Cupcakes

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Do you know what her fancy dress is made out of ?

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.[1]

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.

Tropes used in Cupcakes include:
  • Adult Fear/Harmful to Minors: Twist was apparently one of Pinkie's victims as is Silver Spoon at The Stinger; Turns out, however, that both of them are Apple Bloom's victims.
  • 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: Pinkie had already killed Gilda by the time she decided to go after Rainbow Dash
  • Ax Crazy: Pinkie Pie and Apple Bloom.
  • 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 Gilda's 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
  • Enfant Terrible: Apple Bloom. Dear Celestia, APPLE BLOOM.
  • 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: But not alive for long.
  • Force Feeding: It's briefly mentioned that Pinkie forced a live Parasprite down Gilda's throat. In one of the unofficial sequels, Pinkie Pie feeds Fluttershy's beloved pet rabbit, Angel, to Gummy and then attempts to force-feed his remains to Fluttershy.
  • 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. Rainbow's guts are removed and emptied out while she is being mutilated.
  • 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 Pinkie snaps her right wing off, and again when Pinkie electrocutes her.
  • Precision F-Strike: This From the Original Text:

Rainbow Dash: Oh God, No.

  • Put the Laughter In Slaughter
  • Revised Ending: Several, made by a variety of people. For example:
  • Revenge Fic: Muffins, which has Derpy Hooves avenging the death of Rainbow Dash.
  • 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 Apple Bloom 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 forces insects down the throats of her victims, 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 a nightmare Pinkie Pie is trapped in at one point.
      • 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. She tore the room apart before fleeing, but was forgiven, got over it quickly, and enjoyed Pinkie Pie's company later the same day.
      • 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. In one chapter, the cast gets trapped in Princess Gaia's Lotus Eater Machine. What is part of Pinkie Pie's fantasy? All copies of this fanfic being burned and a computer virus purging it from the internet!
    • 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. And then it turns out that Apple Bloom wanted to kill Silver Spoon herself and has already done in Diamond Tiara; the story ends with Apple Bloom about to murder Silver Spoon while happily declaring that she's "gonna be a blank flank". 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?

  1. ↑ The video linked in this paragraph happens to tie in with the continuity of the uploader's Abridged Series, in case you're curious about why the voices are the way they are.
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