11447472
That depends, if you really knew the characters, you could know who it was. That's interesting!!!

11447505
Will you make more fics? <3!!!

11447771
Definitely. I have one in the works, but I'll only start publishing once it's actually finished (to save myself stress and headaches)

Good story. I enjoyed it a lot.
Issue: a buck is a male deer. Stallions are male ponies. You keep referencing bucks and it's immersion breaking.
Keep writing!

11448327
Thanks a lot for reading and for the kind words

As for the "buck" issue: I'm aware, but I've seen it used as a snappier synonym for "stallion" often enough that I figured it was generally accepted in the community. It used to bother me too but I got used to it.

11448368
Buck can be a euphemism for sex, but not a gender reference for different species of animal.
Like calling a dog a kitten or a dolphin a fish.

11448372
I see what you mean, but I still disagree. Buck being a ponified "fuck" is something exclusive to this fandom. The euphemism part is a very thin link to its real meaning.
In the same way, even though the link to the real meaning of buck in this context is also quite thin, it's an abstraction worth making for a snappier prose. It would have been worse in a fic that deals with deer, but as far as I know, most of the community ignores deer as a whole. In fact, I don't even recall if they're a canon species or not.
That said, it did irk me when I first saw it, so I don't blame you for not liking that choice ^^

11448372
It's important to note that the original Fallout: Equestria did use "buck" (almost) exclusively instead of the word "stallion" and also replaced PipBoy with a PipBuck and so on, so there's also the question of consistency and sticking true to the source material. Furthermore, the term buck is not limited to deer (see below), even though it's not a usually used to refer to a male horse. I personally think that Kkat instead used it to replace boy/man/male and didn't really care for horse-specific terminology. (Then again, neither does the show. Cough cough, flank, cough cough.) That said, I too used to find it annoying, though it appears in so many FoE-related as well as FoE-unrelated stories that I grew indifferent to it.

Here are the definitions of "buck" according to:
Merriam-Webster:

a male animal, especially : a male deer or antelope

a male human being

Collins Dictionary:

A buck is the male of various animals, including the deer, antelope, rabbit and kangaroo.

A buck is a young man.

Cambridge Dictionary:

the male of some animals such as deer and rabbits, or (in South Africa) a male or female antelope

Dictionary.com:

the male of the deer, antelope, rabbit, hare, sheep, or goat

the male of certain other animals, as the shad

an impetuous, dashing, or spirited man or youth

Also, a dolphin is a fish, just like any other mammal and any other tetrapod is a fish. Not to speak about the bizarre situation of bumblebees being considered fish for the sake of conservation...

11451874

Also, a dolphin is a fish, just like any other mammal and any other tetrapod is a fish.

I'm curious, how exactly? In the evolutionary sense?

11451936
Yes, phylogeny-wise. Tetrapods are just derived Sarcopterygii, with lungfish (Dipnoi) as their closest living relatives. As long as we consider coelacanths and lungfish to be fish, then we cannot really exclude tetrapods from the same category.

(Though I had in mind the cladistic approach, there are other takes on some mammals being fish, for example during the Christian Lent--or at least some of its forms--when fasting, people were supposed to abstain from eating meat, though that usually didn't include fish. And fish, in this sense of the word, included almost everything aquatic and semi-aquatic... so, for example, beavers were considered fish.)

11473068
One of the main characters in Stargate SG-1.
And what Candy said there reminded me of this magnificient scene

11473147
Oh, based.

I enjoyed reading it. ^^ thanks for sharing it

11505693
Thank you for reading ^^ Glad you liked it

A slice of life drama in a world where daily life has a pony facing death on the regular.

Then why is there no slice of life tag?

11515334
Genre tag limit. You can only have 3 blue tags on a fic, and I figured [Dark][Tragedy][Drama] is much more descriptive of the fic's themes. [SoL] is more of a detail about how the fic tells its story, rather what the story's about.
Besides, most people don't really think "surviving a barbaric wasteland" when they think of "slice of life", so even though the tag technically fits… yeah x)

Well I binged this hard. Definitely a very well written work and quite enjoyable, the time skips worked pretty well I think too. Not sure what to think about the ending though, it’s probably fitting, but like most foe stories the ending/epilogue is microscopic compared to the rest of the story. Regardless, thank you for writing such an awesome fic!

11527415
Thank you so much for reading, and thanks even more for the kind words
As for the epilogue… I kept it short on purpose. I actually had an original draft for the epilogue that was twice as long, and laid out in detail what happened to the characters, but I decided against publishing that, because I find open-ended, short epilogues more enjoyable (especially if they hint at something big/important happening).

It’s finished. My heart is aching, but this end feels right. Thank you for this wonderful journey.

11538401
Thank you for reading, and I'm glad you enjoyed the ending. You wouldn't believe how much thought went into it, my hurt still brains thinking about it.

11531095

Have you read PH - Speak or PH: Homelands? Any opinions on them?

