This story is a sequel to Something Sweet To Bite
After the strange disappearance of everypony in Ponyville and half the population of Canterlot, the citizens of Equestria live in fear and uncertainty. A year passes and while Celestia tries to once again shoulder the responsibilities of the crown without her sister Luna by her side, the investigations into what happened and why have born little fruit. Rainbow Dash, the weather pony of the now ruined Ponyville, may be the key to discovering at last what happened to Luna, her friends, and her town. And perhaps what exactly it is the Candy Mare wants.
Candymare Cover Art by kvernikovskiy
Chapters (15)
OH SHI--
I love this line mainly for the fact it is a common trope among evil entities. Mainly because they think that the next universe would be exactly the same meaning same culture and candy culture. The mare could end up in the Game of Throne universe where there is no candy or maybe the Naruto universe where it could get crushed by a meteor. Other then that it is a decent story.
5127002
Well that would certainly be an idea for another sequel.
Something else that's never considered in these stories by such villains is that if it's something they were capable of doing in this universe, what's to stop there from being a counterpart that does the same thing in another universe? Everything could go dark at once if their choices were inevitable, and then where would they be? It'd be the Council of Kangs all over again, and those guys hate each other.
Glad you enjoyed the story though.
Time out!
Really, sausage? I realize that equines can digest meat but it seems like Mac would go with something more.. plantish.
Time in!
5129500
The fun thing about sausage is that, unlike bacon, there are several vegetarian varieties that are actually quiet tasty. Especially the Italian variety. Now the eggs I could see you being concerned about, but then they've been shown as a part of breakfast in the show before, so there ya go. Ponies eat eggs.
Hmmm...another good grimdark story, mate. But one question though...is the ending supposed to set up for a sequel or does it just ends right there?
Do a cross over with Marvel Zombies
VS Candy Zombies. There's going to be a sequel? Did the Candy Mare rape Rainbow Dash or somethis just asking? Great twist at the end great story!
5165310
That's a good question. Originally the ending was actually going to be a bit longer and a bit larger, grander even. While it was as 'big' as I wanted the sequel to be, it lacked a certain poignancy. The best horror, I find, has a little ball of sadness at it's core. So I ended up going with something slightly open ended.
Will there be a sequel? I can't promise there will be, but there is an idea that I'm working on at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised if this time next year there wasn't something else 'Sweet to Bite'.
What I can confirm is that not all of this story (as it was originally written) has been posted. I decided to hold back some of that material for a short story I'll be releasing around the start of December.
5167322
I do love Marvel Zombies! At least, the early stories before they started making every third rate hero/villain a zombie. (Zombie Deadpool/Headpool was awesome though.) I wouldn't mind writing a cross over with the Candy Ponies at some point, though perhaps not with something quite as popular as Marvel is right now.
As for a sequel, yes there might be one. I have some ideas that I'll be working on in the coming months, but no promises.
Glad you liked the ending! Though I'll have to answer your question behind a spoiler tag, just in case someone wants to read the comments before they read the story.
Did the Candy Mare rape Rainbow Dash? In a purely sexual sense, no, of course not. The Candy Mare was just a filly when she was reborn, so the concept of sex is foreign to her. However, did she forcibly leech Rainbow Dash's soul over the course of a year, mentally torturing her and weakening her? Yes. You could construe that as a form of mental rap I suppose. What she did at the end of the story was probably a much greater violation, and I could see where it would be analogues to rape. She physically entered and took control of Rainbow Dash's body as she had previously done with Luna. Dash is still alive, for the moment, but has no control over her body or over what the Candy Mare might plan to do with it. There are many terrible things that monster could force her to do, rotting her slowly from the inside out all the while. What sort of things? Well, you'll just have to wait and see.
5167624
Oh, I see. Well, either way this is a good story none the less and truth be told, the Candymare seems like a good horror monster for a whole fanfic series, like Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movie series or something, I really don't know.
But I really think you got something here.
