All The Pestilent Horses

Fevered visions of plagues, paranoia, and ponies.

Yep - settle in. This one’s a long one. But, if you want the pared down version, the paragraphs in all italics can be skipped. That’s all just a little something I did for fun. Fluff. For the bit, you know? The substance of the article is in standard text. I only say this because I’d hate for you to miss where this one goes because of the lengthy read time. It was an incredibly fascinating topic to research, and, hopefully, you find it equally entertaining.

I also hope that you’re up to date on all your shots.

The gnashing of teeth. Wet, sloppy chewing. The crunch of solid matter between molars. Desperate swallowing between heavy, labored breaths, magnified in the grim, sepulchral stillness of the dark room. 

Pinkie Pie scooped another piece of hard candy into her mouth. She chewed. She swallowed. She savored the saccharine tang of artificial strawberry flavoring and red dye forty on her tongue and wiped the bits of candy, cake, and other sweets clinging to her mouth with her foreleg. 

She sighed with satisfaction - she'd needed that. When she'd first come to, she'd been laying on the floor of her den without knowing how or why she'd been there, because, usually, she slept in bed, and not on the floor, unless something had gone really, really wrong. She hadn’t even been aware of how long she'd been there, either, but the gaping emptiness in her stomach and the aching in her joints suggested that she'd been sleeping for a long, long time. Pinkie's memory wasn't all that great, but, even by her standards, that was a little concerning. Fortunately, these weren't problems that a little sugar couldn't fix; all she needed was a little bit of candy to get some pep back in her step, and some delicious cupcakes to get her thinker thinking again. She'd gone downstairs to the pastry shop below and helped herself to some of both in the back room. She’d pay for them later, of course. If she remembered. Which she definitely would.

Still, now that she was awake and alert and shaking out all her kinks, she wasn't quite sure why she'd been sleeping on the floor, or why the store was all messy. Pinkie had never seen the aftermath of a tornado before, but she figured that if one had come through Sugarcube Corner, it would look roughly as it did now. Overturned tables. Broken chairs. The pastry display cases were all busted and the floor littered with glittering bits of glass that looked like diamonds, but certainly didn't feel like them when you tried to pick them up. Worst of all, the cakes and pies and other treats were all ruined. The ones that weren't splattered on the walls or staining the shredded curtains or just plain crushed were all old and gross and a few were even covered in nasty gray fuzz. Even the menu boards had either fallen down or were hanging by a single chain, lop-sided and sad. 

Pinkie hadn't been responsible. Well, she didn't think she was. Even when she was riding the most intense sugar highs, she wouldn't do anything like this.

Probably.

The only explanation that came to her mind was that some rowdy ponies had come in and gone hog-wild in the place, which still didn't make much sense. Pinkie figured that, given the state of things, she would have heard something, even if she was sleeping. It was either that, or someone must have had one serious party, in which case… well, that didn't make much sense, either. Who in Ponyville would have a party and not invite Pinkie Pie? Her feelings hurt a little just at the thought.

She just hoped Mister and Misses Cake didn't come in tomorrow and think she'd gone on another sugar bender and wrecked the place. That wouldn't be good. They'd probably go up on her rent. They might even kick her out. Whatever had happened, it seemed like a good idea to let them know she hadn't been the one that did it. And that, even though she hadn't, she'd still help clean it up. 

Pinkie stuffed another piece of hard candy in her mouth and left the backroom. She navigated the carnage strewn about the cafe, careful to avoid stepping on any of the broken glass, and succeeding in planting a hoof right onto a cupcake that was laying on the floor. She licked the frosting off. 

It didn't taste very good, so she didn't bother picking up the rest and eating it, even though it seemed like a shame to waste it. 

Pinkie went to unlock the front door, but, to her surprise, it was already unlocked. A little knot formed in her stomach. That really wasn't good. With a bit of uncertainty, she pressed a hoof against the door and pushed it open. The hinges softly whined. Pinkie shivered as a bitter, chilly breeze rolled inside. Slowly, one hoof after another, she stepped outside. 

