Pattycakes
Pattycakes is a very disturbing Dark Fic based on My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic by Pegacorn Ondacob.
Plot synopsis: Flutterhy invites Rainbow Dash to her home under the pretenses of having some important news to tell her. When Dash arrives, the shy pegasus reveals her desire to become a mother and have a little foal to take care of. Fluttershy then offers her friend a drink of gummyade and demonstrates the lullaby she sang to the Cutie Mark Crusaders. While listening, Rainbow Dash discovers too late that the drink was drugged, and wakes up some time later strapped to a table in a darkened room decorated up like a nursery, but with all the trappings and toys sized up to adult pony scale. Fluttershy then reappears and informs Dash that she will be her new baby. While Dash struggles against her restraints, Fluttershy calmly gets out four bondage booties decorated to look like baby booties and an adult diaper. She forces the diaper on Dash and unbinds the tomboy from the straps on the table. Upon trying to escape, Dash finds herself inexplicably too weak to fly. Thus, Dash is made to endure an entire day of being treated like a baby and wearing baby clothes and that diaper. Eventually, the psychological torture becomes too much and Dash internalizes the notion that she's Fluttershy's baby. So ends up Part 1. Yes. Part 1. As in there's more.
Part 2 begins with Fluttershy perfecting a drug called foalmula which is the drug she actually used to revert Dash's mind back into that of an infant, but the effects aren't permanent...yet. They are now. Meanwhile, Scootaloo begins a search for her mentor and eventually runs afoul of the truth and is subjected to a series of demeaning tasks and tests ripped straight from the Saw series. She ends up PERMANENTLY REVERTING THE DASH'S MIND INTO A PERMANENT INFANT in order to save herself from the same fate. Then she finally comes to the final room and has a choice of two drinks to chose from. One drink, the milk in the baby bottle, allows her to keep her mind and she becomes Fluttershy's apprentice. In the other, a glass of water, also permanently regresses her into an infant-like state and she becomes Dash's "sister".
Word of God states that these were supposed to be parodies of Cupcakes, but nevertheless, many have found them to be even more disturbing than the former ever was. The fic has already become the subject of MST fics and dramatic readings. You can two watch such readings here and here.
You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. But are you sure you want to?
Now it has a tumblr, Hello my little babies. Read at your own risk.
- Abusive Parents: Fluttershy, herself. No surprise. At one point Regressed Dash is left alone and panicked in a small room by herself and just allowed to go into a terrified crying fit while 'Shy has other, more important things to do. So Dash can just wait for mommy to come make it all better. So Yeah...
- Adult Child: An extreme case. Fluttershy literally regresses her "children's" minds back to infancy with the help of a Fantastic Drug.
- Affably Evil: Fluttershy still acts just like her canon self through everything in these fics.
- All Take and No Give: Taken to psychotic levels.
- Alone with the Psycho: And no back up!
- Applied Phlebotinum: Foalmula. A chemical that someone unravels the adult mind and sends you back to infancy.
- Crosses into Artistic License Chemistry and Chemistry Can Do Anything.
- Baby Talk: Dash, after Fluttershy has broken her.
- Dash's Baby Talk includes You No Take Candle and Elmuh Fudd Syndwome.
- Babies Make Everything Better: Fluttershy sure seems to think so.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Twice. Fluttershy succeeds in mind washing Dash and keeps her.
- Bandwagon Technique: Fluttershy shows Dash a picture album with photos of her Age Play fetish, including Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, The Mayor, Big Mac, Lyra, Bonbon, Derpy, and more. Dash, understandably, doesn't take this well.
- Because I Said So: This is used as Fluttershy's defense when Dash asks why her of all ponies. Yes. Really.
- Beware the Nice Ones: In the author's own words: Never underestimate Fluttershy.
- Brain Bleach: How Dash reacts to Fluttershy's photo album of "baby pictures" going as far as being a contributing factor in the Mind Rape. How Scootaloo later reacts to fully broken Dash. And how the reader reacts to the stories as a whole from to start to finish.
- Actually, the foalmula, itself, could be considered a form of this, as one of the functions it serves to induce infantile tendencies is temporarily bleaching the adult mind of inhibitions and more complex, adult, thought processes.
- Brainwashed: pretty much everyone after an encounter with Fluttershy.
- Break the Cutie or Break the Haughty: Dash is both of these things, and either way, she ends up broken.
- Broken Pedestal: In order for the third test to work out in Fluttershy's favor and get Scootaloo to turn Rainbow Dash into "Wittue Wain-boo" forever, she has to destroy the pedestal Scoot's spent years building up. Which, to be fair, isn't really all that hard
- Brown Note: Fluttershy's photo album of her other "babies" acts this way to Dash.
