Fallout: Equestria - The Hooves of Fate Reviews: Chapters 1 and 2. · 7:16pm Jan 15th, 2017
Video Made by Me
So apparently I can't do something as simple as read two chapters in a week, so this week's fanfic will once again be completely blind.
So just reading the description of this fanfic, its going to be a bit different from what we normally see in these reviews. Instead of focusing on the Wasteland itself, it seems to be set before the apocalypse, if not before the war, focused on a pony who is getting visions of the Wasteland itself.
Well, its certainly an interesting idea, so lets begin Sprocket Doggingsworth's Fallout: Equestria - The Hooves of Fate.
---Chapter 1: The Wasteland---
Okay, it starts with a short prologue to introduce it so lets start with that:
There's always the bomb - the megaspell that's destined to obliterate Equestria. When I first saw the Wasteland in my dreams, I thought it was my job to stop it. To stop the war, to stop the megaspells, to stop us ponies from becoming the monsters I saw in visions of our dark future.
The trouble is: I can't stop it. Nopony can. You can change the future; you can change the present. Rumor has it that, with the right spells, you can even change the past, but some things simply won't budge. The apocalypse, sad to say, is one of them. It is going to happen. No matter what you do, the doomsday clock just keeps on ticking.
There's always the bomb.
This is a good start to the fanfic, its ominous while at the same time setting up the fanfic's rather unique plot. There is a sense of helplessness as the protagonist seems to know that she cannot change what she is seeing, that no matter what she does, Equestria will come to an end in a flash of balefire.
Of course this leads to the possibility of the self fulfilling prophecy, so she should be careful, we don't want an Iron Man here do we?
Video and Song belongs to Ozzy Osbourne.
Our story begins with the protagonist talking about when she got her cutie mark, an event that's usually happy, but for her was one of the worst days of her life. She doesn't even really know what her cutie mark means (quick, call the Cutie Mark Crusaders!), but that's not really what her problem is. It seems that she got her cutie mark when she first got her visions of the Equestrian Wasteland.
It seems like a lot of ponies our protagonist Rose Petal had spent a lot of time trying to figure out what her special talent is. She also acknowledged the whole thing that a lot of ponies seem to have names that go with their cutie marks in a rather funny line:
Have you ever noticed that a lot of ponies' names are pretty much just descriptions of their cutie marks? Well, I did, but nopony believed me.
So Rose Petal starts out rather logically by asking her sister Roseluck to teach her how to garden, which of course made Roseluck spit out her tea. So Roseluck takes her to her garden in order to try and teach her, and we get a pretty nice description of it, so then Rose Petal's attempt to get her cutie mark begins with her trying to use a pair of garden shears unsuccessfully.
So, as you can probably guess Rose Petal's attempt to get a gardening cutie mark doesn't exactly go according to plan. So over the next month she embarks on a Cutie Mark Crusaders like mission to try and find her cutie mark by doing whatever she can possibly think to try. She seems to be having a problem with Diamond Tiara as well:
Diamond Tiara is the bitchiest bitch who ever bitched in from Bitch Street down by the Bitch District of midtown Bitchville. Why? Because she’s just that big of a bitch, and even her cutie mark indicates that her special talent is being a spoiled bitch. I bet she will die alone. She will die alone of being a bitch. There, I said it.
You know, I get the distinct feeling that Rose Petal doesn't like Diamond Tiara.
So anyway Roseluck comes in to tuck her little sister in to bed, Rose Petal is about as enthusiastic about it as you expect a filly her age to be, trying to stall for time, so she wants a story about sandwiches. And, well, I really don't know what to say about a story about a sandwich named Ryelight Sparkle living in Sandwichville, but its not actually told so moving on to when Rose Petal fell asleep.
Her first vision starts out black, then followed by a flash of green with the screams of millions of ponies.
Video Belongs to Disney.
Rose Petal screams, and the next thing she knows she's shivering next to red brick, there is a sense of helplessness as Rose tries to figure out what's going on. She sets out to try and figure out what's going on, she also first gets the idea of the Wasteland, even though she has no idea what that is yet. She starts to look for any sign of civilization or familiarity, and she finds it:
A sign bigger than a cottage loomed over me - at least the parts of it that were in tact. There was a zebra depicted in the center unlike any zebra I’d ever seen. Okay, so I’d only ever seen one zebra back in Ponyville, but she was nothing like this. The zebra in the picture had features so exaggerated that she was hardly recognizable as pony at all! Giant white teeth and eyes, more rings on her ears and neck than any actual zebra could fit on her whole body, and a bone driven straight through her muzzle. She lurked maliciously in the back room of a bookstore, cackling over a cauldron full of skulls. An entire battalion of strangely dressed royal guards seized her, and reached into her satchel, but even then, she didn’t seem to want to take her attention off of that skull pot. It was as though it would take a dozen of Equestria’s Finest just to take out a single zebra by the sheer malice of her personality, and Terrifying Evil of her intent. Standing in the corner was a concerned citizen, smiling like a dope, hoof pointed nobly at the zebra’s direction, and a crowd of proud onlookers patting him on the back.