The street was empty. Ponyville was darker than she'd ever seen it before. Not a single light in anywhere, and, aside from the gentle drum of rain, it was deeply, uncomfortably quiet. 

Pinkie's tail twitched. Her back bristled, and the little knot in her stomach grew into a big one.

---

So, I almost died the other night.

Or, at least, I thought I was dying. It certainly felt as if I was.

Around midnight, about an hour after I laid down to drift into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness and no doubt be subjected to a colorful and absurd collection of vaguely uncomfortable and ominously prophetic dreams, as is usual, I woke up with a sudden and extreme pain in my abdomen. It was as if, all at once, a bowling ball that had been heated to impossible temperatures in a blast furnace had suddenly and inexplicably manifested in my gut. For a moment, I thought - nay, I hoped that it was simply one of those random organ pains you get without warning that just kind of happen but stop after a moment. This one, of course, didn’t. I clambered out of bed and hobbled into the bathroom, where I promptly collapsed onto the cold tile and began to contort myself into various twisted parodies of yoga poses in some vain hope of easing that awful, almost blinding pain radiating throughout my middle, which felt as if it was seeping into my spine and traveling throughout the rest of my body, all the while feeling my temperature rise and a film of sweat begin to accumulate on my skin.

Like most men, who will often ignore a medical emergency until they start bleeding out of orifices that should never bleed, I wasn’t about to call the hospital, or risk getting in the car and driving myself there while also seeing colors that don’t have names while what felt like a portal to Hell had just opened up in my stomach. But the fact I even thought about it is an indicator of just how severe the pain was. I’m not sure how long I laid there on the bathroom floor, writhing and squirming in agony, but it felt as if it lasted much longer than the ten to fifteen minutes that it probably was.

After that time elapsed, the pain didn’t subside, but uncomfortable stirrings began to make themselves known. I wasn’t sure what end was about to open up, but there was something unpleasant in my body that was very clearly about to make a hasty and violent exit.

I’ll spare you the gory details and just say that my body was so seized up during the events that transpired that I was sore for days afterwards, and I was tempted to drink bleach just to get the taste out of my mouth, but that would have probably made the lingering burn in my throat all the worse.

This was on an empty stomach, mind you, so not only was the disorienting pain present during the whole ordeal, but a good 75% of it was just my body violently trying to expel something that wasn’t there. When it was all said and done, I assume only thirty minutes had elapsed, but it felt as if I’d been struggling for at least a week. At some point, I got back on the floor, the cool tile comforting against my overheating body, and passed out, only to wake up an hour later feeling as if I’d been strangled by the devil himself.

So, naturally, the next day I went to work like nothing had happened. Aside from the aforementioned soreness from what felt like trying to exorcise a full-grown demon from my mouth and the awful burn of an esophagus scorched by bile, I felt… well, I wouldn’t say okay, but functional.

The sigma grindset never rests. Even in the face of severe gastric turmoil

But, I did call my doctor, who, thankfully, is the kind of holistic therapist that’s on call basically all the time, and asked if I should be worried. After listening to my story and asking for all the lurid details, he surmised that it was one of three things.

Culprit A: I bought some meat to make curry over the weekend that sat in the fridge for, like, three days because I was lazy and didn’t want to make it the day that I got the supplies, so my lethargy was coming back to bite me in the ass and this was just a run-of-the-mill case of dodgy meat. Sloth is a sin, folks. This is the most likely suspect. To be safe, I dumped the rest of the curry. On one hand, that was disappointing, because it was meant to be my dinner for every day that week, but, on the other, it didn’t taste very good. I didn’t strain the pork grease out like I usually would because I was half-assing it, which made it unpalatably oily, and, more importantly, I forgot to re-up on my stock of minced garlic, which I usually dump half-a-jar of into anything I cook. Garlic, being a potent anti-viral and boasting immune system boosting properties, is proof God loves us. Also, the one time I neglect to add it to my cooking, I come down with a violent illness. Coincidence?

Garlic haters stay losing and feeble and ill.

