FA+
Shop
Fallout Equestria and having an unpopular opinion
11 years ago
Alright, first to vent:
FALLOUT EQUESTRIA IS A STUPID, ULTRAVIOLENT, PERVERTED, DISJOINTED, HORRIBLE PIECE OF CRAP!
Phew. Now that I've got that out, time for a calmer explanation.
Given that my last entry was specifically about how I have a limit on violence and do not like things that transgress that limit, the logical first question is why I decided to start listening to Fallout Equestria in the first place. Well, there are a few reasons. First, I recently watched [SFM Ponies] Fallout: Equestria - The Radio Play (Season 1, Episode 1 Part 1) at http://youtu.be/N4zolq9fF8c and Leaving the Stable - Fallout Equestria [SFM] at http://youtu.be/uMra1iv7QEQ and enjoyed them, so I got interested in that particular fan fiction despite never having played a Fallout game in my life. Second, not one but two friends in Second Life are really into Fallout Equestria. One of them I really only met once but he showed me the Second Life a Fallout Equestria sim, which was really interesting and well done. The second was a person who I'm growing quite fond of, and while he doesn't have the nearly single-minded focus on Fallout Equestria that the first friend did, what he likes and what he thinks of me means a lot to me, and sharing something he found entertaining could have fostered a special kind of closeness, especially considering that my last good friend and I never really got close and drifted even further away after college because though our interests were close, they never matched up exactly.
So, I decided to give it a shot. I went to http://mlpaudiobooks.net/story/92/F.....stria-complete and found that, conveniently, two users had created single-file downloads of the massive work, so I wouldn't have to download each chapter individually like I did for Anthropology. I downloaded first a straight combination into a zip file by someone named jewbrony, but then I noticed right underneath it something by a person named Sonic_Radboom that was supposed to be a re-mastered version that didn't have lots of puffs of air the recording was apparently known for. So, I downloaded the 're-mastered' version and started reading it on my way to and from work.
As expected, the first chapter was interesting, if a bit depressing, and since I had already seen the videos, they were basically re-treads but with only one person speaking. Then already at chapter 2 I ran into the first roadblock. Apparently, that Sonic_Radboom fellow had neglected to order the re-mastered clips correctly, making chapter 10 the same name as chapter 1, so Out of the Stable immediately transitioned into chapter 10, wasting the last fifth of my trip to work until I could check the chapter lists and find the trouble. So, I skipped the misplaced chapter and listened to Chapter 2: Equestrian Wasteland, and found that Fallout Equestria transitions right from non-violent setup to action-movie violence. I didn't enjoy chapter 2, but decided to continue to Chapter 3 because I didn't want to stop, and found that went from brutal action movie violence to sickening horror, with text descriptions of the worst violence, brutalization, and degradation that was ever put to words. I again didn't enjoy it, and when chapter 4 started, I thought that maybe Sonic_Radboom had messed up again, and put chapters out of order, since Perspective was so disjointed with the previous chapter, and stopped listening entirely. I checked, and no, it's not Sonic_Radboom's fault. The author really did make chapter 4 that disjointed from Chapter 3, and it really did involve basically jumping from sleeping into a cellar into a full-on firefight with robots.
So, that was the last straw. I will not be finishing Fallout Equestria, not now, and perhaps not ever.
But I remember my great vacillation on the topic earlier today, before the matter was really settled by me, and when I came to the decision to continue chapter 3 and finish it.
Now, as I've mentioned in the previous entry, it's not generally violence itself that I find unpleasant, and two of my favorite movies are Watchmen and Rambo. But I limit my enjoyment to violence that is restrained and justified. Chapter 2 of Fallout Equestria skirted those definitions but didn't cross them. There was violence, and it was pretty descriptive, but it was at least justified by the situation. What justification did the author have in chapter 3 for including descriptions of dead hanging cats, flayed pony bodies, slaves lying in their own filth, and fillies raped and brutalized? Perhaps the better question is what justification do I as a person have for listening to such things? When I'm listening to something in a car trip, what I'm looking for is something that is entertaining and/or educational. I found great joy in such very entertaining stories as Skylark of Space, Armageddon 2419, The World Set Free, and Anthropology, and such entertaining radio shows as Firesign Theater and Knotcast. Now, I reminded myself that I'm not above listening to something in the car that isn't entertaining, as I have listened to Beyond Good and Evil and Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the car, as well as The Descent of Man, all of which one way or another had parts that were not entertaining at all (and in the case of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, pretty much the whole story fit that definition for me aside from the very first chapter). Yet in those cases, I listened to them anyway, because if they weren't entertaining, at least they were educational, and would allow me the pride at the end of reading them to know that I have read them. But what reason would I have for listening to a story that is neither? Fallout Equestria wasn't entertaining for me, and it certainly wasn't educational.
