The Curse of the Candy Cult · 4:37pm Oct 19th, 2019
Been long enough since this was published I thought I'd talk about this story now. For those who haven't read it yet or who are still in the process of reading, there will be spoilers, so if that's something you care about just come back and read this blog post later if you are interested.
The Start
The plans for the Curse of the Candy Cult actually started as soon as I finished writing Something Sweet Bites Back, but the original story was actually very different from the final version. For those of you who may not remember how that story ended (it has been two years) the Candy Mare is destroyed but it's hinted a piece of her lives on inside the Equestria Girls version of Starlight Glimmer who suddenly finds herself in pony form after being transported to an Equestria that is in the middle of the Storm King's invasion which took place during the MLP Movie (which came out the same year the story was published).
The opening of the story (and the only chapter that isn't a horror movie reference) Advent of Something Sweet is actually set in that universe, and though kept intentionally vague, it shows the moment when the Candy Mare finished gestating inside of Starlight Glimmer and emerged in that version of Equestria. This is where the foundations of the Candy Cult began, and the Candy Mare's conquest of the multiverse resumes (it was hinted in previous stories that many Equestria's had fallen to the Candy Mare as she had explored other realms through Starswirl's magic mirrors. Those previously conquered realities are what make up the 'Candyverse'.)
Our story actually takes place, however, in the Equestria that was originally connected to the Equestria Girls universe where Candy Mare had been trapped, thus giving Twilight some advanced warning about what is about to happen (though she thinks it's just an attack by the Candy Mare, not knowing that she would have an army of loyal cultists culled from Twilight's own friends and ponies from other worlds.)
What Might Have Been
Now, the big difference between the story you read and the story as it was originally written was that I was originally going to lean heavily into this being a parallel universe. The Cult was not going to be devoted to the Candy Mare we know and love, bu instead to the memory of the Candy Mare who also existed in this alternate Equestria. In this version, Pumpkin Patch was going to have conquered the Candy Curse instead of letting it conquer her, and she would have become something of a Robinhood figure that took from Unicorns and Pegasi and gave to poor Earth Ponies. She had also rewarded her followers with pieces of her cursed candy to give them eternal life. Despite this more benevolent take on the character, Celestia and Luna would still have her sealed away so that a united Equestrian society could be born that did away with the old prejudices and hatreds between the tribes.
The story was going to end up following two Candy Mares: the ravenous, soul devouring entity that was invading the world and a newly resurrected Pumpkin Patch that still had most of her Candy Mare powers and was rightfully angry with Equestria but did not necessarily want to wipe out all life.
Problems started early on writing two Starlight's in the same scene, and it didn't get any better writing two Candy Mare's, even if I did refer to one of them exclusively as Pumpkin Patch. It also didn't help that to differentiate the two of them I had to write the original Candy Mare as much less playful and far more cruel and sadistic than she had ever been. Both version ended up coming across as preachy when their ideologies clashed, and while I had thought it would be fun to have the Cultists be this ambiguous force of maybe good maybe evil swinging back and forth between worshipping the different versions of Candy Mare it just confused things way too much. There was even going to be a side story where (human) Starlight was viewed as some kind of prophet since the Candy Mare 'spoke' to her before she was reborn, and how she was going to use that influence to corrupt and manipulate them, spreading the candy curse through the populace. It was all just too complicated.
It came to head when there was a scene where the Candy Mare rather childishly and brutally devours the Cake twins in front of Mrs. Cake just to make a point, but I didn't feel like that was something she would have done if it weren't for the convoluted nature of the rest of the plot.
The Solution
So in 2018 the story was scrapped and I worked on 'Ouija' instead. Shortly after I finished that story I went back to Curse of the Candy Cult to see if I could salvage any of its pieces.
Advent of Something Sweet is the only chapter that remains from that first version of the story. As said previously that is now the origin of the Candy Cult, not as a secret society that worshipped the Candy Mare but kind of a coven of 'super zombies', Candy Ghouls who are allowed to keep a portion of their souls to better infiltrate other universes and prepare them to be devoured by the Candy Mare by eliminating threats to her eventual rule and gathering enough power and sacrifices to open a pathway for her full might to enter a new dimension.
I found the story worked much better with the Candy Cultists being completely evil, and having two Starlight's was less of a problem with the 'pony' version getting killed off after making a heroic stand. Candy Mare was also back to her old cheerful and psychotic self, free of any ideological debates or a need to persuade anyone about the relative justness of her actions. After all, the Candy Mare never really cared what anyone else thought, why should she start now?
The End
It seemed like a huge plot hole to me, however, to have a universe that knew about the Candy Mare, but not address what had happened to their version of the Candy Mare. She would need to be defeated in the same way as the version we already knew, otherwise the stories that came before wouldn't make any sense. So I decided that there was a second Candy Mare in universe after all, but when Luna defeated her and sealed her away she had never escaped. As a result this version was still connected to Pumpkin Patch, body and soul, and the only other difference between this version of the Candy Mare and the version we know and love is that the CMC never found 'Ye Olde Tricks and Treats' and thus she was never resurrected.
So in the end, after Candy Mare is sealed away in limbo, the Candy Cultists are desperate to safe themselves. Since they decide they are too weak to save their mistress on their own, they turn to what they think is the next best thing, and set about resurrecting this alternate Equestria's Candy Mare. The ritual works, but what they did not count on was how different a Candy Mare with a Pumpkin Patch core is compared to their original master who was essentially just a living curse. Pumpkin Patch may not be the robinhood version originally imagined, but she has very different ideas from the cultists and their master. And she is very, very hungry... it being over 1000 years since her last good meal.
