Ruin Value is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic by the Titanium Dragon
. Celestia is wandering a ruined city After the End while desperately searching for supplies for the few survivors of the End of the World as We Know It.
The story can be found here.
Tropes
Due to the nature of this story, even the names of many of the tropes involved in the story constitute major spoilers, and large sections of the text would need to be spoiled. As a result, do not open the below folder until you have read the entire story unless you want to be spoiled.
This work provides examples of:
Tropes:
- After the End: The story is set after the introduction of magic led to human civilization wiping itself out, leaving only ruins behind.
- Artistic Age: Luna, Celestia, and Discord's ages are all hidden from the audience in service of the Twist Ending, though there are some hints that the characters aren't as old as they are in the main series.
- Creating Life: Luna, Celestia, and Discord are all products of human genetic engineering.
- The Ending Changes Everything: Over the course of the story, it gradually becomes clear that not everything is as it seems, but the final lines reveal that the story is a prequel to the series, and that the ruined city Celestia was walking through was Seattle, Washington.
- Foreshadowing: The nature of the city is foreshadowed throughout the piece.
- Discord mentions ancient human ruins when he talks about the ruin value of the city.
- Celestia mentions smartphones, technology ponies don't have in the show.
- The golden arches are not a Bland-Name Product, but actual McDonald's, at their true locations.
- Young Flowers is a real flower shop in Seattle. Celestia eating their product would be all the more unexpected, because humans don't eat flowers.
- The tall steel ruin which is destroyed in numerous films but survives the end of the world is the Space Needle, which is designed to survive natural disasters in real life.
- The trains weren't designed for Celestia, but they weren't designed for ponies, either — they were designed for humans.
- Earth All Along: The final line of the story reveals that the story was set in the real-world city of Seattle.
- Humanity's Wake: Humanity has been destroyed after harnessing the power of magic.
- Post Apocalyptic: The story takes place after the ruin of modern civilization, with only a few survivors left to pick through the ruins.
- Plot Twist: The ruins Celestia is going through aren't those of Equestria, and this isn't a bad ending for the show — they're those of modern-day America, and this takes place thousands of years before the show's time.
- Red Herring: The story seems to be set after the show, and the ruins are assumed by the reader to be that of a pony city. Neither is true.
- The Reveal: Celestia's "father" is human, and the city is a human city — namely Seattle.
- Shown Their Work: All the locations in the story apart from Father's laboratory are real, and Celestia's journey can be followed on Google Maps, as she passes by real buildings and stores.
- Stealth Prequel: The story is actually set millennia before My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
- Title Drop: Discord mentions ruin value, in parody of real estate value, while talking about the desolate beauty of the ruined city.