So, at the time, I reminded myself of a few things. First, sharing in entertainment, even crappy entertainment, has its own sort of reward. The two examples that come to mind are Star Wars: Episode 1 and Equestria Girls. First, for Star Wars: Episode 1, I agree with people that it's not a good Star Wars movie, but having seen it, it means I can talk about it with other Star Wars fans, and understand parodies based on it. Second, for Equestria Girls, I was in a group discussion with a bunch of MLP fans in Second Life, and the conversation turned to Equestria Girls, and I felt lost and left out. Equestria Girls looks like a very crappy movie which I highly doubt I would enjoy watching, but much like Star Wars: Episode 1, if I had watched it, I could have stayed in that discussion, and even commiserated with others that didn't like it. The other considerations I had were platitudes, namely two: "Even the darkest of days deserve to be saved" and "Bad men do what good men dream." The first quote is a quote from the game Darkest of Days, and its precise meaning is quite frankly confusing. In the context of the game, it meant that for some reason the time travelers didn't want any alteration of history, even if it could lead to massive reductions in loss of life in some of the world's bloodiest wars. The reasons for that statement were confusing even in the game, but what I was thinking related to this topic was that the descriptions of violence and cruelty in Fallout Equestria are analogous to things that have happened and are still happening in the world. But then, so what? If nothing else, it’s obvious Fallout Equestria isn't meant to be a political statement, because if it was, it wouldn't have been set in a magical land of ponies but in Somalia or Iraq. There, perhaps, there might be something analogous to the horrors described in the book, and some sort of implicit or explicit call to action. No, those descriptions were in there because the author wanted to put them in there, and was amused and entertained by doing so, and hoped others would be as well, which judging by the large positive reaction to the story, was right on the mark. So, those darkest of days don't deserve to be saved when they happened in fantasy, not reality, and the causes and effects of them are isolated to the story. Second, the platitude that "bad men do what good men dream" has been playing over and over when I have visited Second Life recently. I have visited places in Second Life with bloody displays and pictures of the weirdest porn, and apparatus for fulfilling the most perverted fantasies. But then, it's Second Life, and these are the dreams and fantasies of people. People have the right to fantasize, even if those fantasies are things that are immoral and illegal in real life. With that in mind, liking Fallout Equestria doesn't make a person a bad person, and more generally liking the kind of ultra-violence I referred to in my previous post doesn't make a person bad unless that enjoyment in fantasy transitioned into real-life action. But then again, such fantasizes as even good men have are not always shared with other men, and for the men that don’t share those fantasies, who has right to find fault in a man that avoids pain with no resulting pleasure?
And so, I will stop this story I so recently started, and feel a little bad about it. I'm completionist to a fault, and very much value completing things, especially in entertainment. That is the primary reason why I don't play a large variety of video games, and instead, especially these days, seem to wear a PC game into the ground before I switch to another one. I'm also reminded of years back when I used to read a little YiffStar. One of the reason I stopped was because some of the stories were terrible, but I felt guilty about not finishing them and would keep reading them even if they had bad beginnings, which meant that I wouldn't do what I really should have done - perused the stories, found ones with good beginning and continued reading them, and left the crummy ones unread. I'd say that completionist impulse in me is the primary reason why I even read Chapter 3 and part of Chapter 4 of Fallout Equestria, when I found so little joy in reading Chapter 1 and 2. Also, now that I've tried Fallout Equestria and found I dislike it, I can't help but feeling like this is Homeworld all over again.