Yeah, the first sign of any sort of civilization is a piece of wartime propaganda, and she doesn't really like it. Of course she doesn't really know what's been happening , but its interesting to me that this one filly is at least not persuaded by just the propaganda, I like her so far.
I didn’t know where I was, or how I would ever manage to get home, but one thing was absolutely certain – this place was some new kind of hell, and I wasn’t in Equestria anymore.
How wrong you are Rose Petal... how wrong you are.
Rose Petal seems to be convinced that the poster is to blame for what's going on so she tries to tear it down only to hurt herself. A pony started to approach and she just lay there as they passed her. They're caked in blood, nasty black blood, and they're dragging along a colt around her age. There is a moment where the colt looked at her, there's this moment as if she had been his last home, only to fail to help him, its sad.
That's when she heard a voice telling her to follow them... this is the second time I've gotten a fanfic with a filly listening to a voice in her head, is this going to become a trend? Anyway, she starts looking for higher ground, and she tries to ignore the voice in her head. She tries to insist that she can't save the colt, but the voice tells her that he's not the one she has to save.
She also somehow knows that its been 190 years... that seems oddly convenient, oh well. She climbs to the top of a hill only to see what's left of Canterlot, and she comes to the realization that she's in Equestria after all, and she starts falling into blackness.
She wakes up to find herself on the floor in her bedroom screaming as Roseluck ran in. Rose Petal threw herself against her sister and began to cry.
---Chapter 2: Good Ponies---
So obviously we still haven't actually seen her cutie mark, but she's getting to that. Roseluck just held her and let her cry for as long as she needed, even if she doesn't know what's going on, its a nice moment between sisters. When Roseluck finally pulled away she goes to get some things to help Rose Petal clean up and she realizes that she's bleeding, from the same place where she had injured herself in the dream... that raises some interesting questions, especially given that there is blood in the bed as well.
Roseluck seems to think she's afraid of the whole healing thing, which is of course completely wrong.
How could she know anything? Who sees the world destroyed in their dreams, and wakes up with scars to prove it’s gonna be real? Nopony! That’s who. Things like that just don’t happen. Except that apparently they do, and they were happening to me.
Rose Petal however puts on a brave face and pretends that was the reason. That being said, Roseluck seems to catch on that something else is wrong here, asking if she had a bad dream and while Rose Petal says she did, she's not ready to talk about it. Then Roseluck drops a little bit of a bomb when she says that she wasn't sure what her Cutie mark is either.
Yep, she got her cutie mark... of rose petals, that raises a lot of questions...
So the next day on the way to school Rose Petal is with her friend Blueberry Milkshake discussing her new cutie mark and what it means. She's unsure about her purpose. She gets surprised by the pony who runs Quills and Sofas, and then Blueberry Milkshake asks her exactly what she was doing before she got her cutie mark. Rose Petal of course still doesn't want to tell anypony about the vision she had of the future (or, whatever it was), so she insists that she had been doing nothing, leading to an awkward moment between the two friends.
Rose Petal finally tells Blueberry that she had been asleep and had just woken up with it, which confused her. Blueberry examines it carefully to no avail. She of course reaches the conclusion that it was probably something she dreamed, so she asked if she had dreamed anything in particular. Rose Petal lies and says it was nothing, but Blueberry doesn't believe her, and Rose Petal finally asks a question of her best friend.
"Are ponies good?"
“What do you mean?”
“Us. Ponies. We control the Sun, the Moon, the weather. But are we, you know…good? In our hearts?”
That's a very deep question to be asking at your age Rose Petal, honestly even I don't know the answer and I'm 27. I think Blueberry had the best answer anyone or anypony can give, that they are, when they want to be.
When they reach the school she had to go through the gauntlet of her classmates oohing and ahhing over her new cutie mark as you'd expect to happen. She's starting to get tired as well, nodding off in class and getting visions of the colt in the Wasteland. At the same time Miss. Cheerilee is talking about the first Hearth's Warming, and after a few minutes of Rose Petal going over what had happened in her mind before Cheerilee calls on her.
