I’m ready for more horsies. Comments as I read and stuff. ————————————————————————————————————————— Aww snuggles. >Fade seemed to be staring at the carpet in the third corner of the room, right where I had slid the divider beside; he didn't seem to be registering the existence of the world around him. Oh good. A reminder of just how delightfully insane Fade is. Poor guy. >the fields below Neighson were apparently the primary source of stored food over the long winter. I thought it was a little strange that most of the wasteland was still living off of scavenged stuff, even after two hundred years. I guess it was almost completely uninhabitable right up until a hundred or so years ago, but I’m still surprised that there aren’t a few more places like Neighson. >He even threw in a pair of scarves to get us by – striped magenta for myself and emerald green for Tailwind. This guy has scarves that match both of our leading ladies’ eyes. How very convenient. Too bad he didn’t have some socks for them, too. Now, I don’t know what you intended this city to look like, but I’m picturing it to look like a modern-ish post-apocalyptic Windhelm from Skyrim. >The poster was of a rearing Steel Ranger amidst a field of evil looking figures with glowing red eyes. A caption in bold stylized font declared, “Keep him fighting -- buy war bonds today!” I like seeing how different fics handle pre-war propaganda - if they even touch on it at all. >the always-stunning Spitfire! Blue Angel horsie has a lot of fans for someone who died two hundred years ago. >“Which you did, I’m relatively sure. Which begs the question: why am I still here?” I was actually thinking this earlier as well. Is Fade a Talon, or… >Oh shit, play it cool. I had a giggle. >Knight Frostfire >Paladin Morning Star http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AwesomeMcCoolname But on a more serious note, I like that your rangers don’t all have food names. Variety is nice. >“Oh, uh… no, sir.” She stuttered, tearing her eyes off of Fade, a slight blush colouring her pale cheeks. Aww, qt. >Trotwynd They’re going there next, aren’t they? I take it this is where the real story will begin. >“And it looks likely that it shall stay that way. I'm not in the position to give out potentially privileged information, nor would I want to even if I was.” Dammit. I guess it’ll be more interesting to have Snap figure it out herself. The ‘Loyalists’ thing makes me think there’s pegasi in Trotwynd, maybe even a warzone. >Scribe I’m surprised Snap knows what a scribe even is. I figured the Rangers were only known for their knights and paladins in power armor, but I guess the Enclave educated her about this stuff. >A larger stallion sat behind one of the terminals reading a magazine. From our distance, I could make out a pegasus splayed across the cover, and could make a guess at the contents. How very lewd. >All of this pegasus seductive superiority It’s kinda interesting how Snap Roll and Tailwind’s winged-ness affects how wastelanders interact with them. On one hand, they’re targets for hatred because of the Enclave, but on the other, they’re… a lot more appealing and exotic to some stallions. And they know how to take advantage of this, apparently. I do feel a little bad for Crafter, though. Nobody’s giving him any attention in this scene, he just sits there. >With each flap of wings, my lowermost primaries brushed against his back, completely by coincidence. >I switched back to the ‘pegasus grateful for the protection of the big strong earth pony’ tone This horse is very VERY good at making stallions do what she wants. I’m reading this chapter almost immediately after finishing up the latest chapter of WEcon - Alloy and Snap handle this sort of thing very differently. Alloy is more diplomatic and uses barter and reasoning, while Snap just uses a lot of appeal when she can. What’s Snap’s charisma? I seem to recall she has a special spread, but I can’t remember anything other than 10 agility. >He wore his normal expression – that is to say, one of minor confusion Crafter works rather well as an innocent comic relief character sometimes. >Oh, I guess he would have seen that little show I put on, from behind me… Heh, whoops. Just keep piling on the spag. >running her hooves along the end of his black and red scarf. Everybody’s getting scarves this chapter. >/doing/ Now now, italics are a thing. What’s with the slashes? >Tailwind was snoozing back in the range control hut. Tailwind is a very sleepy pony. Especially if she’s sleeping through gunshots. Unless range control huts are sound proof, but that seems like a safety issue. Aww yes, Snap and Crafter interaction / bonding. Snap is very enthusiastic here, which is fun when paired up with Crafter’s cluelessness. It also seems like Crafter is a quick learner. That combined with his magic and his pipbuck makes me want to say he’ll be much more useful later in the story. Impending lewd. >Our entrance was met with a collective gasp, as if there was a pressure difference between the outside air and inside. That wasn’t the case, but when a rather full pub simultaneously ceases all activity – including