Just an average insane brony, doing average insane things. Professional Fanfiction Writer and Purveyor, relevant links are on my profile page.
This story is a sequel to Then Goes the Neighborhood
There is a warehouse. It's well ventilated, well lit, and well guarded. Nobody is allowed in without express permission from a goddess.
Today, she tells her friends why.
Part of the Oversaturated World. Coverart by Mishti14.
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I CAME UP WITH THIS CONCEPT AND WROTE THIS WHOLE THING IN FOUR HOURS.
FomE, are you sufficiently horrified?
I've read 120 Days of Blueblood. It takes more than this to horrify me.
The continued growth of the Oversaturated World as a story collection hinges on countermanding the implicit "sunshine and rainbows" ending of the original story and finding new and exciting problems for the characters to contend with in this world. I'd say you nailed a big one. Establishing a blend of Arkham and an SCP containment facility to deal with magical dangers to themselves and others makes perfect sense, as does the existence of those dangers to begin with. A shame this world's Dinky Doo will have a magic enhancing talent rather than a neutralizing one, but she's needed elsewhere anyway.
Now all the place needs is a name. Tartarus is probably too obvious and definitely sends the wrong message.
In any case, 'tis canon, good Weaver.
7758703
The government calls it "Magical Study Facility 97." Those who work there call it Sunset's Mercy.
7758645
SMILE, SMILE, SMILE.
I seriously get a Hunter: the Vigil - Slashers vibe from this, (although I don't remember the Name of VASCU's prison complex of the top of my head) it's awesome, that kind of darkness that comes from human nature, mixed with the hope of maybe, just maybe, doing this will one day make the world a better place for these people.
The little girl did she get revenge on those that ...hurt her?
7758703
there's seven billion people to deal wth, who have a perspective you can observe. Frankly, I think it's getting kind of annoying the number of people trying to make this world worse ff than after the end of the original story
7758774
True, we will need to make sure the pendulum doesn't swing too far the other way. Striking a balance can be tricky.
7758735 Either vaporized or died shortly after thanks to lethal radiation poisoning.
An interesting concept, and also yet another thing that makes it feel more and more alien to come back to little humorous vignettes about heartsongs and copyright infringement. One wonders how dark the human world will grow...
Wow, I'm... Actually speechless here. This is some heavy stuff right here and to be frank it excites a kind of morbid part of me (probably the same part that held my interest in FO:E) and at the same time I'm worry what kind of dark implications this has opened up for future works.
7758645 maybe Chrysalis could help?
Professor of biology and social sciences, has mind-writing abilities, she was probably going to be someone's Lady of War, might as well be Sunset's.
After reading this, I had to reread parts of Then Goes The Neighbourhood to understand how this would be a sequel.
I still wouldn't call it a direct sequel. It instead appears to be a story that any direct sequel will also rely on.
Brilliant!
hmm.....grab their soul and place it into another body?
I ask you all to consider, which is the more terrifying?
That a facility like MSF 97 exists, or that there are problems in the world that God can't fix?
7759539 I'd have to consider the facility more terrifying, since we've already grown up in a world where the second one is true. The unfamiliar is scarier.
7759539
Number 2, because it means the local deity never grasped the theory of digital uploading; Sunset can already de-corporalize and recoporalize herself to negate mood swings and interrupt mental loops, if she understood that action in the conceptual form of uploading to fresh flesh she could apply it to these victims to interrupt their current magical flare and emotional state and let them reboot in a factory fresh clone.
This particular ignorance of Sunset terrifies me more because it highlights her conceptual limitations are preventing her from exercising her full godhood administrative rights.
Or to pit it a different way, it is terrifying in the same way it is terrifying to discover your lead database programmer can't grasp how to a simple FizzBuzz script.
http://wiki.c2.com/?FizzBuzzTest
7759174 Implications nothing.
It's stated everything flat out. To summarize what we learned here: There are insane people in the world. They now have magic that follows their emotions and will. Their insane emotions and will. This causes Bad Things that Sunset has set up, presumably several, facilities to Secure, Contain, and Protect the cause/victims of.
