Just a thought that popped into my head. (And obviously, I don't think any of this should be canon). But I wonder what the equivalents to the big grimdark fanfics would be. Cupcakes, of course, and Rainbow Factory, Cherilee's Garden, Sweet Apple Massacre, whatever that stupid one is where Rarity hunts down, kills, and stuffs a pony to be her boyfriend, etc. (Also Conversion Bureau; some instantiations of that are crazy dark.)

Two occurred to me, both involving Ditzy:

1. Ditzy is forced to have some procedure to 'fix' her strabismus. Things go horribly wrong. Or it works, but it turns Ditzy evil somehow.
2. Happy Tree Friends style chaos. Ditzy is going through her normal day, but her clutzniess and bumbling results in everyone else dying in horrific ways.

(And now I feel sad for even thinking of such things).

Naturally, several WH40k crossovers.

On the other hand, the cannon Lunaverse is slightly darker than the cannon maneverse, so I see fewer people writing dark/grimdark for the sake of darkness

332496
You feel sad? I'm the one who conceived of the perfect L! variation of Cupcakes; which of the L6 is a killer, what their motivations are, and and which one of the other L6 must suffer as a consequence. It is a sinful burden that I will have to live with for the rest of my life, and all of you should be thankful that I have every intention of taking it to my grave.

Then again as bad as the topic of grimdarks can be, part of me almost thinks we need a few of those in the non-canon bin. If only to make abundantly clear to certain readers that the proper L!verse is so much closer to the mane-line show in tone and message than it is to any grimdark fanfic.

I see Trixie taking Dinky to the 'Unicorn factory' to have her magic squeezed out. And there is NO chance in Tartarus of me writing that.

333343
Oh? That's it? I've thought of something so much worse...

*sigh*. Let's get this over with.

- 1,000 years ago, Celestia went completely mad, and Luna had to stop her.
- Luna was no match for Corona, so she sold her soul to Tirek in order to get the power to fight Corona.
- When the batle was over, Tirek came looking for payment. Luna instead, however, offered up the soul of a pure-hearted colt, so that she could continue to rule Equestria in order to repair what Corona did and make sure her ponies were safe. Tirek accepted on the condition that every hundred years, Luna offered him another pure soul. If she does not, then he gets to have his way with all of Equestria.
- 1,000 years later, Trixie's actual reason for being sent to Ponyville is because Luna knows that the pure-hearted foal that she has to sacrifice to Tirek will be in Ponyville. Dinky is that foal. Trixie is to bring her to Canterlot at the appropriate time.
- Trixie brings Dinky to Canterlot for the sacrificing ritual, but Ditzy, suspicious for whatever reason, follows and realizes what Trixie is up to.
- Cue horrible, brutal hoof-fight that ends with Trixie dead, Ditzy horribly wounded and dying, and Luna showing up because the ritual has to be completed now or else Tirek gets Equestria. Luna explains everything as a Reasonable Authority Figure.
- The last thing Ditzy sees before bleeding to death is Dinky willingly letting her throat be slit in order to save Equestria. Luna - in actuality, we learn, Nightmare Moon - gets to reign for another hundred years. Or in other words, all Equestria has had for the past 1,000 years is the least of three evils.

...

333372 That's just...

333410
That rough synopsis is the most I will ever do concerning it. And I feel awful for even typing it down...

......Carrot top's secret Fertilizer....

I can kind of see a fic occurring where Raindrops loses her control entirely for some reason and horrible violence happens.

Then again, in such a fic idea, I totally see the ending as being Raindrops snapping awake, annoyed and mildly afraid due to having that nightmare again. Then she goes and tries to 'work out' whatever problems have been aggravating her as peacefully as possible. Maybe.

Not a crazy horror-of-horrors fic, but something that would be fairly easy to keep in character...

Another grimdark idea! What does Carrot Top do if she manages to catch a dirty rabbit stealing from her farm?

I'm staying away from this.

333372
Yikes! That is truly twisted and horrific.

Is it wrong that I feel comforted knowing I'm not alone in having dared to consider the darkest alternatives of how to corrupt this continuity? Heck you even stepped it up a notch by not merely corrupting characters, but the very premise of the setting itself. You are a braver/more-twisted soul than I.

333604
Actually it's just that I recently saw Cabin in the Woods. Which is a hilarious movie, not a depressing one, but the outline above draws heavy inspiration from it.

333631
Ah yes. Now that you mention it I can see the similarities. Not sure I would describe CitW as hilarious myself, but it was certainly very entertaining, with a lot of WTF and HSDTJDT moments.

333875

ritual sacrifice is a bit overkill.

Clearly you need a remedial course on what it means to be Grimdark

333946
It's just the page on 1d4Chan (/tg/'s wiki) that defines what Grimdark is. I promise, apart from a mild amount of swearing, it's perfectly safe.

I'm torn between describing my own theoretical contribution, or just pretending my mind isn't that sick and deriding this whole thread as stupid and pointless.

