"The Season of Spooky" and The Invisible Genre · 9:22pm Jun 15th, 2016
Summer is apparently the “season of spooky” in Japan, as constant recommendations to listen to “The Fox’s Wedding” on youtube remind me. I don’t think I need the extra excuse to go out and experience some chills, however, because I already have a deep love for horror.
I particularly like horror focused on the disturbing things hiding within everyday life - in conspiracy theories, in otherworlds outside our bedrooms, and in abandoned storefronts just around the corner from where you live. One of my favorite things I've ever discovered is the fascinatingly addictive "Gideon Keys of Calgary" website, purportedly a collection of oddities found throughout the city of Calgary that are evidence of an arcane and secret history of both the city and the world. Not all of them work, but the very concept is amusing.
This is what makes it frustrating that this type of horror is an entire genre of story that's basically absent from FimFiction in any sort of visual capacity.
I've been a lurker, commenter, and contributor on this site for about three years now, and in between the endless crossovers, the adventures, and everything else I've found improbably connected to ponies, real horror is probably the rarest thing I've seen.
That's also a damn shame, because the fantastic setting of Equestria has plenty of concepts that seem ripe for mining. The Everfree is just beyond the borders of Ponyville, after all, and there have to be more things lurking in there than timberwolves, cockatrices, and humans with assault rifles. Princess Celestia has surely encountered terrifying things in her millennia-long reign. There are real monsters within this realm, and real magic- who is to say that such magic doesn't contain terrifying secrets, or that there are beasts no one has yet discovered? It would only take the barest of tweaks in some cases to turn an oblique reference from the show into something terrifying.
Of course, all of these things probably exist, and if I'm lucky I'll be getting a decent number of recommendations for future reading almost as soon as this post goes up*. The problem is visibility. Horror is a niche genre to begin with, so it's to be expected that it doesn't pop up in the featurebox or popular fic sidebar as frequently as other mainstays. However, it should still be easy to identify.
At this point I've found all of one author specializing in straight-up pony horror - well, two if I count Meta-Four for "The Mysterious Case of Old Res", which was fantastic even if it didn't scare me so much as it impressed me - and that's it. Everything else is invisible.
That is, except for endless retreads of The Triforce of Pony Creepypasta. FIMfiction’s literary spawn of Satan.
Nobody here can entirely avoid "Cupcakes". It's omnipresent, arguably contributed more to fandom perception of Pinkie Pie than "Party of One" ever did, and is the source of hundreds upon thousands of imitators.
"Sweet Apple Massacre", "Cheerilee's Garden" and probably even "The Rainbow Factory" on some level owe their existence to "Cupcakes" creating the fandom-embraced genre of "main character becomes psychotic and kills other ponies". "Rainbow Factory" even earned its own place within the Triforce of Creepypasta through sheer notoriety and also sheer lack of any redeeming qualities - I have words planned on it now that I've finally finished reading it. The third part, "Silent Ponyville", fascinates me because I'm really not sure what it say that it was such a relatively popular and visible story in the fandom despite being neither Silent Hill nor My Little Pony to any convincing degree.
So what about these stories earned them popularity? Why is it that people recognize these more quickly than any other pony horror I could care to mention?
I'd argue that it's a combination of the grandfathering effect, hate-reading, and initial shock value. All three of these stories have just been around in the fandom since the very early days. By this point they're actually older than my entire time actively participating in the Fimfic community even as a blogger, and they way outdate my collaborations with Chuck. Age has at this point turned them into institutions.
Their relatively early appearance on the scene also contributes in large part to hate readings. Very few people who talk about "The Rainbow Factory" seem to actually like the story, in my experience -and yet it gets talked about and referred back to. "Cupcakes" is basically a giant dividing line, with some people referring to it as possibly the worst thing the fandom has ever produced and some arguing that its progeny are the real terror and the original story is just fine. Any conversation about either fic usually gets a reaction, and reactions keep stories alive. It's part of why Fifty Shades is alive despite the initial fan craze over it dying down: the hate-reading conversation about the book basically transformed the work into a punch line and helped boost its signal outside its target audience and embed it in their memory.
