One Possible Appeal of "Secret Sins" Fics (Cupcakes etc)

(Yeah, I know I said I'd be doing a post-movie review thing, but it wasn't that inspiring, so for now you get this random thing I could have done last year. Hey, at least it's original rather than another T>B, right? If anyone even reads these...)

So with the arrival of a new generation, we've seen new fics of all genres - including quite a few horror ones, especially given the movie's proximity to Halloween. And among those have been a few attempts to create (or subvert) a "Cupcakes" for the new gen. (Check out Kaidan's stuff for examples of both, and unrelated horror too.) So I thought I might share some thoughts on those sort of fics - not just cheap shock ones like said story or Rainbow Factory, but also longer, more literary works like The Secret Life of Rarity. Though the stories differ a fair bit in length, style and quality, they share a key common thread - one of our beloved pony leads engaging in unspeakable, unforgiveable acts of wickedness. And not just as a sudden thing, or a spiral into villainy - no, they have clearly been doing this sort of thing for a long time, both before and between their onscreen appearances.

A lot of people probably wonder how such stories can be popular, or blame it on general audience depravity. In truth there are likely many reasons, varying from story to story - sometimes just the subversion of the show's rating, the same as draws some to clopfics. Others might just like that sort of story with or without ponies. But there is one motivation I can imagine for it which, while possibly obvious to some, might apply to others without them even realising it. (Disclaimer: the following is highly speculative and not really based in personal experience much.)

Most adults and many children have a list of names. Sometimes it's the names of famous people, like Bill Cosby or JK Rowling. Other times it's people they knew personally - friends, family, co-workers and schoolmates. All of them names of people they trusted once, naively or not - took for granted that they shared their basic principles, that they were at least decent people and at best good ones. At most, they might have a few flaws, or make a few mistakes - but nothing fundamentally irreconcilable with liking, loving or admiring them.

Or at least, so it seemed once upon a time. But then the Truth came and ripped away the mask, or just shone a spotlight at what had gone unseen in shadow. Or perhaps they showed their true colours themselves, as confident that you shared their wholly reasonable and obvious beliefs as you were the other way. Either way, whether or not there can ever be forgiveness (and it's often "not"), there can be no returning to what once was - the trust offered so freely has been torn away, leaving an ugly scar. And as these scars turn to scabs, the very ability to trust unthinkingly is lost - perhaps a necessary change, but not a pretty one, especially as it's easy to slide to the opposite extreme and lose all faith in anyone.

Once you've been betrayed once, I'd guess that it's hard to forget that we only know so much about the people around us, or the ones we see on TV. We only see what they do, what they're like, some of the time - what if they have another life we're unaware of? And even when they're right there, it's not like we can tell what they're really thinking... (Of course, such thoughts are even more obvious if someone has secrets of their own - like bronyhood - which they manage to keep from those around them every day.)

It might seem that fictional characters offer some respite from this eternal uncertainty - their thoughts, feelings and deeds often laid much more bare to us than other real people's. But even here there is little true safety, for a sudden reveal which upends everything we know of someone is often thought to make for a good plot twist. (And sometimes it does.) Especially with media which show a character externally and selectively like television, we arguably don't know them any more thoroughly than we do our real friends and acquaintances. The potential for secrets, whether innocuous or abominable, is still there.

So that's half the answer, in a way - but why do people seek such things out? Well, it might be similar to the idea of immunization. In theory, if you spent some time imagining that your favourite celebrity was exposed as a rapist, or your best friend from high school turned out to hold an extremely opposite - to the point of being called evil - political position to yours, then you can work through your feelings in a hypothetical way , then set it aside in the knowledge that it's not real. Then if that scenario turns out to be true, you can skip straight to the "acceptance" phase. (In practice, it doesn't tend to quite work out this way.)

I don't know if the fics like those above were written because the authors felt that even cute ponies could not be trusted, or to pre-empt any "betrayal" by envisioning the worst possibilities. But I do think it might be one reason people read and appreciate them. The idea that seemingly pleasant people may actually have a much darker side unknown to us, and that all trust should be balanced with caution, is one that can save us both heartbreak and occasionally even actual danger - albeit at the cost of stealing some of our ability to be comfortable around people or even form close relationships or sincere admirations at all. And reading stories about how pretty ponies, while still looking like good people on the outside (and arguably one of the keys to quality in this sort of fic is how well it avoids rendering any part of the subject's onscreen portrayal implausible) are actually murderous monsters is one relatively safe way to engage with this sort of feeling.

(Well, either that or this is a whole load of tripe cooked up by my powers of overthinking. But I'd still like to know what you think of it!)

Comments

[sevenofeleven]

Maybe folks like reading about awful things as an escape?
I think your points could be valid too.

[Leondude]

That's one reason. Another reason is some people have a sadistic streak or, in a morbid sort of way, they find a cute pony murdering other cute ponies in gruesome fashion to be hilarious.

Or it could be escapism like 5607447 said (though, truth be told, I can never really wrap my head around escapism).

[Latecomer]

5607526
I did mention such possible reasons.