So we have people in custody for their own protection, as well as the protection of others, and victims who can't help but become monsters for no fault of their own. I, personally, appreciate the fact that this setting has darkness that can't just be solved as if by, aheh, magic. No easy hand-wave explanation, no convenient Deus Ex Machina.
Not enough stories that aren't written for the sake of morbidity even give a nod to the shadows they naturally spawn.
7759674
Well yeah I mean it's pretty well laid out here in explicit terms for this story- by implications I mean what OTHER authors will do with this knowledge now. Authorial butterfly effect ripples? I am very tired and I can't think of a better phrase/metaphor.
7759688 Possibilities, then.
But you should embrace the darkness as well as the light.
There's good eating on stories that are plump with drama and despair. Hope and happiness are usually brightest, there, too.
Now I'm hungry again, and I just ate. Awww.
7759692
Hey, like I said in my first comment- part of me is morbidly curious to see what comes of this, too. Plus, with writing the super-hero fic here this gives me a lot more material to work with for future plot ideas.
7759696 At least you're offering up a light snack, I guess. Not too heavy on cliches, though, I hope. They can be somewhat fattening.
I do look forward to seeing what you do with stuff like this, though.
7758858
Compare, say, an Estee blog post about corporate loyalty programs to an international news page. The Oversaturated World, like the real one, is a surreal blend of lighthearted antics and dark implications. Reality cares nothing for thematic consistency.
7759503 7759539 7759635
The problem there is that Sunset disassembling and reassembling her own body is like taking off a shirt and putting on a clean one, because her human-level self is basically a finger puppet she uses to keep herself from assuming the same complacent, "It'll all work out in the end" attitude as certain other Spirits of Harmony. With anyone else, body and soul are much more intrinsically tied. Sunset has never attempted magic that directly interacts with souls, and experimenting with live test subjects to make sure she could perform the transfer is completely abhorrent to her. It could be argued that it's the philosophical transporter problem, but someone intrinsically tied to concept of Kindness won't disintegrate people just to make sure she can put them back together.
And, of course, there's the issue that flickering people in and out of existence would do nothing to address the traumatic past experiences that put them in MSF 97 in the first place. Erasing that much of their experiences doesn't border on brainwashing and mental mutilation; it's in the capital city. Sunset ascended specifically so nothing in this world could magically impinge on free will. She's had to perform enough hypocrisy in that regard as it is.
7759791
I understand your points. Fair enough.
My FizzBuzz comparison still holds though.
I'm confused. When has that happened... More than
oncethrice-ish? There was in Then Goes The Neighborhood when she thought of Rarity and Pinkie as Generosity and Laughter... And some bit in Group Precipitation... Or are those Noodle Incidents or currently unexplored?7758712
What are Facilities 1 to 96??
What is Chenobull Girl's trigger for her... 'mental issues' I guess would be the phrase? Or does she have Power Incontinence? ... She needs a better name? "Chenobull Girl" just sounds like she's totally defined by her condition, 'cause she doesn't have any other names.
She doesn't need to eat or anything?
7758703
Does Pony!Dinky have her Mark yet?
***
I thought this was gonna relate to SMILE / FROWN.
I hate you.
7760233
I'm going to say that this iteration of pony Dinky does not yet have her cutie mark.
This.This is good.
Oh boy, I liked this. It does make sense that the magic would affect others outside just a few people, some of them not exactly trustworthy with them. Given, in all honesty I probably abuse them but that's me. This facility seems horrible having seen SCP games and articles and places like Arkham Asylum but as bad as it is, this is the safest place for these subjects, for themselves and humanity.
Well, that truth spell was interesting. Do you have any specifics on what it blocks and how it works?
I wonder if the existence of such a place could be deduced from previous magic knowledge? Possibly not, as we were lacking the Magical Emotional Resonance idea, that is now canon?
How many occupants of Sunset's Mercy are there? ... Well, at least they're getting help.
7758805 You don't have any balance. You have a handful of people, one who thinks he's Alan Moore, piling up dark shit in the corner while a few play with silly putty. You don't got anybody with any conviction on "rainbow detail", so it will degrade and you will lose it.
7760959
Well, if you're volunteering...
For what it's worth, I have two one-shots on the drawing board that should help swing the pendulum back the other way.
