED ACROSS THE ROOM IN PUNISHMENT!”...
....wait it gets better! “There is only one squeak I know of so pathetic! SALUTATIONS AND GREAT JOY TO MY WARMONGERING HEART! MISS FLUTTERSHY! IT IS GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN!”
....yay....

....wait... it gets... better? How you ask?

“SILENCE! THE PENALTY FOR ASSAULTING A MINISTRY MARE IS A TEMPORARY BAN FROM OXYGEN FOR ONE YEAR!”

Okay Fuzzy you've redeemed yourself, like I said in my don't like comments I don't like the Twi speech, I don't like Murky's not thinking but he does think... and I kinda (Not anywhere near as bad as the other two things) don't think your comedic timing is perfect on the Fluttershy message key... but this... this forgives all....aaalllll.




What I noticed
Still mid read but more and more my theory on Protege being one of the first slaves Red-Eye got his hands on makes more sense, Protege is not easily able to judge people (Look at his underlings) yet he understands Murky way to well for anything but personal experience to explain lets see if we get confirmation...

Wait Protege is not ordering Murky to go in... oh Protege no wonder you have Shackles as your second you make a horrible slave master.

Okay... what Twilight little message to the future...

And Sundial is his kid, not a big issue since if he had gotten in the Stable it was a Filly stable which means he's most likely dead as hell. The city stables it seems got it the worst for experiments not the random stuff like the Bug-cat-snake things where a Stables fails due to it's own fault.

What I did not like

Spoiler:

[OneMoreDaySK]

I dunno about the Twilight Speech. Since there is no exact time frame for this memory, it could be before Goldenblood decided to screw with her brain? Just throwing it out there. And yah, as sad as it might be for Weathervane, it could have been a lot worse for Sundial had he made it into the stable.

[Fuzzy]

I'm out on holiday at the moment, so I apologise that I can't be as active to chat as I normally am, please forgive me for that.

But I'm very intrigued by some of the feedback about Chapter 10 thus far. The Twilight thing I am willing to pass by on, I felt one way about the character, it's clear that many people in the FO:E fanbase feel another. I'll bear it in mind with a little humility so, hopefully, no great harm done, even if I personally still felt that it was 'right'. I do accept the opinions above, though.

On the rest though, I'm glad to hear people enjoy Mister Peace. He was very VERY fun to write, think mid-40's British Officer sort of mad tone. If he were a pony, he'd have a Kitchener moustache.

I feel I do wish to prod and ask a little further though, particularly on your comments, swicked. Primarily, this may seem like a daft question, but are you still enjoying the story? Much of the feedback felt...frustrated, and I am most importantly concerned as to whether that's just the elements that made you raise an eyebrow or whether there is an active downturn for you in your entertainment of reading.

Also, sanitiser is the British spelling, sorry. xD I'll get the rest of the typos all corrected the moment I'm home, thank you for pointing them out. Much appreciated.

As for Shackles, you are correct that he isn't a directly combat worthy character. He can lord over weak slaves and has a lot of connections that grant him an immense amount of influence amongst the slavers. He creates misery without obvious signs, as he did with Murk. A lot of the real abuse he dishes out is a very 'behind closed doors' thing that is felt, but not seen. That's just the direction of the character, although I do understand that many people are intent on wishing harm on him. Rest assured, his presence in the story is rather adament and will continue to be so.

But yes, primarily I'm still just asking "Despite your mentions, are you still enjoying this story?" I recall your comments from before when you were very happy with things and I'm sure you'll understand that I'm sitting here wondering if the story is affecting those who enjoyed it in negative ways or not. Thanks so much for your amount of feedback.

Also, those skits had me and the prereaders laughing so much. Good stuff. XD

[Derpmind]

I don't think there's anything OOC at all about Twilight having regrets and fears about the future. Not only is there more to Twilight as a character than her work at her ministry, if she did become so one-dimensional as to only devote herself completely to the war effort than she never would have created anything like the Gardens megaspell. It might be a little implausible that Twilight would dwell so openly about her worries, (and that might have jarred some out of the story,) but Fuzzy does do a good job at having Twilight express what she would say if she decided to made this kind of message. Also, don't forget that the Fallout: Equestria mane-6 change through the years of the war, so this could easily be long before Twilight even conceived of Gardens being possible.

Really, people, hate is such a strong word, and in the end it's more Twilight Sparkle! Everyone knows that Twilight is best pony. I think there's much more worthy criticism than simply saying that the orb shouldn't exist at all. Maybe it's too long or too honest, or the setup could use some extra work to make it more plausible, or something else. If this really does give some a knee-jerk reaction of Don't Read, than either you're being too close-minded about characterization or there's some problem in the execution of the writing that could be improved upon.

P.S. For the PH crowd, I've completely fallen behind the thread. I'm on page 21, while everyone else is at page 31, so it might be a while yet before I catch up enough to post anything there again.

[Fuzzy]

Ah, that's good to hear, swicked. Just felt for some clarification.

Shackles as a villain is very much considered the 'primary antagonist' at this point, but what we're seeing right now is his planning, his ambitions and his threats (even if he doesn't personally threaten in speech). He grows as a villain in much the same way Murky is growing in independance.

That's the idea, anyway, to give an idea of story direction.

[Moodyman90]

May Fuzzy correct me if I'm way off, but I think he meant Shackle is planning on a total take over. To enslave all the ponies just to have them under his hoof for the pure sake of being over them rather then for effectively free labor, what little food and medical treatment Redeye entrust his workers to give slaves aside.
In short and with that in mind, I see Shackle as one of the worst of the worst the Wasteland has produced. Redeye is bad but he enslaves ponies for a goal, Shackle wants to enslave them just to make their life a living hell, to prolong the suffering the wasteland already causes and make it worse.