Culprit B: Stomach ulcers. Unlikely, but possible. They say stress doesn’t cause ulcers, but there was a time at which they also thought you could have too much blood, so, I don’t know if I believe that.

Culprit C: An acute pancreatitis episode, or a gallstone. Which, apparently, are things that can happen. Even though my doctor said that it was likely the dodgy food, the pain and the location of it sounded more like pancreatitis than run of the mill food poisoning, and usually, food poisoning lasts longer than just one go-around; something I am acutely aware of from past experience. Apparently, your pancreas can become inflamed for… reasons, and just decide to randomly make your life absolutely fucking miserable for a spell before calming down again. And, gallstones are basically kidney stones¹, but for your gallbladder, and also just as if not more painful.

Which of the three was it? I don't know and, frankly, I don’t really care, so long as it never happens again.

Whatever the case was, my doctor said it wasn’t worth worrying about unless it happens again in the near future, and the odds are that even if it is pancreatitis or a gallstone, it was a passing episode that won’t happen again. If it ever does happen again, it’ll be too fucking soon. The pain was, quite literally, some of the worst I’ve ever felt in my life.

The only other pain I’ve felt that comes close to being comparable was when I had shingles. Inside my eye. Which wasn’t something I even knew could happen until I was in the emergency room, completely convinced that my right eye was about to explode into a gory, pulpy mess. To describe the experience succinctly, it felt as if the tip of a white hot needle was being scraped against the interior of my eye. The best part is that even the hospital couldn’t prescribe me a pain killer that could actually do anything to alleviate the sensation of an angry hornet going batshit crazy inside my eye socket because the only kind of medication that would do anything is the kind that degenerate pill-poppers and Dr. Sell-Me-Pills ensured that normal people can’t get short of being on death’s door or having half their colon removed. Outside of Extra Strength Tylenol, there wasn’t much I could do short of lay in bed for, quite literally, two weeks straight, and wait it out. In pain. Lots and lots of pain. To say that it was miserable would be like calling World War I a minor misfortune. Shingles is rarely life-threatening, but, I can tell you that if you have it somewhere like where I had it, you almost wish it was.

It was brought on by intense stress from my job at the time, which should tell you a lot about my life, and also the work culture in modern corporate America. When I say most big companies will work you to death, I absolutely mean it. Stress may not kill you outright, but prolonged, consistent, and intense stress can and will manifest in a variety of ways that absolutely will. And make no mistake - you could take a bullet for your employer, and they’ll still toss you out like a botched batch of curry only months after you develop a chronic health issue directly resulting from carrying the workload they dumped on you. Even if you sustain nerve damage and permanently lose vision in one of your afflicted eye.

There’s a lot of talk from the LinkedIn-types about how employees have no loyalty to their employers these days, but I’d counter with the fact that a working relationship is a two way street, and that the inverse of loyalty between the employers and the employed is just as dead.

I digress.

The point is, the really cool thing about shingles is that, like some sort of guerilla insurgent group, once they’re activated, they never fucking go away. Even though anyone with a latent herpes zoster virus in their system - which is basically everyone - could possibly develop shingles, once someone does have it, the odds that it could flare up again goes up precipitously.

And, for me, it did. Fortunately, the second time it flared up - less than a year after my first round with it - it manifested on my lower leg, which, while not fun, was infinitely better than suffering through having it in my eye again.

Going through an ordeal like shingles is traumatic in a literal way. My eye still smarts from the nerve damage when I get sufficiently stressed, which kind of makes me feel like some sort of edgy anime character that’s cursed to, like, turn into a werewolf when they get stressed out or something, but, rather than actually do anything cool, I just know that if I don’t get myself under control, rather than turn into a ripped wolf-person with super-strength, I’ll just go blind in my right eye. Something like shingles will stick in your head because you will never, ever want to go through anything even remotely similar again, but you’ll always be worried that, one day, you'll wake up, just like before, be blind-sided by it all over again. It hangs over you like the Sword of Damocles. Sure, you adapt, you learn to ignore it and force yourself to forget about it, and you learn to just kind of accept it… but it’s never not there, and, even if it is only vaguely, you're always aware of that.

