The Ghost of the Long 52, in all her adorable glory.
"Well, not just that... it's something like... when you think about a cute thing and you want to have it there so you can stay with her some more and there are lots and lots of thing that make you think about her, even silly things like a color or some words and... ah..."
—Puppy on what cute means to her
Fallout: Equestria - Pink Eyes
is a completed fanfic by Mimezinga. Though based on the Fallout: Equestria lore, it breaks off from the rest of the other Recursive Fanfics in having its own distinct style, setting, and characters. Upon its finish, it had achieved 134,575 words total, while being the shortest one of the more popular spin-offs.
This is the tale of Puppysmiles, a cute, vivacious filly who lives with her mother in a terrace just beside Canterlot. Or, that is, she did before she took a nap in the kitchen and woke up to find her house completely collapsed and her neighborhood destroyed. Uh-oh. Though, none of that is more important that the whereabouts of her mother—one Rainy Days—who'll definitely know how to fix everything. Moms are cool like that. Only problem is that she's not currently with Puppy. In fact, Puppy has no idea where she could possibly be!
Unbeknownst to her, Puppy had been asleep no shorter than two-hundred years, after all the pretty fireworks had fallen over the city, leaving Canterlot enveloped in pink cloud. Just like in its predecessor, the place is inhabited by vicious feral ghouls and other horse tile entities, but Puppy had managed to stay safe and sealed underneath the rubble of her home for the last two centuries while a Mark VI life support suit kept her in a state of preservation. Now that she's woken up, it's time for action, and it looks like the strange Mr. Voice who lives inside the suit knows exactly where MoM is! Fun times and adventure ensues for the daring, the bold, Space Captain Andromeda!
Pink Eyes contains examples of the following tropes:
- Abstract Apotheosis: Puppysmiles is eulogized so much by Lonesome Pony that she becomes a representative of hope itself among the Long 52. Outright stated by Jammed Gun in the later chapters.
- Action Girl: Henrietta, a dual-pistol wielding griffin mercenary Puppysmiles helped out of a tight spot.
- Action Mom: Puppysmiles' mother, Rainy Days, does in fact qualify. After the apocalypse, she spent a lot of her time saving people's lives as a military medic, while having to deal with constant thievery, backstabbing, and just generally bad people. On top of that, she basically trained Puppy how to bypass highly fortified security checks and turned her into an oblivious whizz kid.
- Also implied by the fact that some of the Talon mercenaries have eggs they're taking care of.
- Action Survivor: Honestly, this applies to pretty much every character. You basically have to be if you want to survive in the wasteland. Ironically subverted by the main character of all things, as she's too young and naive to be much of an action anything.
- Actually Pretty Funny: Even the most stoic of the characters have ended up chuckling over Puppy's antics.
- Affably Evil: SolOS is a cruel, mean, and antisocial AI with goals of ruling Equestria with an iron hoof of dictatorship. But even Puppy finds it easy to empathize with him.
- Age-Appropriate Angst: Puppysmiles has every right in the world to feel like just going to sleep and never waking up when she eventually finds out she'll never see her mom again.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Mister Blue. Initially.
- Air-Vent Passageway: Puppysmiles is just a little filly, meaning it's easier to crawl around in tight spaces. She uses this to enter a locked-down fortress to search for her mom.
- Always Chaotic Evil: The 'Bullybots', from Puppy's perspective, are this in spades.
- Ambition Is Evil: SolOS's character in a nutshell.
- And I Must Scream: Heavily implied many times when regarding the idea of remaining alive purely due to the Environmental suit's AI and arcane magic, but no one ever actually seems to suffer from it.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: This story in general. While Littlepip is somewhere else entirely, saving the nation from many assorted abominations, Puppy is just looking for her mom in the Big 52.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Jammed Gun, a guardspony, gives one to a fellow guard Trigger Happy, pleading with her not to throw her life away on finding Puppysmiles. She tells him she's lesbian and departs anyway. However, his declaration won her over, and she returns the sentiment when she survives.
- Animalistic Abomination: Puppysmiles is effectively this, being a ghost made of necromantic gas and melted pony sludge in the shape of a cute little filly, wrapped up in a fancy Magitech Hazmat Suit. That doesn't mean she's not a Cheerful Child and a Nice Girl.
- Anti-Climax: When Puppysmiles finally does find out her mother is dead, she has it heavily rammed into her head by all her friends that she needs to get over it before she even has time to cry or grieve. In fact, she never even really understands that her mom is dead at all.
- Anti-Hero/ Anti-Villain: A few examples:
- Molten Gold is a ruthless treasure hunter willing to rob graves for money and steal supplies in order to get it done. But he genuinely feels bad for Puppysmiles and wants to help her.
- Henrietta is like any other mercenary and tends not to care about the pony race or any of the personal problems of... well, anybody. But she also truly loves Puppy, and finds herself reluctant to kill one of her enemies when she finds out she's a mother.
