Hm… Trigger warning? I know Worm has a trigger warning: all disclaimer, but I’d assume most people that read your blog have read Worm and are somewhat prepared for any upsetting scenes. This April Fool’s violence took me by surprise.
Yeeah… there was a reason like half the chapter had the “#tw: gore” tag, but just reading along, that’s not going to help that much, is it. Cupcakes is quite brutal even by Worm standards, and I’m sorry for just dropping that on you like that.
April Fool’s Wrap-Up, April Fool’s Wrap-Up, let’s finish our holiday pranks…
So! What the hell did I just read, the uninitiated wonder?
That, my friend, was Cupcakes, a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fanfic by Sergeant Sprinkles that is infamous for its brutality and its disturbing take on Pinkie Pie. The thing that hits about Cupcakes’ Pinkie is the fact that she’s almost entirely in character in terms of attitude while performing the grotesque and psychotic actions (that thankfully aren’t in character… right?). I think that was the point of the whole fic, really, to showcase how Pinkie’s enthusiasm can be twisted and creepy.
The fic is very well known in the fandom. It was the first fanfic to get rated on the fansite Equestria Daily as not only “Grimdark”, but “GRIMDARK AS FUCK”, marking the only context I’ve personally seen “grimdark” in other than Homestuck (though I’m aware it’s also used in Warhammer 40k). It has spawned tons of parodies, alternate endings and unofficial sequels, and various fanart, both silly and serious. Speaking of parodies, if you need some nightmare retardant, have this retelling:
(It ties in with an abridged series, so that’s why the voices are weird.)
As with the previous April Fool’s liveblog, this wasn’t blind. Amusingly, it still ended up feeling real to me at points, even though I relistened to the story just a couple days ago. Such is life, I guess!
It also wasn’t live. Right now it’s 2:52 AM on the night to March 30th, and I’ve been making these posts as drafts for, what, eight hours? Ten? I didn’t mean to do the whole thing tonight, sheesh. But yeah, I did it this way because I realized that Cupcakes is almost as long as Interlude 11c (it’s 252 words shy) and I had already been worried about my time on the day proper, since it coincides with D&D night. So if the posts have seemed to come a little quicker than they usually do, that’s because I’ll have just been spacing out the time between clicking the “post” buttons and not doing much else.
So yeah! I hope you enjoyed this “live”blog of “Interlude 11d of Worm”! I’ll leave you on this note:
A few seasons later, we learned that Pinkie Pie canonically
Pinkie Pie is a fantastic villain, a crazed psychopath who turns people into cupcakes while acting like nothing’s wrong and she’s just having a fun time with the victim. That’s horror gold right there, and a character whose return in Worm is going to be interesting.
Not least of all because next time we see her, she presumably won’t be a pink pony. This whole Interlude seems to be set in an alternate world where everyone’s a magical pony, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why. Couldn’t we just have had this plot with the human counterparts to Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash in the main Wormverse? Was this meant to show us the sort of variety there can be between the multiverse’s worlds?
I feel like ultimately, the chapter suffers from that decision, mainly because we have no true guarantee that the human Pinkie Pie won’t be significantly different from the pony Pinkie Pie in ways other than just species. On top of that, what little details we got about the pony world seem very out of place for the tone of Worm.
This chapter was also way more graphic than anything else we’ve seen in Worm before in terms of gore. Mixed with the tonal dissonance of the pony world, this somehow seems both more childish and more adult than the average Worm chapter.
So overall, this chapter feels weird and rather out of place, much like Interlude 2 did when I read that exacty one year ago.
There’s probably a reason for that. April Fool’s! ;D
Pinkie Pie stared into the mirror. She had done a really good job, even
keeping the eyelids. She winked, and Dash winked back. Pinkie smiled.
Perspective switch!
Also, jeez, that’s disturbing.
But still, she was sad that her friend was now gone. Dash had only
lasted fifty minutes, not nearly as long as Pinkie had wanted.
“Sure wish I could’ve mutilated her body for a while longer before she left.”
She looked back at the cadaver hanging in the center of the room, the
last of her friend’s fluids draining into a pan. Yup, no more Rainbow Dash.
How is nobody going to find out about this? Did Dash have no other friends who haven’t been cupcaked? Family?
As she looked, Pinkie cocked her head. She began to take notice of the
fact that there really wasn’t much damage to the corpse. “In fact,” the pink
pony mused, “I think….” An idea exploded in her head.
Oh cod, what now.