Years ago, I got the game Homeworld. I read the manual, got into it for a few missions which I found confusing and boring, and kept on it hoping that the story and action would improve. But it didn't, and contrary to the impulse in me to complete things I start, when I got to the asteroid level, I felt enough was enough and I stopped playing and uninstalled the game, and later gave it away. Now, ever since then I have been left with an opinion of a video game in direct conflict with the general consensus about it. It seems pretty much everyone liked the game Homeworld, and if it ever comes up (which, thanks to the march of time, it never does anymore) I am a pariah for being the one person it seems that hated that game. I feel like now the same thing has happened with Fallout Equestria, I will see roughly the same effect. Now, rather than being the person who, when someone says "I loved that!" I can say "I loved it too! Let's talk about it!" or even "I've never heard of it, let's change the subject" now I'm the guy who when someone says "I loved that!" will have to respond "Well, I thought it sucked" and they'd be all like "Aw, why? Maybe you did something wrong, or weren't in the right mood, or you just didn't give it enough of a chance and would like it more if you just kept at it!" So says the fan of something who has never heard of the expression "Once bitten, twice shy," and hopes beyond hope that the people that started some form of entertainment and stopped in anger and disgust would not feel that anger and disgust if they simply continued partaking in the entertainment that evoked such horrible feelings in them.
But anyway, I wax philosophic. I suppose my real point in this little rant is that for there to be friendship among people, there has to be affinity, and for there to be affinity, there needs to be shared interests. And I've learned through hard experience that such shared interests must necessarily be specific, and that just the same as a "video game fan" that likes console fighting games might have nothing in common with a "video game fan" that likes real-time strategy PC games, two people that like "movies" or "stories" or "music" need to actually like the same specific movies, stories, or music as each other in order for the friendship to grow. It is only after their friendship has grown enough through their mutual interests that their trust can grow enough that they trust in the suggestions of each other when it comes to branching out from those shared specific interests to specific interests they don't share. And I personally hope that in this particular case, my revulsion for Fallout Equestria is a stone for roots to grow around rather than a bolder that stops growth flat.
FALLOUT EQUESTRIA IS A STUPID, ULTRAVIOLENT, PERVERTED, DISJOINTED, HORRIBLE PIECE OF CRAP!
Phew. Now that I've got that out, time for a calmer explanation.
Given that my last entry was specifically about how I have a limit on violence and do not like things that transgress that limit, the logical first question is why I decided to start listening to Fallout Equestria in the first place. Well, there are a few reasons. First, I recently watched [SFM Ponies] Fallout: Equestria - The Radio Play (Season 1, Episode 1 Part 1) at http://youtu.be/N4zolq9fF8c and Leaving the Stable - Fallout Equestria [SFM] at http://youtu.be/uMra1iv7QEQ and enjoyed them, so I got interested in that particular fan fiction despite never having played a Fallout game in my life. Second, not one but two friends in Second Life are really into Fallout Equestria. One of them I really only met once but he showed me the Second Life a Fallout Equestria sim, which was really interesting and well done. The second was a person who I'm growing quite fond of, and while he doesn't have the nearly single-minded focus on Fallout Equestria that the first friend did, what he likes and what he thinks of me means a lot to me, and sharing something he found entertaining could have fostered a special kind of closeness, especially considering that my last good friend and I never really got close and drifted even further away after college because though our interests were close, they never matched up exactly.
So, I decided to give it a shot. I went to http://mlpaudiobooks.net/story/92/F.....stria-complete and found that, conveniently, two users had created single-file downloads of the massive work, so I wouldn't have to download each chapter individually like I did for Anthropology. I downloaded first a straight combination into a zip file by someone named jewbrony, but then I noticed right underneath it something by a person named Sonic_Radboom that was supposed to be a re-mastered version that didn't have lots of puffs of air the recording was apparently known for. So, I downloaded the 're-mastered' version and started reading it on my way to and from work.