Do you doubt this? Answer these questions then: did you know that Fifty Shades had sequels? More than one sequel? Can you name them without looking it up? If your answer to any of those three questions was "no", it's because the book likely reached you not because you actually read it but because it generated conversation. I'll bet the same phenomenon is why the only horror offerings on Fimfic are the stunted progeny of mediocre and bad stories.
I'm splitting up this post to stop it veering in eighty directions,, but something fascinates me on a deep level. Why is this the horror the fandom has chosen to venerate, for better or worse? What is the value that can be mined from these stories, if anything? Why don't we see much in the vein of smarter horror?
For now, I'm going to leave things with a quick establishment of why I care so much about where horror is going on this website. It's not just that I love the genre and I'd like to see it be brought into the fold of what, for all its foibles, is one of the more exciting fiction communities online. It's not just that I'd thrill to see Twilight fighting the occult. It's not even that I just want to be scared this summer and I can't find enough out there.
It's the fact that short, complete fiction is possibly the single best vector for communicating horror ever conceived, and fanfiction lends itself well to short, completed stories.
Of the three fics I mentioned, both "Rainbow Factory" and "Cupcakes" are effectively short stories. They build towards a single mood around a single setpiece (one far better than the other), and both attempt to end on a poignant note. Short stories are embraced by this fandom, easy to produce on some levels, and excellent practice for writers in general. Horror stories are a brilliant genre to learn to play in because the fundamental skill of mastering horror is forcing immersion and empathy on the reader.
Good horror has to make use of tone, concept, and character studies in harmony. Learning and applying those skills is fun, and challenging, and even when you fail you usually end up with something worth reading entirely for unintentional humor value. Horror also allows for the exploration of darker ideas and themes that don't necessarily conflict with the show's tone and message, depending on how smart you are at applying them.
And I'll be damned if I let "The Rainbow Factory" and its terrible grasp of any of the above continue to exist without attempting to at least understand how and why it fooled anyone into calling it horror.
*Hint hint.
An intriguing idea all around. I can say yes to all three questions, but I blame that on being in the bdsm community and finding it a fascinating discussion point and also hilariously bad.
I think a lot of new authors find horror hard to tackle because you need to be able to empathize and make us of tone and pacing, as you mentioned. Horror (and to some extent Sadfics) are held to a stricter standard. It's much easier to make some feel warn and fuzzy inside than to make them feel scared or sad. (if they aren't already feeling that way and wanting something to reinforce it.)
Youth out in nature, kimodameshi, ghost stories in the dark, and less clothing makes jumping into each other in fear more pleasurable, duh. Or at least, so the stereotype tells us, I'd be the last person to know. :)
Horse Voice's your man. See also WishyWish's Shipshape's world. I don't remember anything else offhand, but let me check my favorites and get back to you in a bit. EDIT: Nope, came up with nothing else. :(
And my Aporia is actually implied cosmic horror under the skin, but I don't think any readers actually realised that, since nobody asked just why every chapter is in different first person yet. :)
Speaking of "Cupcakes" and friends, though, they are viral and there's little else specifically to it. I mean, "Agony in Pink" is supposed to be incredibly notorious, well, I tracked it down and it's badly written (One large chapter consists of 8 paragraphs!) and boring, and yet it has a Know Your Meme page just for it...
4024745 Funnily enough, Horse Voice is exactly who I was thinking of when I mentioned I knew exactly one horror author on the site.
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He's the only specialist that I know of, as well, but occasionally horror does crop up here and there. Unfortunately, the aforementioned Shipshape's World is the only thing that actually made it into my favorites.
...Why do I keep imagining Pinkie telling the ghost story about a box of cupcakes all of which eventually stick to the lid of the box?...
I can actually answer yes to the Fifty Shades questions, but only because I noticed the series once in a bookstore and have incredible trivia retention.
I second the Horse Voice recommendation. I don't even like most horror, and I love his work. (Plus, on a self-serving note, I have written something that might qualify as part of the genre.
I've tried my hand at horror a couple times here, but you make a good point about "pony" horror being a difficult nut to crack. Incorporating anything truly horrific into the FiM world isn't impossible by any means, but it takes a delicate touch and level of consideration that (in honest self-reflection) I only got close-ish to on my first attempt and completely missed on the second. It's an offshoot of the same reality that makes stories in the vein of Fallout: Equestria such a hard sell: ultimately, horror fiction is an expression of classical human fears, and if things like death and darkness exist as we know them in Equestria, they don't show up very often for reference.
