Cupcakes



Cupcakes is a dark and extremely gory fanfic of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic by Sergeant Sprinkles.

Plot synopsis: Pinkie Pie invites Rainbow Dash to her bakery and offers her a cupcake. Rainbow Dash discovers too late that the cupcake was drugged; she wakes up some time later strapped to a table in a darkened room decorated up like a party, but in place of streamers and balloons are blood, bones and body parts. Pinkie Pie appears wearing a dress made from pony flesh and a necklace of unicorn horns. She reveals that she has killed many other ponies and then tells Rainbow Dash that "her number came up". She then proceeds to slowly and brutally mutilate Rainbow Dash in graphic detail, eventually killing her.

Perhaps what makes this story so disturbing is that, throughout the entire story, Pinkie Pie keeps up her bubbly, cheery personality, cracking jokes and insisting that she and Rainbow Dash are having a party, even as Dash pleads and begs for her life. The fic is notorious among the fanbase, to the point where it inspired several pieces of artwork and multiple alternate endings.

Read it here. But dear lord know what you're getting yourself into.

A Dramatic Reading of the story can be found here. The sporking of this story from the continuum by the PPC can be found here, if you'd like to sleep a bit easier tonight.

For those of you who don't want to be mentally scarred for life, this intentional bastardization will basically tell you everything you need to know. It's also good for if you have read Cupcakes and need some Nightmare Retardant.

This fanfic has allegedly hit Ascended Meme status when one of the (former) animators worked on this beauty in his spare time. If you need a version to giggle with the ghosties with, this would probably be the one for you, though still easily graphic and on the disturbitude scale of Invader Zim and Ren and Stimpy put together.

There have also been several musical works dedicated to the Fan Fiction: Including a Portal 2 "Want You Gone" cross-over/cover and two tribute albums; by Futret and Tarby, respectively.

There's also a Spiritual Successor called Sweet Apple Massacre. All you need to know about it is that it involves Big Macintosh and the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

This fic has also caused an ever growing amount of related fanfictions by other authors -- prequels, parodies, and sequels.

