Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[SilentCarto]

Okay, someone needs to draw BJ and Boo as the main characters of Utena now. Please?

Well it's not perfect, but I tried.
http://wavemasterryx.tumblr.com/post/45548753464[/quote]
Oh my god. I love it! Thank you! I'm giggling like a mental patient right now. And that sword looks exactly like my mental version of the Starmetal Sword...

Ehehehe... guess I have a new avatar.

I comparemerged the old and new copy, looks like pages 39-44 have the biggest changes overall (naturally) which were completely rewritten. Still poking through it.

Yeah, ever since I started using some proper source control at work, I've been addicted to Diff tools...

[Downloaded Skill]

Thats what I was getting at with my zebra magic fetish question earlier. If there were zebras dedicated to using the magic fetishes / charms to either attack with elemental magic or support allies with barriers / flight and the like the Legate would seem less out of place.

Also 100 posts. Earth pony master race, P-21 best pony.

[Derpmind]

I'm going to have to read it again after I sleep, but...

Right so I read through the revised chapter.
Unless I missed something the changed parts were BJ and Lacunae's chat
after the bridge incident, the hellhound fight, and the legate fight. I
honestly think this version is far superior to the original. I just wish
Somber didn't have to go through hell for it.

There were a few lines scattered everywhere that were changed or added in. Small stuff, but the ones I noticed all seemed to flesh stuff out more.

(REVISED 2013-03-16) <-- I don't think this is obvious enough. If it was a noticeable color, like glaring bolded red, I'd let it pass, but as is it's the the kind of thing one wouldn't notice they missed. "...but as is it's the the kind of thing..."



So most importantly, I wish I could forget the original version of the scene. Everyone talking about it has scarred the memory in my brain, and that sucks because the new version is so much better it hurts. Thank you again, Somber.

[Somber]

All of you deserve a good story. I just wish... sigh... anyway... now that 54 is set, I can work on 55.

One of the things I had to do was make it a duel between BJ and the Legate. That let me get away with not having him overpower all her friends simultaneously, which resulted in the jump in power to rediculous levels. I tried three different versions... one elemental, one precognitive / lucky, and one 'kinetic' and all of them were just... horrid...

Mostly, it's thanks of Hinds and Bro for helping me fix it up and make it tighter.

[Derpmind]

All of you deserve a good story. I just wish... sigh... anyway... now that 54 is set, I can work on 55.

I could analyze the fight scene and give a lecture on how technically accomplished it is. I know some of the people here can do poetry, too. You deserve a fantastic compliment, but I'm not eloquent enough for that. I've only got my honest words here to say thank you for continually being better than yourself. The Somber of last year wouldn't believe the things you've written today.

I tried three different versions... one elemental, one precognitive /
lucky, and one 'kinetic' and all of them were just... horrid...

See? You're standing on the shoulders of your gigantic failure corpses! Don't stop climbing yourself higher!

[Quotidian]

See? You're standing on the shoulders of your gigantic failure corpses! Don't stop climbing yourself higher!

That one's going in the quote book.

All of you deserve a good story. I just wish... sigh...

Hear that? No? Lean your head in reaaaal closely. Closer. Closer.

*SMACK*

That's the sound of you beating yourself up. Knock it off.

[WavemasterRyx]

Homonyms are my fetish.

*giggles* I know, I can be quite the silly pony sometimes.

Oh my god. I love it! Thank you! I'm giggling like a
mental patient right now. And that sword looks exactly like my mental
version of the Starmetal Sword...

Ehehehe... guess I have a new avatar.

Heh, yay! Well you're most welcome, Silent, I'm very glad that you enjoy it so much.

All of you deserve a good story. I just wish... sigh... anyway... now that 54 is set, I can work on 55.

*hugs you gently*
I think it's been a wonderful story so far, Somber. Thank you for putting so much work into Project Horizons for us. I really do hope that 55 causes you much less trouble.
*hugs Somber again, Hinds and Bronode too*

[StoneSlinger88]

Somber, all I have to say is that I'm proud of you. You took a negative situation and got something positive.

[Caoimhe]

Yay Somber!

I'd expect the leader to be the most cognizant of the group, actually. The followers are devoted and obsessed, but the one behind it all should be stoic and serious. If anything, that's scarier.

