No singing, no baking, no parties, no smiling.
The accident five years ago didn't just drive a wedge between Pinkie Pie and her friends, it stole her very identity. She had no choice but to move back home, to a hard life of farming rocks and managing her condition. Since then, she's built her family's farm into a successful corporation and the backwater town of Big Rock into a bustling city. But none of that gives her purpose.
When a new danger arises, threatening everything she's worked for an everypony she loves, will Pinkie be able to do what's necessary to save them? Or will her demons finally overtake her?
Note: The Crossover tag is a spoiler, but this story should be accessible to most readers. Comments that discuss the crossover and spoilers for the story without [ spoiler ] tags will be deleted!
5th place finalist in the May 2014 writeoff, "Beneath the Mask". Artwork by zanefir-dran!
Figured it out pretty quick, so I'm honestly not sure why you're so deadset on "not spoiling it." Like, after the "Now I ruin your life" comment, we pretty much know, so why so focused on "no spoilers" to the point of deleting comments that discuss it?
Either way, decent story.
Ah, I remember this now. Still pretty good.
Oh, hooray, PP:
Just plain 100% hooray!
Mike
5939170
It's a stealth crossover, the details are what I want to keep secret.
Now watch me ruin that by adding it to the appropriate crossover groups. :B
I'm not sure how to feel by the end of this. A Pinkie not in control of her party powers is a truly terrifying concept. One who must deny her calling and use business like a nuclear reactor's control rods is a horrible thought. The Mane Six sundered is a sobering prospect. And yet, in the end, she remains in this personal hell. Little has changed, only the most important change of all. Pinkie is happy, so I suppose I should be as well. And yet the sheer amount of misery that took place before, the utter wrongness of what she's still doing in relation to who she is...
You have befuddled me, good sir. Of course, as I write this, I realize I'm not taking the crossover tag into account. Once I do, yes, this is an unquestionably happy ending. Still, it's not an especially pink one, and I believe that's where I'm getting tripped up.
Yes yes yes yes. So much yes.
Two downvotes already? People must have hit the first section and bailed. Bah. D: And yeah, that first section is pretty bleak, but it kicks into gear with the second one and doesn't let up, and the payoff is fantastic.
(You might want to add a Dark tag. That would go a long way toward setting expectations. Edit: Given reactions like 5939554's, yeah, this really should be Dark.)
The one editing thing I noticed was that it looks like there's missing formatting in the next-to-last section. The lines of the individual that Pinkie confronts might need to be set off with italics or bold.
Well I'm still somewhat confused..... what is this a crossover of.
5939646
Y'know:
I'd kinda like that, too. Or maybe if they were in a font one size smaller than the regular font. Something to set them off, at any rate, would be mighty helpful.
Mike Again
5939646
Thank you, I've had difficulty figuring out what to tag this.
Also shit, yes, every line of dialogue should be bolded. >.< I'm so glad you pointed that out, FIXING NOW!
5939649
The Incredible Hulk.
5939843 ...... *DERP*
I liked this (quite literally)--and that artwork is incredible! Where did you find it?
What a strange story this was. Good, mind you, but strange. I've never read a Hulk comic, not have I seen the movies, so I don't know how much of this was a direct crossover (excluding the obvious reveal line).
...I was just about to write that I didn't understand what the accident was that took her happiness away, but as I was typing it out, everything clicked. Oh hell.
It's still a little bit nonsensical, but it can be excused. Take the thumbs.
I've got to say I found the whole "it's a crossover" thing distracting. I spent most of the story examining each set piece and trying to figure out what it could be a part of, and of course, wondering if this was just one of those things that I've never heard of. When I finally got to that line my reaction was less "ah ha!" and more "that's it?!"
Really I think the term crossover is misleading in this case. This story is a crossover with The Incredible Hulk in exactly the same way that the later is a crossover with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Which is to say that anyone familiar with both can see the influences, but beyond that they don't really share anything.
Interesting!
5940020
Searched Derpibooru. :B I wanted a picture of Pinkie in a suit, but none of the ones there fit this story, so I went with something Sad Pinkie but a little different.
5940327
Well, given the context of the comment below yours, not much. And I went a little silly on the backstory because, well, this starts off pony at least, even if the world grows dreary after that point. Why wouldn't something like that happen?
5940610
Thematic crossovers are still crossovers, but you make a good point regardless.
5941134
I wanna mare with a short skirt
And a looooooooong
Jacket!
She's touring the facility and picking up slack:
You know, even before Maud came along I figured Pinkie would marry someone as playful as her and have a daughter who was. Completely. Serious. Ferocious pirate-captain-of-industry serious. Name of Kitty 'cause her cutie mark was a cat (a tiger, as it turns out), but she got tired of ponies saying "Hello, Kitty!" so she changed it to Kelly.
You seem to have caught the spirit of that here. So you gonna write the sequel where she falls in love with Richard Reardon?
5941184
HA HA no ._.
5941193
Naw I'm just bustin' balls, skipper
"You wouldn't like me when I'm happy."And that's when I realized what this story was.