- Conveniently-Common Kink: Everypony in town, and we do mean every. Pony. In. Town. is into Fluttershy's Age Play kink and more than happy to be drugged into incontinent adult children.
- The sole exception is Dash, who has to have it forced onto her, adding new levels to the term Mind Rape.
- The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Well, Mamashy and Ponyville seem to think so. The audience has another take on the matter.
- Corrupt the Cutie: Scootaloo in the "good" ending.
- Crap Saccharine World: Ponyville, at least, though we never are told how far Lady Fluttermama's influence stretches.
- Creepy Basement: Of the basement turned frikkin dungeon variety.
- Elaborate Underground Base: Scootaloo specifically wonders how she got this huge dungeon.
- A unicorn did it. Quite probably Twilight Sparkle, considering how powerful she is.
- Elaborate Underground Base: Scootaloo specifically wonders how she got this huge dungeon.
- Creepy Child: Dash, sort of.
- Scootaloo, by the end of Part Two, no matter which ending you get.
- Cute and Psycho: Despite mind raping countless ponies back into infancy, Fluttershy is just as sweet and motherly as ever. God help you if she decides she wants to adapt you.
- Dark Fic: Very much.
- How bad is it? Remember Cupcakes? Yeah, this is considered to be even worse.
- Despair Event Horizon: Dash was resisting the baby treatment for the bulk of Part One, staying herself the entire time, then she messed herself just like a baby would. This shook all the determination not to succumb she had.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Okay, fine, what Rainbow did to Scoot was harsh, but did it really warrent the permanent distruction of her mind, personality, everything? Well given that Scootaloos sanity was also on the line.
- Downer Ending
- Dysfunctional Family: No matter which ending, yes. When your family is compromised of you playing mother to a bunch of not-babies you've made think are babies, then that much should go without saying.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Initially, but that danged Power Perversion Potential kicked in hard. Real hard.
- Evil Mentor: What Fluttershy becomes to Scootaloo in the "good" ending.
- Evil Virtues: In this case, the rarely used Love. Fluttershy just loves her little babies, and would do absolutely anything to keep them.
- Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Its freaking Fluttershy...as an evil mastermind that turns both willing and unwilling adults into adult children.
- A Fate Worse Than Death: Some readers have commented they'd rather be cupcaked.
- To eliborate on that, this means that readers would rather be slowly and sadistically dismembered than have this happen to them!
- Fetish: Age Play, to be precise, and not played for sexy or laughs. 'Tis played for Horror.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Fluttershy. She goes from the harmless, sweet, shy, caring, and compassionate mare we all know and love to an Age Play-obsessed maniac who has taken up raising adult babies and Mind Rape as hobbies.
- Freak-Out: Dash at the end of Part One, after she starts to succumb to the treatment and realizes it. She absolutely breaks down, and well..freaks out.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Dash, upon seeing the photo album. It serves as a Brown Note to her and leads to the literal Oh Crap moment.
- Government Conspiracy: Even the Mayor is in on it.
- Happily Adopted: Albeit illegally in every step of the process in Dash's case.
- Heroic BSOD: Dash suffers this in the final stretch of Part One when she voluntarily uses her diaper for the first time.
- Idiot Ball: handed to Scootaloo, who decided to confront Fluttershy alone once she found out that she was lying about Rainbow Dash's whereabouts. It didn't end well.
- Fluttershy, despite everything, is handed this briefly. She leaves her front door wide open at one point. For one thing, that is a big parenting no-no, as children are curious creatures that will wander out such things as open doors at the earliest opportunity. Also, that was just asking for Dash to escape and expose the whole fiasco right then and there. Lastly, it allows Scootaloo to sneak in without trouble and uncover the truth behind Dash's disappearance for herself.
- Dash abandoning a perfect opportunity to get the hell out of Dodge rather than risk people seeing her in a nappy.
- Also, everyone in Ponyville received either this or the Villain Ball, possibly both, in order to help Fluttershy accumulate the pieces of her master plan.
- Inferred Holocaust: Discord's going to have a real easy time taking over once he's freed thanks to Fluttershy.
- Illegal Guardian: Where to even begin?!
- Indecisive Deconstruction Fic: Despite being meant for shock value more than anything else, this fic still gives a disturbing deconstruction of infantilism.
- Insane Troll Logic: Fluttershy's entire reason for doing any of this. She wants a baby, but is too lazy to go through the red tape to adopt and doesn't want to go through the pains of child-birth. Her solution is to force an adult into the playing the role. The defense of her position on this can be bored down to "because I say so and you don't get a choice in the matter".
- There's also some contrived nonsense about social expectations, retribution, and penance at the end of Part Two, but the core issue is that Fluttershy wanted a baby, and anyone will do.
- Summarised:
Fluttershy: Well … I wanted a filly of my own, and it seemed the obvious choice to turn my friend into one.