And one more thing, I have another question for ya. Have you ever thought about doing MLP horror crossovers?
5167930
That's very nice of you to say! I put a lot of work into the Candy Mare and I defiantly had the greats of the 70's and 80's on my mind when I made her. I'm glad that people seem to be picking up on that and like it.
As to doing a horror crossover I'm not entirely sure what you mean, though you're not the first person to ask me that. (Are crossovers popular right now?)
Have I considered writing a story using another fanfic's characters? Not really. A crossover with another fandom outside of MLP? I had considered it at one time, just because I thought it would be hilarious if Ash from Army of Darkness ended up in Canterlot instead of Camelot. Or do you mean working on a collaboration with another Grimdark writer? I've done collaborations before and I'm open to the idea, though I think I'd need to know a little about the project ahead of time before agreeing to anything.
Or did you mean something else?
5171674
Well, first off. I'm not really sure if crossovers fanfic are popular at the moment. But seeing how well you can write a horror story, I think you can make a really good one and you seem like you do a lot of research and have dedication to the source material. Because I (and perhaps others) would like to see what you can do with MLP crossover with one of the classic horror stories and movies of the 70's, 80's and 90's.
And secondly, I wouldn't mind reading a crossover with Friday the 13th, Hellraiser, Nightmare of Elm Street, Halloween, John Carpenter's The Thing or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Or Like you mention earlier Evil Dead/Army of Darkness. Also you don't always have to used the characters from those movies, you could just used the concepts and ideas from them. Because you already demonstrated what you can do. But that's entirely up to you though.
5167655 After parts 3 of the candy mare story she said that she may possible that she can travel through different dimension? Were she and her candy zombies came a cross Marvel Zombies that they alson trying to travel throughout the Marvel universe. Who ever wins we losse unless Brucce Camble shows up and save the multivers fyi Ash Williams army of darkness!
My very first thought when I saw this:
"...Something Sweet to Bite Too...this sounds like *Looks at description and gives a delighted Pinkie Pie Gasp* I'M READING THIS!"
Awwww...Flim and Flam.... :(
This was an amazing sequel! :D I am wholeheartedly impressed, well done!
Although you really got me with the dream sequence for Dash. At first I was like, huh....something seems off. And then I thought....hummmm...maybe they actually won.
Until she was told to wake up, lol.
Really well written.
I really hope Lost Narrator does a reading of this story too.
I like this fic
Knackerman I'm hooked you are a grimdark god I told you about my fanfic idea I would like to work with you on a third part to something sweet to bite using my fic bit I could work with my co another's to change things to fit this ones ending unless you have already started on a part three
I think that I liked this one better than the first. While the first one was great, it had the slice of life bits. Those were great and very funny, but I wanted the Candymare. This one, from start to finish, was all about the Candymare. Great job with the ending. I hated the fact that she was dealt with so easily and then that twist left me so depressed, I loved it. Derpy being eaten by Dinky hurt my heart. I loved how you integrated all of the Canterlot wedding and the post season 2 stuff. Though, it did make me wonder about Discord. That's the problem with a character like that, he has the ability to instantly solve most problems. You killed the Flim Flam Brother, that sucked, but you got their personally perfectly, that's great. I loved how they were talking causally while the candy pony were being sucked up. I thought that I had the ending in my head, up until what happened to Shining Armor. I thought that Fluttershy, Dash, Zecora, Mac, Trixie, and Shining were going to be the new elements of harmony and would blast the Candymare away. Thank you for not doing that.
There is so much more that I can gush about, but I'll leave it at this, 9.5/10. Thumbs up and a fav. Great job.
5434442
Thanks!
I'm glad you liked the ending. I admit I borrowed a little from the Nightmare on Elm Street for that idea, but I hope the fake out was believable enough for the real ending to catch you a little off guard and deliver the appropriate sting. (I'm glad I didn't make new bearers of the Elements of Harmony too, that's been done and it's more than a little cliche.) I think you may be the only one who's noticed Dinky and Derpy's fate so far. I admit I was of two minds about bringing back Derpy as a Candy Ghoul, but that got me thinking about little Dinky, and I knew Derpy could never do anything to hurt her.