Yeah, well done. The foreshadowing was subtle and there throughout. Certainly a very fun read. I would have expected some manic laughter towards the end of the final confrontation, as she's running all over it and it's begging her to stop, but that would be the only suggestion.
I really liked this story. The present tense narration helped give the story a disquieting feeling to reflect what Pinkie is going through in the story. Also, the reveal was pretty awesome. The absurdity of the premise (once revealed) and the ensuing fight scene really help contrast the bleak tone of the story and add to the sense of catharsis at the end.
Wow. That was great!
This story has left me totally confused. What happened in Ponyville? Why did Pinkie have to leave? How is this a crossover?? All I know is...I don't understand what I just read. It makes no sense to me.
I loved it. I didn't think I would but I did. It made me feel... sympathetic, I believe would be the best word. Very few stories make me feel anything, besides laughter anymore. Great job on this one.
... This pleases me.
Not figuring out the crossover until near the end was really neat too, because now I can go back and see all the parallels I missed because I was busy trying to figure it out.
I especially like how Pinkie's life kind of mirrors Banner's when he's being especially melancholic about The Hulk. It's not just that he can't let himself have the excesses of anger, but he's afraid of even the minor versions of those feelings, leaving him a tortured half-person. Thus it is with Pinkie, who has a whole life focused on how to stop herself from feeling joy.
5943537
This guy, he gets it. :D
This was a good story. Good work! I can't really say that I enjoyed it, because...well, because it's pretty dang depressing. But I did appreciate it.
In a curious way, you've managed to make this story even darker and more horrifying than the crossed over source material. Banner's issue is in many ways an exaggerated version of something that is normative to the human condition. It's normal for human beings to have to control our anger and other base emotions, lest we act out in monstrous ways. In the Hulk's case, it's just a bit more literal. But with Pinkie Pie? There's no real parallel there. Happiness is usually something sought, not something constrained. She's essentially forced to live in a state of self-inflicted depression.
On a technical level, it seems to me that this story was missing one flashback. It has the first, showing the aftermath of one of Pinkie's incidents and her departure from Ponyville, and the second, which is the dream that coyly hints at the accident. To me, the story feels like it should have a third flashback, somewhere towards the end of the story, which actually shows what happened with the oven through memory rather than nightmare. As it is, the treatment of the accident seems just a tad bit too coy.
5944031
I leave the details to the reader's imagination! :B Which is a way of admitting to having written sloppily.
That one line... woah, what a pay-off.
That made a bizarre amount of sense. Nice work.
I figured this one out pretty quick. Probably helped that I was examining every line for hints of what crossover it was and that I just saw Age of Ultron.
twas a most unexpected twist.....
is there gonna be more in this continuity or is this just the only one?
either way, its radical
5950951
This is the only one. I specifically wrote the ending to stave off a sequel.
5951451 well i was just thinking of the other main six in this continuity.
pinkie's story is perfect how it is
You caught me off guard! You really did! I was like: She is a pyromaniac or something!
5951659
To be honest, I wanted this to be part of something larger, but that fell through. :B
No wonder I couldn't find this in my "Notable Stories" bookshelf — I forgot to add it!
Fixed.
6091237
bout friggin time :V
Not bad. I also want Pinkie to have straight hair more often.
6184574
She's just so cute.
That went in a completely different direction than I was expecting (Steven King's Firestarter). Haven't read a Hulk comic in forever, nor have I been keeping up with the movies, so I probably missed some parallels. That scene with the Easy-Bake makes more sense now.
So I'm gathering from the comments that it's a crossover with The Incredible Hulk? But I don't understand the monster at the end. Is it completely original, (Save the smooze) or is it from a Hulk thing I haven't seen?
Ah, yes, the same is true at the local Department of Redundancy Department.
6262201
It's an original monster, insofar as a Smooze/Didaribtachi fusion is "original", the crossover is just with what happens to Pinkie.
6263402 I thought the description seemed familiar! Or at least seemed like it was trying to evoke someone else's creation. I take it the design is from Princess Mononoke specifically.
6266096
Yup, it is. Physically, at least, that's more or less entirely what I was going for. :B Mostly because, once I got the image in my head, I couldn't think of anything else, so I just went for it.
Huh. It took me way longer than I thought to realize what the crossover was.
6790082
That's okay, it was kind of the idea. :)
6790104 I mean, like, I thought it was literally anything other than what it turned out to be. I was expecting it to be some kind of darkly cerebral and depressing anime, not Hulk.
You mad genius! Now you have done it!
Now I want a vigilante Pinkie Pie story!
Seriously, the concepts and the dialogue was amazing, and you actually made "Pinkie Pie has a destructive side" work and feel very believable for her character, which is unusual to say the least.
I wouldn't mind seeing more of this universe, even as a slice of life ministry.
There's a lot of well excelent concepts here, and I think seeing more could be fun!
Either way, I know I am years late to say it, but thank you for posting!
11255489
Thank you for reading! :)
I once had an idea for an entire Avengers teamup taking place after this story, it just never got off the ground.
11255534
Sounds cool. Too bad it didn't get made.
Any ideas you'd like to share, or stories that use a similar premise?