The thing is, that makes about as much sense to me as saying Kim Jong-un must be the most sane person in North Korea.

He probably is, because he's the most self aware. Thing about a cult of personality is it takes intelligence and control to establish itself, the followers just need to be loyal.

[O. Hinds]

(REVISED 2013-03-16) <-- I don't think this is obvious enough. If it was a noticeable color, like glaring bolded red, I'd let it pass, but as is it's the the kind of thing one wouldn't notice they missed. "...but as is it's the the kind of thing..."

Okay, hopefully I've made it more noticeable now.

[Icy Shake]

My thoughts on the revisions: I like the revised chapter; I liked it before, too, but the new version is probably an improvement, from my perspective. I like that most of the points that generated some push-back were kept, including the ambush (was the lampshade hanging on the ease of hiding in the rocks new?), the "turbine" conversation (it was good comedy, a quality segue into the cycle conversation, and now I'm trying to remember what Blackjack's nickname was, if it's been mentioned in the past, or will be, if it hasn't), and the "doesn't/maybe don't love" train of thought (which felt appropriate, to me, fitting well with everything I think I know about Blackjack and how she feels about herself).

After reading the Legate fight, I heard Kevin Smith in my mind saying "That was badass." I think that the changes left the fight and the surrounding conversations more impactful, and I love how Lancer was handled (and now he can still be an independent threat!). I kind of saw the end of the fight coming, but it felt just right all the same, especially since it gave the Legate cover to do what he wanted all along.

short thoughts:

And, of course, Wavemaster delivers once again.

[SilentCarto]

All of you deserve a good story. I just wish... sigh... anyway... now that 54 is set, I can work on 55.

One of the things I had to do was make it a duel between BJ and the Legate. That let me get away with not having him overpower all her friends simultaneously, which resulted in the jump in power to rediculous levels. I tried three different versions... one elemental, one precognitive / lucky, and one 'kinetic' and all of them were just... horrid...

Mostly, it's thanks of Hinds and Bro for helping me fix it up and make it tighter.

I really enjoyed the additional banter between BJ and the Legate. In particular,
"Murderers. Rapists. Thieves. Slavers. The craven, the callow, and the cruel."
I love how poetic that sounds.

I never had a problem with the Legate fight, but I do admit I like this version better. In particular, I like that Vitiosus doesn't just harrumph and let BJ go because she's too weak, but rather because Lancer's interference spoiled the fairness of the battle. (Or did Lacunae pull the trigger for him? Hee hee hee.)

Editing:

[SilentCarto]

She killed people. Lots of people. And if I just served Luna loyally and faithfully, everything would be fine. It wouldn’t be for nothing. “You can’t understand.”
Could the "I" be she? Should it? Maybe this was to emphasize how "she" changed to the point "she" no longer exists, and is just "I". By the way, have I meantioned I like the writing in Project Horizons?

No, when BJ is dreaming Psalm's past, she effectively is Psalm rather than a separate observer. She's always referred to Psalm in the first person in these. Unlike a memory orb, she thinks Psalm's thoughts and feels her emotions.

The zebras were as unarmed as the red earth pony, but they moved with the deadly swiftness and strength of Rampage.
If "Rampage" is also a chem I just forgot about (Stampede/Buck + Flash/Dash, maybe?), ignore this. Otherwise, I always got the impression that in the Psalm dreams, the narrator didn't use information available to Blackjack, but not Psalm. If that is the case, this comparison doesn't work.

You're right, she should mentally compare it to something Psalm knows, not BJ.

[O. Hinds]

@Icy Shake:
Rampage is a chem, yes, but thank you for the other error spotting (not counting the she/I thing, as you've realized that it isn't a mistake).

@SilentCarto:
And thank you for yours.

[Overthepacific]

Well, I read through the Legate part at least, to see whats up.

Here's what I think about it...

Spoiler:

And somber, you really gotta work on that self confidence. You wrote my favorite story ever, and just about everything you write is amazing. There's a reason you have a bunch of six star stuff on eqd.