Flim and Flam were pretty awesome as unknown monster exterminators huh? Given how deadly the wilds of Equestria seemed to be, I figured any ponies that decided to be traveling salesmen would have to be well versed in their own defense. I think I ended up making them and Trixie a little cooler than they really are, but that's part of the fun of putting them in these ridiculously dangerous and impossible situations. As for Discord, look for him to be touched on at some point in the future. While I can't say every side character will be touched on in the Candy Mare stories, he is a pretty big character to ignore, even if there are no bearers of the Elements of Harmony around to wake him up from his second stony sleep.
Thanks again for the like and the Fav, hope you enjoy what comes next!
Quick pro quo and a normal rule for all z hunters : DONT EAT ZOMBIE MEAT though in this case candy, and by z hunter logic the candy mare is in fact a zombie . Though about the story, good use of two main char. to give a prologue, got a good laugh before the horror.
Granny: Those son' bitches had it coming.
Aj: GRANNY
Wait wait wait what just happened? Did Celestia got controlled by candy mare and chopped Trixies head off xD I'm so confused
Well then, that wasn't as surprising when the chapter is called wake up but still why do every grimdark I read ends in a bad note xD God damn I was hoping just hoping the other ending was true and when I sawn Zecora repeating wake up I just knew it was gonna end badly
6309421 I thought it would be fun to include another villain in the story. There are more threats in Equestria than just the Candy Mare after all.
6309647 I'm afraid that it may be par for the course when it comes to horror stories. Having said that, this is not the end... there's still one more story that I'm writing at this very moment. Maybe it will have a happy ending?
5129500 Maybe they're vegan sausages.....EwwWW
Well Trixie it seems you weren't a head of the game ... I'm so sorry
Wow this is good, I love that given us false hope. So this means there is no hope at all in this series, there is only fulfillment of hungry and nothing more.
I see what you did there. Great fnaf reference
Well things went from bad to the alighmighty shitstorm real fast
6560271 I've always loved a good horror story where you might ask yourself 'how could things possibly get worse?' and then it gets so much worse so hard and so fast it's almost like you're in an entirely different story. That's pretty much what that chapter was all about.
Okay, first let me state that I listened to a reading of the first Something Sweet to Bite and absolutely loved it. It had a few clichés but overall I greatly enjoyed the story. The origin of the Candy Mare was depressing, the build up was great and I found myself genuinely caring for the characters. Now for this sequel, I had mostly the same feelings. Throughout the whole story there was a growing sense of doom and helplessness as Rainbow Dash and the others faced seemingly impossible odds. The descriptions were rich and full of detail, and I never encountered a dull moment in the story. Sadly, it's not without its problems for me. When I first started reading and saw that Rainbow's Dream was written in the first person, I naturally assumed that the rest of the story would be the same, but then you almost immediately changed back to third person. I'm fine with using one or the other, but starting with one and switching to the other genuinely confused and distracted me. It was still well written, but overall I found starting in the first person to be completely pointless. It would have been just as easy to convey Rainbow's thoughts and feelings in that sequence in the third person like you do through the rest of the story. I also found the Candy Mare to be less imposing than she was before. In this story she's big, she's ripping up chunks of earth and using massive sky tentacles to toss characters in the sky. In the first story she only ever got that big towards the end. Most of the time characters would just hear her eerie giggle and occasionally spot her shadow from a distance, making the scares all the more effective. A slow build up and a good amount of suspense will always be superior to trying to spill as much blood as fast as possible in my eyes. My final complaint is the ending. Again, it's still well written and this is more of a personal nitpick than actual criticism, but I really don't like the fake out ending. To have Rainbow Dash go through so much pain and suffering and actually think they won only to have it be revealed she dreamed the victory and they actually lost feels like a slap in the face to the reader. I was able to look past this in the first story, but here it just seems cruel to keep taunting us with victory only to be shown the terrible truth. But as I said, this is a personal nitpick. It was still good and the twist for what the Candy Mare had in store for RD was genuinely disturbing. 8.75/10, you do a great job but a few small problems stop this sequel from reaching the greatness of other stories for me. I look forward to reading the next one.