"Rainbow Dash: Oh God, No."
 * Adult Fear/Harmful to Minors: Twist was apparently one of Pinkie's victims as is Silver Spoon at The Stinger;.
 * Animated Adaptation: Two of them so far. See The Musical below for the other one. As well as this one, supposedly by one of the show's animators.
 * Anyone Can Die: Pinkie has gotten to countless ponies, including, if the above image is anything to believe, Princess Luna. Yes, the second most powerful pony in all of Equestria, who controls the night itself, has been captured, killed, and made into cupcakes by a sugar-hopped, partying earth pony.
 * Asshole Victim:
 * Ax Crazy: Pinkie Pie
 * The Bad Guy Wins: Frankly, it's not likely anypony has had any luck trying to escape Pinkie's games.
 * Beware the Silly Ones: Pinkie Pie, a bubbly, somewhat ditzy pony, brutally murders her friend with a smile on her face and acts just that way the whole time.
 * Black Comedy
 * Brain Bleach: There's quite a bit of fanart and fanfics of the characters reading this fic (or in one case seeing a movie of it) and having this reaction.
 * Broken Angel: A few of the Alternate Endings have Rainbow Dash survive but end up as this instead.
 * Cerebus Syndrome: It starts out simple and friendly enough... then it gets uneasy.
 * Characteristic Trope: Almost all Dark Fics in this fandom are in some way connected to this story.
 * Cold-Blooded Torture
 * Comic Book Adaptation: There's one up on Deviant Art which is still ongoing. It's more or less identical except depicted in images rather than text.
 * Cruel and Unusual Death: A good friend of yours strapping you down, mutilating your body, and having you later made into cupcakes is the last thing anyone would ever want.
 * Cute and Psycho: The most disturbing thing about the fic is that, despite all the murder, evisceration and evil cooking, Pinkie's outer self is just as happy, cute and casual as ever.
 * Dark Fic: And how! Well-known fanblog "Equestria Daily" has many darkfics hosted, which are sorted under the "Grimdark" tag. Cupcakes is the only fic on the site with the "GRIMDARK AS FUCK" tag.
 * Dead Guy Puppet: Pinkie does this with  skull.
 * Death by Irony: Rainbow Dash, representing the Element of Loyalty to one's friends, betrayed and murdered by one of them.
 * Defiant to the End: Gilda, to the point where Pinkie Pie shoves a Parasprite down her throat. Unlike Rainbow Dash, Gilda is so badass she badmouths Pinkie Pie until she dies.
 * Deleted Scene: Remember that scene in which Pinkie Pie hammers nails into Rainbow Dash's hooves? A little interview with the author himself tells us that was going to be a bit worse...
 * Disproportionate Retribution: Based on the victims we see, this could be interpreted as a Revenge Fic. However, the worst any of the victims have done is be petty Jerkasses. The fake movie trailer has her flip out over not being invited to the Grand Galloping Gala and being snubbed for Gummy's after-birthday party.
 * Electric Torture
 * And if you're willing to count Adult Children, Pinkie Pie herself.
 * Et Tu, Brute?
 * Fallen Hero: The same pony representing the Element of Laughter, who helped to defeat Nightmare Moon and Discord, is now a homicidal maniac with cannibalistic intentions.
 * Faux Affably Evil: Pinkie retains her cheerful attitude while committing her atrocities.
 * Flanderization: Although the original story uses a happy, curly-haired pony who behaves upbeat and is called "Pinkie Pie", references to this fan fiction written or drawn after "Party of One" aired will often call her "Pinkamena" instead (during a "depressed" part of her childhood she went by her full name of Pinkamena Diane Pie), and represent the character with the straight hair and morose attitude she displayed during that episode.
 * Flaying Alive:
 * Force Feeding: It's briefly mentioned that Pinkie forced a live Parasprite down throat. In one of the unofficial sequels, Pinkie Pie.
 * Genuine Pony Hide: Pinkie's "dress".
 * Giggling Villain: Pinkie
 * Gorn: Oh so much.
 * Grotesque Cute: It's Pinkie Pie re-enacting Hostel!
 * Hero-Killer: Technically, one hero is the killer of another, but still.
 * Heroic BSOD: Poor Rainbow Dash. Tried so hard to make it out, but in the end, simply gave up and ended up being made into a cupcake.
 * Hoofgore
 * Hurricane of Puns: All of them organ-related.
 * I'm An Equitarian
 * Instant Sedation: Pinkie's knockout cupcakes.
 * Late Arrival Spoiler: The fact that this fic was grimdark was actually supposed to be a plot twist. It's why the story has such an innocent name and starts out like a DashiePie fanfiction.
 * Lethal Chef: Apparently, Rainbow Dash isn't very good at making cupcakes.
 * Lottery of Doom: Pinkie chooses her victims like this.
 * A Love to Dismember: and taxidermy.
 * MacGyvering: Pinkie is quite creative with what's left of her victims. The necklace of unicorn horns, the dress made out of cutie marks, painting skulls for crafts, and many more disturbing ideas.
 * The Musical: Another Animated Adaptation was created. This time it's a musical with the song "This is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas playing in the background.
 * Murphy's Law: Rainbow Dash actually considered blowing the meeting with Pinkie Pie off to continue her flying, but went anyway to be a loyal friend.
 * No Dead Body Poops: Subverted.
 * Oh Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us: Due to its infamous nature and generally how freaky it is, this story has become popular fodder for this, several Alternate Endings even making it a fanfic by the characters themselves and a few fanart depicting such reactions as this.
 * Police Are Useless:
 * It's a miracle how Pinkie is able to do all this without any legal comeuppance, or even notice by the Cakes (who own Sugarcube Corner and would certainly go in their basement from time to time). However, it's safe to assume that somepony has reported the missing ponies and Pinkie's just slipped under the radar.
 * This is lampshaded in FimFlamFilosophy's parody video, where Pinkie is discovered by Mrs Cake shortly after the dramatic reveal and tries (and fails) to talk her way out of trouble.
 * Pony Resources: Pinkie takes everything, organs, bones, and the such, from victims. See MacGyvering above.
 * Potty Failure: Rainbow wets herself when and again when
 * Precision F-Strike: This From the Original Text:
 * Precision F-Strike: This From the Original Text:


