Hello there my little sick things. I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long. Many things have happened in my non-Grimdark life that have taken a bit of my attention away from you and I apologize heartily for that. In other news I have something tantalizing for you all. A little work in ghost based horror called:

SIX walk IN by KitsuneRisu

As much as I tend to hate “Oooo, look, spooky house!” based stories I actually really enjoyed reading this one. It reminds me quite a bit of “House On Haunted Hill” which is still one of my favorite horror films.

The set up is simple, Pinkie Pie has a birthday coming up. Twilight has a great idea on how to throw her a party that’ll be one to remember forever. She decides to prank Pinkie in a very epic manner and sets all five of her friends to play different parts in the prank. Twilight doesn’t believe in ghosts or ghost stories, and her hubris sets her up for a really spectacularly terrifying night.

Take a chance to go and read it now if you don’t want to encounter any spoilers. I know it’s a long one but I promise this entry will be here when you get back.

So, I really can’t tell you with any certainty who is the real villain in this story. We have three distinct characters that act as villains. First we must acknowledge that Fluttershy is indeed the character that commits the bulk of the atrocities in the story. She is the one who ultimately brings down the knife. Second we have the ever present Pinkie Pie villain that comes so often with murders in Grimdark stories. Pinkie very obviously knows there is something wrong with the house and neglects telling her friends. All of the ponies think it’s creepy, but she’s the only one that knows from the start, and it’s obvious from her early behavior. Thirdly we have the house itself. It, in the end, is the thing that manipulates the ponies into doing the things that they do. The story even goes so far as to suggest that the house itself is whispering to Fluttershy using her friends voices, telling her that death is the only way out of this place. Let’s discuss in further detail the concept of the house actually being the villain.

The house itself is a great villain here. Every scene that happens throughout the story is directly correlated to the house using each pony’s part in the prank to trap them. The first trap we see laid is the one for Twilight. When she separates herself from her friends she finds herself in a very beautiful bedroom full of misplaced objects. Since it is somewhat canon that Twilight has obsessive compulsive tendencies it traps her by consistently undoing her attempts to make things orderly. A lampshade is askew and as soon as she turns her back to fix a fallen book, the lampshade goes askew again. She always wants to plan everything and everything to be in it’s perfect place. When Fluttershy interrupted her plan, she became irrationally angry and was lured into a room where she thought she had control to make sure that everything went perfectly. Ultimately it lures her into the bed trap when Fluttershy messes up the duvet and she absolutely must make it orderly again.

Next, note that the way it encourages Fluttershy to kill each of her friends is by convincing her that it’s the only way to save them. The house takes on Twilight’s voice after her death, saying that the house itself is bad and she must save her friends. It preys on Twilight’s earlier words that Fluttershy was a failure because she didn’t play her part in the prank correctly. It uses Twilight’s voice to express that Fluttershy did right in not pulling her away from the falling shard of glass and letting her die. Twilight’s voice insists that she is now safe and it is time to go and save the rest of her friends.

Next we see Rarity, stuck in her hastily made monster costume. The house uses her own mind to make her believe that she shouldn’t bother her friends to come and help her get out of it, as it was her own shoddy workmanship that got her stuck there. She struggles and struggles to get the thing off, but no matter what she does she just can’t seem to get the zipper to operate. Fluttershy comes to save her, and that involves cutting off the suit, but the house wins again by fusing the suit to Rarity’s skin, making her the monster that she played in the prank. This effectively leads Fluttershy to skin her alive in order to save her. Directly following this, the house again uses Fluttershy’s friend’s voice to thank her for saving her and encourages her to go on to save the rest of her friends in a similar fashion, which Fluttershy does with much gusto.

I must say, I’m always surprised when Rainbow Dash lives a long time in Grimdark fanfiction. “Cupcakes” had her being the first to die and after that I’ve always expected to see Rainbow Dash offed either first or second. This time she lives well into the story. Rainbow Dash finds herself flying down an infinite hallway, only to be dragged back by the darkness each time she stops. It’s the same thing she did to Pinkie, dragging her backwards into the darkness. Fluttershy finds her lying at the top of the staircase, completely exhausted from her attempts to flee the darkness and without hesitation this time “saves” her like she’s been told to do time and again.

I’m even more surprised to see Applejack last almost the whole way through the story. As I state previously a great deal of authors tend to dispose of her quickly because they just don’t really know how to write her. She isn’t magic like the unicorns, she can’t fly and move about like a pegasus and she doesn’t have that hyper-awareness that Pinkie Pie does. She is as plain as plain can be. But that, in this story, is her greatest strength. We see her get trapped in a room that opens a pair of doors that appear to be the way out, a way back home out of this horrible nightmare that she’s been trapped in. However, she is too practical to fall for it. She knows the house is playing tricks on her mind. She overcomes the desire to leave through the magical door and slams the doors shut with great difficulty. She was, ultimately, the one who cause the party to happen. She didn’t play a part in the prank, but she was the one that convinced Pinkie to come so they could throw the party. She told Pinkie the truth from the start, that it was a surprise party at a spooky house, which may play a big part in her knowing that everything is an illusion. This leads her to almost bring Fluttershy out of her trance. She can see the reality of all the things that have happened. She knows the truth because she is honest. She is truly the only one that can play the house’s game, but in the end she fails. She was very close to getting out, but the house, and a certain pink pony, got in her way.

Finally there is only one pony left alive besides Fluttershy. Pinkie comes into the room where Fluttershy has just murdered Applejack. Pinkie reveals to us that she knew everything that was happening. She watched Fluttershy murder each of her friends in turn, believing it was punishment for the way they had tried to prank her. She even went as far as to lead Fluttershy around the house to each pony in turn. She reveals to us that she knew the house was bad the entire time, from the moment she walked in her Pinkie-sense altered her to the fact that something terrible would happen, she just didn’t know what. The most jarring of the revelations is that she knew she wasn’t in danger when she was being pranked because she didn’t get any twitches from her Pinkie sense. It still hurt her feelings because it wasn’t funny but it seemed downright mean in her eyes. So she let each one of them die, saying that watching their deaths made her feel happy and telling Fluttershy that she knew she wanted to save her. However, in this case it is Pinkie who does the “saving” and ultimately is the only one that escapes.

So, we must ask ourselves, who here is the villain in the end. The house, that lead Fluttershy to kill all of her friends in turn under the guise of “saving” them, Pinkie who knew exactly what was going on and did nothing to stop it, or Fluttershy who didn’t have the presence of mind to fight the house and fight back? In the end the story questions our perceptions of evil in the MLP Grimdark universe. Should we forgive those who are manipulated by unseen forces, or should we lay the blame squarely on those who commit the acts? Should we fault those who saw these things happening and did nothing to stop them or accept that they had no power in the end? It’s really an interesting idea, that there is no truly evil pony in any of these stories, only evil outside of them that manipulates them into doing evil deeds.

Overall I love this story. The spooky “House on Haunted Hill” house is always a plus in my book. There aren’t really ghosts here as much as there is some evil will possessed in the house itself. It’s well written and extremely atmospheric. The foreshadowing is beautiful and the circle motif introduced in the beginning gives it a beautiful vibe of a cycle and a pattern that cannot be escaped. Really some lovely writing here. If you’ve already read it, read it again. If you’ve read this entry without reading it, you already know what happens but go read it anyway because my mild analysis cannot do it justice.

That’s all I have for you now. I’ll try to set some more time aside for this blog as I do really love reading and reviewing Grimdark stories. ‘Til next time, take care of yourself and maim your brother!

P.S: Here is a question for all my readers, who do you think was the true villain here and why?