Rainbow Factory is an uninspired fic trying to turn a piece of dark tongue-in-cheek fan music into a story 1:1. Unsurprisingly, it fails.
You Fifty Shades analogy is correct I'd say since it has more than 90k views but only 2650 likes and 250 dislikes - it only inspired 3% of those clicking on the story to even leave an up or downvote. Much less a comment. The meh is strong in this one.
The musical piece has spawned a ton of remixes and collaborations, and some of them I think are really good, like this instrumental here that I often use for writing action scenes, not just for fimfics. I actually don't like the original all that much.
As for good horror (that you probably already know): Primal Fear by Aragon is one of the exceedingly rare fics that gave me real chills and zero disgust.
I could recommend some horror if I wasn't drunk right now. Also if I was a real aficionado of the genre. :B
But check out obabscribbler and TheLostNarrator, both here for their stories and on Youtube for others'. Try Love.Sick by KitsuneRisu, that's the first thing that pops into my mind. Someone already said Horse Voice, so you're covered there. shortskirtsandexplosions has a couple like The Face Takers and Button Hash.
Huh
There is also "Gideon Keys of Glasgow" as well. Reminds me a bit of a subset of things and gubbins from the SCP foundation
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No need for subtle, oblique references. There is plenty right out there in the open:
- There is a parasitic, sapient race whose sole drive is to infiltrate your community, replacing your friends, family, and loved ones in order to harvest you.
- There is a god-being whose sole raison d'etre is to undermine the very building blocks of society and civilization (friendship and harmony) as well as physics, re-enacting Allied Mastercomputer's torments in I have no Mouth and I must Scream for his own amusement.
- The ruling demi-goddesses, who control the very heavenly bodies in the sky, are as emotionally stable as a tired cashier during Black Friday.
- The country is absolutely lousy undocumented magical artefacts. If you thought proliferating firearms and missing samples of Smallpox were bad, imagine if you could just find a trinket that grants apotheosis in a rummage sale in a trinket shop in any big city...
- The very ecology and weather and seasons are all dynamically driven 24/7/365. There is no equilibrium.
- Slavery (Sombra)
- Famine, starvation (Windigos)
- Ecological disaster (Flurry Heart and the Crystal Heart)
- Body horror with petrification and transformations
- Existential horror with cloning and time-travel.
Plenty of things for horror, and I was just thinking of very broad brush-strokes kind of things. Doubtless more talented writers than I could tease more subtle and sinister things from what we have seen directly in the show (much less terrifying implications that have been hinted at and implied...)
I do not think anyone has touched upon the idea that ponies have to maintain dynamic stability for everything in Equestria, setting up a Red Queen's race where they have to spend more and more effort to merely keep the ecology, weather, seasons, the whole world from breaking down.
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Shucks, folks, I'm speechless.
But it's funny you should mention me and Cupcakes. This has never come up before, but while that story scared me on the first reading, (five summers ago, though it feels like a lifetime) I soon realized it was mostly pointless and could only scare people once. That's when I got the idea to write horror with staying power and worthwhile themes.
It's gratifying to know I pulled it off.
I'm sure you've already seen many, if not all, of these, but my suggestions for Dark/Horror:
The Mares of Diomedes by Admiral Biscuit (author link due to Mature/Gore)
Magic by Cromegas_Flare (author link due to Mature/Gore)
More Than You Know by Obselescence
ACT OF WILL by PresentPerfect
The Silent Shore by The Descendant
A Fleeting Light In The Darkness by Flashgen
I've also done a few myself: REC, Fate, Smile, and No One Goes There. Though I think only the first and last are the kind of thing you're looking for.
Perhaps you've read it before, but by far my favorite horror story that I've read on the site is 413 Mulberry Lane : A Report (With Annotations by Twilight Sparkle). Of course, fear is a pretty subjective thing, and I know some people just don't "get" the story, but I found it extremely disturbing - in a good way.
