All the ingredients are there to make a cupcake. There's the friendly visit. There's the crazy friend. There's the demented torture. But add to that a psychological perspective, a look into the true rationale of insanity, and a little twist of lemon, and you have something rather special indeed.
This is cupcakes. Re-imagined. Re-formed. Re-baked.
Important Note:
This story was written for The More Most Dangerous Game with a re-imagining of Cupcakes as the prompt. Yes. That cupcakes. Now, before you all get turned off, please note that the gore is kept to an absolute minimum, with very little blood and no guts whatsoever. This is Cupcakes using my own recipe, and my recipe calls for something a little different. So please enjoy, and remember to come back for seconds.
This story is rated Teen for non-explicit bodily harm. There is -no- gore outside of slight injury and suggestive scenes. The 'alternate universe' tag is to tell you that this absolutely does not happen in any of your personal canons, so don't worry. =3 Tee hee hee.
OH MY GOD THIS SUCKS
5541346
Yeah I know, you edited it after all.
Edit: A note to readers.
A lot of comments from this point on refer to an older version. A lot of things being discussed aren't in the story any longer. If you're confused, you should be. Thanks!
I read the entire thing (up to the changeling part) with my eyes wide and mouth open. Good job, man.
5541483
Whoa whoa whoa, spoilers =(
But yes, I understand what you mean. But it was either exposition dump or... have the story go on much longer than necessary. But still! It's about where I wanted it. But point taken!
This is quite the experience.
I love the ending by the way.
For a bit I thought Pinkie was suffering from severe depression.
Instead it's more of scientific approach.
I liked that very much.
Interesting.
I'm really not a horror fan, but this sure does the job. Almost put it down before the reveal, but that really did feel like it contextualized her behavior in a way that made sense.
Good luck in the comp!
I... hm. That ending is-- huh.
The ending is simultaneously the strongest and weakest part of this story, I think. I love the spirit of the ending; it fills that great big context-shaped gap that was looming over the rest of the story. The moment that it dawns on Fluttershy that Pinkie really didn't bring her there was a chilling moment of clarity that explains so much about the rest of what happened.
I just am not sold on the specific content of the ending. Somehow, 'changelings did it' is kind of a letdown as explanations go. I am not sure exactly how you would fix this; any other named villain would have the same problem, and saying Pinkie is just crazy on her own is the same character-breaking pitfall that the original falls into. Maybe it would be better to show much less of the villains at the ending. That they're there and responsible for what happened to Pinkie is more important than who they are and why and how they did it. I just know that the exposition scene at the end leaves the story on a sour note when the ending feels like it should be the finishing touch on a well-toned tale.
I don't like saying I didn't like a story as well-written as this was, but well, I didn't. I truly respect you for taking on the challenge of re-imagining a story like this to make it actually good, but the unpleasant subject matter means that ending really needed to connect in order for it to feel worth it. I'm afraid it didn't quite do that for me.
5542648
I'm gonna respond to you later. I've digested a bit, and I have 15 minutes before the contest deadline to make edits.
I'm gonna scrape a bit off the end in terms of exposition.
Mainly I was kinda worried about that too, but, BRB.
5541483
5542514
5542648
Right, that was a weird 10 minutes. But I actually managed to edit it down with 5 minutes to spare, so there you go.
Anyway, first of all, let me be frank. I'm always appreciative of honest feedback, so thank you guys especially for being honest. I always take one weird risk with everything I do, and this was the risk this time around. For the most of it, this was one of the things that WAS bugging me, and I was going back and forth about the whole deal with the exposition at the end while I was drafting it. I had wanted greatly to set the story in a frame, which is why I did what I did. But going about it at the time, I felt that explaining everything was necessary. I think I was distracted by the sentiment of actually having to make sure every detail fit. But as Else, you pointed out, it really is more about the sentiment rather than the details, and sometimes being vague can have a better effect if the details only serve to distract.
I'd like to blame the fact that I had to rush this entire project. I'd like to blame time, I'd like to blame a lot of things. But the fact is, I made a call early on, and it was the wrong call. I've done what I can at the last minute to do what I kinda probably should have done to save the tone, but hey, it is what it is, and that's what I have.
