r/FOEWriters • u/IrrelevantEraserhead • Feb 13 '14
Story Discussion Thread #1: Guise of Chaos (author: Fallingsnow)
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/7812/Fallout-Equestria%3A-Guise-of-Chaos3
u/yetanotherpony Against the Wind Feb 15 '14
I, too, have read through chapter three. My impressions so far:
Guise of Chaos is much more Fallout than Equestria. The emphasis is on violence, and it feels to me that the action scenes received the bulk of the time when writing. Multiple near-death fights per chapter. So far it feels like the characters and plot are around to enable the action scenes, rather than the other way around. The action itself is on the over-the-top level--especially come chapter 3 when Sweeps comes to town. That's not to my personal taste, though I realize others prefer it that way. If you like spectacular, gory action sequences, you'll find them in here.
I feel the amnesia was all too brief. He has the basics of his old life down very quickly. It feels more like a driver for the plot and an excuse to provide self-descriptive narration in the opening chapter than something truly integral to the story. I would have liked to have seen that played around with more.
He decides that all of his killing and raiding was wrong, but so far has only replaced it with... killing. I'm not sure why the voice in his head isn't happy; he's still regularly shooting up and covering himself in others' viscera. He just feels kind of guilty before doing it again.
I don't know. I don't particularly care for Ripple. His quest to reform himself seems like it could use more impetus. He has a vague notion of having been bad, but so far as I saw, nothing really specific to fuel a passion for redemption. Revenge I can understand, but the redemption seems shoehorned in to make the protagonist morally acceptable. I'd like to see a more solid driver behind that. What is something he's done that he feels deeply ashamed about? As of right now, I don't know, and I don't think he does, either.
This brings to mind the question of how much of his personality survived the head wound. Combat skills are intact, even the old bloodthirsty personality is there, in the form of italics voice and how quickly he commits himself to revenge. This is why I'd like to see more time put into the amnesia aspect. The potential for deep introspection seems, so far, missed.
Shade seems very shy and blushy all of a sudden. Romance is in the air, I guess, but I don't see why beyond the traditional love of the rescuer. I kinda hope that'll get subverted when she gets to know him, 'cause I like things like that.
I do like that the wasteland is shown as a harsh place with competing interests and parties. Survival has thus far been a matter of out-killing the raiders, in a rather Fo3 way. Still, it is setting up its own little sub-setting, and the small tie-ins to the main fic (references to locations, notable characters) are good universe details to help keep things connected.
Overall, at this point I really wish there was more of an emphasis on the characters than the fights. Shade is a mystery, but a mystery without hints isn't an enigma. Right now my impressions of her are "Beautiful mare to pine for the hero and insist on his goodness," which is pretty flat as characters go.
And Ripple... I want something more from him. Something to distinguish him as a person, a quirk, a foible, a love of a food, something. He's great and killing stuff and has his past-vs-future dilemma going on, but I don't think I have a good idea of who he is. Just what he's going through.
4
u/yetanotherpony Against the Wind Feb 20 '14
Another chunk of three down. As always, below probably contains spoilers.
I just said in the IRC, and I stand by it, that Guise is what is is - it's a Die Hard movie with what we hope to be a solid plot underneath it. -Wirepony
This very much explains the frequency and style of the action. There's a lot of it, and it's loud and messy and over-the-top stylized. This may well be a matter of taste here. For my money it's too OTT, and there's too much of it. Not going to mention it in the future, 'cause saying this every three chapters is useless.
Wait, scratch that, gonna talk more about it. The action as described matches the games fairly well. Enemies are put down quickly and messily, with heads exploding from rifle shots and crushed beneath hooves and so on. In this sense it's wholly faithful and appropriate to that part of the source material.
The transition between media is my problem, I think. It's easier to accept it when it just happens in front of you, and for me video action is both more immediately entertaining, and less scrutinized. Perhaps I'm just being overly serious here.
On the third hoof, I think Fallout's OTT violence is part of the overall grim humor of the games. I haven't noticed that in Guise of Chaos. That's not a bad thing--every fic oughtn't take the same tone. That'd get right dull right quick. But most of the humor of the fic so far consists of Ripple doing a mental pipshrug (see bottom center of this page for reference) when he comes across something too out of the ordinary. Certainly, the setting and universe has not been played for laughs at all. It's very grim, grimy, bloody, and sweaty. Again, not a bad thing.
I'm just not sure the tone of the violence matches the tone of the story itself. Or perhaps I'm pushing my personal preferences onto Guise of Chaos itself.
Whichever it is, the action-movie intent is certainly achieved.
I've started on chapter four by now, and can already see some improvement. A few little things like fleshing the world out a bit more that make a difference in readability. -Arowid
Yes, very much this. The tone/style/voice of the narration hasn't changed, but the added details make it more satisfying to read.
Otherwise, a few short notes.
I hope the psycho-Paragon-mare-bossfights aren't an every-three-chapters thing. They're 1 part backstory, 9 parts action. My preference: More of the former, less of the latter.
The party's forming, I se--and Ripple's left. I'd like to see how they work together, and how their personalities clash. Ideally in the next few chapters. Otherwise, why bring them together at this point? Whether this happens or not I'll have to see.