334218
I took the middle ground. I admit my mind went there, then clam up and refuse to give details.

334308 Okay than. I'm totally not telling you my idea that definitely doesn't involve Trixie snapping. There! (PSST: YOU WILL NEVER KNOW)

334356: ...but I want to know.

:-)

334376 Nope, not telling.

333372 Now I can't help but wonder what happens to Dinky afterwards, probably something that'd make me wanna get the bad thought out with an ice pick.

334702
Her soul was sacrificed to Tirek. What do you think happens? The best she can hope for is that it ceases existing.

Grimdark, man.

334709 "Her soul was sacrificed to Tirek. What do you think happens?"
Do you really want me to answer that question?

334717
No. Emphatically, no.

Lyra, tired of taking Trixie's abuse, decides to get revenge on her. Very, very bloody revenge.

Diamond Tiara getting yandere over Scootaloo, first brutally murdering Sweetie Belle when she thinks that the unicorn filly is going to take Scootaloo from her, then brutally murdering Scootaloo herself "so they can always be together."

"Jerk."

Parodies of 'The Quiz Broadcast' sketch from Mitchell and Webb. Starring Trixie as the Host, Lyra as Sheila, Carrot Top as Peter, Dinky as the Cue Card Girl, and... oh, let's say Luna as the representative of Them who shows up near the end.

For those haven't seen it: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and the rest. It takes about 20 minutes to watch them all.

(Fair warning: these are widely considered some of the most depressing pieces of sketch comedy ever made).

Note: not to be confused with the other 'Quiz show from Hell' sketch that Mitchell and Webb did. Although that could make a decent grimdark setting too, I suppose.

Another grimdark fic would be 'Greengrass' garden', I mean dude could easily be turned into a psychopath.

372189 You forgot this OTHER quiz show from Mitchell and Webb. Though this one isn't dark.

372274: Numberwang? I seem to recall a few people dying horribly in the course of that one, both during the game and when the Numberwang robot went crazy.
Gee, Mitchell and Webb really didn't like quiz shows, did they?

And yes, I can't believe I didn't come up with Greengrass's Garden. Especially now that he actually has a canonical garden. :-)
Or perhaps Notary decides that she's tired of being second banana to Greengrass, and kills him...
Or, to 'demonstrate her utility', starts systemically murdering the other Court members in grimdark ways. The final chapter, of course, would be Greengrass taking the fall for it and suffering an equally painful death, while Notary muses that she 'just doesn't know what went wrong.'

Somepony threatens Dinky. Ditzy kills said somepony in brutal fashion. Repeat.

372277 or Notary turns out to be a robot and goes haywire :p

Carrot Top's Garden. Carrot Top is assigned to babysit the town's foals for a while for some reason, and it gets bloody.

So, not be beat the gloomy horse to death, or undeath in this case, I was reading a Waita Uziga manga last night, and as weird as it sounds, it could be adapted to fit Lyra and Bonbon.

Picture it.

the Zombie apocalypse has come to Ponyville, and Bonbon has managed to survive.

she goes about her daily routine; walking through town, grocery shopping, and so on, and comes home to Lyra.

...or what was Lyra.
Chained up in their House, or Bonbon's store, Bonbon keeps the Zombified Lyra, feeding her, and generally hoping that She remembers who Bonbon is.

until one day when Bonbon gets careless and gets bitten.

Making it home, she apologizes to Lyra for not bringing home any meat, only to see Lyra straining to reach her...the sent of fresh blood.
In her madness Bonbon unchains Lyra, thinking that Lyra has finally come to her senses and remembered who she is.
pulling her undead marefriend in for an embrace, Lyra tears out Bonbon's Jugular and feast.

after her gruesome meal, Lyra leaves, in search of her next victim, trampling the remains of her once lover.

403299

dood......kinda messed up.

403304

duh, Waita Uziga's the guy who wrote/drew Mai-chan's Daily Life.

403312

I have no idea what that is, and I think I'll keep it that way.

403321
That is probably for the best

Hmmm. Grimdark scenarios are a little too easy to think of for the Lunaverse, actually.

Sparkler being out for revenge for her families breakup would be a fairly obvious scenario, and would not go well for Ditzy or Dinky.

And for some reason I could see Fluttershy dying, and a deranged Rainbow Dash taking increasingly creepy steps to pretend she is alive and keep her job.

Now let's see if I can get those out of my head, because I don't particularly want to write them...

403458: From the other thread:

1. Puissance schemes to get Alula so that she can trade bodies with her, killing Alula and allowing her to live on in a pegacorn hybrid body.
1a. This is not the first time she's killed a foal for a new body.
1b. The scheme fails, so Puissance resolves to try again with Dinky Doo.

2. A "Prince of Persia Sands of Time' thing. Puissance gets an ancient artifact which basically corrupts her whole fiefdom and turns the inhabitants into monsters. The L6 have to fight their way through the monstrosities to stop it, with an armored and magicked-up Puissance fighting to stop them (thinking they're trying to take her stuff).

3. Fisher's plot to transfer the Elements to more suitable ponies (unicorn soldiers) is basically him capturing the L6 and brutally having them killed so the Elements can be extracted.