Once again, Fuzzy correct me if I'm wrong. In fact, correct me even if I'm right so as to avoid spoilers.

[Fuzzy]

Consider yourself corrected. ^^

But I will say, Shackles is much more of a symbol than a fully fleshed character. He has his history, his personality, his usual stuff like any character, but his presence is as slavery itself, rather than as a reason for it.

However, I will not say whether you are right or not, absolutely won't say, in fact. ^^

[Cptadder]

Giant massive reply post GO!

@adder
I agree about the Twilight speech. It always seemed to me like she and Applejack were the most devoted to the war, though we rarely got Rainbowdash's take on things.
She wanted to win. She wanted to serve the princesses. She might have expressed a couple doubts, leading to projects like the gardens of equestria, but she would have likely rationalized that they mostly served to heal the land following the war.

Exactly
Nothing in FoE ever hinted that Twilight was nursing such massive self recriminations and why she would tell them to Aurora Star of all ponies. Let me be blunt but who the fuck is Aurora Star to Twilight? I have a hard time picturing Twilight giving such a speech to Fluttershy the friend least likely to judge and comfort her or Celestia the Goddess best able to tell her everything is going to be all right. Could Twilight have had personal issues with the war? Sure she could have... but she is a pony of action, had she had such deep seated issues with the war itself she would act, she is massively obsessive compulsive after all and this is the biggest thing in the world that's just "slightly" off kilter. I do not see the Twilight of this memory orb spending her entire time with the Alicorn Creation Project, I don't see her slavishly devoted to a single purpose because if she was worried enough about Taint to create Garden's of Equestria I don't see her stopping there, she would have been focused on every aspect on a "what if the bombs get used" which is what the Sanitizer implies, there should have been two hundred projects not two.

It's just too long. Way too long. And entirely damning if they had won the war. I didn't even read it all... I kinda got the gist pretty soon in and started skimming. It's just way too much on the same subject and struck me as out of character for her, especially to be recording of her own will with only the promise that they wouldn't look at it before returning it to her.
I don't want to go on and on about this, though, so... yeah. I just didn't like it. It was gimmicky.

Again, as I said before, who the hell is Aurora Star to Twilight to trust this recording which would destroy her ability to affect the war in any meaningful way, would have her bounced out of her own ministry in an instant and possibly end up in the MoM's not so tender hands.

As for Shackles, you are correct that he isn't a directly combat worthy character. He can lord over weak slaves and has a lot of connections that grant him an immense amount of influence amongst the slavers. He creates misery without obvious signs, as he did with Murk. A lot of the real abuse he dishes out is a very 'behind closed doors' thing that is felt, but not seen. That's just the direction of the character, although I do understand that many people are intent on wishing harm on him. Rest assured, his presence in the story is rather adament and will continue to be so.

Yeah I'd prefer if it if he got a boat or traincar dropped on him soonest or Sunny gelded him but I understand the concept of the long running antagonist.

But yes, primarily I'm still just asking "Despite your mentions, are you still enjoying this story?" I recall your comments from before when you were very happy with things and I'm sure you'll understand that I'm sitting here wondering if the story is affecting those who enjoyed it in negative ways or not. Thanks so much for your amount of feedback.

Like I said in my own comments I enjoyed the story right up until Twilight's speech, I had an issue or two with Murky himself (The same issue I've always had with him as you know) but if I scrub Twilight's little speech from this chapter then it's a good chapter with my second favorite robot Mister Peace and Murky's new sidekick as the dynamic comedy duo.



And last @Derpmind
Remember Gardens came about after the Megaspells in some way as a direct reaction to the Megaspells, Twilight saw what Megaspells could do in theory and reacted to it. Before that any war was a conventional war and the Zebra's nor the Ponies seem the type to chop down the crops of the opposite side, burn their towns and salt their fields. The distance between both sides means once side would be destroyed militarily and be forced back within their boarders, their natural resources as reparations for the winners. If the losing side got uppity about being forced to hand over their gems (Ponies lose) or coal(Zebra's lose) a show of force and some occupation could sort things out British style. Until the the Megaspells there was no reason to think like how Twilight's little speech indicates.

[Fuzzy]

I guess the most I can say related to the orb situation and why it would have been 'trusted' to Aurora Star, is simply that at no point does the story say that it was. Aurora said that she would have to leave it, while it can easily be assumed that it was recorded and left, there is no abject confirmation that this is the case.

Aurora Star did not know what Twilight was going to put in it, so how it ended up on her desk (especially given the contents that I am sure and agree on that Twilight would want to keep to herself) is as much the mystery as anything.

That's aaaaall I'll say, and I hope it helps ease some people's views, even if Twilight's exact message is still a little debated on personality. (Which I fully respect) ^^

[Fuzzy]

Haha! That Weathervane one properly made me laugh, it would be just like him to throw any drug-crazed slavers or slaves on a wild goose chase snorting brahmin dung.

Also, great to see Glimmer's humour going a little over the line blue, she properly would be like that. Sometimes, I often feel my more timid humour nature holds her back from being as rude or blatant as she really could be!

You are correct that I did immediately feel concern the moment I got a whiff of something maybe not being correct. Although I have never and will never adjust an entire story just to suit what "the fans" want (for example, the above mentioned difference of opinion on Twi's personality) that doesn't stop me looking, evaluating and reconfiguring elements of a story to help smooth out any potential problems to valued readers who offer well thought out and above all honest feedback a better experience as they go forward.

Chapter 11, I'll bet already, will likely make some people very frustrated in certain places, hopefully as an "in story" way rather than a negative reaction. But I do like to experiment and see where things go and judge for the future...sooooo we'll see how it goes. ^^

[Sponsored content]