 * Put the Laughter In Slaughter
 * Revised Ending: Several, made by a variety of people. For example:
 * It was just a nightmare; Pinkie Pie wouldn't really butcher her friends. Not only was it just a dream, it horrified Pinkie Pie so much that Rainbow Dash had to reassure her that since she still knew right from wrong, she wasn't actually insane.
 * It was just a nightmare that Rainbow Dash has... repeatedly, driving her insane and causing her to murder Pinkie in delusional self-defence.
 * This in turn spawned its own Alternate Ending where Dash snaps out of it and gets Pinkie to the hospital in time... and must deal with Applejack and Rarity calling her out before being forgiven.
 * Twilight found them out and backed Pinkie into one of her own murder machines.
 * Pinkie fed the cupcakes made from Rainbow Dash to her other friends.
 * They were just acting for an Alfred Hitchcolt movie.
 * Celestia needs the pony cupcakes to prevent an ancient curse from making her go on a murderous rampage.
 * It's just a fanfic, written by Fluttershy after listening to Heavy Metal music.
 * And a two-parter where Pinkie gets caught, and before her execution tells the story of how her grandpa introduced her to the family traditions.
 * And a four parter where Applejack finds her in time, but the doctors were unable to get her wings back on, devastating Dash's life and helping her find.
 * And a last-minute derail in which Dash plays along with her tormentor, lures Twilight Sparkle in by pretending it's some gruesome game, tips her off in time for Twilight to zap Pinkie to sleep - and they discover that, and they have to cure her, to rehabilitate the traumatized Pinkie back into the community.
 * It's just an April Foal's prank.
 * It was just a fan fic written by Pinkie and Rainbow Dash.
 * There's also a version on DeviantArt where it's a fan fic written by Discord and Megatron.
 * After Fluttershy went back in time to stop Pinkie, Spike ended up being the murderer instead.
 * A three-part sequel focusing on Applebloom discovering that
 * A sequel about how Pinkie Pie has a Split Personality and the split personality took control of her.
 * Seconds before the mutilations, Rainbow Dash broke free, and managed to kill Pinkie instead, Hansel and Gretel style.
 * And then there's Le Petit Four, a fanfic where Pinkie goes on to torture and murder Rarity, who dies begging her, "Please... don't do this to my little sister Sweetie Belle." Pinkie happily agrees right before eviscerating Rarity, who is happy to die by that point.
 * This had its own sequel, One Last Party Favor, where she tries to do the same to Spike and Twilight for knowing too much, but fails.
 * It was Sergeant Sprinkles's idea for an opening to Season 2, and he gets dragged away because Lauren Faust thinks he's insane.
 * A sequel in which Pinkie Pie kills Fluttershy, of all ponies. As if that isn't bad enough, Pinkie also
 * A Two part sequel in which two of Celestia’s Guards are sent to investigate the discovery of a body at Sugercube corner, only to uncover a bigger, more sinister crime: Affectionate Parody of CSI-type programs and film Noir set in Equestria of all places.
 * In Cupcake Surprise,.
 * Annnd now there's yet another version in which we discover that Pinkie kills Rainbow Dash because Dash raped Scootaloo. And Scoots helps Pinkie slaughter Dash. Oh yes, just to top off this big bucket o' Gorn, it turns out that the Ponies have a peace treaty with the Griffon Kingdom that involves all executed pony criminals being sold to them for meat. And Dash's flesh is sold by the Cakes to Gilda!
 * Yet another sequel details how Pinkie Pie went on to torture and murder the rest of her friends and display their bodies to Twilight Sparkle. This was all done for some obscure occult purposes at the behest of Celestia that are not fully revealed until one reads the further nine part sequel it spawned. Essentially, Twilight and Pinkie Pie's four dead friends become powerful undead and Twilight Sparkle is taken over by another entity and begins to refer to herself as the Twilight Queen. This leads directly to Equestria being overrun by an army of dead ponies, each of whom exhibit the pink pony's personality.
 * Revenge Fic: Muffins, which has avenging the death of Rainbow Dash.