And since you said that you like horror stories about everyday things, well, this story is about a house. A literal house. And it gave me literal nightmares about broom closets - the kind that you store brooms in. And I don't have nightmares often.
And since some of the examples you were giving were more gorn than true horror, I'll mention that "Mulberry Lane" goes out of its way to subvert most horror tropes. Excepting for the very end, there's no darkness or monsters in the story. Rather than the more immediate present or even past tense, it's told in the form of reports and letters about things that have already happened. It focuses more on questions and implications than answers.
Anyway. It's not for everyone, but as someone who doesn't really enjoy most "horror" - or at least what counts as horror on this site - I can't recommend it enough. ~ Sable
I suppose the two I've written are on some level low-grade horror, though I think of them more as Dark Fic. But...then again, given the reactions some people have had to Gnosis, Horror may be a much more appropriate tag for it.
Herald by SS&E is definitely horror.
Memories definitely hit that for me in that it stuck in my brain for weeks and weeks making me feel crawly-horrified just by the backstory.
The Last Days of Parrsboro by Eakin has a Lovecraft vibe going through it.
Into the Depths and its sequel definitely manage to tap 'In Equestria, yet creepy atmosphere' - the second story in particular ends with an especially frightening form of imagery.
Second Singularity This one definitely earns it.
Hmm. I know I've read more, but eh, there's a primer for now.
Rainbow Factory has a sequel, you know. Pegasus Device. It's longer, and makes a more serious attempt at proper storytelling. I really liked it.
I second Herald by SS&E. That story haunts me still.
Hard Reset by Eakin had a spin-off sequel that went to really dark places, and I think it tied into the main story later on as well.
And of course, everything by Horse Voice.
Kitsunerisu writes good horror. babytails was great, for example. Guy has a magnificient prose, and it really brings out the horror in simple off-putting everyday situations.
I'd say that those three stories were the first time ponies were deemed as "scary", and from that point on, they've never been scary by themselves again. The fandom is about colorful talking magical little horses, so it's hard to make anything related to them terrifying.
Thing is, all the smart horror that one has to write needs to use something else to bring the scares. You can't use a single pony who's crazy or whatever as the villain anymore, because Cupcakes and Rainbow Factory did it first, and ruined it. Anything that tries to go that way will remind people of Cupcakes, and then the battle is lost.
Personally, I think pony horror should be relatable. That's what makes stuff work. The ponies are inherently goofy and nonscary, so you have to do something that makes the reader fear for themselves, or at least imagine them in the situation the story portrays. Make the pony an avatar for the reader, and then strike. Or build an emotional connection with the character, then strike, I'unno. Just random gore or mindlessly "grotesque" imagery ain't gonna cut it no more, is what I mean.
Of course, that involves genuine skill and a modicum of subtlety, 'cause it implies you can't go by high concept alone. This means most people in the fandom don't even try. Easier to just write about Celestia farting and getting a lot of fame -- less effort, more retribution. A shame, really.
Because most "horror" films these days are corny gorefests or all about the shock value (or schlock value). Also, let's face it - when a lot of us think of horror stories, we think about jump-scare campfire stories.
The Cabin in the Woods did a great job of being what it was by pillorying the horror movie genre.
Jmj writes a lot of horrorish/dark stuff. Rainbow Dash Gets An Abortion is a classic.
I looked through my bookshelves and there were few stories that I loved that would classify as horror. Some have the horror tag, but some don't.
You've already mentioned Horse Voice, so I'm sure you already familiar with The Writing on the Wall.
Next up, a trio of Octavia/Vinyl themed horror stories: Silencing Song by Pen Stroke, A Puppet to Her Fame by Kaidan and Wub Meh Hard by Doc Crawl (which has an unfinished sequel that unfortunately looks to be abandoned).
Rounding out the completed stories we have Jackie by BronyWriter and Loop by Aquaman (which in all honestly could have functioned perfectly well as a non-pony, original short story).
As for incomplete stories, I am only following one: The Corner of Our Eyes by Daemon McRae.
An aside about Rainbow Factory: it's bad. However, it does have a sequel which is infinitely better than the original. I would recommend it.