7760959
Excuse me, one dark story does NOT make me Alan Moore! I have plenty of lighthearted stories, thankyouverymuch.
Eh. You could've done more with this, to be honest. The descriptions aren't so much restrained as completely absent, which kind of puts a harsh limit on how much horror you can really feel from that situation. They might as well never have entered that facility and be discussing the whole matter in some café somewhere, for all the real difference it makes. I'm told they're in some secret government facility and seeing all kinds of fucked up whatevers, but the story sure doesn't show enough to make me feel that way.
Most of the oversaturated stories feel like they're cut too short at the end. This one more so than the rest that I've read.
7758645 Speaking as the guy with the real life SCP
Cutie Marktattoo on his hip, you've done a good thing.It really is about being the least of all evils.
Does this warehouse have a logo?
This should be the logo
encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSL5sG3fGUpZguB99vXFZNfSYMg1qhiT4AVFNHbZCspRkuLUCnMmw
Why is this facility still on Earth, or inside this universe at all, given what it holds? Why not put it somewhere in probability space, or a pocket dimension, or unpopulated parallel dimension? Sunset can't even touch a single woman consumed with angst without ripping the entire surrounding area out of reality, is it really that bright of an idea to keep even more angst filled subjects anywhere near her universe, let alone planet?
She should also consider whether outright killing or deleting a few of these wouldn't be more of a mercy than simply locking them up. Rewrite reality so that little miss rape child doesn't have to undergo satanic gang raping every day just to keep the universe from shattering, what are the powers of a god for if not to rewrite reality as needed? Use the living embodiments of Harmony that are your ethics committee to simply remove other individuals' unwanted powers, and then get a unicorn aspect psychiatrist to wipe away some memories they really, really don't need in life. The worst cases, like sociopathic sadistic murderers, the world would be better off if they never existed, and rearranging their minds would be both merciful and arguably a form of healing of a disease.
Or if some of them have a modicum of control, just a universe-cracking load of angst behind it, let them let off some steam while helping the world out every now and then by handing them over to Celestia for vigilante work. Who knows, maybe a few Ghost Riders, Punishers and Hellboys might be necessary for medium level threats that Sunset can't find time to take care of, like, say, incursions from rogue Winter fey, or evil aliens, or beings that get past Customs. Let the blackest parts of humanity also be its strength, let the rage fuel justice, and let vengeance bring peace.
Lol at pun, given that Twilight is sometimes, Magic.
Dark and thrilling. Nicely done!
Huh, seems I didn't comment when it came out some three years ago. Just re-read it, so I'll do it now.
A sad and dark part of the oversaturated world indeed. Undoubtedly better than the foundation one, even if simply because there has been not enough time yet for the truly terrifying to appear and there's literally God on the good side, but still Earth.
I sincerely hope Sunset never, ever has to deal with a Montauk situation. That'd likely break her, and if there's someone you don't want broken is the very being whose interference your universe needs to continue existing
Eh... the horror I'm seeing here is mostly one that exists in real life.
Psychiatric patents with superpowers need a better facility to contain them. That tracks.
Most of the patients should be allowed visitors(even if only by (video) phone) though... or does people knowing this sort of thing is possible make it more likely it will happen to them? I do believe there is a cultural component to what insanities a person might develop. Like... in certain parts of the world there is problem guys can have about being afraid that their bodies will devour their genitals. Totally NOT a thing in other parts of the world.
Separate facility for those who need to be "disappeared" is probably the way to go? Or IS this that facility?
A certain amount of compassion towards the inmates by the staff who usually interact with them* is the key. Just like one of the key differences between a properly run psychiatric facility and the fictional Arkham. Also note that I take the stance that the victim and/or public feeling "satisfied" should have no place in criminal proceedings. Deterrence, prevention (including shooting the heroic Old Yeller, who now has rabies (and is a dog rather than a human)), and, where possible, making restitution in every way that does NOT fundamentally hinge on the suffering of the wrong-doer.
*Rather than the guards who make sure they don't wreck havoc, who may need to be ready to counter threats without a split second's delay for regret in some or all cases.
...not sure I explained this well. If anyone actually reads this and has any uncertainty (or feels I am off base, especially in an odd way), they should ask questions.