So, to Antsan:
Yes, You're right. There was too much exposition. I took it out and left it up to the imagination of the reader.
To Strange:
I appreciate your take on it. In fact, I quite like your alternate ending. However, and with all due respect, I made a choice to go for the ending and framing that I wanted. I'm going to have to stick by that. I'd rather solve the problems within that context than just remove the entire story and replace the ending with another. I'm not saying your version is bad; I actually really do like it. But I was juggling a lot of ways to end it, and one thing that I had to consider was the fact that if I did something like yours, it'd be back to 'Pinkie is crazy, deal with it', which would have been emotionally unsatisfactory to ME. Also, I think in regards to this comment:
I do have to point out that the contest said that this wasn't necessarily supposed to be JUST a rewrite of the source material. It was keeping to tone. Keeping to spirit. Writing your own story based off the prompt. The prompt, exactly, was "Pinkie Pie invites a friend over to Sugarcube Corner. Little do they know that they’re in for a dark surprise." So I have to say that I didn't interpret anyone's death as part of a necessary point in the story. But that's how it fits in with my vision. I think what you're looking for is maybe a different vision altogether, with a different sort of ending. I'm sorry I didn't choose that path. But do know that it was certainly one that I could have gone down had I thought in a different direction at some point in the past.
To Esle:
Three's the charm. Trust me, I know the risks of going into omg it's changelings again territory. In my defense, what I needed was an outside force acting upon the scene. The suggestion that I was attempting to give was that 'Cupcakes' was a small part of a bigger picture, and we get to see that bigger picture at the end. The tone was probably ruined by, as you said, the content. But I had to use an outside force, and Changelings not only fit the bill, but also had the motive, power and opportunity to do it. They were just the best choice for the scene.
Therefore in that sense there really isn't any fixing it outside of inventing a new villain or pulling some other weird concept out of my ass, which would just have been macguffins. And honestly, for the actual explanation of something, I think using macguffins are marginally worse than using a trope that actually fits the bill and is already an established 'thing' in universe. But of course, being that it's a trope, it kinda carries all the stigma along with it.
You basically hit in on the head, though, in saying that it's better to just have the sentiment. I was caught up in the details. I forgot for a moment that sometimes being vague is better than being specific. So I just removed all the exposition, giving only enough to fill in the blanks, and I'll leave the rest to the imagination, where it really ought to be.
I said I didn't want to blame time, but I WILL say that I actually didn't have any opportunity to pass my draft to more people to get more points of view. So all I can say is that I'm extremely grateful that you (and the others) came forward with this information while I still had time to make adjustments.
I'm not saying that I 'fixed' the story. I know there's still going to be a lot of people who have their own opinions and expectations. But at the very least, it's now a bit closer to what it should have been, and I'm gonna be completely transparent here and say this is really just part of the writing process for me.
That is to say, I fuck shit up a lot.
Either way, thank you again for being frank with your appraisal, and thank you for helping me polish this up a bit.
5542334
Thanks for forcing yourself through it =) I wouldn't have asked, but I appreciate it none-the-less.
Well this was interesting.....Did you ever headcanon pinkie with any mental disorders? because she is just crazy isnt enough of explanation for how she is.
5543112
No. It isn't. The implication there is that the Changelings are doing something to drain her element. That's about it. My headcanon was that there was a big experiment in which the changelings kidnapped Pinkie and completely removed laughter from her. So she had to compensate to get it back, but it overrode her natural logic.
5543132
Cool. its a pretty awesome and twisted concept.
I was never sure how I felt about Cupcakes. This is a far more effective piece, but I always felt that there not being a reason to the torture and murder was part of the point. Sometimes bad things happen without reason.
But I am very, very tired. And that seems like a cop out.
An interesting take, nonetheless.
