Cupcakes

Cupcakes is a fan-written short story featuring an insanely equicidal Pinkie Pie. It has been noted for its dark and violent imagery. It is neither intended nor suitable for young audiences.

Origins and impact
The story was written by Drecker Jones, under the pen name "Sergeant Sprinkles." He originally posted it on the /co/ board on 4chan, from where it quickly spread to other pony sites. "Cupcakes" has gained enough notoriety to garner it its own lengthy subpages on KnowYourMeme and TVTropes.

Jones has stated in a journal entry on his deviantART profile that he "never expected it to go any farther than sharing it on /co/." He calls it "the most infamous thing in the fandom," and that he's not sure what to think about its popularity.

Style
Cupcakes is written in the third-person, present tense, and primarily follows Rainbow Dash's thought process. After Rainbow Dash's demise however, the story follows Pinkie Pie's thoughts.

Summary
Rainbow Dash is invited to the bakery by Pinkie Pie to help her out with some baking. Once she arrives, she discovers no sign of any work in progress, but, knowing Pinkie Pie, doesn't feel surprised and readily eats a cupcake offered by Pinkie, thinking of it as of a "taste test". In reality, the cupcake appears to have been injected with a soporific, which knocks Rainbow Dash unconscious. After the drug's effect is over, Rainbow Dash awakens to find herself tied up in a dark cellar room. Pinkie Pie appears to tell Rainbow Dash that she's going to make cupcakes, but she's out of a necessary ingredient: Rainbow Dash herself.

The rest of the story describes a series of medical procedures, almost all of them sans anesthesia, undertaken by Pinkie Pie to put Rainbow Dash to death. In the end, Pinkie Pie decides to make a stuffed Rainbow Dash from her friend's body. She uses the organs for her cupcakes. The original ending also depicts Apple Bloom as taking part in "making cupcakes" as Pinkie Pie's apprentice and/or assistant.

