Fallout: Equestria - Pink Eyes Reviews: Chapter 1 · 9:32pm Nov 15th, 2016
Made by M1guel1980
So, today November 15th is my birthday, so as a birthday gift to all of you I'm going to come out with my next review today instead of waiting until Sunday. So lets see what's next on my planned list of reviews and...
Oh dear Celestia this isn't going to be fun...
Don't get me wrong, I love this fanfic, its really well written and entertaining, I find the protagonist to be annoying. That's right, I of course am talking about Mimezinga's Pink Eyes. I've been reading this fanfic, so that's part of the reason I'm reviewing it, and I also wanted to address it's, uh, stranger elements of course.
So without further ado, lets begin.
---Chapter 1: Weatherproof---
Do you believe in ghosts?
Song made by Ray Parker Jr.
Okay, lets get on to the actual fanfic now that I've made that joke.
“Please let us on! The shield is failing, there’s no time!”
So here we are, we find ourselves in the last days of the war with the fall of Canterlot around the time of Luna's death and Celestia abandoning the city and the activation of the Pink Cloud megaspell. While this segment is relatively short, there's a definite feeling of tension as ponies are trying to flee the area around Canterlot.
Its also here where we get our first look at our protagonist who is watching Canterlot being engulfed in the Pink Cloud. A medical Unicorn asks her where her parents are and she says that her mother is up in Canterlot and will be home for dinner...
This is where we get our first real look at Puppysmiles' personality, she's still a filly which means she comes off as incredibly naive to the ways of the world. This is, actually a pretty interesting idea especially for a fanfic set in Fallout: Equestria, because its not what you expect for a protagonist to be, and its very creative so I'll give the writer that.
So Puppysmiles is given her now iconic containment suit, and we get this rather sad but accurate line from the medical Pony:
Dear Celestia, she’s just a foal, she hasn’t done anything wrong! This war is killing more than just ponies. This war is killing hope itself.
Puppysmiles in, typical Puppysmiles fashion that we'll see throughout the fanfic, rushes off home because she wants to see herself in the mirror. She finds a muffin but can't get to it because of her helmet (somewhere Derpy is heartbroken). That's when she starts hearing a voice.
“Status of the host – panic”
Puppysmiles, I know you're just a filly, but you must know when you start hearing voices in your head its never good.
Puppy interacts with the voice a little before outside the shield has collapsed and the Pink Cloud is about to fall onto the town where she's living in. It floods and washes over the filly, bathing her in the radiation as the suit tries to save her, Puppy falls unconscious and despite the radiation she does not die, but she does not quite survive either. Years passed until finally the structure collapsed right on top of Puppy's head.
Well, that's it, fanfic's over, that was pretty short, oh well...
Oh, there's more, sorry, false alarm.
After the building collapsed, Puppysmiles finally wakes up for the first time in centuries. And naturally upon leaving she starts calling out for her mom, not aware of just how much time had passed.
This, actually is very much a heartbreaking moment, she's a filly who has lost her entire world and she's crying out for her mother that may or may not even be still alive. Its tragic and you can't help but feel sorry for the filly, even if she gets a bit annoying at times, this is a well done element to her character.
So after a reboot her talking suit is back up and running, and after Puppy realizes she can't get the suit off, we get this piece of dialogue from the suit:
“All systems operational. Starting diagnostic routine. Analyzing. Subject 001, Puppysmiles. Female. Foal. Earth pony variety. No vitals. Checking for errors in diagnostic equipment. No error found. Repeating diagnostic routine. Female. Foal. Earth pony variety. No vitals.”
Yeah, Puppysmiles is basically a walking corpse or ghost, kinda creepy really, but an interesting idea for a protagonist.
So Puppysmiles of course has no idea what a vital is, calling them whytles and immediately wants one because she thinks its tasty. The voice is, about as useful as you expect a voice in your head to be... I kid actually its fairly helpful as far as talking suits go (admittedly the bar isn't very high for that). So she starts looking around and hopes to find her mother, as usual, and asks Mister Voice where she is.
And we get this bit of brilliance from Mister Voice:
“MoM, Ministry of Morale. Analyzing data. Connecting to Equestrian Cartography Onspark. Downloading data. Error, name matching failed. Searching for MoM broadcasting signal. Spritebot found. Establishing communication bridge... ”
Yes, really smart, thought it was about the Ministry instead of her mother, way to go Pinkie you accidentally confused an AI.
So Mister Voice set up a marker to the nearest MoM hub and told Puppysmiles how to get there, and of course Puppysmiles is happy about this with the usual amount of enthusiasm.
So we get some music from Puppysmiles as she follows the marker, but that's not really important. Mister Voice is about as happy with this as I am, I'm starting to like Mister Voice, he's fun for a talking suit. There's then some confusion between the two of them over Mom vs. MoM, and then they run into a hostile pony... or as Puppysmiles calls him Horse Tile.
Okay, I have to nitpick a moment here, Mister Voice used the exact term Canterlot Feral Ghoul and honestly I'm not quite sure how he... err, it knew that one since its not really connected to any systems. If someone could explain that, it would be appreciated.