And, now, if this is some sort of nascent, perennial pancreatic or gallbladder issue… well, I guess that’s something else I have to worry about, now. That isn’t the best for someone like me, who’s been a hypochondriac from a young age. Every time I feel a twinge in some odd place in my body, my first thought is, Oh. Here it is. The big one. Well, I’ve had a good run.

This isn’t exactly exclusive to me, of course. Psychology Today reports that an estimate five to ten percent of the American public are diagnosable hypochondriacs. While that may consist of severely paranoid individuals who are so anxious that they ring up their doctor when they have loose bowels or get a paper cut, I’m willing to bet that, at some point or another, most Americans have been keenly worried about their physical health to a degree that it’s negatively affected their mental health. The fear of disease - Nosophobia, as it’s called - is most likely one of the most prevalent, persistent, and oldest fears that have stalked humans since the first upright monkey developed a modicum of self-awareness. For as long as humans have been able to cough, I’m sure every one of them have had a particularly nasty fit that left them wondering if that little tickle in the back of their throat wasn’t something more pernicious.

I’d say this isn’t exactly unwarranted, either.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that nagging cough or mild fever isn’t anything to worry about, but there’s always that small chance that it might be. It isn’t as if disease and ill health isn’t something that we’ve all struggled with at some point or another. Most of us have had to sit by, helpless and miserable, watching a loved one wither away as some God awful terminal condition slowly ate away at them until there was nothing left, which always leaves you pondering the question of - What if that was me?

History is rife with stories of plagues and pestilence that have wreaked havoc to cataclysmic, almost apocalyptic degrees. Between 165 and 180, the Antonine Plague ravaged the Roman Empire from corner to corner. Contemporary accounts claim that over 2,000 people a day were dying in Rome alone, and that a final body count ranges from anywhere between five to ten million deaths - a whole 10% of the entire Empire’s population. There’s a not insignificant chance that the plague even claimed the life of the contemporary emperor, Marcus Aurelius, near the end, who’s stalwart and stoic leadership was probably the only reason that the entire Empire didn’t crumble beneath the weight of such devastation.

Only three hundred years later, the Eastern Roman Empire would face one of the first outbreaks of the Black Death under the reign of Emperor Justinian with a plague that would come to bear his name. Not to be outdone by his Italic predecessors, this plague was said to have killed an average of 5,000 a day in Constantinople, and may have not just killed up to forty percent of the city’s population, but possibly a quarter of the entire Eastern Mediterranean, with sporadic outbreaks that continued to dog the area for centuries to come. It’s worth noting that Justinian, too, fell ill with the plague, but lived to fight another thirty years. Insert Giga-Chad image here.

This is to say nothing of the definitive outbreak of yersinia pestis in the 14th century, which, in tandem with the devastating famines of 1315 and 1317, irrevocably changed the face of Europe and altered the trajectory of human development from that point on at the cost of what might have been half the European population, or, at least, close to it. I hesitate to bestow any plague with the title of Greatest Of All Time, but I think if we were going to give that dubious honor to any of them, the Black Death has to be in the conversation. It was basically the Tom Brady of killing people. And, for as many problems I have with both modernity and the absolute horror-show that is the American pharmaceutical industry, I will say this - I am immensely grateful to live in a time where the bubonic plague is little more than a minor inconvenience that, if caught in time, can be treated with bed rest and medication. Same thing with leprosy. You gotta think - if you had leprosy at any other time in human history, you were Grade A fucked. This only changed after the 1940’s, and a brief window of several years in Judea, and, even then, that was only really viable if you just so happened to cross paths with a certain unassuming carpenter from Nazareth.

The traumatic impact of the Black Death cannot be understated. If generational memory truly is a thing - and I believe it is - I believe that there’s little question that the catastrophic result permanently altered the European mindset. It would also explain why pretty much everyone finds the classical image of a black-cloaked, beak-masked figure inherently terrifying, even before they learn what such a figure is.