5543233
Yes, I agree. I was kinda wrapped up in detail. It was silly of me in hindsight. I was adding so much because... I kinda wanted to make sure all my bases were covered. I sought to explain things, and I went overboard. Then after I read what Esle said, I kinda remembered those old Twilight Zone eps and why they were so effective with that weird out of left field twist endings. Because they ended while the viewer was still in the mood of 'whoa, what, what's going on?' I think what happened to this story was that with all the exposition and explaining, the reader had time to get out of that mood and start to move into another tone altogether. A very story-based one. I failed at controlling the mood. The only thing I changed in the current edit is to make the ending brief. I touched upon all the things that needed to make sure the reader could piece together a suggested image, while leaving it up to interpretation. That made sure the story could end back on the button thing quicker. If you ever do read it again (or just the ending), maybe you could once again give your thoughts as to if it's more effective this way or not. I can't change it any longer, because it wouldn't be fair to the competition, but if anything, I can still learn from this. =)
5543239
I think that a piece in which the source of conflict has no discernible reason is effective but in a rather different way. The point of those stories are to just make you scared, period, with no closure. The lack of understanding is what most people are afraid of, and that adds to the effect. That said, the rules of this competition was to take the story and do it your own way, right? And this is really how I'd do it. Not to say I've never written a story with no reason for the conflict before, but this time, this is a different story.
I think part of the problem here is that a lot of people are still thinking that this is MEANT to be Cupcakes V2. It really isn't. It's just meant to be my own story built around the bits. The point of Cupcakes was that there is no reason. That is completely true. But the point of this story is that there is a reason for everything. And that's the difference.
Interesting, I like it.
5544542
Stupidity actually worked to my benefit this time.
I actually have 6 hours left because... lol.
Time zones. How do they work, am I right?
Holy cow. I'm gonna go rewrite that last bit yet again. I have more time now to give it a proper re-do. This is kinda amazing, really. I actually have the time to re-do the scene. I don't suppose I could trouble you one final time, could I?
I have no qualms in deleting huge chunks of anything. For one of my other stories, I deleted 7000 words before at one go because it wasn't working. And for Incandescent Brilliance, the short story that I like the most out of all the things I've written, I rewrote it 4 times just to make sure the tone was how I wanted. Difference is, I THOUGHT I had no more time with this story. I'm gonna go rewrite the ending now. Back in a bit.
I thought this was really interesting. It really is crazy how much of a dark nature comedy has when you think about its roots. This was an amazing explanation to why the element of laughter (or former element of laughter) would torture people. Great job.
5545403
I'm not going to hold it to you. Honestly, you've helped so much already. You came back when you didn't really need to. I'm eternally grateful as it stands. So, don't worry about it, and thank you very much for all you've done so far. Ultimately, all I can hope is that I can finally do something better. And if not? Well, live and learn.
Again, thank you very much. I'm mighty glad you swung by.
Also, I was kinda joking about reading it a 3rd time, hence the crazy pinkie smiley, if that wasn't clear.
5545488
Haha, then I'll gladly accept!
And I don't know about the writing thing, but I'll be glad to talk about it with you later. For now, I'm still thinking about how to end this. I'm actually now considering just reducing it to nothing more than an impact blurb.Done.
Hello future people!
Comments older than this one may not make sense; see this blog post for details.
5547585
In the original it was basically spelled out. Like.. completely telling, no showing. And I added too much detail because I was scared people wouldn't get it. It was, in honesty, a bad call. This time around I put it enough hints for people to figure it out if they wanted to think about it. For example Pinkie repeatedly saying she feels like something is missing and the fact that the crystal had light-blue magic, the colour of Pinkie's element crystal. I think now it's open to more interpretation. What happened... HOW it happened, the details of the rest, and of course, most importantly, which way her hoof was going to move.
Thank you for the feedback comparing it to the old! This is really good stuff. Glad to see that it's working well as it is. But man, this was so badly managed! Haha. This is what you get for doing things last-minute, honestly. But man, thank you for saying it's working. That means a lot to me.
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120108193305/adventuretimewithfinnandjake/images/f/f7/Jake_sparkly_eyes.gif
5547681
A sconce is a light fixture. Specifically a kind of fixture meant to hold up lights on a wall. Modern sconces are any kind of wall light, but specifically here, a sconce is one of those things you see in medieval movies that hold candles or whatever. You know the kind; the things that stick out and you put things in them. You can also see them on Italian architecture a lot; the ones that look like bowls.