Everyone on Earth: That's not obvious at all!
- It's All About Me: Fluttershy falls hard into this. Dash doesn't want to be a baby? Well, who gives a buck what she wants?
- Jumped Off the Slippery Slope: Oh yes. There was no slow descent into madness. Fluttershy jumped right into it and perfected the arts of chemically induced Age Play rather quickly.
- Kick the Dog: That should go without saying at this point. However, it is worth noting because you will be hard pressed to find a better example of a dog being so casually kicked repeatly than what Fluttershy does to Dash over the duration of both parts.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Anyone put under the effects of foalmula remembers nothing of it later. Probably the only way she was able to get Rarity to participate more than once.
- Genius Bonus: The formula regresses the mind to that of a baby. A baby's mind works fundamentally different from that of an older pony, among other things, memories are stored differently. When growing up, the way memories are stored changes, and those earliest memories are no longer consciously accessible. That's why you don't remember anything about being a baby.
- Left for Dead: Dash from a psychological standpoint. First by Twilight, Pinkie, Applejack, Rarity, and Zecora. Later by Scootaloo, who actually set off the gas in her chamber.
- Locked in the Dungeon: Scootaloo in Part Two.
- Love Makes You Crazy and Love Makes You Evil: It certainly had this effect on the shy one.
- Lured into a Trap: Well, yeah.
- Lyrical Dissonance: The Ironic Nursery Rhyme sang at the end of Part Two. Plays just like a regular rhyme, but put to lyrics like: you'll never hurt anyone else now that your mind is gone little Dashie. Brr...
- Mad Scientist: Fluttershy, of all ponies. Using a chemistry set loaned to by Twilight and ingredients she got from Zecora, Fluttershy experimented and created the foalmula.
- Mad Scientist Laboratory: Yee-aup.
- The Masquerade: Ponyville only appears to be a perfectly normal town of friendly pastel-colored ponies. In truth, they're a borderline cult that frequently go to their ring leader, Fluttershy, who will Brainwash them into thinking their babies so that she can take care of them. They also condone and actively help her keep one specific pony under her wing and permanently under her control as her "baby". God only knows what will happen if you cause it to become a Broken Masquerade.
- Maternally Challenged: For all her talk about wanting babies, 'Shy isn't actually very good at raising them. Heaven only knows how she gets the willing participants to come back.
- Mind Rape: Fluttershy kidnaps and imprisons Rainbow Dash and then subjects her to the full baby treatment, including wearing a diaper, wearing baby clothes, eating soft foods that are fed to her, sucking on bottles, and playing well...pattcakes. After an afternoon of this, she succumbs.
- Mood Whiplash: Part Two begins with Fluttershy plotting her latest nefarious scheme and then promptly cuts to the Cutie Mark Crusaders up to their usual antics and then back again just as quickly.
- Multiple Endings: Part Two has two. Both are horrifying.
- My Beloved Smother: Control maintained with an extra helping of foalmula.
- My Biological Clock Is Ticking: Somehow, staring down a Cockatrice got this started. Different strokes, I guess.
- Never Be Hurt Again: It crosses right into Disproportionate Retribution. Alright, Dash was very mean to Scootaloo when she told the latter to Stop Helping Me!, but that did not warrant destroying Dash's mind.
- Nice Is Not Good: Yes. So, so much.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Guess. Go ahead.
- Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: As if you didn't know.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Dash could have avoided this whole mess on account of one thing. She was happily napping on a cloud beforehand and only woke herself to go see Fluttershy, because she's a good friend.
- Not Allowed to Grow Up: A rare In-Universe example, exacted on a pharmaceutical level.
- Not Himself: anyone under the effects of foalmula.
- Obliviously Evil: Fluttershy doesn't seem to get why anything she does could be considered wrong.
- Obsession Song: Agressive Form in the "good" ending of Part Two. In nursery rhyme form sang by Fluttershy to Dash, no less.
- Oh Crap: An almost literally moment, after an entire day of putting up with 'Shy's baby treatment, Dash has finally had enough and decides to accost her about it. In the midst of her rightfully indignant tirade, she messes her diaper. This terrifies her so much that she breaks out, crying.
- Only Sane Pony: First Dash, then Scootaloo.
- Parental Abandonment: Implied, but never explained in any detail in the case of Scootaloo.
- Parental Neglect: Also implied of Scootaloo's situation.
- Also, the forementioned instance of abusive parenting of Dash by Fluttershy's hooves.
- Parental Substitute: Whether or not Dash wants or needs it.
- Also to Scootaloo in Part Two. In one ending, thanks to the foalmula. In the other, thanks to psychological manipulation.
- Police Are Useless: The police are in on it.
- Potty Failure: The final straw that breaks Rainbow Dash.
- Scootaloo, too, only the impact is much lesser on her.
