A Short Study on Grimdark Ponies

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Rambopvp
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After submitting my Tribute to Infamous 6, a stray comment led me to a journal entry by :iconxeno-the-hedgehog: briefly addressing grimdark ponies. In an attempt to give a decent and intelligent reply, my brain did the one thing I knew it would do: brood over it. Now I can't stop thinking about it.

So here I present a wall-of-text about some of my thoughts on this.

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I'm going to first start this off with something completely unrelated to ponies, just bear with me.




Around 2003, a comic mini-series was published by DC Comics called Superman: Red Son. The premise was that instead of landing in Kansas, Superman's infant space ship arrives at Earth a few hours later, meaning Earth's rotation placed Ukraine in the ship's path instead.
In this alternate storyline, Superman was raised up to be "the champion of the common worker who fights a never-ending battle for Stalin, socialism, and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact".
This fundamentally different incarnation of Superman's character was intriguing and slightly disturbing at the same time; "The Great American Icon... Reimagined as a Soviet Hero".

I'll come back to this example later.


Grimdark is an adjective used to describe a setting or situation in a fictional work that is considered dark, depressive, violent or edgy, particularly in fanfic literature. The term can also be applied to an artistic style that uses shading and muted colors, if not black and white, often associated with mature themes.
As such, many people associate the grimdark ponies with the horror genre. This is true, most of the time, but I believe it's much deeper than that.

At it's point of origin, grimdark ponies got its start in the infamous fanfic, Cupcakes. As a traditional "creepypasta" story, it's nothing too special.
What set it apart was its delivery combined with the fact that it was a story about ponies.
As any other horror short story set in the human world, it would have been generic as hell. However, it's deceptively innocent start is perfectly normal in Equestria, and being told with MLP characters made its tone shift even more potent than it should be. This coupled with the story supposedly pre-dating straight haired Pinkamena's appearance on the show gave it plenty of traction to reach infamous status.


And then Cupcakes inspired stories started popping out. Some good, some bad, some really good.

Horror does have its attractions, which are deeply ingrained into the human psyche, but this is only one facet of this dark gem.
I think it's less to do with human nature's attraction to horror and more to do with the use of tone shift in narratives.

Tone shift is a very well established storytelling mechanic, and when you blend dark and mature themes with ponies you get something quite potent.
The sudden jarring of darker and edgier scenarios that the ponies find themselves facing in these grimdark stories provide a very interesting dynamic between the juxtaposition of something as pure as MLP as the darkest tropes and fantasies someone can come up with.

And then this tone shift become commonplace and popularized. So popular that it transcended into an established alternate Cupcakes-verse.
A series of "what if" scenarios and storylines, featuring the same characters with small but fundamental changes to their history or personality.
Underneath the layers of grit and gore and seriousness, the same characters we know and love from MLP can still be found there, just like how Superman: Red Son provided us with an alternate version of our most well known superhero.

Red Superman has a different upbringing to the classic Clark Kent story we all know. This fundamental change in his character shifts his world out of balance as his own actions clash with other DC superpowers, and he begins to have an existential crisis due to his socialist ideals.

Scissors Twilight has her hind legs replaced with giant scissor-blades. This acts as a magnifying glass focused on Twilight's already established social awkwardness and adds an actual physical barrier against her ability to make friends.

[Cr]applejack lives in a screwed up post-Cupcakes world where she's the only non-grimdark-ed pony of the Mane 6. Extreme conditions begin to grind away at her confident and positive personality and we get to see the ups and downs of her trying to cope in a world gone crazy.

These alternate realities provide a grounding point for these darker stories to take root. When executed correctly, it can fill that horror niche that some people like, as well as provide interesting narratives and character development.

But I also know that this isn't everyone's cup of tea. Just like how some people will never get into watching horror movies, it's a matter of personal taste.

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TL;DR, grimdark provides a platform for potentially good storytelling.

Let me know you opinions on these particular interpretations of the characters. Whether you love it, avoid it, or dislike the very idea of it.


In other news, I've cut down a lot of the stuff from my to-do list. This will eventually mean more Daring Do in the future.


To-do list (bold items are more likely to be the focus):
- [DD] Daring Do and the Sonic Rainboom Epilogue
- Daring Mural
- [DD] Daring Do and the Hoof of Glory
- [DD] Daring Do and the Glacial Hollows
- Tribute pieces
- OCs for friends, requests or anything random
- Any weird ideas my brain comes up with at 5:30am that I feel like I should draw
© 2013 - 2024 Rambopvp
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SilentOverkillSniper's avatar
SilentOverkillSniper
applejack and twilight are the only ones without a creepypasta written about them.