- SolOS is quite the evildoer, and yet, in the end, he finds himself empathizing more with Puppysmiles, and even wanting to become friends with P7—a concept quite foreign to him.
- Arc Words: "Do you believe in ghosts?"
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Puppysmiles is an easily distracted young foal, and puts pretty much anything that's colorful and small enough to carry into her saddlebags (bits of glass, ammunition, pieces of plastic, whatever). Luckily enough, this is how her suit's repair system is able to still function even after being shot and torn dozens of times over the course of the story; it just uses Puppysmiles' findings as raw material.
- Atomic F-Bomb: Molten Gold drops one when Puppy's cluelessness wears out his temper.Molten Gold: Why a fucking retarded foal, why!? FUUUUUCK!
- Babies Ever After: Three months after the end of the story, Trigger Happy is expecting to have a child with her new husband.
- Badass in Distress: Henri, a griffin so badass that her very flank has a bounty on it, is brainwashed, deprived of her free will, and forced to live amongst the residents of Sun City as a zombie until she's saved by Puppysmiles... again.
- Big Damn Heroes: When Creepy Voice possesses Puppysmiles and proceeds with trying to kill the ponies who want to 'exercise' her, Mr. White comes in with a whole band of Applejack's Rangers. Though, it's not quite a successful rescue.
- Bittersweet Ending: Rainy Days is long dead, and Puppy's grief at realising her mother is gone forever allows Creepy Voice to take over and kill several of the ponies trying to help her. When Puppy accepts her own death, her body falls apart. In the Afterword—just like in New Vegas—the revealed futures of some of the characters are very sad, unfulfilled, and unfair. However, in the epilogue Puppy and those she inadvertently killed find themselves in the pony afterlife, where Puppy is finally reunited with her parents.
- Body Horror: In an odd twist of the trope, it's honestly more horrifying to watch Puppysmiles regenerate her lost body mass than to actually see anything progressively get worse.
- Even worse is once you realize that Puppysmiles literally has no body. Any body she had has decomposed into an extremely corrosive pink mist contained by her suit.
- Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Sun City is an entire city of brainwashed wastelanders, who are forced to rebuild their community and have had conscious thought suppressed. The resident AI justifies this as not trusting anyone in getting along with others.
And sure enough, once the Mind-Control Device is disabled, the community dissolves into chaos and infighting. - Berserk Button: Henrietta does not like being called a chicken.
- Black Comedy: Puppy, blissfully ignorant as always, adopts a dead paradore cub as a pet and winds up carrying its decomposing carcass with her for several chapters. She remains unfazed by the disgusted reactions of the ponies she meets.
- Stretch your definition of 'baby' a little, and Puppy is dead baby comedy.
- Buffy Speak: Stoic Steel Ranger Scold, of all people.Come down from your... your... 'Wonderful dreaming place' and get real!
- Character Catchphrase:
- Puppysmiles tends to greet people she meets with "Hi! I'm Puppysmiles! Have you seen my mom?"
- Mr. Voice frequently says Subject deceased, condition stable.
- Character Blog: The Ask a Pony blog Ask Puppysmiles.
- Cute Ghost Girl: This is pretty much how everyone sees Puppy.
- Deadpan Snarker: Several of the people Puppy meets fit the bill, and even Mister Voice gets in on it occasionally. Probably entirely by accident.Puppysmiles: Uh... mister Voice, gimme that shiny thing that makes a lot of noise.
Mister Voice: Warning. Object Puppysmiles cannot be retrieved from inventory. - Death from Above: Puppysmiles accidentally designates a Steel Ranger holdout for a Solaris Orbital Artillery strike. The Applejack's Rangers who were assaulting the compound were pleasantly surprised on how quickly the battle ended afterwards.
- Demonic Possession: For a brief moment during chapter 12 by what MAY be Nightmare Moon, and then full on at the end in chapter 20 after Puppy learns her mother is dead.
- Determinator: Puppysmiles will find her mom, darnit, and she's too busy to let things like death and Post-Apocalyptica get in her way!
- Dynamic Entry: Henrietta is prone to these when Puppysmiles wanders off while under her care. Even when the filly is in no danger at all.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: One guess as to what food the town of Brocolli grows.
- Flashback: Puppysmiles frequently has some when something reminds her of certain events in her past.
- Footnote Fever: As is customary, Pink Eyes includes a footnote at the end of every chapter describing her level growth.
- Foregone Conclusion: Puppysmiles starts out in search of her lost mother Rainy Days. The problem is, it's been two centuries since she last saw her. Unless Rainy Days has been ghoulified or otherwise preserved, her quest is doomed to end in heartbreak. According to Molten Gold, the grave of Rainy Days is located at Emerald Shores, at the end of the Big 52, by the sea.
- Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: The Ask a Pony blog Ask Puppysmiles.
- Genki Girl:Pinky is very excitable, even in dangerous situations due to being oblivious to such, and the situations being less dangerous for an Undead Child like her.