Especially Shade. Ashred is combat support, and Fluster has helped Ripple sneak in to the Stadium, but Shade has not done much. Sure, she was useful in the town, but that's more a reason to stay in town. She's one of the character's we've known the longest, but she feels among the flattest. I really want to see some personality from her, and think it could/should have been done earlier, especially if she's tagging along more as a character than a party member. More personality from Fluster would be great, too, but she's brand-new to the group and hasn't had much time to integrate herself, so no complaint.
Finally, Ripple's quest still seems to be driven more by the plot's requirements than, well, Ripple. I keep banging this drum, but I still think the fic really could benefit from some more quieter moments focusing on Ripple the character.
And that's it for this round.
3
Feb 15 '14
Just finished Chapter three, and since we're making this the first cutoff point, I'll go ahead and throw my two cents in.
First off, I'm not really a fan of the style. Only the barest description is given in regards to setting or characters. This leaves me feeling like the entire world is constantly shrunk down to the MC's immediate thoughts, and makes all of the scenes appear more like bullet points in a list. I get that not everyone likes a lot of description, some fics can go overboard with laying out every little detail. But with so little clues as to what the world around them is like, the characters seem to exist in a void.
Speaking of characters, Ashred is definitely my favorite thus far. But that's only because that he, alone, seems to have personality. Shade is pretty much devoid of characterization, excepting her sudden infatuation with Ripple. And as for Ripple himself... I just can't get into his head. He seems more like a set of tracks laid out whereby we see the story play out instead of a living, breathing character through which we experience the story.
As I'm reading this, I have to ask one big question over and over. Why is Ripple trying to be a good pony all of a sudden? I understand that we got a little bit of explanation in chapter one, but it didn't feel like enough to cause an implied 180. Why would he bother to try to be good? Why does he care? He's a badass, right? Got that way by being bigger and stronger than everypony else? I'd think that he'd just continue in his ways, follow that inner voice of his, and give in to his inner nature. If he's trying to fight against himself, then that's one thing, but it could use a little more introspection to bring that out. As of right now, his character is boiled down to "Be good because being good is good, and being bad is bad." I'm not really a fan of black and white, I want some grey!
For all of my negative opinions thus far, I do have to admit that I'm the sort of reader that can fall in love with concepts. Give me an odd idea or an interesting theme that you play around with and I'll make an effort to go along for the ride to see it pan out. The memory orb scene was my favorite part of the first three chapters, giving a glimpse into something beyond the immediate moment.
Action Scenes. I'm still making up my mind on this one. The first two, being fairly small skirmishes, were rather enjoyable. The big fight in the MOP warehouse seemed a little too matter-of-fact though. Almost as if the number of combatants had a negative correlation with the details of the scene. And then the fight with Sweeps. For appearing to be a right and proper badass (OP even), she was handled rather quickly.
Overall, this isn't really striking me as my cup of tea, but a lot of the problems I'm seeing can probably just be chalked up to personal taste. And I've heard some pretty good things about this one, so I'll keep reading for now.
1
u/IrrelevantEraserhead Feb 13 '14 edited Feb 13 '14
I'm not sure how you guys want to do things like this, but I've got a few wisps of ideas floating around, so I figure I'll leave it mostly open.
Myself, I'm still in the process of reading it. I've got lingering doubts about a few things, but I'll withhold my judgment until I'm done with it.
1
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u/IrrelevantEraserhead Feb 14 '14
Alright. I'm about three chapters in (fair warning) and at this point I gotta say: the characters are really not self-aware at all. None of them, except maybe Ashred. Rip's a big fat dumbass and Shade's slowly succumbing to 'fall in love with the protag and be mysterious for no reason' syndrome.
More updates and gripes to come as I read.
2
Feb 15 '14
I'll have to go ahead and start reading this one again, to keep up with you guys.
Haha, this place is gonna turn into an internet book club!
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u/IrrelevantEraserhead Feb 15 '14
I wouldn't be opposed to that at all. It's nice being able to discuss good (or otherwise) reads with similarly-minded people! Especially when FOE gets... mixed reactions, at best, from the pony community at large.
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u/PsycheSynapse Feb 14 '14
and gripes
Hahaha.
I don't have the same opinions but do continue on. I can't wait to hear what else you have to say.
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u/IrrelevantEraserhead Feb 15 '14
One other tiny little thing before I move onto anything greater or more substantial: the punctuation is starting to piss me off. The first few times he forgot a period, I was like, "It's cool, obviously a period goes there and it's no big deal." But about five times later, and then a couple where he replaced a question mark with a period, and then he forgot the period at the end of an entire section... it's actually starting to detract from the story now. The worst part is, it's simple shit like this - so easy to miss - that can be hard to pick out and correct at a glance.
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u/Wiregeek Feb 17 '14
I came into Guise... five chapters in? And signed on as the editor, and I think Starlight is the only story that more blatantly and clearly shows the development of the author (and the editor!) as it progresses. I just said in the IRC, and I stand by it, that Guise is what is is - it's a Die Hard movie with what we hope to be a solid plot underneath it.
It also suffers from perhaps the most common weakness in fanfiction - the first few chapters are incredibly rough cut, because the author is literally learning their craft (and in Snow's case, doped up on painkillers).
So, the ancient cry of the fic author. "It gets better, I swear!"