So in the end we are left with two Candy Mares. One, a powerful world devouring entity frozen in limbo - the other, the corpse of a mad little girl coated in candy.
Now that the MLP:FiM has ended as a series, it will be interesting to see which version of the Candy Mare we follow going forward...
Influences
It might be a little late to talk about this, but the influences for this story were the films The Void(2016), Cult of Chucky, Army of Darkness, as well as 'Earth-10011' set in the Marvel Comics universe. There were also two chapters devoted to Scream and Evil Dead specifically. There was also just a little bit of influence from the Silent Hill franchise, which is most apparent in the design for the robes the Candy Cultists wear which were based on the executioners of the Valtiel sect.
Lastly, there was a little bit of influence from the game Deltarune(2018), the sequel(?) of Undertale... not in any of the plot or character details, though it is funny both stories have characters that are potentially from different timelines or potentially have alternate versions of characters from the previous game, but instead from the games soundtrack - some of which I listened to while writing. Specifically I really liked listening to the track 'The Circus', which plays in the corridor before the boss room where you fight Jevil. Even more specifically, I had a one hour music box version of that song where I listened to that helped me keep track of time while I was writing by letting me know when an hour had passed once it ended.
If you'd like to give it a listen, here it is:
The story's awesome as always, Knack. But I think there's a couple of errors (at least I think so.) First, if the EQG-verse that the Candy Mare was from is the same one as Rainbow Rots and Bites Back and is connected to the Equestria of THIS story, then shouldn't Twilight have known about the Candy Mare already? I thought Sunset sent a letter to Twilight asking her to identify the Candy Mare at one point in Rainbow Rots. Also, I wouldn't think Twilight Sparkle would even KNOW about Sci-Twi in this world. Again, if the EQG-verse in Rainbow Rots and Bites Back are the same and they're connected to THIS Equestria, then none of the sequels where Sci-Twi has joined the Humane Seven ever happened (after all, she was assumed dead for a while till it was found out she was working for the SCP Foundation, Camp Everfree is destroyed and canditized and the Shadowbolts of Crystal Prep are all murdered by Candy.) Plus, the only time the Humane Seven met Sci-Twi in Rainbow Rots is when she was helping them against the Candy Mare.
Anyway, even with those seemingly glaring errors, I give the story a 8.8 out of 10. Not quite as awesome as the first four Candy Made stories you wrote (the first was the best), it was still pretty great. I immediately guessed you were parodying Scream in that one chapter with the phone call to Mrs. Cake. Plus, after reading how the story of Candy Cult COULD'VE gone, I have to say, you made the right choice with this story. How this series hasn't got a TV Tropes is beyond me.
I personally think maybe you should do one last and final story about the Candy Mare and make it lucky number seven. End the series with a BANG! It's your call though.
Anyway, happy Nightmare Night and Halloween.
Yes, but if you remember in that story Sunset isn't able to get in contact with Twilight and instead it is Spike that responds to her. Since Spike never heard anything else back from Sunset he never thought to tell Twilight about it. I know it seems like a bit of a stretch but it's addressed within the narrative that Twilight has just been far too busy to even think about the human world.
Nor does she. Sci-Twi is never mentioned once in the narrative by any character. I'm not sure where you got the idea this version of Twilight Sparkle suddenly knew about Sci-Twi.
Glad you liked the story though. Not sure about doing 'one last' story for the series or not though. I'm not even sure if I will continue the series at this point, but if I do more the next one probably won't be the last.
Edit: Ah, wait, I found the line. Twilight was supposed to say that Sunset could rely on the human world version of her friends for back up and for some reason I wrote 'herself', in reference to Sunset. Sunset being able to rely on herself and her friends, not on a human version of Twilight and her friends. That's my mistake for not writing that more clearly.
So... About that two candymares scenario... It could be done without changing who the original pumpkin patch is, but you just need to resurect Lemon Drop and make him an alias for a Luna clone that looks like NM and was created using NM magic but tries to atone for the sins the thing she looks like did. As of how it will work? Well... Remember the scene where sunset destroyed the body of pumpkin patch? What if the pumpkin patch that helped her, although connected to the candy mare, is no the true one, because the true one is the same as the curse and that is just a thing Lemon tried to contain and now is free because of the events in the epilogue? This will make the candy curse a hero but also a dungeon and it gives her revenge a double purpose and shows that altough absorption in the candyverse is unnecessary she just does it to spite lemon. As for who that thing is make it a clone of daybreaker. But please drop the bomb only at the end in the epilogue. Also please resurrect butterfly with the help of Lemon. I know this is written in a demanding tone but you also said you may not be working on the series.
After reading the latest Something Sweet to Bite story, my mind can our help to the wonder how many Candy Mare AUs are out there. I’m a fanatic when it comes to those sort of things. So far we have the Candy Mare we know, along with the insane Pumpkin Patch! Makes me wonder about how Pumpkin Patch’s life would be with different outcomes. Like, what if her family was rich or... what if she never went into the Candy Shop or... if Lemon Drop didn’t have a twisted heart.
O_O Or if Lemon Drop got cursed instead of Pumpkin Patch!!!(No idea how that would happen though...)
Came back for the memories and to see your original ideas.
Gotta say, the idea of a Pumpkin Patch who overcomes the curse and becomes a Robin Hood-type figure is quite interesting. Reminds me of the phantom Pumpkin Patch—ahh, that still brings me to tears,—along with the Candy Mare as seen in Home Sweet Home: A Candy-Mare Tale.
Never forgot this series and still think of it to this day. Such good memories of reading it and listening to the audio dubbings.
Hope you are well!