To be specific, they were using a sconce to hold the crystal instead of a light. So think of this -> http://www.ncrustic.com/images/P/901-535-CRA_Austin_Wall_Sconce_350.jpg with a big old crystal in it instead of a weird bowl.
5547737
You're definitely not stupid. But I like to hide things. The crystal definitely has a purpose. I'm not of the kind to add detail for no reason whatsoever. This might take a bit more thought to get to it, and it might be a BIT removed, but the colour of the crystal is rather specific. It's light-blue for a reason. What else is light-blue?
Once you realise what the colour is in relation to, then all the times that Pinkie says 'I feel like something's missing' is reinforced with that. And yes, the rest is up to interpretation. Thinking about it, you might have a point that it's distracting, but at the same time, when coming across a foreign scene, you might not understand right away what everything is. It's a very short jaunt to the end from that point, and once the story is over, the reader is then free to go speculate. I'm hoping the mood will be able to carry far enough by that point to carry beyond the immediate "Oh what is that I have to know NOW" sort of reaction. So I think this time I'll stick with it.
It's a VERY thin line I have to tread to balance the mood and also giving enough information away to ALLOW the reader to eventually figure stuff out later. I decided to go completely non-verbal, so I HAVE to include some visual cues, and that's my justification.
5547928
Dude.
I'm not even going to write anything else here except HAHAHAHA BOO and see if people are curious enough to mouse-over these black bars because of this amazing secret conversation that we seem to be having with each other.
I mean, honestly. just scroll up and look at all these spoiler tags. That's fucking stupid.
You can't possibly look at them with an outside eye and think that everything is going to just be alright.
Because of this, I'm going to pretend like I'm mad in this post when actually nothing's wrong and you can just go shove a muffin in your mouth because they're tasty. And honestly? I'd REALLY like to buy you one.
Why don't you take your attitude and give it a big hug because you're a really awesome guy?
5555707
Hi! Thanks for getting back to me. First of all, your comments aren't abrasive in the slightest, so don't worry about that. =)
But giving it a little thought, and reading more of your take on the situation, I think (and this is a guess here) the reason why we differ in opinion on the story is mostly about where we're both looking in regards to both the source and ramifications of the event that took place within the narrative.
Now, it's absolutely not to say that you're wrong and I'm right or vice versa. I cannot be clear enough - this is all about interpretation of the text, and just how I decided to go about it. I also don't know if it's the right thing to have done or not, given my choices, but it's just the path I decided to take.
From the get go, something quite important (that you said) illuminated me on why the difference in interpreting this happened so early.
To me, Cupcakes isn't about that at all. To me, Cupcakes is a story about a pointless thing that happened with no relevance whatsoever. It wasn't the content of the story that gave Cupcakes its life, It was the existence of that content with seemingly no connection to anything else that made it curious for me.
Therefore, I looked to make the rewrite about external factors. You look to see the rewrite about internal factors. I wanted it to explain things. I wanted it to be a story about a mystery and a tale which frames events in a way that part of the fear lies in establishing the chilling unknown. You wanted it to be a story about the cause and ramifications of the action itself, where the fear lies in the uncontrollable madness of the characters. So, I wrote a story in which the actions are a secondary point, and you seem (from your two examples) that you hoped the actions to be about the actual driving force of the story itself, ending on the action and starting from it.
I'm not sure if I'm explaining this in a clear way, and I'm not sure if this is really 100% true, but it's my best guess.
Unfortunately, I'm quite satisfied, personally, how the direction of the story ended up. It was where I wanted to take it. My only selfish request is that maybe you can see that this story isn't meant to be an elaboration on madness per se, but rather a story where madness is a tool. But again, I want to be clear, you are not wrong. It really is a matter of interpretation of the source, and I chose to interpret it this way. It won't ever be satisfying to someone who's looking for something else. Possibly why a lot of people were a bit shocked with how Pan's Labyrinth turned out as compared to what the trailers were suggesting it was.