[Guest]

Ooh, stuff happened while I was sleeping for most of today! (Which, btw, is not what I should have been doing)

@Wavey
This kicks ass! The lighting and pose are great, and they both just look so happy.

@Revision
Crap, gotta re-read this! Or, well... more like: sweet, I get to re-read this but when will I do so? Well, I anticipate liking it - like I've said, I didn't have any real problem with the chapter as-was, but AFAICR I have really liked every revision that's happened thus far.

@Somber
Thanks for putting in all this extra work into this chapter, and thanks for keeping with this story all this time. It continues to kick copious amounts of ass, and it's always a highlight of my week when a new chapter gets released (even though it seems to always happen when I'm travelling =P). Good luck with 55!

[AGurdel]

I ran a diff over the old version I had and the new one. There are a lot smaller changes between the versions but most of them are spelling errors and such and probably unrelated to the revision.

The most notable (thats when TortoiseMerge marks whole text blocks) changes are:

Spoiler:

Now I should read my own post to know what changed.

[WavemasterRyx]

This kicks ass! The lighting and pose are great, and they both just look so happy.

Thank you, OAC, I really tried my best for it, and was a bit surprised myself that the glowy sword turned out much better than I had been expecting.
Of course it was Blackjack and Boo, so I wanted them to be happy, heh.



Well, I didn't have a chance to read the whole chapter again, but I read the revised Legate fight at least. I know I've always stood opposed to such large revisions, but I think this one really was beneficial to the story. I definitely approve of it being a much closer fight, and I think focusing on the traditional zebra martial-arts rather than supernatural powers (at least in this case) was a good move.
Thank you again, Somber, Hinds, and Bronode, for putting so much work into this story, especially in the face of such adversity. I really do hope 55 goes more smoothly.

Part of why I was only able to read the Legate fight is also because I was working on this. It's almost ready, I think.

Spoiler:

http://wavemasterryx.tumblr.com/post/45580476153

[Sindri]

Okay, so that thing where I was going to get this up in two hours? That was before I lost eleven of them to my brain reinterpreting all incoming visual and auditory data as pain. But I finally finished, and I'm uploading this before I go to sleep.

Spoiler:

Final thoughts... bluh. The general reaction seems to be pleased. The new Lancer fight was indeed a hell of a fight scene, one of the best once it was set up. And from a storytelling perspective it's almost certainly superior. But that's just it. It feels like a story. Like the setup happened that way not because logic and the characters involved made it happen, but because the Plot needed it to be that way. To me it feels contrived, illogical, unnatural instead of just flowing smoothly like Somber's work usually does. Maybe I'm just overly bitter from the aftereffects of the past night, maybe it'll look better when I wake up again, but right now... I don't love it.
Sorry. Probably best to ignore me; everyone from Wave to Otp to Hinds is saying it's better, what the fuck do I know?

[Ketchup]

While it's sort of unsettling to me, for some reason, that the chapter was re-written, the changes work well and overall the chapter was perhaps better because of it.

I love that Requiem Tumblr, too.

[Train Dodger]

Characters in a story, eh, Blackjack?

Oh god, I just got this horrible vision of Blackjack and Glory laughing like Tidus and Yuna. Stop it! Stop it, brain!

[O. Hinds]

"Please don't snuggle the cake, though" :)

Did I just not notice earlier when two hounds aiming at Boo ended up disintegrating each other?

Yes, sorry.

Awfully nice of Lancer to aim around the filly standing on his target's back.

Well, every filly has slightly different ballistic properties, you know, so it's hard to predict how a bullet's trajectory will be altered by going through one.

Confirmation of zebra shamans, apparently able to manipulate teleportation magic cast with the full force of Unity somehow. Despite that being the most complex of magics in a system which they have no control over, and its effect extending no further than the caster's hooves.

My belief is that shamans are at least mostly just fetish specialists. And it probably wouldn't be that difficult to create a teleportation-disruption system; we know that Hightower has one, after all, so they definitely exist.

Oh as if spark grenades would so much as irritate Deus. I seem to remember those not working when he was just a cyborg. And anyone making a supertank would have it not only EM shielded all to hell, but put in redundant systems and auto-reboots so that even an overwhelming attack wouldn't last more than a second. They're not going to invest that much into a superheavy regenerating war machine bristling with guns in all directions and then leave such an easy and obvious hole in the defenses. And even that's assuming Scotch isn't available, since we've seen her doing battlefield repairs on spark'd war machines before.