Of course, the odious visage of the plague doctor has been… rehabilitated, somewhat, in recent years. Like, don’t get me wrong - the drip is as immaculate as it is unsettling, and, of course, if you put a creepy mask on a buxom, bodacious babe… people are going to be more open to have that doctor, er - take their temperature, shall we say.

“Oh, good heavens. It looks as if we’re going to need to amputate everything from the neck down. Unfortunately, I’m running a bit low on anesthesia. You should fine.”

But, I think we also forget that the image of a sleek, bone-white or neat black leather mask, dapper hat, and well-tailored coat is something of a modern reinvention of the classic plague doctor drip, which, in reality, looked less like a creepy but well-dressed gentleman and more like one of the Bananas in Pajamas from Hell.

Which, I dunno about you, but that would probably be one of the last fucking things I’d want to see lording over me, leering down at me, and poking and prodding my body with a cane as I writhe in anguish. Even if she was quite comely in figure.

Of course, I’d be remiss not to mention the most recent pandemic, in which the illness itself was so deadly, so pervasive, so destructive… that most people had to take a test just to know that that they had it. Most.

Unless you’re just learning to read, I assume you lived through it. I don’t really need to go into any more details, do I? It was pretty cool to work from home, though. We should go back to doing that more, I think.

I could go on - there have been more plagues and epidemics and one could ever document. What unites all these stories is the simple and horrifying fact that it all began with some faceless, unknown, anonymous individual - a patient zero - who unwittingly set the ball rolling in each and every one of them. We’ll never know who these first victims were, but the idea that some random person on the street could cough one day and set off a chain reaction that results in literal mountains of bodies is… well, unsettling is a mild way of putting it, wouldn’t you say? I believe that most people have trouble really comprehending it because, really, if you could, and you were always thinking about it, they’d have to ship you off the Laugh Academy for a nice, prolonged stay in a comfortable padded room after you started running and screaming and sobbing and pissing your pants every time you heard someone sneeze or cough.

This is all to say that, plagues, illness, death - it takes up a lot of real-estate in the human consciousness, cultural and otherwise.

Trying to find what the most common fear among Americans is seems borderline impossible. Pretty much every source I could find while doing research cited a different study - if they cited a source at all - and each of them had radically different results. Generally, most of these articles were very unhelpful, and just listed generic things, like, heights or tight spaces or the ocean, and it’s like, well, yeah. You don’t like heights? Me neither, buddy. Join the club. That’s not really a fear. It’s a phobia, but that’s different than a fear. The American Psychological Association defines the difference between them thusly:

Fear, for example, may prompt you to take cover during a severe storm or flee from a dangerous animal. Phobias, however, are irrational fears triggered by either specific or general events or items.

To illustrate further, my childhood phobia of clowns is well-documented, but I wouldn’t say I’m scared of them the same way I’d be scared of some hulking pitbull charging at me from across the street; I just don’t like them, I avoid(ed) them when I could, and even though the clown community and I are on somewhat better terms these days, I wouldn’t say I exactly have a phobia of them anymore. However, I would definitely say I fear clowns, under the right circumstances. You know - usually when they turn up where they have no business being. Dark alleyways. Standing odiously at the end of hotel hallways. Abandoned buildings. At my backdoor, staring through the window.

See, a phobia is considered irrational, but I don’t think there’s anything irrational about being concerned by the inexplicable presence of a clown inexplicably watching you from your back door. And I don't care how friendly she looks or how impressive her balloon animals are or how many colorful scarfs she can pull out of her pocket, I ain't opening that damn door. Even if she is quite comely in figure.

Probably.

Okay, well, maybe I'd ask her what she wants, she'd be staring down the business end of a shotgun while I did.

So, I wanted to know - what do Americans fear? Well, Chapman University of Orange, California, has an annual fear survey. The results are… interesting. The first result, out of ninety-seven given fears, is Corrupt Government Officials.

Jumpscare!

