Present Perfect vs. Cheerilee's Garden · 8:54pm Dec 21st, 2013
(First, the reading analysis. That's why I ended up on this story now, after all. The reading was unfortunately -- or, maybe, fortunately -- not complete, but the first part is here, read by Technical Difficulty. He's got a good reading speed, but a whole lot of audio artifacts and he's incapable of pronouncing the word "foals". That said, I'd be giving him a chance if it didn't look like he was inactive now. Here is a full reading by Plagen Shiki.)
Cupcakes.
Rainbow Factory.
Sweet Apple Massacre.
Cheerilee's Garden.
They are the Past Sins, Fallout: Equestria, My Little Dashie and Background Pony of grimdark ponyfic. (Don't read anything into the order I put them in, I'm not really interested in making that kind of comparison here.)
And I have now read them all.
Cupcakes was out and out horrible. It's gruesome, it's horrifying, it's just torture porn and I hate it. Rainbow Factory is completely ludicrous, despite any lip service I might have given to worldbuilding which I am very sorry for. SAM is ridiculous enough that I could at least laugh at it. No, I'm not rereading it so you can get my detailed thoughts.
Cheerilee's Garden, though... God.
Ultimately, it's no worse or no better than any of these other wastes of wordage. Maybe the best thing I can say is that the writing is far superior to that of Cupcakes, but that's not saying much. There are maybe one or two things it does right, namely starting off with a very dull slice-of-life school play setup to throw the reader off guard, and foreshadowing that the area under the stage where the play is being held is completely soundproof. Honestly, I was kind impressed by that because it's never brought up again; most people would keep on reminding us of the fact as the story progressed.
But that's it. There's nothing good about this and there's no way to sugar-coat it: This is a story about Cheerilee torturing and killing her students. She undergoes Cutie Mark Dysfunction Syndrome (is that even a Thing anymore?), gets depressed because her class is full of idiots and bad influences, and then she loses her mind (which, I shouldn't have to point out, is really not the next step after depression) and uses the play to take them out one by one. She smashes Scootaloo with a hydraulic press; she puts Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon in a Saw-like scenario* where Silver Spoon can save herself only by making things worse for Diamond Tiara; she makes Snails drop a spotlight on himself and then watches as he burns to death; she nails Sweetie Belle to a table and has rats eat through her; she beats Snips to death after he finds Snails's body, in the only scene in the story that includes any kind of drama or suspense; and she stabs Apple Bloom, carves her up, and then drowns her in what's left of Scootaloo. Honestly, Scootaloo's scene was the worst; I think after that point I just disassociated what was going on from anything I knew about the show... except that Apple Bloom's scene was just as bad, so I think it probably has more to do with the specific kinds of murderdeathkill happening rather than who's involved.
(*Disclaimer: I have never watched a Saw movie, but I imagine this is what they're like.)
Through it all, we're treated to close-up descriptions of pain, anguish and of course, let's not forget the gore. This is Cupcakes Times Six Starring (a pony named) Cheerilee, and it is as devoid of merit as that description would suggest.
Yet I got to thinking after having finished reading this, and I asked myself, "Why don't we like stories like this?" The go-to answer, as I suggest above, is that they destroy the characters and we love. I mean, I can only imagine the reason anyone would want to write a story like this is because they hate the foals, and for sure, Cheerilee would never do something like this. When you go to the trouble of characterizing the students of Ponyville as a bunch of troubled ingrates, which is honestly kind of funny, it doesn't really set the tone as "Okay, now time for graphic pony murder".
But is it any more likely that Rarity would lose her mind over an obsession with a mysterious dressmaker ? That Prince Blueblood would be kidnapped, have his horn broken off and then be sold into slavery? That Lyra would watch as Ponyville was consumed by an unstoppable wave of purple sludge? You'll note that all those links go to the Royal Canterlot Library. Obviously, a story being dark and gruesome and going beyond what's possible in the show isn't enough to keep us from enjoying, or at least appreciating, it.
Well, then, you say, surely it's the gore. Absolutely, I respond but that's not the entirety of it. What this story lacked was poetic justice, irony, tragedy, and of course comeuppance. Rather than just killing the foals as messily as possible because she hates them, the deaths should have been linked to each of the foals' personalities and foibles. (This is why I spelled them out above, fyi, not just so you don't have to read the damn thing.) Take Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, for instance. We tend to think of them as horrible little monsters, friends only because no one else wants anything to do with them. Testing their friendship in the way this story does is actually a really great idea, though it doesn't go as far into the emotional side of the scenario as it would need to to be effective. But it almost works, and in the end, rather than just let Diamond Tiara die to save herself, Silver Spoon gets a lot of pain of her own. (Cheerilee of course kills them both anyway, but let's work with what we have.)