Rose Petal is of course confused as to what's going on and struggles to try and figure out what they where talking about, and with no success she tries to fake her way through it with no luck.
So when recess comes around she takes the chance to relax and have fun with her friends. Also apparently Rose Petal has no luck whatsoever with jumping rope, something I can relate to since I was never that good at it either. And then about halfway through recess, she finds Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon bullying a Pegasus colt.
Anyone want to go back to the Wasteland?
That's when Rose Petal comes to the rather disturbing realization that even though the bombs haven't fallen yet, Equestria to some degree is already like that.
It starts out just like a new bully in town. It tests the water. It sees if you’re willing to stick up for the zebras you don’t particularly like. Just one little jerk move, but you don’t do anything about it. Then comes another jerk face move, and it starts to get a little scary, so you hide some more like that’s gonna fix it. Like the bully doesn’t notice.
The thing is: everypony can see that the bully is pushing you to see how far you’ll go, but they hide too because they’re glad it’s happening to you and not them. Before you know it, the whole schoolyard is Jerkland and you’re twirling a baton at the head of your own personal pity parade.
Its a sobering thought, this idea that the war being summed up so succinctly, and at the same time its accurate. This idea that ultimately they tried to be good, they wanted to do the right thing, but they failed and it all ended in death and fire. That's when Rose Petal reaches the conclusion that she has to do something about it.
And then, it seems that Rose Petal has been running on autopilot because all of a sudden she's in front of Diamond Tiara screaming at her that nopony likes her and basically chews her out, I, did not see that coming at all, and apparently neither did Rose Petal. I'm not saying that pre-redemption Diamond Tiara doesn't deserve this, but holy crap!
“Every single pony in the entire school hates you, and you are going to die sad, bitter, and alone.”
Okay, that's... somewhat accurate but darn is that still disturbing...
Rose Petal finally finishes by telling Diamond Tiara that she's no longer afraid of her, then the other foals gather around her until finally the adrenaline comes crashing down, and she realizes that she had scared the Pegasus that she had tried to help, she had become what she hated.
As she tried to close herself off from the world, she was shocked to suddenly hear the sound of clapping hooves. She opened her eyes to see the colt offering her a hoof, and the whole class gathers around her... its, actually a really good moment, and it does well to show Rose Petal's character.
The chapter ends with her resorting to laughter until she cries.
---Character Analysis: Rose Petal---
Honestly this is a first for my reviews, while this isn't the only fic I've read that's set before the apocalypse, Rose Petal is probably the most unique approach to it.
The idea of a character living before the war having visions of the Wasteland is certainly unique in a good way, the author does a nice job of showing her like this, but also giving her a human element in that ultimately she wants to try and help, even if she makes mistakes. In a way she's a lot like LittlePip, and I like it.
Rose Petal is an interesting character, plus making her the younger sister of Roseluck has potential. She's just a normal filly who can see the future, and she doesn't want it to come to pass... but she may not have a choice in the matter.
I can't wait to see where she goes in the future.
---Final Thoughts---
Wow, just, wow, this is one of the best Fallout: Equestria side stories I've had to review so far and I really liked it, and after reviewing those three fics the other days, I really needed a winner.
Its a unique approach to the universe that you don't ever quite expect, and as a result it does that approach very well. The concept is executed really well and the main character is very sympathetic and interesting. It feels natural, like how any of us would react if we saw visions of the apocalypse.
This is an amazing fic and I recommend it highly, and would love to read and review it more in the future.
Chapter 1 gets a score of 5/5 for setting up the concept perfectly and introducing the main character well.
Chapter 2 gets a score of 5/5 for doing a great job of showing off the main character's morals, and for chewing out pre-redemption Diamond Tiara.
Fallout: Equestria belongs to KKat.
Fallout: Equestria - The Hooves of Fate belongs to Sprocket Doggingsworth.
Next week, we explore another interesting fanfic that goes into something the original story had to skip, next time, things are going to change.
Video Made by Me
Ohhh very nice look at the story, and.. yeah this story was amazing from the start and only gets better. glad you enjoyed it.
4387603 Me too.
I really enjoyed that. Thanks for taking the time to write this.
It's almost four years to the day since I first started this story, and your review helped me relive some of that feeling of just starting out, and reminded me of moments in the story I hadn't thought about in a while.
Thanks. Glad you liked it.
4400053 You're welcome, I really enjoyed the first two chapters and hope to read more, good work on an amazing fanfic concept.