403461
3 ends up being all for naught, of course, since the Elements don't work that way.

403545: Well, yeah, but he doesn't know that the Elements aren't, like, something you can 'extract' from a pony.

403299
Love + tragedy, this one actually sounds like a legitimately good read.

403545 403547
...and thus the final grimdark end would be Corona basically burning everything with nothing left to oppose her.

405176

I think I'll write it later, although it won't be part of the Lunaverse.

406298
Good enough, not like it really needs to be; there's nothing inherently tying it to the setting other than the choice of characters and who are just as meaningful in the M-verse. Then again, it could possibly just be written in a neutral way so that it never becomes clear which verse it's set in.

I just read Foalish Misadventures, that could easily be made grimdark.

“Come on out! Drink with us!” cried Berry Punch, slamming against the window.

Greengrass wins.

This leads to an orwellian state. (essentialy 1984 but with more ponies and less killing)

415906: As I mentioned in 'Deleted Scenes,' I'd thought of writing a grimdark alternate ending where the foals couldn't solve the problem and took over instead, becoming a 'Children of the Corn' type theocracy. The ending would feature some random adult ponies that blundered into town being chased down and 'sacrificed' by the foals.

As for dystopic governments:

416259:

A Puissance government gone wrong and grimdark would be anarchy, as she neglected everything except acquiring more possessions. The country splinters and descends into open warfare.

A Fisher government gone grimdark would be a fascist dystopia.

A Greengrass government gone grimdark would be Greengrass trying to govern by 'weeding' out everything that was making the state unstable... but because the state is so much more complex than his garden, that's basically everything, and he winds up destroying large swaths of the country (and populace) in order to save and grow what's left. He might also try to burn the Everfree since it's untamable, only to realize too late that it's important for ecological reasons and he's just wrecked the weather and/or environment, causing drought/famine/etc. He eventually realizes that he can't do it, that his life's dream is forever beyond him, and hangs himself. Without a leader, and with its infrastructure wrecked, Equestria collapses.

A Blueblood government gone grimdark would... hum. Dunno.

And let's not even get started on a grimdark Trixie government. :-)

416606
I figured that the real grimdark that came with a Greengrass win is if he was right. That protecting equestria cannot be trusted to the capricious gods, that it is not, and never can be a happy sugar bowl. That the pressures of leadership will invariably drive whoever rules equestria insane.

Come to think of it, how much has to change to cast either the M!verse or the L!verse as cosmic horror?

(Edited thread title to avoid messing up the post dimensions)

Given the discussions we've had re: the political situation, there'd probably be a few fairly popular grimdark fics:

(And, standard disclaimer, this is imagining how grimdark fanfics would look, not how the actual canon characters are or should be or what they should do)

1. Corona wins; everything is burned, or the government becomes a theocratic dystopia where every day brings the new threat of Corona going on a murder spree for some imagined slight.
2. Luna becomes the 'Nightmare Moon' figure mentioned in 'Early Reunion'. Endless night, etc.
3. Luna is incapacitated for some reason, so the Court has to rule, resulting in either an anarchistic nightmare/Civil War when it splinters into factions, or foreign invasion when the Court can't work together long enough to defend the nation.
4. Alternately, one of the Courtiers takes over the government. Depending on who it was, it'd be a different dystopia. In order of rank/closeness to Luna:

If Fancy Pants took over in the fics, it'd be by assassinating Luna and the rest of the government. It would become a secret-police run nation, with spies everywhere, a la 1984.
Puissance would probably end up with a Stalin-esque communist regime, where everything belongs to everyone, and by everyone, they mean 'the state.' Random, increasingly cruel seizures. Total neglect for the government side of things as Puissance just roams around in her treasure vaults, with her incompetent sycophants mismanaging the country.
Night Light would probably take over in a military coup, using his son's control of the Army, and it would wind up in a dystopic military dictatorship, replete with executions for various minor crimes.
Fisher would end up with a fascist dystopia, probably along the lines of what Light wants to do in Death Note.
Greengrass would end up with a decaying country as he tried to 'weed' out all the bad things, destroying more and more to save what was left, until he realized (if ever) that you can't run a country only with destruction. Alternately, as mentioned above, he tries weeding out the Everfree by burning it, only to find out that he just wrecked the ecosystem. Or, as a third option, he does everything he said he would, takes over, runs the country well... but even that isn't enough to sate his ambition, and he decides to begin 'gardening' other nations as well. Equestria is dragged into war, with all the attendant problems.
Redsky, before her goodheartedness is revealed to the audience (as I recall, she's supposed to have a mystique as a total monster for a while before her actually being good is revealed), would probably be a feudal lord who hunts ponies for sport, eats meat, and revels in cruelty.
Blueblood would be working with the Discordians, a stooge for the Discordians, would bungle enough that Discord or a foreign army would take over anyway, or, if he managed to hold on to the country, would probably wreck it through incompetence, whatever the government was.

460793
I could see most of those and I'm looking forward to redsky/wing though GGs seemed a little soft for the most part