Standard spark grenades wouldn't, no, but we don't know that they've not done something clever with them. No shielding is perfect, after all. As for Scotch being available, I imagine that her working to repair Deus would get her reclassified from "potential child slave" to "lightly armored enemy combatant".

@Sindri in general:
I'm sorry that you don't care for the new version.

[Valikdu]

Oh god, I just got this horrible vision of Blackjack and Glory laughing like Tidus and Yuna. Stop it! Stop it, brain!

Why would you... ever... Celestia, my face is now bruised from the palming, and I HEAR THE OBNOXIOUS LAUGHTER IN MY HEAD. AGAIN.

[Somber]

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!!!
HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!!!

[SilentCarto]

@Icy Shake:
Rampage is a chem, yes, but thank you for the other error spotting (not counting the she/I thing, as you've realized that it isn't a mistake).

I think you're mistaken. Rage is the FOE version of Psycho, not Rampage, and Slasher is Stampede. At any rate, if you did mean to say Rampage and you are referring to a chem, it should be clarified by saying, "...they moved with the deadly swiftness and strength of somepony high on Rampage", or "the deadly swiftness and strength granted by a dose of Rampage", or something similar.

Oh god, I just got this horrible vision of Blackjack and Glory laughing like Tidus and Yuna. Stop it! Stop it, brain!

Oh, thanks a lot!

[Cptadder]

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!!!
HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!!!

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H47ow4_Cmk0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Hah hah ....ooh god kill me

[Guest]

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!!!
HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!!!

BA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh god one of my housemates insists on playing that game when he's drunk sometimes. Oh god.

[Overthepacific]

Spoiler:

I dont quite know about them actually lasting through the sheer numbers of the Brood. Even with the tank, and Rampage. But it is a fight I'd certainly like to see.

Spoiler:

What Hinds said.

Spoiler:

I dont doubt that they have somehow planned around this. Even if they didn't, powerful explosives don't seem out of the question either.

Spoiler:

I can agree with that. He really shouldn't have listened to her that easily. That really threw me off as well.

Final thoughts... bluh. The general reaction seems to be pleased. The new Lancer fight was indeed a hell of a fight scene, one of the best once it was set up. And from a storytelling perspective it's almost certainly superior. But that's just it. It feels like a story. Like the setup happened that way not because logic and the characters involved made it happen, but because the Plot needed it to be that way. To me it feels contrived, illogical, unnatural instead of just flowing smoothly like Somber's work usually does. Maybe I'm just overly bitter from the aftereffects of the past night, maybe it'll look better when I wake up again, but right now... I don't love it.
Sorry. Probably best to ignore me; everyone from Wave to Otp to Hinds is saying it's better, what the fuck do I know?

I don't feel like it really interrupted the flow, or felt forced specifically for the plotline. The flow of the battle overall felt kinda forced with him talking the way he did, and for how long he did, but otherwise it dosnt seem all that bad. I still stand by the opinion that now really didn't feel like the time to introduce him, but that isn't something thats going to be changing any time soon. So I'm certainly not going to ignore your opinion, it has value even if I disagree with it, don't sell yourself short.

On a side note, every time someone abbreviates my username like that, it makes me think of otp, like as in shipping, which I am not sure how to feel about.

[SilentCarto]

Standard spark grenades wouldn't, no, but we don't know that they've not done something clever with them. No shielding is perfect, after all.

And it's a Zebra tank to begin with. They probably know exactly where to put an EMP charge to disable it.

[WovenTales]

One thing I noticed in AGurdel's summation of changes and then confirmed in the document is that there might have been a small number update that shouldn't actually have been changed.

I could barely aim through my tears. I just had to take one more life, and then I’d be done. The Princess’s, then my own.

If his copy of the original was correct, that used to be "two more lives," which makes a lot more sense with the two it lists.

On a slightly related note, does anyone have a copy of the original version downloaded (preferably as HTML)? I forgot to save it before the changes went live, and do actually want to have a reference for the old fight, if I ever need it at some point.

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