Watching the news must be a harrowing experience for these people. I’m pretty sure I loathe corrupt politicians as much as anyone, but after years of being subjected to them on literally every screen available, exposure therapy has kind of dulled my fear of them.

The second most common response is economic collapse, which, yeah - valid. The third and fourth are, respectively, Russia using nuclear weapons and America being drawn into another World War, which, again - valid. Given that the adults have been back in the room for four years now, and everything’s gone to shit ever since, I think those are justified concerns, especially now that France’s Macron has joined the rising chorus of European crowned heads banging on the war drum for Western boots in Ukraine. Fortunately, it seems that the response from most NATO allies was -

Which is heartening, but, at the same time, I suspect they only reacted as such because he said the quiet part that they’re all thinking out loud.

The fourth and fifth results are the ones that are pertinent, here. They are, again respectively, People I love becoming seriously ill and People I love dying. I’m a little surprised that, for one, these aren’t higher on the list, and also that they aren’t Me becoming seriously ill and/or dying. No one wants to see anyone they care about diagnosed with a terminal illness or die, this is true, but I also don’t think anyone wants to receive such a diagnosis themselves. Or die.

Interestingly, Corrupt Government Officials has topped the Chapman survey for several years running, though, checking the results for 2020/2021, this fear of seeing loved ones, die, fall ill, and, specifically, contract COVID-19, are all in the top four.

I can’t find the study for the life of me, but there was another survey in which those surveyed responded that the number one most common fear was Being Diagnosed With An Incurable Disease. Among the last was Being Diagnosed With A Disease. The discrepancy doesn’t really need to be explained, does it? It’s one thing for a doctor to give you some bad news, and, yes, it always sucks when they look at your test results and mutter, Oh, shit. But, at the same time, if they tell you that there is something that can be done about it… well, you’ll probably be out a couple thousand bucks and spend the next few years laboring under medical debt, but, hey - it beats being dead. At least something can be done about it. When I was diagnosed with shingles, I wasn’t happy about it, but it was a relief to know that a fucking xenomorph chest-burster baby wasn’t incubating in my eyeball, which is what it felt like.

It’s a totally different ballgame when the doctor says, Damn, dude, better get those affairs in order because you are fucked, homie. Given that a corrupt government official is a problem that is much more easily solved than a terminal illness, I’m surprised that this fear isn’t at the top of Chapman’s survey. Then again, when both sides of the political aisle are fed relentless streams of fear-porn and propaganda that leaves them absolutely, whole-heartedly convinced that a ghoulish cabal of demented octogenarians are hell-bent on destroying everything they hold dear… well, it doesn’t not make sense. It isn’t exactly incorrect, either, because, yeah - there is a ghoulish cabal of demented octogenarians that absolutely do have a seething hatred of everything good in the world and would love nothing more than to see it all quashed before the inevitably shuffle off this mortal coil to join Sam Hill in the universe’s least pleasant hot tub of sulfur and brimstone. But, that is a problem that has a few solutions. I won’t say what, exactly, but I’m sure you can come up with a few ideas of your own.

However, you aren’t going to vote out Parkinson’s, or Alzheimer’s, or ALS. There’s no democractic discussion to be had over Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer. Again, I suspect the only reason most people aren’t more scared of these conditions is simply because there isn’t really anything you can do about them, and, most of the time, they don’t feel like things that could even happen to you. It’s like death - for most people, death is just something that happens to other people until, suddenly, you aren’t just at death’s door, you’re sleeping on his couch. The human mind is quite adept at keeping grim things like that as abstract, intangible concepts.

But, much like shingles or pancreatitis or gallstones, once you’re aware they can happen, whether from watching a loved one slowly ground down to nothing by some wasting illness, or narrowly avoiding the clutches of the reaper yourself… well, some part of you never really forgets after that. It may not take up much real estate in your conscious mind, but, once the idea is planted in your head, it never really goes away. Not entirely. And, on some fundamental level, no matter how small or negligible they may be… I don’t think anyone ever really forgets about them. And it’s always there. Lurking, just beyond our conscious thought, like some sort of dark, nebulous shape of something unfathomably big, silently drifted just below the waves of our waking higher functions.

