Most towns hold a dark secret, and Ponyville is no exception. For the past decade, mares have been disappearing, never to be seen again. Unfortunately, one of these mares turns out to be Pinkie Pie. Abducted on Hearth's Warming Eve, Pinkie Pie is taken to an isolated cabin in the middle of nowhere where she is subject to unimginable cruelty by her captor. Things get even worse when a visit to Ponyville by Pinkie's family makes the rest of the town realize she's missing, setting forth a chain of events that will have devastating consequences for those involved.
Popped is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfiction written by author Tapoff
. To put it plainly, it's pretty much what Cupcakes (Sergeant Sprinkles) could have been if Sgt. Sprinkles hadn't written it as a joke. Popped is deeper, darker, and legitimately frightening. Oh, and Pinkie is in the victim's chair in this one.
Popped clocks in at about 80,000 words, significantly longer than most stories of its kind. Don't be fooled, though - While the story contains a lot of extreme gore, it also contains a fairly deep story of how Pinkie's disappearance affects the lives of her friends and loved ones, particularly Twilight Sparkle. Popped is not gore for the sake of gore, but rather a look into how traumatic experiences can have drastic effects on a person's (or pony's) personality, their life, and those around them.
You can read it here, but be warned: This story is not for the faint of heart.
A sequel, One Flap Of A Butterfly's Wing, was planned but repeatedly delayed and ultimately cancelled two chapters in.
Popped provides examples of:
- A Taste of the Lash: At one point, Pokey whips Pinkie while forcing her to dismember Rainbow's corpse.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Pokey Pierce gets away, scot-free.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: She doesn't necessarily become "evil", but Pinkie Pie is a very different pony after she is rescued from Pokey. Gone is the pony whose presence could once brighten even the most dour of demeanors, with only a broken and pessimistic shell remaining.
- Buried Alive: When Applejack stumbles on Pokey's cabin, he chases her down, breaks her legs, and throws her in the hole meant for Rainbow's corpse.
- Chekhov's Exhibit: Pinkie's "long, blue and yellow" scarf, after it is used to asphyxiate her in the first chapter, is referred to in the background throughout the story. It's finally used as a makeshift disguise by Pokey near the end.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Rainbow Dash is beheaded with a knife, and Applejack is buried alive.
- Dark Fic: IN SPADES. This fic is basically what Cupcakes would have been if it hadn't been written as a joke.
- Denied Food as Punishment: One of Pokey's torture techniques is to starve Pinkie.
- Don't Go in the Woods: Pokey's torture cabin is located somewhere in the woods. Rainbow Dash and Applejack go in there looking for Pinkie Pie, and are both murdered.
- Downer Ending: Rainbow, Applejack, and Pinkie are all dead, Pokey has gotten away scot-free, Twilight is MIA, and it's all but stated the fallout of Pokey's atrocities will plunge Equestria into an unparalleled era of fear and tension.
- Driven to Suicide: The story ends with Pinkie Pie killing herself, shattered by her ordeal and the deaths of two of her dearest friends.
- Eye Scream: Pokey Pierce ends up blinding Pinkie Pie in one eye by mutilating it with needles, fishhooks, and razor blades.
- Foreshadowing: There are lots of subtle nods that the reader will catch during a second reading, such as, "We are doing something, Rainbow! Keep your head on!". Rainbow Dash is later beheaded.
- The Hero Dies: Applejack and Rainbow Dash are both murdered by Pokey when they try to save Pinkie.
- Hope Spot: Rainbow Dash almost manages to take down Pokey and save Pinkie Pie, but ends up being brutally killed in the end.
- I Lied: After making Pinkie choose between being read Christmas cards from her family and eating, she chooses the cards. Pokey reads two before destroying the rest in front of her.
- It's All My Fault: By the end of the fic, both Pinkie and Twilight blame themselves for Rainbow and Applejack's deaths.
- Karma Houdini: Pokey never gets caught. Well, not by anyone still alive at the end.
- Locked in the Dungeon: Pinkie spends most of the story locked up in a dungeon in a cabin in the woods.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Rainbow Dash and Applejack spearhead the search for Pinkie, and end up paying for it with their lives. Rainbow even has a golden opportunity to abandon Pinkie and save herself, but squanders it in an ill-fated attempt to subdue Pokey and rescue Pinkie.
- Nominal Importance: Averted. Most minor characters, such as the hospital staff and the guards get names, even if they only appear in one scene.
- Off with His Head!: Rainbow Dash is killed by decapitation.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Pinkie's parents end up burying her in the end.
- Past Victim Showcase:
- In Part II, we're given a small glimpse of two of Pokey's past victims.
- When Pinkie asks Pokey what he plans to do with Rainbow's body, Pokey's reply is: "I'll bury her with the others".
- Punished with Ugly: Pinkie Pie's face is so horribly mutilated by the time she gets rescued that even her friends are taken aback by her appearance.
- Rule of Drama: Every time it seems something can go wrong, it does. And oh, does it go horribly wrong at that.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Twilight vanishes during Rainbow and Applejack's funeral, relinquishing her title of Princess and her crown in the process.
- Serial Killer: The main antagonist, Pokey Pierce, kidnaps young mares from around Ponyville and videotapes their final days alive.
- Snuff Film: Pokey's huge collection of tapes where he slowly tortures mares to death.
- To Be Continued: The story ends on a cliffhanger.
- Torture Cellar: Pokey has one in his cabin, and makes quite a bit of use of it.
- Would Hurt a Child: It is revealed in Part II that one of Pokey's past victims was a small filly.
