@ÜberReaktor  
Maybe she just wanted a new pair of horseshoes? ^^

Never mess with the wasteland mob

@sxcbeast  
Given an early chapter of Speak has her trying to ruin Blackjack’s reputation, presumably by erasing record of all the good she’s done, she holds that grudge forever. It wouldn’t surprise me that if Threnody’s secret gets out Boing will say Blackjack posed as the Mayor or something.

@Wiimeiser
 

 
chapter 76 Paying the Price. I think this is what made me think she was crippled for life. I’m planning on reading the story again. Maybe I’ll find it then.

@sxcbeast  
I still can’t find where it says she’s a paraplegic, just that she’s crippled. And I’m not sure if the actual attack was before or after the rape in that one chapter… 33?
 
Also, I find it a rather strange inconsistency they can’t fix her spine yet they fixed BJ up alright from being dead. Then again, IRL the human spine is so complex the body will outright refuse to heal it for fear of messing something up. It’d be like trying to hack Fallout 76 by manipulating the individual bit gates on your computer’s RAM chip with an electric toothbrush…

@Wiimeiser  
Yes and no. The story goes from Blackjack walking away from the carnage she leaves behind after nearly killing Glory’s sister. Then in chapter 43 Lucidity we’re suddenly in the Happy Horn mindscape. The actual memory of the attack happens as a flashback right after Blackjack faces her Darker self.
 
search for “A young somepony…” without the “”. It’s more than 3/4s of the way through the chapter.
 
use CTRL+F to bring up the “Find in Page” search bar. Or touch “Find in Page” on mobile, if you got Chrome.
 
For chapter 48 Just search for Boing, should be the second one, like 40% to the halfway mark for the chapter.

@sxcbeast  
But is chapter 43 when the actual attack happens? Skimming through 48 I can’t find where the specific detail is. Though going back to earlier Speak, it would not surprise me if Boing was the final boss of that one… It’s either her or Bright Light. Maybe Boing already killed Bright Light. Then again, pedophilia seems to be caused by childhood trauma, even corporal punishment, or maybe by seeing genitals.

@Wiimeiser  
43 Lucidity is where Happy Horn, flash backs, and her revelation that she killed a filly happens.
 
48 Consequences, is where the apology happens.

@sxcbeast  
So she broke the poor filly’s spine.. What chapter was this?

@Wiimeiser  
Boing was an unfortunate victim during Blackjack’s solo rampage. Blackjack hadn’t slept in like a week and her judgment was suffering greatly. Boing was with a scavenger group when they started shooting at BJ and was systematically slaughtered. It’s not clear on how the fight started. Boing tried to scream BJ’s name, but BJ was already beating her half to death. BJ ends up in Happy Horn in order to come to terms with what she did. As, at that time, BJ believes she killed a filly.
 
Boing survived and was taken to Meatlocker, but was unconscious until BJ’S group returned from the Prison. BJ begs for forgiveness, but Boing tells her “No”. As she is permanently crippled from the waist, down.
 
In the Epilogue, Boing is named First Citizen of the New Lunar Commonwealth, and is an influential figure in politics.

@AWGear  
You just have to remember and keep in mind that Fallout Equestria is based BOTH in a game and a TV show with magic. That means the mechanics of both can apply in whatever way the author deems necessary.
 

@sxcbeast  
Wait, what happened to Boing in the end? Her wiki article is a stub, so it really needs to be filled in. Also, I know she still hates Blackjack, in Speak she basically said offscreen that Blackjack was basically public enemy #1. And pedophilia is very unforgivable, look at what happened to Jimmy Savile. I wouldn’t be surprised if the revelations about Michael Jackson kill off his first name like what happened with Hitler and cause massive Simpsons episode renumbering.

@sxcbeast
 

 
My mistake then, but as I said, she was rather forgetable filly. Especially in comparasing to all the other ones.
 
 
I don’t mind obvious perks (“New Perk: Bone-Strengthening Brew – With this perk, your limbs only receive 50% of the damage they normally would.”). I have problem with perks that ethier:
 

@AWGear  
Boing made it clear that she was never going to forgive Blackjack. Boing’s reasoning is that if she forgave BJ for permanently crippling her, then she’d have to forgive everyone who ever did anything bad to her, which extends all the way back to her rapist/pedophile father. And since she could never forgive him, she can’t forgive BJ or anyone else. Boing spends the rest of her life denouncing Blackjacks name and deeds, as explained in the epilogue.
 