the band, with one of the members being a tad slow on the uptake, letting out one last strangled note – it can tend to have that effect. Especially when you know you’re the ones who caused it. There’s that drawback of being a pegasus, again. At least everything worked out there. >That description of the bar. You’ve got three things working together to make this a great paragraph: you know how all of this shit works, you’re fairly good at describing things, and you have quite a broad vocabulary. >Fade received a Sparkle~Cola, at his own request. This has me curious. He doesn’t want to get drunk, but I can’t tell if it’s because he’d prefer to stay sober that night, or he just doesn’t drink in general. I guess this will be explained at some point. >Of course, I was wrong, but I didn’t realize it at the time. Oh. >A quiet descended upon the table, and all eyes were drawn to the griffon sitting off to the side, unmoving. Finally, he replied, “What, you’re waiting on me? In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve lost my damn memory. I have no one to remember.” That’s pretty damn sad. Fade is a bit of an outlier in the group when it comes to loss. It would make sense for his character arc to be about getting his memory back, but that would make him the only character from the main group that can actually recover what they lost. He’s probably not going to actually get his memory back. Or maybe he will and he’ll find out he’s lost a lot more than just his memory. There was an ITT a while ago in which anons tried to figure out the themes from each fic. This scene made me think back to that. >“There’s a number of reasons but the simplest is this,” He explained, “Most drink to forget. When you’ve lost all the good and the bad, your past as a whole, there’s not a lot more you want to lose. Even if it isn’t always pleasant, it’s better than waking up with another blank spot.” Oh. Well that makes sense. The last thing he needs is to lose more memories. >I felt lighter on my hooves, and the room seemed to have slowed down. The perspiration already beading on my glass, somepony accidentally knocking their drink over across the room from us, almost in slow motion. It occurred to the analytical part of my brain that whatever I’d just drank wasn’t time dilation, but rather my perception being altered, and my reaction time was speeding up to match. That, and whatever else was in the drink was speeding up my metabolism like nopony’s business. Oh good. This could either end very poorly for her, or it could be great. >Tailwind getting flirty with Crafter. Cute, but a little awkward. >As we all departed, Fade settled back into his seat beside Bernard. “Here we go…” the older stallion muttered. This just reminded me that Bernard is like, forty. It’s almost like he’s babysitting. Also, this scene is starting to make me think of MN7. It’s great to see characters have a little fun after being put through shit. Crafter is just blissfully unaware of all the lewdness. This is certainly shaping up to be the Crafter Chapter, and I’m really starting to like him as a character. >“But… Tailwind and I have been together for a while now, and every now and then,” I flicked my tail up, brushing lightly against the base of his chin as I slowly circled around him, almost a predatory motion. “We find somepony we both like…” I licked my lips, tasting a little of the Lighting Strike lingering there. I fixed him with the sexiest gaze I could muster, “And we give him a night he’ll never forget.” Oh my. >Crafter still not wanting to do sexuals. Yeah, Tailwind and Snap fucked up there. I want to comment more on this, but I really don’t know what to say. He wasn’t unaware of the lewdness, he was pretending to not notice. >...Which meant that at some point we had really needed a shower if it became a priority while we were still drunk. I bet that inappropriate activities occurred in those showers. >Preening You’re really laying the cute shit on thick this chapter. >Tailwind's had near-identical treatment, with the exception that her furs were a more delicate off-white colour. So they match her mane? >Energy pistol >Shotguns >SMG I’m trying to figure out Snap’s, uh… signature weapon type? She seems to be able to use both energy weapons and firearms, but I think she likes to stay on the lighter side. The shotguns and the SMG were used more out of necessity, I feel. ————————————————————————————————————————— >Snap Roll’s journal Good way to wrap up a chapter, and the first “book.” The story so far has kinda been a giant introduction. The setting and characters were established, as was/were the objective(s), and now the start of the story is over. Someone in the chapter’s comment section made a good point: this story - so far, at least - has used personal character motivations to keep the plot moving, and that is a welcome change from the “I have to save the world” theme from other fics. However, her quest to figure out what happened to her father could easily lead to something bigger. Anyway, nice chapter. This was definitely a breather chapter, which was very welcome after the shit that happened in the last one.