 * It's also a Shout-Out to Dexter.
 * Room Full of Crazy
 * Rouge Angles of Satin: There are a noticeable amount of grammar and spelling mistakes. They are (largely) cleaned up in the version hosted on Equestria Daily (although the part of the fic is also inexplicably deleted as well).
 * Shout-Out:
 * Serial killer Pinkie Pie wears a dress made of the flesh of her own kind and, just like Buffalo Bill.
 * The whole story is pretty much a very grisly retelling of Sweeney Todd, except with the barbershop removed, Pinkie Pie taking on the roles of both Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. This has not gone unnoticed by fans.
 * Also inverted, with other fanfics referencing it due to its infamy.
 * Better Living Through Science and Ponies: GLaDOS tries to convince Pinkie Pie that her friends know she's just a couple steps away from becoming a serial killer and baking them into cupcakes.
 * The Party Never Ended has it appear as.
 * Progress: While in Pinkie Pie's apartment, Princess Luna watched a gut-wrenchingly bad and graphic cable television horror movie version of Cupcakes while Pinkie was busy in the kitchen. Luna was then startled by a completely innocent Pinkie, and became temporarily phobic of pastries and the color pink.
 * World of Ponycraft: Pinkie interrogates a cultist by telling her a cupcake recipe she read in a fanfic once.
 * Silent Ponyville uses this fic as one of Pinkie's nightmares, even having her turn into this incarnation of Pinkie in one of the bad endings
 * Rainbow Leap uses ... well, almost all of these as parallel universes.
 * The Legend of Spyro a New Dawn has Delilah mention the "Cupcakes Incident" on more than one occasion, which involved this universe and left her deathly afraid of cupcakes. Apparently, she at least witnessed at least some of the events of the fanfic itself. It didn't seem to hurt her relationship with the canon version of Pinkie Pie though, who she lists as one of her best friends and is even upset she missed her birthday party. Though in the A New Dawn Side Story, Delilah is seen taking therapy for it.
 * The Pony POV Series version of Pinkie Pie tells the readers to stop talking about that "stupid fanfic" when she gets to a point in her introduction where she mentions cupcakes. The scary part is she nearly gets taken over by Angry Pie, who is arguably every bit as psychotic as the Cupcakes version. This version of Pinkie really hates this fic.
 * Fanmade game 'Super Filly Adventure' has several references to it, such as Pinkie asking player character Jade if she wants to make cupcakes with her, Twilight referring to a book called 'Cupcakes' (which Jade insists she shouldn't read), and Pinkie musing on the purpose of a 'hacksaw' and claiming she's seen an 'eevil' version of herself in the mirror.
 * The fanfic 'Po-Ni-Oh: The Abridged Series' (A ponyfication of Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series) has a shout-out during the soap opera parody in episode 7, where Grandpa shooting Tristan becomes Granny Smith making Derpy into Cupcakes (With Cupcakes capitalized to drive the point home).
 * The Katawa Shoujo fanfic Hanako Bakes Cupcakes has Hanako brutally slaying Lilly, Hisao, Shizune and Misha after serving pieces of her flesh to them in cupcakes.
 * Stepford Smiler: Pinkie Pie is a Type C.
 * The Stinger: In the original version, Pinkie Pie is about to murder Silver Spoon, only for Apple Bloom to suddenly show up. Silver Spoon is relieved, believing that Apple Bloom is there to save her. . For some reason, the revised version leaves this part out.
 * Team Killer: The Element of Laughter butchering the Element of Loyalty. It seems unlikely either element will be much use come the next major villain who requires the elements for containment.
 * Torture Cellar
 * Troll Fic: Sort of; Sergeant Sprinkles wrote it mostly on a whim and posted it to see if would actually get any views. He was quite surprised by the reaction that came after.
 * Vasquez Always Dies: Of course the most tomboyish pony was the first on-screen victim...
 * Vile Villain Saccharine Show
 * X Meets Y: The story can be summed up as "My Little Pony meets probably every torture horror movie ever".

Would you like a cupcake?