A few recommendations from my favorites bookshelf (aside from the many Horse Voice stories as the thread already seems to have that covered):
Only Skin Deep by Pascoite
'The Art of the Dress' or 'Expectations' by NTSTS/Darf
Two Rarity stories that are more along the lines of psychological horror and fighting inner demons rather than battling actual demons.
And a Dark Wind Blows by Razed Rainbow
A story involving actual monsters (in addition to the psychological ones). Does a great job of mixing horror with MLP. One of my favorite stories on the site.
Truth be Told by ObabScribbler
Very gory, suspenseful and meta.
The Millennial Vault by Door Matt
A lesser known story that does a good job at building suspense.
Twilight Sparkle of the Royal Guard by King of Beggars
For the first couple of chapters, the story is very slice of life, but once the protagonists find an ancient Diamond Dog tomb in the middle of the desert, things get quite intense and suspenseful.
Rainbow Factory is pretty bad, yes. So's Cupcakes: a pretty lazy story, clumsily relying on gore and shock for its impact. If it hadn't come out so damn early in the fandom's lifespan, back when you could in theory keep track of all noteworthy ponyfics being written, nobody would remember it or pay it any attention these days.
I've got an unfinished Lovecraft-flavored pony story (The Shadow Over Hoofsmouth to be exact) that I'd like to return to and maybe finish one day, but... yeah.
I second Second Singularity, and Horse Voice, especially Biblical Monsters.
The Cough.
Dystopian Circus.
Lots of things by Fiddlebottoms, like What if socks didn't work orally? or Love and Roadkill.
The Carnivore's Prayer by Cold in Gardez
Kaleidoscope
So Be It by device heretic
Anything TheyCallMeJub wrote.
Let Me Tell You About the Hole in My Face
Fallout: Equestria, of course, though it may not be what you're looking for.
I've written lots of dark stories, but I can't tell from your post whether they're the sort of thing you mean. "The ones who walk way from Equestria" is horror, but it's just a rip-off of "The ones who walk away from Omelas" done as a writing exercise. If you read the first chapter of Moments by itself, which is how I originally wrote it, it's horror. "Happy Thoughts", "The green hills of Equestria", and "The gentle people", but they're not at all frightening. My horror is dry and bloodless. Actually I don't consider anything frightening to be horror. My conception of horror is a completely separate category from stories that cause fear. I would give Stephen King stories the 'Adventure' tag. From a writer's perspective, they work the same way as "Lord of the Rings".
In any case I tend to write stories that use horror rather than stories that are horror, like the complete "Moments", or "Twenty minutes", "The corpse bride", or Pony Play. "The quiet one" has a similar kind of feeling, though nobody would call it horror.
I've been remiss--I blanked the other day and forgot to mention BronyWriter, whose large bibliography includes a number of good, scary short stories. Start with I Spoke to Miss Smarty Pants Today, and browse outward from there.
The shining golden standard of pony horror to me is still Flashgen's "A Fleeting Light in the Darkness". Definitely recommended, if by some incredible circumstance you've managed to not have read it yet.
It's not really horror, but it's close enough and so darn excellent that I have a hard time not recommending it: horizon's "The Last Dreams of Pony Island". Don't read if you don't like good poetry.
Another story that isn't really horror, but I think it shares enough of the genre's trappings to deserve a recommendation (though also another classic): Vimbert's "Twilight, Revised". God, that story messed me up.
Excellent post! Looking forward to reading more on the subject of pony horror. I tend to gravitate towards paranormal horror and ghost stories, and that's a niche within a niche all on its own. The few that I've found that I've really enjoyed are MrNelg's A Night at Shadow Station and The Toy Museum. I also saw Pen Stroke's Into the Depths mentioned above, I definitely enjoyed that one.
Another one that I almost never see discussed in A Hoof-ful of Dust's Synchronicity. I found that one right when I first started lurking in the fandom, so it has a special place in my memory.
NIGEB was actually one of the works that inspired me to start becoming a bit more active in creative projects. I'm a sucker for nightmare imagery, so I tend to recommend that one every chance I get.
Lastly, at the risk of sounding my own horn, I myself eventually felt compelled to contribute to the genre, and Carousel was the result.
So many intriguing recommendations from the other comments too. I'm looking forward to investigating them myself!