That’s why I believe horror related to such concepts is as ubiquitous as it is. Fear of disease, as mentioned before, is one of the oldest and most persistent fears that have haunted man since time immemorial. It’s primal. It’s fundamental. Worst of all, it’s inescapable. For all of our advances in medical technology, for all the cures and panaceas and treatments that, throughout most of human history, would be rightly seen as miraculous, the specter of disease still stalks us, as reliably and unfailingly as a shadow. Whatever you may think about COVID-19 and the resulting chaos that transpired around it, it was, if nothing else, a stark and stunning reminder that said specter is still very much haunting us. And, even if COVID-19 wasn’t the big one that it was made out to be, even the most ardent critics have to admit - the next one could be.

---

“Hello?”

Puddles splashed around Pinkie Pie's hooves as she walked down the dark and empty streets of Ponyville. Usually, Pinkie thought it was fun to splash in puddles, but she wasn't having very much fun at the moment. There wasn't anything fun about walking around a place where there should be ponies and finding none of them. She didn't know what time it was other than night, but, even if it was late, there should have been at least one person who was still awake. And, even if there wasn't, usually when she hollered in the streets at night, someone woke up to tell her to stop. 

So far, no one had.

“Hello-o-o,” Pinkie called again. She came to a stop and took a moment to flip back the sodden, sopping mass of her drenched mane out of her face. She huffed. “Where is everypony?”

The only reply she received was the echo of her own voice. 

Pinkie's expression turned into a childish pout. The big knot in her stomach had only gotten bigger, and it felt as if she had swallowed a bowling ball. All those sweets weren't sitting right, and the more quiet things got, the more her innards squirmed. None of this felt right, and all of it felt very, very… bad. 

But, Pinkie was nothing if not a resilient pony. She furrowed her brow and kicked her thinker into high gear. She wished that she'd brought some candy with her to get it working better. There had to be some sort of explanation as to why the entire town was so quiet and empty and dark.

Pinkie thought. And she thought. And she thought some more.

And - ah! There it was! And idea. Her frown turned into a coy grin as she looked at the buildings around her, through the dark windows and all the spying eyes hidden in them.

“O-o-oh,” she hummed. “I get it.” She gave a small laugh. “Okay, okay,” she said to no one in particular. “You all got me pretty good. You su-u-ure spooked me! C'mon. You can laugh, now. Let's all laugh at Pinkie! Ha ha ha.”

She waited for the laughter. She waited for all the lights to turn on at once and for all the doors and windows to spring open, populated by all her neighbors who would all shout Surprise! And then they'd all laugh together. 

The only laughter Pinkie heard was her own fake, feigned attempt as it reverberated down the street, growing more and more faint with every repetition.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Pinkie did a nervous little dance where she stood.

“S-seriously,” she said. “That's… that's enough, guys. You can all come out, now.”

She looked to her left. No one came out. She looked to her right. No one came out there, either.

It didn't make sense. Why would everyone be hiding from her? That's what they had to be doing, wasn't it? It wasn't as if everyone in town just… left. They wouldn't do that. They couldn't do that. It seemed a bit extreme for every single pony in Ponyville to shutter up in their homes just for the sake of playing a joke - and not a very funny one - on Pinkie, but it would still make more sense than if they all just… disappeared. 

They had to be hiding. They had to be somewhere. 

Pinkie opened her mouth to say something again - what, she wasn't exactly sure, but it wasn't going to be very nice - and breathed in deep, and nearly choked on her tongue when she felt the touch of a hoof on her back. Her jaw snapped shut so fast that she nearly bit her tongue. Pinkie spun around, her soaked tail slapping against someone like a wet towel. Behind her, she saw something that turned her frown into a big smile. Even in the dark, she could still make out the familiar features of -

“Appleja-”

The rest of Applejack's name was reduced to a muffled slur as a hoof planted itself against Pinkie's mouth. 

“Quiet!”

Applejack leaned a little closer. 