- Promotion to Parent: With the help of drugs, to an unwilling recipient!
- In the "bad" ending, to a second unwilling receiver. In the "good" ending, again to Scootaloo, but this time very willing.
- Power Perversion Potential: Fluttershy established two rules for using the foalmula. 1) Never force it on someone. 2) Never use it on an actual foal. Guess how may of these rules she breaks.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Fluttershy enacts the mental variety of this on poor Dash strictly for personal gain and the pleasure of her "mother".
- The Reveal: First, with Crazyshy's intentions in Part One, later with the two drinks in the final stretch of Part Two.
- Room Full of Crazy: Does having an adult-scale nursery count?
- Rule of Scary: Neither fic makes a lick of sense, but the core concept is frightening enough that it doesn't matter and they both just roll with it.
- Sadistic Choice: Forced on Scootaloo and Dash The former chooses to let the latter get regressed to save herself, out of Revenge.
- Sanity Slippage: First of foremost, Fluttershy. The experience with the Cockatrice must have been more damaging than originally thought if the night that all happened is what started this whole mess.
- Also, Rainbow Dash, throughout the entire baby treatment of Part One.
- Secret Diary: Dash's, in fact. Presented to Scootloo in order to break the pedestal that she's built for Dash. Whether or not the diary really was written by Dash is another matter altogether...
- Shout-Out: The beginning of Part One is one of Cupcakes, which also began with Dash having a good day.
- Dash falls under the effects of Instant Sedation and wakes up tied to a table.
- Fluttershy calls for Pinke to bring cupcakes in one ending of Part Two.
- The song Fluttershy sings is based directly off Want You Gone.
- Sliding Scale of Comedy and Horror: Despite being a parody, it is firmly Horror Dominant.
- Slipping a Mickey: How Dash is taken captive to begin with.
- Start of Darkness: the events of the episode, Stare Master. How? Why? We frankly have no idea...
- Stockholm Syndrome: If there's a better explanation of Scootaloo's behaviour in the "good" ending, we don't want to hear it.
- Strapped to An Operating Table: Well, to a changing table, but still.
- Tap on the Head: How Scootaloo is kidnapped in Part Two. Yeah, 'Shy's a bit more severe by then.
- Team Killer: Not in a physical sense, but Dash is rendered absolutely incapable of functioning as the Element of Loyalty anymore. So here's hoping Equestria never needs those girls again.
- Three-Month-Old Newborn. Invoked In-Universe, and terrifyingly so.
- Torture Cellar: Done Saw-style, too!
- Troll Fic: the author has admitted that Pattycakes is this, and is quite pleased with the horrified reactions it has gotten.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Ponyville, of all places. Everypony is into Fluttershy's fetishes and even participate in keeping Dash held prisoner both physically and psychologically. They even bring the baby supplies Fluttershy needs. Heck, in Part 2, they even participate in the gauntlet Crazyshy has Scootaloo run.
- Undying Loyalty: Crosses straight into No Good Deed Goes Unpunished for poor Dash.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: A whole land of happy little babies for Fluttershy to mother!
- Vasquez Always Dies: It just wouldn't a Cupcakes-style Fanfic without this trope in play. In a manner of speaking, Dash does die. Her mind is permanently destroyed by the end of Part Two, meaning that the Dash that was is no more and never will be again.
- Villain with Good Publicity: with the entire town in the know, no less!
- Waking Up Elsewhere: Dash, who passes out in 'Shy's living room, and wakes up strapped to a changing table.
- Scootaloo, who is clobbered over the head, and wakes up in a box. On top of a row of shelves. In the basement/dungeon. Yeah.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Implied in both ends of Part Two, that Fluttershy has somehow gotten it into her head that her "children" are better off permanently regressed.
- Wham! Line: A lot of them, but the first and most important:
Fluttershy (to Rainbow Dash): "That’s when I realized that you would be a perfect baby for me.”
- What the Hell, Hero?: Attempted by both Rainbow Dash and Scootloo. It doesn't work.
- When It All Began: The Stare Master.
- With Friends Like These...: It's revealed that Pinkie, Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, and Zecora are all in on it and even play an active role in keeping Dash imprisoned by delivering baby supplies to Fluttershy. Thanks, guys.
- Would Hurt a Child: Blunt instrument + Scootaloo's head = Yep
- She also builds a crate around Scootaloo and sets it on top of a high shelf with the intention of forcing Sootaloo to make it fall to break it open, despite the risk of severe injury.
- X Meets Y: Part Two is basically Pattycakes Part One Meets Saw.
- Yandere: Fluttershy, but not in the traditional sense which involves butcher knives and romantic rivals. No she'll Murder the Hypotenuse by shattering their mind.
- You're Insane!: Said of Fluttershy by Rainbow Dash. She's not wrong.