She was good at sewing and she had all the pieces, all she had to do was
put them back together. Yeah, she just had to get some stuffing and bingo,
she’d have Rainbow Dash forever.
Eesh. Reminds me a lot of what happened to Bakuda.
…would Parian be able to control this Dash puppet?
In fact, thought Pinkie, that’s what she’d do for all her best friends
when their numbers came up. She was so excited, she skipped right over to the
body with her skinner to get started. The cupcakes could wait; Pinkie Pie had a
friend to make.
Welp.
Also I think it’s more “repair” at this point, but I appreciate the pun.
Pinkie brought Dash around onto her back again and
straddled the blue pony’s chest, scalpel at the ready.
“Ya know, Rainbow Dash, I’m
disappointed. I thought you would have lasted longer. I really wanted to spend
more time with you before we got here. But I guess it’s my fault; I should have
taken it a little slower. Oh well. It was really was nice knowing you, Dash!”
Good times till the very end. Don’t you think so?
The blade sunk into the blue throat and worked its
way up to Dash’s chin. Coming back down, Pinkie’s scalpel then circled Dash’s
neck. The last thing Rainbow Dash felt was her skin being cut away from her
skull, and the metal of the blade scraping her teeth.
Pinkie placed the discarded body parts into a bucket, keeping the last
one for bit longer. “Ooo, bagpipes.” she said, placing the end of Dash’s
esophagus in her mouth and the stomach in her armpit. She squeezed, and a spurt
of acid hit her tongue. “Eww! Oh hey look, there’s your cupcake, Dash!”
Pfft.
Sure would’ve been convenient if Pinkie had accidentally swallowed the rest of the cupcake and there’d been enough drugs left in it to knock her out.
Then again, that probaby wouldn’t have helped Rainbow Dash any real amount, but at least she wouldn’t have to watch Pinkie pretend her entrails were musical instruments for the last moments of her life.
Dash didn’t hear her tormentor. She had slipped from conciseness minutes
ago.
Oh.
Also I assume Wildbow meant consciousness, though Dash slipping from conciseness sounds like a fun time. She’s on the brink of death and all of a sudden she’s making these really long and convoluted statements…
Pinkie, not yet satisfied, hit Dash with another adrenaline shot. Dash
woke up for the last time, her heart pounding. Warm blood flowed out from the
wound in her chest in great spurts. It wouldn’t be long now.
Oh jeez, she’s really determined to have Dash’s attention till the end.
“Look at me, I’m Rarity!” Pinkie laughed, slinging the intestinal tube
around her neck and spraying blood in all directions. “Isn’t my new scarf soooo
pretty?”
Heh.
I don’t know who Rarity is but I can appreciate a good intestine-scarf.
Reaching back inside, she sliced the smaller intestine off from the
bowls. Squeezing out the excess excrement, Pinkie filed the slimy organ through
her teeth and dragged it back and forth. “Dentists say you gotta floss every
day, Dash.”
Oh my cod.
Dash was barely aware of what was going on
anymore. The shock was causing her to fade. Disappointed, Pinkie dived back
into the blue pony’s guts, ramping up her routine.
“Aw, don’t go yet Dash.” Pinkie started pulling
out the rest of Dash’s organs, pausing with each removal. “I know I can be a
real pancreas, but you know I’m just kidney with you. You really got to learn
to liver it up. Boy, these jokes are getting bladder. Guess ya gotta develop a
stomach for them.”
I like puns, but yeah, these aren’t that great 😛
“getting bladder” is kind of creative, at least.
Also, it’s seriously a wonder Dash is still alive. I guess maybe ponies are tougher than humans.
“Looks like I got my ‘I’ on you, Dash,” Pinkie giggled.
Pfft.
If you’re gonna make a joke like this, Wildbow, at least make it fit the font it’s gonna be printed in on the site. 😛
With a moist, gooey sound, the flaps of skin opened.
See this?
This is how you use the word “moist”. It fits right in here.
The sight of her own organs and the lack of feeling caused Dash’s
breathing to intensify. Pinkie carefully sliced open Dash’s abdominal sac and
grabbed her large intestines. As she separated the organ from the rest of the
digestive tract and pulled it out of the new cavity, Pinkie grew jovial.
Oh jeez, she wasn’t already jovial?
Laughing as she gutted her friend, Pinkie began to
make jokes. Dash, growing weaker from this new source of blood loss, tried
desperately to shut out the macabre comedy act.
I guess they’re not much better than the ‘I’ one?
Not sure if the jokes being bad would be a good or bad thing here.
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