On "Cupcakes," and why I based my story around it. · 7:18pm Oct 28th, 2014
So, I've been contemplating what, if anything, I should devote as the subject of my first blog post on FIMFiction. To be honest, writing a decent blog post is about as difficult as writing a decent story. I will say this, though: Writing a decent story is why I joined this website in the first place! I've been perfectly content to avoid the blog widget up until now...
...And then this gem appeared in the comments section:
I got half way reading through the summery [of What Comes Next] when i decided I fucking hate this story no scratch that I really dispise cupcakes alt endings that portray pinkie in a bad light she obviously has a mental disorder and she needs help not scorn hate and revenge from ponies who are suppose to be her friends. Also PINKIE WOULDNT DO THAT TO HER FRIENDS IN THE FIRST PLACE! author i hope you are proud of yourself its one thing to want to get revenge on pinkie for cupcakes but to write this revengefic is uncalled for! Ugh I need a drink if you need me i am going to read a story where pinkie doesn't fucking try to murder her friends. Dash fanboys do me a favor stop getting revenge on pinkie by using that god damn orange horse! Make pinkies friends try to help her not kill her yeesh i swear these stories are made because dash fanboys want to kill off pinkie. That's the only reason Dash fans dislike her so they want to kill her off they are that butthurt over cupcakes. Can someone please kill off applejack i hate her for killing pinkie fucking orange bitch dont touch her with your filthy tree kicking hooves!
-pinkiefan [sic]
Now, I always make at least a passing effort to be sensible when it comes to discussions on the internet, but I'm also not naive - I'm fully aware that some people just cannot be pleased. However, in this instance I felt like some explanation was in order. Before I launch into a defense of my own writing, let me give some backstory.
I read Cupcakes because a friend had pointed out its existence to me. The synopsis was brief - Pinkie kills ponies to make them into cupcakes. Squick! Yet I have always considered myself to have an eclectic taste in genre fiction, and "A Song of Ice and Fire" is up there on my list of "gritty, violent, low fantasy thrillers," so to juxtapose that level of brutality over a world of sunshine and roses piqued my curiosity enough that I read it.
I was immediately struck by how wonderfully awful the whole thing was! One of the show's most beloved characters carries an entire scene that reads like it was ripped from "Reservoir Dogs," without breaking character even once. The author succeeds at totally breaking down everything we think we know about Pinkie's character, and the reason it leaves such a bad taste in our mouths is because we as Pinkie lovers know that Pinkie - quirks and all - would never hurt her friends like that. Everyone who's read Cupcakes and has even a basic level of understanding of the show's characters knows this, but because the depiction of her character is so faithful, it challenges our certainty. If "gorn" is the lowest form of "dark" fiction, then "Cupcakes" is the very best example of how to do it right.
So back to Pinkiefan's comment that my story is a "revengefic" that "[portrays] pinkie in a bad light." I would, in fact, argue the exact opposite. Having established that Cupcakes simultaneously conforms to, and challenges, our understanding of Pinkie's character, what I sought to do is to explain the dissonance in a canonically plausible way.
Major spoilers for What Comes Next from this point on!
Having been tormented by the memories of what happened, it seems like a cut-and-dry case of PTSD manifested in the MLP world. At the start of Rainbow Rising, Part 1, the story appears to be coming to a fully resolved (if a little bittersweet) conclusion. However, the hallucinations that Rainbow Dash experienced in the wake of her tragedy turn out to be the manifestations of something even more sinister. The implication, of course, is that Pinkie was not in control at the time Cupcakes happened. Not only does this transform her role in my story from that of "perpetrator" to "victim," but this raises the important question of "what was responsible?" Understanding and stopping this villain therefore became the focus for the rest of the trilogy. Shaming Pinkie has literally nothing to do with it.
So why, then, did I choose such a controversial fanfiction as the basis for a story that ultimately discards the vast majority of the premise?
Because writing is hard. That's why!
Okay, there's more to it than that. It could be argued that the introduction of this new villain was motivated by the events in Cupcakes, and that wouldn't be entirely wrong, but I had already conceived of most of the story before I even started writing it. My real goal was to have the Mane 6 face off against a truly evil villain, which is something MLP hasn't really faced yet. We have Nightmare Moon, who was motivated by wounded pride which had corrupted her otherwise genuinely good nature. Discord is really just a big child at heart whose desire to spread chaos one could say is motivated more by boredom than a genuine desire to do harm. There's Queen Chrysalis, a being which feeds off the love of others, who is ultimately just being a strong leader trying to provide sustenance for her people (I'm playing off of the age-old "Can you blame the carnivore for taking down its prey?" argument here).
The closest the Mane 6 come to facing "true evil" is King Sombra, and Lord Tirek. The former talks through his teeth, has glowing eyes, and likes to turn ponies into his slaves, but we know nothing about his motivations for doing so. Furthermore, the scope of his ambitions seems limited to the Crystal Empire (though I'm sure more than a few fanfic writers have sought to expand that a bit). Lord Tirek may tie King Sombra for his brutal disregard of pony life, but his motivations are also never fully explored. He wants ALL THE MAGIC? Okay. Why?
In the end, both of the "darker" villains introduced in the show still seem motivated by self-interest, and still neither have crossed the line into straight up murder. But what would the Mane 6 do if they faced a villain like... I dunno... The Joker!? "Some ponies just want to watch the world burn," etc. Obviously I'm not doing a Batman crossover here, but a villain who spreads pain and kills ponies because they like it would be just the sort of baddie responsible for a story as violent as Cupcakes. Would they not?
So, in short, Cupcakes provided the kind of tonally dissonant shake up I needed to justify the introduction of this villain, without me having to write an entire story centered around the bad guy doing bad things. He's responsible for Cupcakes... You know he's bad at that point, and I can move on with the story.
As to the exact nature, motivations, and backstory of the villain, the second installment "What Came Before" delves deeper. However, seeing as it is still a work in progress I will not spoil anything about it here. Just go check it out!
Regarding that comment, he does realize that most fans of Dash are also big Pinkie fans, right? If I ever wrote an AE for Cupcakes, I'd have it turn out that Sombra, having survived the events of The Crystal Empire, would use Pinkie Pie to kill off the other elements, and it would deal with Pinkie coming to terms with all the pain and suffering she was at least somewhat responsible for.
2561091 King Sombra is a pushover. :P
2561147 Not when he's written by me. :P