The other scene that almost worked, as I mentioned, was the one with Snips. Cheerilee needs an undoing by the end of this story that we never actually, but the whole reason she has to beat him to death is that she goes off her schedule because she's enjoying watching the deaths so much. This is a tragic (if that's the word for it) flaw. This could have been used to make her undo herself, and that would have been perfect, even if Snips died along the way. Like I said, the scene added a lot of suspense and drama to a story that was otherwise... Well, after you realize she's going to systematically off her students, there's kind of no reason to read past Scootaloo dying. It's just a lot of "play scene", "murder scene", back and forth, and fairly dull.
Worse, for a moment I thought that perhaps Cheerilee would get her comeuppance by the end anyway. She sets the theater on fire to hide her crime, and almost gets caught in the inferno. Ironically, she's rescued by Twilight and company, and they believe her story. She gets away with it. And the moment there's no punishment for the crime, all my interest goes away. That's why there are so many Cupcakes sequels where Pinkie gets caught: we're okay with people doing horrible things, because they happen all the time, but by god there's no point to it if the bad guy gets away with murder.
My point is, there's a way this idea could have been done. It wouldn't have been in line with the show's tone, of course, but once you've got a Dark tag, show tone is pretty much out the window. There's not exactly a fine line between horror and gore porn, but far too many authors seem all too willing to stumble over it.
1.5/5
In the end, Cheerilee's Garden is just as devoid of merit as those other stories I mentioned at the top. I only went through this analysis because I wanted something worthwhile to come of this. Our fascination with the dark side of humanity, equinity, whatever, will persist so long as that side persists, but for fuck's sake, can we please dial back the blood and guts?
Of course, I could barely write the needle scene in Civil Twilight, so maybe it's just me. Thank god I'm done with this garbage.
LATE DRUNKEN EDIT: I will not be reading the sequel, Scarlet Harvest.
(Dear Jake the Army Guy: I hate you.)
The worse part of the story is the sequel, in which Cheerilee kills five the Mane Six, kills herself, and then Twilight is accused of the murders and is executed.
Trash
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. This fandom produces some serious trash sometimes.
I liked Civil Twilight!
But yeah -forgive this pun- there are people who write blood and guts for the meat of the story, and there are people who write blood and guts as a form of garnish.
If ya write a story with strong content/themes, maybe I will think it is used respectably, maybe I will think it is used as shock shlock; maybe I will find it acceptable to read, maybe I will find it outside of the limits of what I want from ponyfic.
But those are fully fleshed out stories with narratives and plots that are about more than being a vehicle for a single concept, emotion, or content ("-fic" suffix stories). These are not. These are just "-fic"s. They are the difference between putting a teaspoon of salt into the soup or just eating the teaspoon of salt.
Then again I once saw a very poorly written, plotted, fic with bad logic, nonsensical worldbuilding, and OOC galore that was about Twi and Dash being kidnapped by zebras to be used as broodmares, raped a lot, develop Stockholm, and decide to go with the zebras willingly even once they are rescued. Every person who pointed out any of the flaws above, or merely the inappropriateness for the setting, were screamed down by the fic's many drooling fans.
And there are many other fics like this and those and much much worse. And they all have fans.
So I guess a lot of people really like the taste of salt. There's no accounting for taste.
1632516
Oh. Yes. I forgot to mention I won't be reading that. :B
1632630
Thankfully, I don't notice majorly grimdark stories getting much traction anymore these days. The stories I listed at the start of this journal were all pre-season 2, if I'm not mistaken.
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No accounting whatsoever.
1633759
Hey, I'm here for you, man.
(Dear Present Perfect, snuggles, u bitch.)
This is the story that nearly made me ragequit the fandom in revulsion. It's gore porn for the sake of gore porn and nary a story to be found. I was asked to help *edit* the damned thing on PonyChan. Gorram.
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Also, relevant:
derpicdn.net/img/2013/9/20/430979/full.jpg
1633881
Sadly it's not the only one! :B
I am being utterly sincere when I say this: I love this overanalysis. It's probably the best thing to ever come out of this story.
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ythxu :V
You know, I actually forgot to add something into this, but for the life of me, I can't remember what. <.< This is gonna bug me now.
To anyone who stumbles on this comment: if you like Cheerilee's Garden, I don't like you.
1636781
Yup. 'Swhy I perked up at Snips's scene, it's just about the only part that's interesting, and then everything goes right back to being dumb ol' torture and gore again. :B