So of course when faced with a really mean feral ghoul, Puppysmiles does the only logical thing, she runs away screaming. Okay, I find Puppysmiles annoying but I have to admit that she feels like a completely natural character, she acts like you'd expect a kid to act if they woke up in the wasteland.
So there's a bit more of argument over terminology between the two, particularly when Mister Voice says that Puppy is deceased which of course she thinks he said diseased, its strangely adorable.
So they keep heading towards the MoM hub, Puppy quoting Pinkie with the whole Okey Dokey Lokey thing as they head out into the Dead Hills. And that's when Puppy runs into some very nasty ponies and we get this line for the first time.
"I'm Puppysmiles! Have you seen my mom?"
Footage belongs to Konami, but frak them.
So the Raiders shoot at Puppy and damage her suit, one of them tries to tackle her but get's a face full of Pink Cloud and goes all Raiders of the Lost Arc with his face. The Raider mare doesn't fare much better and dies not long after realizing that she's some sort of Ghoul. The last one apparently isn't incredibly stupid so he just runs away.
Puppysmiles pretty much snaps at Mister Voice after there's some more confusion over words and he goes quiet for awhile. At this point Puppy just breaks down crying for hours on end.
So the next day comes and Puppy asks Mister Voice once again for help finding her mom and they start walking again. And this is where they run into a familiar face, well, familiar for us... and also not really a face, Watcher.
Watcher asks Puppy about her suit and what had happened, and of course Mister Voice. She also starts calling Watcher Questioner, which she finds more appropriate, kids these days huh? Anyway, Watcher wishes her luck and goes on his way.
After hearing the music, Puppy asks Mister Voice to play some music, which he does and after that they continue on their way along the road.
---My Thoughts---
Okay, other than how annoying Puppysmiles tends to be, I actually really enjoy this fanfic and chapter 1 was a really good start to the fanfic. Much like last time with my review of Long Haul we're not dealing with a Stable Dweller, but at the same time we still have a character who is essentially a fish out of water. Puppysmiles has been asleep for 200 years by this point, and she has no idea what the world around her is really like, which is shown through her naive nature.
This is a well done introduction to Puppysmiles and Mister Voice, while it doesn't set the setting up quite yet, it is still a good start and gives the readers an insight into the characters and an idea of what to expect in the future.
I give chapter 1 of Pink Eyes a 4/5.
Link to the Original Fanfic.
Fallout: Equestria belongs to KKat.
Fallout: Equestria - Pink Eyes belongs to Mimezinga.
Next review will be back on the Sunday schedule.
Made by Jacob Stueck.
I think even the original story had jokes about Littlepip's pipbuck knowing things about the current world it has no business knowing, actually
By the way, I had a reader of my main FO:E story (TDU) remark that they hadn't read the original, but they had read Pink Eyes. I found that pretty amusing, since that meant they went through the whole thing without knowing that "Questioner" was really Spike
4303885 Heh, good point.
*chuckles* Yeah that is amusing, they really should read the original.
I'd say that's a fair score and it is an ok story but GAWD I wanted to bludgeon myself for the start of it.
Also 'EPIC RAP BATTLES OF PONIES' really? WHY YOU DO THIS TO ME? WHY??? so much potential to fall so sort. My ruling on that final video
out of 
Rules (TT)
4303975 Honestly wasn't sure what else to use there.
Poor Harry Mason... he and Puppy would make an excellent duo
4304471 Yeah, I kept thinking of that line when Puppy asked about her mom, so I couldn't resist.
Fair review, thanks ^_^
Also, i find that chapter 1 is pretty weak and i'm happy that you didn't hate it completely: it sports a couple of major suspension of belief breakers but they are a premise for what happens next, so i couldn't tailor them any better. i has a sorry about that.
about Puppy's personality... well, she is a cartoon character, so she is... different from a kid, methinks? when i wrote her down the first time i hd in mind that blondie from the animaniacs, mixed with the red haired girl with a skull in her hair from the tiny toons, but nicer
4304657 Fair enough, and I am enjoying the fanfic so far, I'm actually on chapter 17 now, I just went back to review it from the beginning.
As for Puppy, that makes sense really, but with these reviews I just kinda gotta go based on how I read them, so, yeah.
I plan to review more chapters further down the line, I hope you read them. And thanks for the input and response, I'm liking the reaction I've been getting to these reviews from the authors.
4305046 i hope that you won't hate the ending... it's another weak spot of the story, especially chapter 20.
the afterwords are a very important part of the story, though.
also, i'm ok with going with how people see the story, mostly because it shows if i really was able to deliver what i had in mind (spoiler alert: more than once, i wasn't). i just wanted to give some backstage gossip ^_^
4305082 We'll see I guess, I'll probably leave a comment saying what I feel about it.
Fair review/commentary.
Are you reading the fimfiction edition or the edited/formatted ebook of Pink Eyes?
You can get the ebook from the FoE print project, or read it online. Chapter artwork <3