I'm really, really happy that you liked Tarnish, and I really appreciate you coming back to give your thoughts on this project. It's really been a whirlwind, hasn't it? Haha. I suppose that comes with the territory of a last-minute contest entry. >_>; But I digress. Your support means a lot to me. It really does. So thanks for replying, and thanks for giving me something to think about, and I'm very sorry that I wasn't able to satisfy you this time.
That said, however, I'd like to point you to something I wrote very very long ago. It's old, one of the first stories I ever wrote. But that story does have more of what you're talking about, and madness plays a very active role in it. Very active. Maybe you'll like it. I'm definitely not holding it to you to read it at all! But you did remind me that I had something that might be a bit more up your darkened murder alleyway.
So, thanks again for commenting, and phew! The comments on this story are really thick, aren't they? >_> But regardless, thanks for coming back. I appreciate the time. =)
I wrote a review of this story in my latest edition of
TD Hates EverythingRead It Now reviews. It can be found here.I actually liked how this story turned out and I thought you did a good job. This is how the whole cupcakes shtick should have been written, this showed a direction (a proper reason? perhaps as to why it wasn't her fault?)
Overall I commend you on writing this and I still favourited it!
-Frost
Darn it! Was it the lady or the tiger?
The atmosphere is, as is par for the course with your dark stories, seriously riveting. I generally don't find stories that are built around gore and shock to be very riveting anymore, having read Cupcakes and Rainbow Factory and Cheerilee's Garden, but you successfully captured that creepy feeling that these stories ought to have (that sink with the leaky faucet was wonderful). The torture itself felt somewhat standard, but at least it was a welcome step away from Pinkie always using knives and cutting things up; I just really wanted to comment on the effectiveness of the mood and tone of the story. The reveal at the end was also an interesting way of making Pinkie's psychopathic behavior believable.
I'm really curious as to where you came up with this metaphor.
Overall, a pretty enjoyable story given the prompt. I don't think it matches up to your horror stories (at least, it didn't feel that way for me), but stuff like Love . Sick really set the bar high.
5624244
Yeah, I couldn't really make it that horrific because of EQD's standards. Really, ultimately, this fic was a rush. You can see all the fixes I did in the comments here... it was not a smooth writing process at all. I only found out about this 4 days before it closed, and I had no time at all to digest it. Not really an excuse. I'm just saying probably why it's not better.
I am actually trying to work on a horror story now that's really just purely mood, written in the style and tone of Lovecraft. I kinda wanna see if I can do a story without the oppression. Just fear of the unknown.
Experience. I lived in the sticks of Australia for a few years of my life. A lot of dead things down my street. I became very intimate with them.
5624253
I understand. I'll be looking forward to seeing your next horror story then.
Well that was horrifying
6449156
You're horrifying.
6449233 that's fair
6449250
<3
This was just... wow.
It's fics like these that make me question if what Robin Williams said was correct.
"We are all born with a single spark of insanity."
Great fic. Now I'm off to look at your other works.
7051491
Hey, thanks a lot, buddy!
This honestly wasn't the best, even. If you liked this, I'm really sure I'll be able to entertain you further. And that's honestly all I can ask for what I do. I just want people to be happy, in whichever way I can. Let me know if I can point you in a direction.
And thank you very much for reading. I'm honestly appreciative of every new reader. =)
P.S. I think Robin Williams was very correct. Insanity manifests itself in many forms. ;)
I'm glad I read the comments, as I didn't fully make the connection that it was changelings draining the element.
I love the guts of this, though.
The descriptions of the room are vivid. It's got just the right amount of torture and awfulness to establish the theme and its stakes, without turning into an out-and-out gorefest.
Interesting one, mainly for the twist ending. Compared to your other horror fics I've read, this one didn't get under my skin nearly as much; for most of the story, it just felt like a lighter version of Cupcakes with an emphasis on giving Pinkie a more believable motivation, which still didn't seem to quite work because it was still irrational and out of character for her. However, the reveal of the changelings at the end did a lot to explain and recontextualise the rest of the story and make it really work, so I guess it's a good thing that I've learned to trust you that you're going somewhere with things whenever you do weird shit like this. I think the ambiguity of the ending works to its effect as well (though I am glad for all these spoilered comments giving a fuller explanation).
damn you science