 
@AWGear  
You kinda have to pay attention to what’s going on in the story to see how the Perks add to the story. And keep the Perks in mind as the story progresses. Lots of authors add little tid bits of story because of the Perks acquired during or after the chapter. When LP tells Monterey on the bridge in the Stand off, she tells him “I’m a quick study” referencing both the fact she learns quickly, which is also the perk Horse Sense – You are a swift learner. You gain an additional +10% whenever experience points are earned.
 
There were so many times LP limbs were broken/crippled up until she drank Xeniths brew, because of her “small frame” which is a Trait in NV that grant +1 agility and makes your limbs more easily crippled. In the first Fallout game it also hindered carrying capacity. After LP drinks the Bone Strengthening Brew there’s only a couple times she becomes crippled. Her head injury at Arbu is one.
 
The potion on Velvets leg was meant to staunch the bleeding, but all the other stuff you have a problem with is getting way into nitpicking territory.

@Wiimeiser  
Even tough she was slightly more “forgetable” than other fillies, Boing was still a nice character. Only major complaint I could have for her, is that she forgave Blackjack a bit too quickly.
 
Besides that, she is another pony suffering on the “I recived injuries that should kill me, but I’m gonna stay alive because the artists needs me”, but that’s kinda present in every Fallout Equestria fan fic to some extent.  
||No matter how much I like Glory, nopony should be alive after getting a landmine to the face. ||

@sxcbeast  
Perks are very dubious, if we are talking about what’s “cannon” in the story. They seem to be there, only because they were in the games. We have no explanation for how they work in univervse, how normal pony obtains them, as well as the fact that they are always introduced in footnotes. The lack of any in-universe explanation excludes them from being used as “explanations”.
 
For the time that LittlePip has spend in that bunker, she should be dead from radiation poisoning. Moreover, she should have been dead purely from the force of impact during the explosion, which would be strong enough to break every bone in her body. The “safe room” would be more of a death sentence.|| There is no explanation (besides plot armor) that both LittlePip and Morning Glory were in very similar sytuations in thier respective stories, but only Little Pip managed to survive.||
 
|| Even re-attaching Velvet’s cut off limb made more “sense”, and that went on completly unexplained. Limb, to be re-attached has to be “freshly” removed and kept in very specyfic conditions (which don’t include throwing it around on messy, post apocaliptic ground). Then again, if you could “regrow” limbs with the use of “magical Zebra potions”, why were they going through soo much trouble of carrying that leg around?||
 
If we allow “posibility” of regrowing limbs, where will it end? || For example, why can’t we re-grow heads? || Leaving that to something, that was purpousefully left out from the main text, being placed in a footnote, only hurts the over-all flow of the story, makeing deaths more based on “artist’s will” than actual in universe explanations. Which is basicly, a plot armor.

@AWGear  
What about Boing?

@AWGear
 

 
I forgot to point out that LP could regrow her limb because she, at that point, was more Alicorn than pony. In that part of the story she had gotten her (Third?) Rank of “Touched by Taint”; which is actually a mirror to a quest perk you can get in Fallout 3 where you have to dose yourself with a massive amount of Radiation. Then when you turn the quest in you get the Mutation which heals your crippled limbs while in the presence of Radiation.
 
So that’s why she was able to fully regrow a limb. Before it had regrow there was a flashback during the part where Pip and Calamity were dealing with the Enclave attack on Friendship city. In the flashback, Pip was applying Xenith’s ‘Goop’ potion on her stump, while her severed leg bobbed in a pool of taint along with an Enclave soldier, who was horribly bloated and tumorous within her armor. Pip used the Blood spell she learned from the Black Book to kill her and end her suffering. While she was unconscious and waiting for a rescue, Radiation was leaking into the bunker along with an aerosol like spray of taint which contaminated the air.

@sxcbeast  
I don’t give her credit because she hasn’t done anything worthy of praise.
 
Thorn, Scoodle and Charity were much more “memorable” characters because they often were “the stars” of thier scenes. In every scene that Scotch appears in, there is always other character which has much more interesting personality. Even in chapter 75 and 76, when there are only 2 other characters besides here in most scenes, it was Bastard who stole the show. After they come to the hospital in chapter 76, Scotch Tape is gone for the rest of the fic.
 
She is rather useless in combat, during most of the adventures she is ethier barely there or gets wounded which puts her in a time out.
 