As expected, the first chapter was interesting, if a bit depressing, and since I had already seen the videos, they were basically re-treads but with only one person speaking. Then already at chapter 2 I ran into the first roadblock. Apparently, that Sonic_Radboom fellow had neglected to order the re-mastered clips correctly, making chapter 10 the same name as chapter 1, so Out of the Stable immediately transitioned into chapter 10, wasting the last fifth of my trip to work until I could check the chapter lists and find the trouble. So, I skipped the misplaced chapter and listened to Chapter 2: Equestrian Wasteland, and found that Fallout Equestria transitions right from non-violent setup to action-movie violence. I didn't enjoy chapter 2, but decided to continue to Chapter 3 because I didn't want to stop, and found that went from brutal action movie violence to sickening horror, with text descriptions of the worst violence, brutalization, and degradation that was ever put to words. I again didn't enjoy it, and when chapter 4 started, I thought that maybe Sonic_Radboom had messed up again, and put chapters out of order, since Perspective was so disjointed with the previous chapter, and stopped listening entirely. I checked, and no, it's not Sonic_Radboom's fault. The author really did make chapter 4 that disjointed from Chapter 3, and it really did involve basically jumping from sleeping into a cellar into a full-on firefight with robots.
So, that was the last straw. I will not be finishing Fallout Equestria, not now, and perhaps not ever.
But I remember my great vacillation on the topic earlier today, before the matter was really settled by me, and when I came to the decision to continue chapter 3 and finish it.
Now, as I've mentioned in the previous entry, it's not generally violence itself that I find unpleasant, and two of my favorite movies are Watchmen and Rambo. But I limit my enjoyment to violence that is restrained and justified. Chapter 2 of Fallout Equestria skirted those definitions but didn't cross them. There was violence, and it was pretty descriptive, but it was at least justified by the situation. What justification did the author have in chapter 3 for including descriptions of dead hanging cats, flayed pony bodies, slaves lying in their own filth, and fillies raped and brutalized? Perhaps the better question is what justification do I as a person have for listening to such things? When I'm listening to something in a car trip, what I'm looking for is something that is entertaining and/or educational. I found great joy in such very entertaining stories as Skylark of Space, Armageddon 2419, The World Set Free, and Anthropology, and such entertaining radio shows as Firesign Theater and Knotcast. Now, I reminded myself that I'm not above listening to something in the car that isn't entertaining, as I have listened to Beyond Good and Evil and Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the car, as well as The Descent of Man, all of which one way or another had parts that were not entertaining at all (and in the case of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, pretty much the whole story fit that definition for me aside from the very first chapter). Yet in those cases, I listened to them anyway, because if they weren't entertaining, at least they were educational, and would allow me the pride at the end of reading them to know that I have read them. But what reason would I have for listening to a story that is neither? Fallout Equestria wasn't entertaining for me, and it certainly wasn't educational.
So, at the time, I reminded myself of a few things. First, sharing in entertainment, even crappy entertainment, has its own sort of reward. The two examples that come to mind are Star Wars: Episode 1 and Equestria Girls. First, for Star Wars: Episode 1, I agree with people that it's not a good Star Wars movie, but having seen it, it means I can talk about it with other Star Wars fans, and understand parodies based on it. Second, for Equestria Girls, I was in a group discussion with a bunch of MLP fans in Second Life, and the conversation turned to Equestria Girls, and I felt lost and left out. Equestria Girls looks like a very crappy movie which I highly doubt I would enjoy watching, but much like Star Wars: Episode 1, if I had watched it, I could have stayed in that discussion, and even commiserated with others that didn't like it. The other considerations I had were platitudes, namely two: "Even the darkest of days deserve to be saved" and "Bad men do what good men dream." The first quote is a quote from the game Darkest of Days, and its precise meaning is quite frankly confusing. In the context of the game, it meant that for some reason the time travelers didn't want any alteration of history, even if it could lead to massive reductions in loss of life in some of the world's bloodiest wars. The reasons for that statement were confusing even in the game, but what I was thinking related to this topic was that the descriptions of violence and cruelty in Fallout Equestria are analogous to things that have happened and are still happening in the world. But then, so what? If nothing else, it’s obvious Fallout Equestria isn't meant to be a political statement, because if it was, it wouldn't have been set in a magical land of ponies but in Somalia or Iraq. There, perhaps, there might be something analogous to the horrors described in the book, and some sort of implicit or explicit call to action. No, those descriptions were in there because the author wanted to put them in there, and was amused and entertained by doing so, and hoped others would be as well, which judging by the large positive reaction to the story, was right on the mark. So, those darkest of days don't deserve to be saved when they happened in fantasy, not reality, and the causes and effects of them are isolated to the story. Second, the platitude that "bad men do what good men dream" has been playing over and over when I have visited Second Life recently. I have visited places in Second Life with bloody displays and pictures of the weirdest porn, and apparatus for fulfilling the most perverted fantasies. But then, it's Second Life, and these are the dreams and fantasies of people. People have the right to fantasize, even if those fantasies are things that are immoral and illegal in real life. With that in mind, liking Fallout Equestria doesn't make a person a bad person, and more generally liking the kind of ultra-violence I referred to in my previous post doesn't make a person bad unless that enjoyment in fantasy transitioned into real-life action. But then again, such fantasizes as even good men have are not always shared with other men, and for the men that don’t share those fantasies, who has right to find fault in a man that avoids pain with no resulting pleasure?