6566091 First thank you for reading my story and I'm glad that you found it mostly enjoyable. It's interesting to get the perspective of someone who listened to the reading first and then moved on to reading the sequel.
To address a few of your concerns, The choice on using a first person perspective with Rainbow Dash's dream at the beginning was made because I wanted the reader to feel like they were with her, experiencing her nightmare rather than being told what it was like after the fact. It's intended to be discordant and make the reader feel somewhat uneasy, as there's no guarantee (at least initially) that Rainbow Dash is actually going to survive the experience despite her instance of seeing it all before. I'm sorry if this was a bit jarring for you, but that sensation is to a degree intentional, so I take it as a justified criticism, but not an unexpected one as this was rather the point.
You are correct in your observation that the Candy Mare was toned down a bit. The threat for most of the story was meant to be the army of candied ghouls and the occasional candy tentacle. It's less that the Candy Mare has 'grown massive' and more that her 'tendrils' are meant to be lurking beneath the soil, reacting to the living on their own. As such, there are only two times in the story where the actual Candy Mare is present, one towards the beginning and one at the end. While I agree that suspense is far more effective at eliciting a good scare as opposed to wanton blood letting, this story is not meant to be the same tonally as the first. It is intended to be less suspense and more action, which I can understand if that's less appealing to someone who enjoyed the first story.
As to your final complaint, I'm afraid I am guilty as charged. I did not intend it as a slap in the face, but I did very much intend to sow 'hope' and reap 'despair'. I have always been a great lover of the fake out horror ending. In a way, I truly don't believe in happy endings when it comes to horror. Even if a protagonist should win, I think victory should come at a prohibitively high cost, and I can understand where that can be frustrating... Especially when you might be hoping for something better for the main characters.
At the end of the day though, I'm okay with this story not being considered to be as great as the first one. That is 'the sequels' lot in life, to be measured against what fans loved about the original and to often be found wanting. That you enjoyed this story as much as you did, with the many flaws you've found with it, is still a great compliment and I again thank you for your time spent reading it!
I'm impressed how you keep the ponies in character despite all the horror around them. I have to admit I was almost hoping the FF brothers would make their escape.
6566201 You were spot on in your assessment.
Yes, I admit it. This is not as good as the first SSTB. That story is a classic in horror fiction. The audio reading truly captured the ambiance of the story , the voice acting was top-notch, and the scenes so vivid they made it hard to sleep at night. Though I think the original could have benefited from being separated into chapters, ala the sequel. I want to listen to it again this Halloween.
Action does take a lot away from horror. Often than not, sequels give the characters more firepower and numbers to take on the monsters. Part of what makes a story so terrifying in the beginning is the near helpless situation our protagonists find themselves in. Watching Twilight and Pinkie try to prepare the town for the ghoul's appearance, and failing, only added to the dread. I will never EVER forget the opening scene where AJ is consumed by the Candy Mare. It shows just how outmatched the heroes were against this unstoppable evil.
The ending, I'm sorry to say, was a disappointment. Almost a deus ex machine on behalf of the villain.
I'm looking forward to the next story.
6570524 Would that be a Diabolus Ex Machina then? It's a fair criticism, but it was meant to underline the fact that the protagonists never really fully grasped what they were up against. It's meant to be as jarring for the reader as for Rainbow Dash... So you get to share in that sense of betrayal, that utter hopelessness, right before the end. I guess it's something of a bitter pill. Consider it a bit of a trick, as opposed to the treat of the original, I guess.