- Have a Nice Death: Footnote: Level up! (20) No wait. You’re dead. Sorry kid, better luck next time.
- Healing Factor: Being a Canterlot Ghoul, Puppy can survive outrageous injuries. Her list includes being shot, stabbed, dismembered, devoured by a manticore, taking several antimateriel rifles to the chest, and being cut to ribbons by a minigun barrage.
- Heroic BSoD: Puppy gets one after accidentally destroying the Steel Ranger's fortress, because she was under the impression that her mother was in there. She gets better once she's told she had moved on already.
- She suffers a second, terminal BSOD after finding her mother's grave.
- She suffers a second, terminal BSOD
- Hope Bringer: Puppy, entirely by accident. Her relentless optimism and faith in the inherent goodness of people inspire most of the ponies she meets.
- Improbable Weapon User: Puppysmiles' only armament is a rock. Nothing can stand in her way, especially after she gets several perks that increase its effectiveness.
- Incompetence, Inc.: Solaris, Inc., whose fine products included a doorbell with integrated anti-burglary systems that were responsible for electrocuting, among others, dozens of traveling salesponies and several muffin-selling scouts.
- Innocent Inaccurate: Being barely above preschool age, Puppy just can't understand all the horrible things going on around her.
- Killer Rabbit: Puppy, though usually by accident. Several of the wasteland nasties that try to kill her discover - much too late - that she's filled with flesh-melting gas.
- Kill Sat: Ponymedes, a set of orbital mass drivers. Which happens to be targeted by the below Lethal Joke Item...
- Left the Background Music On: Puppy frequently turns on her radio to ignore what's going on around her. This leads to, in true Fallout style, the orbital bombardment she accidentally causes being set to "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Mane".
- Lethal Joke Item: Just like in Fallout: New Vegas, Puppy trades a high value item for a child's toy laser gun. And as in 'Fallout: New Vegas'', that toy laser gun is the laser designator for a Kill Sat.
- Mood Whiplash: Puppy's childish naivety and one-track mind cause the story's tone to ricochet wildly between Black Comedy, horrifying and Tear Jerker.
- Mugging the Monster: A random mercenary, hearing tales of the Ghost of 52, decides to put the so-called-legend in her place after she stumbles into him. But she's just a filly who can't even comprehend his threats, and his beatdown consists of spanking her. Eventually, everyone including the mercenary leaves due to the embarrassment and awkwardness.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Bloodbath is the name of the leader of the Wild Herd. If that doesn't send you running, it's pry 'cause he already murdered you.
- The Nicknamer: Puppysmiles invents nicknames for virtually everything and everyone. Watcher becomes Questioner, Steel Rangers become Robocolts, and a tank shell becomes 'Teapot'.
- Our Zombies Are Different: This counts double for Puppy. She's not so much a Canterlot ghoul as she is an ambulatory mass of pink cloud, liquefied flesh and shattered bone, held together by her radsuit, a weak necromantic talisman, and sheer willpower.
- The Pollyanna: Not even the apocalypse can get this filly down.
- Psychopomp: Pinkie Pie, complete with soul-ferrying Cool Airship.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Happens every now and then, usually directed at Puppysmiles.
- Real Stallions Keep Brushable Dolls: Turns out Scold, the grumpy head of the Applejack's Ranger Scribes, keeps a brushable Lyra figurine in the pocket of his robes.
- Rock Beats Everything: Nothing hostile in the Wasteland survives an encounter with Puppy's rock.
- Shout-Out: Lonesome Pony makes passing references to The Stable Dweller and Security.
- Stealth Insult: When Puppysmiles is worried she might be a robot Henrietta reassures her she's not, since "robots are intelligent." It takes a while for Puppy to catch it.
- Together in Death: Pinky dies in the end, but finally finds her mother.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth:
- A manticore eats Puppysmiles at one point. Big mistake, as the Pink Cloud inside Puppy dissolves it from the inside out.
- The paradores, mashups of Fallout: New Vegas' cazadores and Friendship is Magic's parasprites, cringe in fear and trip over themselves to get away from Puppysmiles. All except for Fuzzy Ball, who is dead.
- Tragic Keepsake: Puppysmiles encounters Henrietta's dying father, who pleads her to give his baby to his other baby. When Puppy delivers it to Henri, after a small freakout, she uses it to great effect.
- Twitchy Eye: Puppysmiles tends to have this effect on the ponies (and griffons) she comes across.
- Undead Child: Of a sort. Puppysmiles is a Canterlot Ghoul and does not qualify as living, but you'd never think of her as anything other than an excited filly if you saw her.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Lots of them.
- Mister Voice, the integrated AI interface for Puppysmiles' radsuit.
- P7, another AI who's pretty much Pinkie Pie's personality uploaded into a computer.
- SolOS, a fairly antagonistic AI that Puppysmiles booted out of his residence. Twice.
- Watcher makes his return, though Puppysmiles insists on referring to him as "Questioner".
- Creepy Voice, who seems to be similar to Nightmare Moon.