And so, I will stop this story I so recently started, and feel a little bad about it. I'm completionist to a fault, and very much value completing things, especially in entertainment. That is the primary reason why I don't play a large variety of video games, and instead, especially these days, seem to wear a PC game into the ground before I switch to another one. I'm also reminded of years back when I used to read a little YiffStar. One of the reason I stopped was because some of the stories were terrible, but I felt guilty about not finishing them and would keep reading them even if they had bad beginnings, which meant that I wouldn't do what I really should have done - perused the stories, found ones with good beginning and continued reading them, and left the crummy ones unread. I'd say that completionist impulse in me is the primary reason why I even read Chapter 3 and part of Chapter 4 of Fallout Equestria, when I found so little joy in reading Chapter 1 and 2. Also, now that I've tried Fallout Equestria and found I dislike it, I can't help but feeling like this is Homeworld all over again.
Years ago, I got the game Homeworld. I read the manual, got into it for a few missions which I found confusing and boring, and kept on it hoping that the story and action would improve. But it didn't, and contrary to the impulse in me to complete things I start, when I got to the asteroid level, I felt enough was enough and I stopped playing and uninstalled the game, and later gave it away. Now, ever since then I have been left with an opinion of a video game in direct conflict with the general consensus about it. It seems pretty much everyone liked the game Homeworld, and if it ever comes up (which, thanks to the march of time, it never does anymore) I am a pariah for being the one person it seems that hated that game. I feel like now the same thing has happened with Fallout Equestria, I will see roughly the same effect. Now, rather than being the person who, when someone says "I loved that!" I can say "I loved it too! Let's talk about it!" or even "I've never heard of it, let's change the subject" now I'm the guy who when someone says "I loved that!" will have to respond "Well, I thought it sucked" and they'd be all like "Aw, why? Maybe you did something wrong, or weren't in the right mood, or you just didn't give it enough of a chance and would like it more if you just kept at it!" So says the fan of something who has never heard of the expression "Once bitten, twice shy," and hopes beyond hope that the people that started some form of entertainment and stopped in anger and disgust would not feel that anger and disgust if they simply continued partaking in the entertainment that evoked such horrible feelings in them.
But anyway, I wax philosophic. I suppose my real point in this little rant is that for there to be friendship among people, there has to be affinity, and for there to be affinity, there needs to be shared interests. And I've learned through hard experience that such shared interests must necessarily be specific, and that just the same as a "video game fan" that likes console fighting games might have nothing in common with a "video game fan" that likes real-time strategy PC games, two people that like "movies" or "stories" or "music" need to actually like the same specific movies, stories, or music as each other in order for the friendship to grow. It is only after their friendship has grown enough through their mutual interests that their trust can grow enough that they trust in the suggestions of each other when it comes to branching out from those shared specific interests to specific interests they don't share. And I personally hope that in this particular case, my revulsion for Fallout Equestria is a stone for roots to grow around rather than a bolder that stops growth flat.