I'm glad you think of the original as a classic! A lot of love went into it and Emogak did a fantastic job on the reading. I think you might end up enjoying The Last Something Sweet to Bite. Or I suppose I should say I hope you will. I guess we'll wait and see!
I just read the first yesterday, and I am reading this one today.
I must say, this series is quickly becoming my new favorite Grimdark series I had ever read.
While I must take pause in favor of work, I shall certainly finish this story by tonight.
FINALLY. FINALLY.
AFTER ALL MY YEARS OF READING YOU HAVE DONE SOMETHING I HAVE NEVER BEFORE SEEN.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
A BAD ENDING. AN EVIL ENDING. ONE WHERE THE VILLAIN WINS.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I LOVE IT! I LOVE IT I LOVE ITILOVEITILOVEITILOVEIT!!!
6574830
Well no one will ever say you lack for enthusiasm! I'm glad you were able to derive so much joy from such a painful, hopeless, and (some might say) disgusting ending. I've had some say that the ending is a bit of a slap to the face to the reader, but I write with joy in my heart and to bring joy to others that have a love of similar dark sensibilities.
I have to say that you've made me smile. Thank you for your praise!
6575760 It's not often I read of the villain winning but I'm all for this one.
The Candy Mare is such a fascinating character, I was actually hoping she'd win.
So now all life is doomed to be her food and/or play things.
*Shrugs* At least she knows how to liven things up.
As interesting as this was, I must really say I didn't enjoy it. It was well written, but it changes too drastically between the two stories. The charm that the first one had [on me at least] was the monster that lurks in the shadows and stalks its prey, not the the powerful being that has ambitions to take over the multiverse. I suppose that it can be interesting if she breaks into an parallel universe and meets herself in it. Would they team up or fight for dominance?
Oh, well. For me, it overstayed its welcome. But still, you did a good job.
6603924
The sequels were written intentionally different from the original. (in fact of the three, the prequel is actually closest in style to the original.) This is because nothing staunches the flow of creativity quite like trying to do the same thing over and over again.
The first story is based around the classic slasher style of film. The second is more in the vein of horror/fantasy quest stories. The third goes back to the slasher style, but is more in the vein of the odd high school horror comedy fusions of the late 80's and 90's. The prequel is focused mainly on body horror. Each of these stories was very fun to write for me, but if I'd stuck to the same style through out, I would've gotten bored very quickly.
By all means, this is still just fan fiction and no masterpiece, but while I am sorry the story was not o your liking, it being different was very much intentional. If that colors your opinion of the series that is unfortunate, but I hope that the parts you did enjoy were entertaining.
6604255 It's not so much that it's different, more, how it's different. The spin the original puts on the slasher style was what made me accept the quirks of it. It just doesn't do it for me with this one. Like what 6566091 said, the ending was a slap in the face. I felt the same for the original, but it had the charm for me to look past it.
By all means, write what you want to write, this is just my thoughts. This is very well written and obviously a lot of effort went into it, I will applaud it for an eternity for that alone.
The Candy Mare seems like a Changeling Queen. Controlling her subjects, seemingly more intelligent, and giving 'birth to all the others.
6604333 And I thank you for your praise! Truly. But I will say that if you were expecting a happy ending to a grimdark story, those of you that feel the ending is a slap to the face may deserve that little sting.
But you can think of it another way. Maybe the false ending is the true ending and what passes for the true ending is false. The ending is open to that kind of interpretation regardless of the sequels.
6605508 Aye, there is an element of that at play here. The difference being where a Changeling Queen might care for her brood, to the Candy Mare the other ghouls are just lives to be spent between her and the abyss.
Trixie, you are an idiot. Ya put on the Alicorn Amulet, and you shoot somepony who's not burning in sunlight.
"Look, there's always a demonic candy mare, or a changeling uprising, or an inter-species nuclear war that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, and the only way these ponies can get on with their happy lives is that they DO NOT KNOW ABOUT IT!"