Even her mother, who we never get to meet as she is alive, is much more interesting and likeable character.
 
In the scope of Project Horizons, Scotch Tape was alright, but she definately did not deserve to have her own sequell. Glory, Boo or Psalm would be much better picks for haveing thier own story, as they were much more developed and interesting characters, with personality that could lead to a very enjoyable sequel.

Charity is a good filly character. But I think she might be the exception given that she’s intended to be Somber’s pick for the Element of Generosity. Which is only strongly hinted but not ever confirmed. I really liked that several of the Named merchants were all illegitimate offspring of the same Merchant stallion. Btw. Charity is part of the main group in Homelands. If that doesn’t pique your interest.
 
Scoodle was an interesting character. She was a very young but very experienced wastelander. But she didn’t serve much other than being the one who teaches BJ about The Hoof/Hoofington, the gangs, and the Crusaders. She was the first character to die because of BJ’S stupidity.
 
Thorn served even less purpose than Scoodle, and she was killed by Rampage as a means of showing that Rampage had that Child Murdering soul inside her. Other than that brief travel period and mini adventure, there isnt much about Thorn other than when she was playing with Rampage while Blackjack played Octavia’s cello. Thorn’s mother, Rose, had way more story/characterization and she was stabbed thru the heart by a ghoulified Blueblood, and before that Rose was raped by one of the stallions she intended to sell into slaver. And before that her horn was broken off by Blackjack when Rose’s slaver group attacked them. Thorn I think might be the youngest filly in the story given that she ‘baby talks’ when she speaks. Other than her mother being a slaver, I don’t see anything interesting about her.
 
 
Scotch’s back story is that she was born in 99, went to school until she had to take over her mother’s job when she died/was murdered by the Overmare. She had to start working at a very young age, but showed tenacity when we see her again about a month later. She has more confidence and is more capable at her job to the point she can tell Blackjack what to do to help, before her Stable was killed and she was the only survivor (until we learn there were others).
 
I don’t think you give Scotch enough credit. Yeah there’s times when she acts like a scared little filly, but that’s because she IS a scared little filly. And she’s trying to be brave and act tough for her group and to be accepted.

@sxcbeast  
I would be fully for Blackjack getting killed ethier on Seahorse or when she falls into the core and dissapears for 3 months. || She shouldn’t have survived the whole fic. || I actually tought that It would play out just as you described. With Blackjack gone, Scotch would take on her mission. This would be a fantastic developement for her character, as well as not dragging Blackjack to the hell hole of inconsistent writting that was the Epilogue.
 
As for “being too young to have story of her own”, I think that Charity, Thorn and Scoodle have proven that you can make an interesting filly character.
 
Her relationship with P-21 was done very well, altough I think it was more because P-21 was written very well.
 
|| As for P-21’s death. Well, I think that chapters 72, 74 and 76 were a complete mess. I don’t know who wrote them, but I wouldn’t accept the fact that Somber could have anything to do with this. Deaths were very poorly written and did not seem “deadly” enough for main characters. Have in mind, that we are talking about universe where you can regenerate both front hooves and half of your skull with a single healing potion. Some ponies even have ability to re-grow limbs for apparently no reason (LittlePip in the original Fallout Euqestria). Main characters should go out in a blaze of glory (no pun intended) instead of PASSING OUT IN A HOSPITAL BED. If the story wants to be epic, death should have been epic as well. ||
 
Probably from the “main cast” of Homelands, the only character I am slightly interested in would be Precious.  
|| Then again, If writter wouldn’t decide to kill off all the interesting characters, I may have been more into reading the sequell. I’m not asking for much. Even if they would keep Glory or P-21 just do die in first 5 chapters, then at least, it would be after you start reading the story. At least then I would have a reason to “finish up the story” instead of haveing to start reading it, knowing that there is nothing there that could interest me.||
 
@Wiimeiser  
In short, yes. She just felt most of the time like she was there to cheaply play on reader’s emotions.

@AWGear  
So, basically, she’s just there to add drama to one scene with P-21 to make his death slightly more painful… And she has no personality to prove it?

@AWGear  
I can’t recall a time I ever disliked her. As far as back story goes… shes really toi young to have one of her own already. we’re basically witnessing her back story as it progresses. Plus there’s the fact Somber had at one time wanted to kill off Blackjack on the Seahorse and have Scotch take up the mantle of solving the mystery of EC-1101. I’m sure that affected the story in some way. Probably that’s the two ideas stuck together.
 