Alternate endings
There are several unofficial alternate endings written by other people where:
 * Apple Bloom has this dream every night, she is fed up and kills Pinkie Pie with a machete.
 * Rainbow Dash is saved by Derpy, Fluttershy and Orange Rainbow along with a team of FBI pony and Pinkie Pie is taken to a madhouse, However this end is still in production.
 * Pinkie Pie serves the cupcakes she made out of Rainbow Dash to her friends. She then asks Twilight if she thought the cupcakes tasted like rainbows. Nobody catches onto the fact that they are eating Rainbow Dash.
 * When Rainbow Dash is about to faint because of soporific cupcake, she resists and Pinkie sees preparing the table of torture, so she flees before Pinkie can kill her
 * The whole story was Pinkie Pie's nightmare. For some reason the story is a picture file.
 * It all happened because of Princess Celestia being cursed during her confrontation with Nightmare Moon, as the story of Celestia fighting Luna is described to be much more violent than remembered in pony myths of Nightmare Moon, featuring global pony-to-pony face-off, massive battles and a dragon, still being held in Celestia's palace in Canterlot, waiting for her to pass the ruler's right to Luna and letting him put an end to her life - and the curse - in the last honorable battle.
 * Twilight Sparkle accidentally goes into the bakery, notices something weird and witnesses Pinkie Pie's brutal death in the torture table gears.
 * Celestia's Everfree Forest Rangerhoof SWAT storms the cellar, prevents Pinkie Pie from applying lethal damage to Rainbow Dash, and takes her into custody.
 * Rainbow Dash escapes and then burns Pinkie Pie alive in the bakery's oven. She then leaves the scene, completely unfazed by what had just transpired.
 * Applejack saves Rainbow Dash when she goes to the bakery to see why Rainbow is late for a dinner party.
 * The events of the story were visions that Discord showed Pinkie Pie during The Return of Harmony.
 * It was all made up by the Cutie Mark Crusaders's wild imaginations after seeing Pinkie Pie taking apart a failed cake in the shape of Rainbow Dash thinking it was the real Dash.
 * It was all a set for a gory horror flick being made by the main cast for charity.
 * Pinkamena proceeds to kill off Rainbow Dash, followed by Fluttershy. Soon, having killed off all the Pegasi in the land, Pinkie decides to make unicorns "help" instead. Pinkie is eventually killed by Twilight using her magic to stun her, break free and rip out her vital organs. However, Pinkamena has done enough damage, and without the power of the Pegasi to power the weather to make rain for the crops, Ponyville wastes away.
 * It was a story Fluttershy wrote after hearing an inappropriate rap song sung by humans.
 * In an extremely short version that kicks off at the very end of "Cupcakes", Rainbow Dash is about to be skinned alive when SWAT Ponies breach through the door, kill Pinkie Pie and rescue a traumatized Rainbow Dash.
 * It is a nightmare that repeatedly haunts Rainbow Dash every night, to the point that Rainbow Dash eventually loses her sanity and kills Pinkie Pie with a kitchen knife.
 * That alternate ending has an alternate ending where Rainbow Dash brings Pinkie Pie to the hospital and they reconcile.
 * Rainbow Dash, who knows of Pinkie's scheme before hand shoves the soporific cupcake down Pinkie's throat forcing her to eat it and the story goes on as normal but with the roles reversed.
 * Good Pinkie Pie enters the room and tells Rainbow Dash that Pinkamena is her evil clone. Pinkamena throws a knife at Pinkie, but Pinkie bounces out of the way and knife stabs Pinkamena instead, killing her.
 * The events replay in an endless loop, with Rainbow Dash waking up the same time that morning after dying. However, in attempting to prevent Pinkie Pie from killing her, she either fails, or dies of some other random event.
 * Rainbow Dash dies and Rarity is Pinkie's next victim. Twilight Sparkle goes on a search regarding Pinkie's recent activities, eventually catching her in the act.
 * Applejack and Fluttershy  investigate the murder, and discover that Twilight is the next victim. They placed Dizzy Twister in charge of Dash and will go after Pinkie

Other derivative works
FiMFlamFilosopher, writer and voice actor for the Mentally Advanced Abridged Series and Rainbow Dash Presents, did a 20 minute parody of Cupcakes entitled Rainbow Dash Presents: Cupcakes. In the video, the "Mentally Advanced" version of Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie attempt to read the fic together.

A graphic music video set to "Ready to Die" by Andrew W.K. retells the story in broad strokes. Its creator variously claims to work at Hasbro, the Walt Disney Studios, and Cartoon Network, and to hail from the United States, the Philippines, and Sweden. He also says he made the animation without reading the fic beforehand. The video has been taken down from YouTube and reuploaded several times. Various "clean" versions featuring just the animations of Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie dancing have also been posted to YouTube.

Another video animated by MikeandTreyVideo and DeftWise-Zero entitled My Little Pony: Cupcakes, featuring music by SandJosieph, skips to the part where Pinkie Pie begins ripping apart Rainbow Dash. However, many details are different, from Pinkie Pie's hair being straight (like in the episode Party of One) to the different tools used. Even Rainbow Dash's cause of death is different: Rather than die of exsanguination, she dies of cardiectomy.

There is also another video animated by Tiarawhy and vrex entitled My little pony: Cupcakes set to the song "This is Halloween" from the movie The Night Before Christmas.

The story has inspired a number of original musical compositions and adaptations of existing songs with new Cupcakes-related lyrics.

At least one comic portrays the whole thing as an act by Pinkie, who explains away all the corpses as being wax figures and mannequins, since she "[likes] convincing performances".

A fan-made sequel CupCakes 2, written by Raritybell, details some events a week after Rainbow Dash's death. The story revolves around Rarity becoming Pinkie Pie's next victim.

Gallery

 * Cupcakes image gallery

Fan music examples


Fan art examples


Alternative Endings


External link

 * The author's deviantART profile