11544078
I haven't. The last part of PH soured my experience so much that I kinda don't wanna touch anything PH related.

well this was a sweet epilogue, glad to see that in some way iron and sonata did survive even if it's just their soul, loved the fic and it's definitely going in my top five not above murky and pink eyes but close

11572863
Heheh, sorry
Very flattered to hear you'll be coming back to it
11572872
Thank you so much! Just having it compared to MNS is extremely flattering

I didn't even notice the switch to present-tense narration until 12 hours after I first read this and looked at it again.

“But they’re so tiny… is it because you’re a filly?”

Yup, I officially hate foals.

“And no, I’m not a filly. I just have the optimal size for the most aerodynamic flight,”

She’s standing on her hind legs and lifting the dress to reveal Clockwork’s mark: the open back of a silver pocket watch.

Exposing a natural nudist's unclothed hindquarters, oh, the scandal! Next thing you know, she'll be putting on clothes; how dreadfully lewd.

I just love how ingenious some of the mechanisms are, how all the pieces work together flawlessly, how elegant they are at achieving that one goal.

Function is its own form of beauty, I say, and the precision required to make it so is its own form of art and expression.

Well, that was quite the roller coaster ride. It started out pretty rough, I must admit, but the third act was when everything began to come together.
It's fitting that Sonata, who wanted to protect and save others (however misguided her methods may have been) became the green one, a master of shield spells, and that Iron, who wanted only to escape the life of bloodshed and heartache, became the purple one, a master of teleportation, of escape. The exact mechanism by which that happened, and its result, may well have been complete coincidences, but it matches to a degree the reasoning by which I determined which colors the alicorns in To Bellenast would be.
Spoilered for those who haven't read or don't care about it:
Blitz, the purple one, is a gifted mage, and teleportation is generally considered to be among the most difficult of spells to learn, as well as the most useful.
Ivy, the green one, dedicated her entire life before Unity to protecting her family, town, and eventually a nation, and everything she did was in defense of what she had built, so making her a shield specialist was a no-brainer.
Night Cloud, the blue one, is a pacifistic healer and aspiring doctor, who would rather run from conflict or hide than fight, so giving her the ability to conceal herself makes the most sense.
If Glitterdawn, Clockwork and Co. ever want a nice, quiet place to live, far from the Followers of the Apocalypse and the widespread suspicion toward alicorns, they should head south and look a little ways east of the Forest of Leota. I hear it's a fascinating place. Better watch out for the storms, though. Fearsome beasties like to come down from the summits during those.

11580073

Function is its own form of beauty, I say, and the precision required to make it so is its own form of art and expression.

Agreed.
>alicorn colours
Yeah, I did figure alicorn colours come from who they are as people, and the type of magic that's closest to them. I'll admit the metaphorical interpretations weren't quite what I was thinking of, but hey, I'll claim it was intentional anyway.

Just finished reading it. Loved it all.

As a Griffon, I liked grace. Very birbcat ^^

11683515
Thank you! Both for the kind words and for reading
And yeah, Grace was a very cool character to write

11686319
Ah, it’s not like she just spent most of the story giving people a reason to distrust her! :p

11686880
Ayyy, thanks for tolerating me being pedantic about language.

11687257
Nah, I thank you for pointing it out

11687255
Heheh

And she died how she lived, fighting. To the funny filly filled with fury!

Spooky if you’re reading this I know you’ve clicked on the link I’ve sent you in DMs and I’d just like to inform you of your homosexuality

11695238
shut up bitch

11695247
You like kissing stallions don’t you

11695249

11544078
11544103
Correction, I have now read (most) of Homelands, and I have to say that I 100% recommend it. It's hard to imagine it was written by the same guy who wrote PH chapters 50-78, because it's just that damn good. Not only are the good parts better (characters are even more likeable), but the bad parts are almost entirely gone (plot trying too hard to be deep now is actually deep, no more eyeroll inducing edge, etc)
Homelands is just straight up a good fic. Not "it's good if you're willing to overlook the bad parts".

11759763
That’s nice to hear. Homelands is definitely a story I will read… someday! So many books, so little time. I’ve been reading PH. It’s been slow going thanks to real life. Coincidentally, I just finished Chapter 50.

*insert ominous music here*

That said, I haven’t been disappointed yet. We’ll see if that holds!

And I see you have a new story. I was hoping to see another one. I’ll try to read it concurrently with PH.

11761917
Oh, heh, that's a funny coincidence. Though to be fair I pulled "50" out of my ass. There isn't a single spot where it suddenly gets terrible. Well, chapter 63 is by far the worst chapter of the fic, but that's another story.

And I look forward to reading your comments! No rush, though, the fic is still being published anyway

First Fallout equestria fic that i ever finished reading, most likely because i got it recommended, and yes it was worth it.

11867468
Well, thank you, and glad you enjoyed it!