There were times I felt Scotch was there for dramatic effect and to guilt trip Blackjack for bringing a young filly into horribly dangerous situations. Subjecting Scotch to numerous horrors and atrocities.
 
But I always liked her relationship with P-21. And it hit hard when he died and she was beside herself.
 
You should give Homelands a chance. Scotch acts a bit like Blackjack at times. Her past traumas are brought up occasionally. But more than that Pythia, Majina, and Precious’ personalities are more fleshed out.

@sxcbeast  
@Wiimeiser
 
There are quite a few reasons why I don’t like her:  
1# She lacks distinctive personality in comparasing to Blackjack, Morning Glory, P-21, Rampage, Boo and Lacunae.
 
2# Besides getting a cutiemark that is diffrent than a toilet, she lacks interesting side story. Rampage has her personality issues, Glory has her family and enclave related issues, Lacunae has her Goddes related issues and Boo has the simple “Story” of being a grown mare with brain of a foal being thrown into the wasteland.
 
|| 3# Up untill chapter 74, Scotch Tape feels like she is there only to progress P-21’s personal side-story. Granted, this side story is requireing both of them to interact, but P-21 with his much more developed and “original” personality often steals the show all for himself. After 74, for obvious reasons, this side story could have been centered on Scotch Tape, but she seems to have dissapeared from the face of the earth right after they returned home. ||
 
4# After returining home in chapter 76, she basicly dissapears for the whole final battle. The only reason behind that seemed to be “she needs to stay alive for the sequell”.
 
5# The “toilet cutie mark” joke wasn’t funny the first time and then it was repeated over and over.
 
6# For the majority of the story I felt like the only reason she was introduced, was to be “emotional counterweight” to Glory. Before that, if Blackjack were ever to choose “who to save”, she would be chooseing between her Marefriend and a friend. In that case, the choice would be rather obvious, which was changed by giveing that friend a daughter who would need him. I tought of it in a similar way to a “Trolley Problem”. For me, she felt like the only reason for her to exist, was to make P-21’s life “more important” to the characters and viewers. Classical play on emotions, you may say. In the end, this wasn’t the case, but having that stuck in the back of my mind for about 50 chapters has taken it’s toll on my enjoyment of this character.
 
|| 7# The fact that she outlived Glory, Lacunae and P-21 just added an insult to an injury. They were much better developed characters with much more going for them. They had interesting and relatable personalities, fears and life goals. In comparasing to them, Scotch was very bland and not interesting. Her plot was completly centered around P-21, so much so in fact that she felt more like a plot device for his own story. Most of the time, I managed to forgot that she was even a part of the main group, since even other fillies (like Charity or Thorn), supporting characters (Caprice, Dusk, Dawn, Psalm…) and even one-shot characters (Gem & Mini, Dusty Trails and Capitan Thrush) had more distinctive and interesting character. ||
 
8# The fact that out of all the main cast, she is the one who got a sequell, was just rubbing salt into the wound. By the end I finished Project Horizons, I definately wanted to see more Glory, Boo or even Psalm. Scotch Tape wasn’t even close to the “Top 10” characters in the fic.
 
Because I didn’t enjoy Scotch Tape’s character, reading a story in which she is the main character did not seem “entertaining” to me.
 
|| Adding to that the fact, that last 7 chapters of the story weren’t “very good” (They turned what used to be a emotional thriller with cast of likeable characters, into a poor-man version of Game of Thrones, where death was granted left and right without much tought or reason behind it) made me feel that a sequell to something I once called “The Best Book I have ever read” (up to chapter 65 at least) would continue to drop in quallity. ||
 
Then again, this is only my silly, personal opinion. I may be a bit bitter after how the fic has ended, since I was expecting much more “serious” and “fitting” ending. I may give Homelands a shot at some point, but I was left pretty upset at the sudden directional change for Project Horizon by the end of the book.
 
Sadly, the most emotionally loaded tought that Project Horizon has left me with, was the feeling of haveing two completly diffrent ideas for the story, smashed together into something, that didn’t quite worked out in the end.
 
Up untill Seahorse, we had a beautiful, emotional and thrilling story about lovable cast of characters surviveing in the Equestrian Wastelands.  
After that, it felt like just another “epic heroism story” written and directed by Michael Bay :(

@AWGear  
What don’t you like about her?