God, this was a trip down memory lane, I haven't thought about FoE in forever. I remember picking up this beautiful dumpster fire back when there was about fifteen chapters or so (which was almost nothing at the time, compared to what it turned into). so I didn't have to really marathon it to catch up. I remember being a bored High School student who stumbled upon this odd pony show that seemed to be enjoyed by grown men as well and was, admittedly, fairly enjoyable. Those where nice times, back when the term "Brony" wasn't treated to be on the same level as being a Furry yet and you could go on a fourm discussing it without feeling autistic. That was because most of the fans back then were from 4chan and most of those bastards knew that you don't bring shit from the internet into real life (I thank God everyday that I decided to keep my enjoyment of that show a secret), but of course the shows reputation spread and you all know the rest.
But enough of me reminiscing about my autism, if any of you want to know how in Gods name this shit got popular, then maybe I can shed a bit of light. FoE came out back when Bronies were just starting to be a thing and there wasn't much MLP content (outside of the show) to go around, and as they say in business; "Sometimes you don't have to make something good, you just have to make it first", and FoE was there since almost the beginning. So, yeah, everyone latched onto it, and by the time "better" shit started coming out, well, sunk-cost fallacy took place, so many people were already dozens of chapters in they figured "well, might as well see how it ends". Meanwhile, new comers to the show saw so many people reading/ talking about it they also started reading it as well because, hey, they wanted to fit in. Before long this nightmare of a fic became a staple of My Little Pony with countless spin off fics (with maybe two being any good), a tabletop game, actual Fallout mods based on the fic, and a mass shared delusion that this thing was quality writing. A God damn crossover.
As for my opinion on it, well, having read this thing in it's entirety because, like I so many others, I wanted to fit in and sunk-cost fallacy (I was stupid, I know), but I think even back then I knew deep down that it was kinda bad. But i ignored that sensible part of my brain and trucked along, never mind that I was skimming through entire paragraphs, sometimes even up to half of a new chapter when they were released, because Kkat put in waaaaaaay too many fight scenes and can't write them worth a damn (seriously, if any new writers take anything from this;
don't write fight scenes like video game encounters!) and frequently found myself thinking the protagonists were kinda assholes. Seriously, Littlepip's (in fact all the characters) morality is all over the place throughout the story, and even at points where she has a bought of shitty or selfish behavior that's excusable, even justifiable, the story and all of her "friends" make her out to be an asshole. But, hey, it was popular, so that means it must be good, right? Again, I was stupid. Thank God I decided to read Metro 2033, a real book, and wake up to what actually, quality writing was again.
That being said, there was some good to it. The flashbacks showing how the happy, magic filled world of MLP turned into Fallout with ponies was actually kind of fun to read, some of it was even (dare I say) kind of good and semi-thought out, of course there was plenty of segments that were "holy shit you're actually trying to make me believe the pacifistic pony built nukes, that's hilarious", so bad it's good kinda parts. Also, to his credit, Katt is O.K-ish at world building, granted both "worlds" were already mostly built for him, but I've seen people do less with more, and by crossover fan-fic standards, Kkat did admittedly get fairly creative mashing the two together. That's not to say I recommended, far from it, but even the shittiest writer has one or two good aspects about them, and Kkat is no exception, and I'd at least say, if someone trimmed down the "fat" of this story (seriously this thing is at least twice as long as it needed to be) I'd actually recommend reading it as a "so bad it's good" sort of thing.
Wow, I didn't expect this to turn into an essay, but seeing this brought back some memories, albeit bitter-sweat. I hate myself for investing so much time reading this thing, but I can look back and laugh on some of it, and I suppose I did learn a thing or two on what not to do when writing. Probably would have learned more and in less time if I payed attention in Lit though.
When I formerly in the fandom, I used to see all the little fan works of this story and it's sad to see that not a single one actually looked at the concept and tried to make it a little more light hearted. Every single one tried this edgy ass shit that just smashed violently against the cartoon horses. I feel this concept could have worked an ATOM'S LENGTH better if the whole cartoony art style was dropped and just did realistic horses, albeit multicolored, and no magic.
Still wouldn't save this dog shit story, lol. I couldn't even get past the first chapter without fighting sleep.
And to top this all off, there was one actually;
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9815003/1/Fallout-Equestria-Duck-and-Cover
While far from a literary masterpiece, it does seem to revolve around taking the piss out of FoE , doesn't even come close to taking itself as seriously as any other of the spin-off fics, and can actually manage to be a little funny a times. I can't recommend all of it, as it does become a bit dry around the mid-way point and also starts having pacing problems around then too, but the first couple of chapters might be worth reading if you want to see someone mock Kkats work in his own setting.
Edit: Made a few small additions and grammatical changes to make my points and wording a bit more clear as I wrote this in a semi-conscious haze. Because people need to know in excruciating detail exactly why a crossover fic of My Little Pony and Fallout is autistic. Now I'm going to stop myself before I make a point-by-point analysis about why this story is dumb, because clearly no one could grasp that fact by reading the title.