“Quiet!” Applejack said again, hissing through her teeth. “Shut yer fool mouth already! Are you tryin’ to get yerself killed?”

Killed. That wasn't a word Pinkie heard very often. It wasn't a word she liked, either. Not at all. It had a bad, bitter taste to it, like bad chocolate or expired frosting, one that just hearing brought to her mouth. She felt her ears flatten against her head as Applejack pulled her hoof back. 

“Killed?” Pinkie said. She opened her mouth again to say something else, only to taste Applejack's hoof again. 

“Keep yer dern voice down!” Applejack whispered not very nicely. 

Pinkie felt as if she shrunk a little bit. Applejack didn’t usually speak so sharply. She didn't sound like herself. She sounded upset. She sounded a little scared. Applejack looked this way and that before taking Pinkie by the leg and dragging her towards a nearby store. The door to this store was unlocked, too, just like Sugarcube Corner had been, and, even though it was a bit hard to see in the dark, the inside was just as much a mess. Quickly and quietly, Applejack shut the door behind them, sealing out the cold and the rain. Pinkie Pie heard her sigh. Applejack pulled off her hat, which was every bit as drenched at the mane plastered to her face by the rain. It made a wet slapping sound as she let it hit the floor.

“Sweet Celestia, Pinkie,” Applejack said with a heaving breath, her voice still little more than a whisper. When she breathed in again, it was shaky and hard. “Where… where the apple fritters you been? I mean - sakes alive, Pinkie, I thought you were… you might be…”

Whatever she wanted to say, she didn't seem to be able to say it.

“You… you thought I might be what?”

Applejack shook her head. “Nothin’. Forget it. Don't matter, now. Just - how’d ya make it? Where ya been hidin'?”

Pinkie shifted on her feet. She got the feeling that she'd done something wrong, though, what that could possibly be, she couldn't think of to save her life.

“Um… I wasn't hiding. I was just… in my room.” Pinkie forced herself to be quiet like Applejack. It wasn't easy, since she wasn't quiet very often, but she didn't want Applejack to get any more mad at her than she already seemed to be.

“In yer room?” Applejack said. It didn't sound like she believed her. “Ya been in yer dern room this whole time?”

Pinkie shrugged. “Well… I think I've been. I just woke up a little bit ago and… and I feel like I'd been asleep for a long time. Then, I came down to the shop and it was all… y'know. Like this.” She gestured to the ruined store around them, where yarn and fabric and other craft supplies had been strewn around, and shelves had toppled over on one another. “Applejack - where is everypony? What happened?”

Pinkie was beginning to get the feeling that this wasn't some kind of joke being played at her expense. The ever growing knot in her stomach told her that there wasn't going to be a moment where everyone came out and they all laughed together.

Applejack was quiet for a moment. “Look,” she sighed. “We c’ain't sit n’ talk here, okay? Ain't safe.”

Pinkie tilted her head at an angle. “Not… safe? What's not safe?”

“Listen, Pinkie. I promise, I'll tell ya everythang, okay? But we gotta get outta here. We can talk when we're back at the farm. Rarity n' her sister been posted up there with me n’ Apple Bloom, n’ I -”

A noise interrupted Applejack. What kind of noise, Pinkie wasn't sure. It sounded like something had fallen, or something had moved, but the sound was most definitely coming from somewhere beyond the reach of the dim light that filtered through the windows. 

Applejack said a dirty word under her breath. “C'mon,” she said in a small, panicked voice. She snatched up her hat and pushed the door open. “C'mon!” She hissed again, stronger this time. “Follow me!”

Applejack darted into the street, and, without much else to do, Pinkie followed. The two ran down the road, splashing in the puddles. Pinkie shut her eyes and, for a moment, tried to pretend that they were just having fun. That this was all some sort of game. Maybe they were having a race. Yeah - that was it. It was a race back to Applejack’s place! 

Pinkie opened her eyes. Applejack was looking back to make sure that Pinkie was playing, too. Pinkie looked back herself. She wasn't sure why, or, really, what she even expected to see. She wasn't even sure she saw anything.

But, for a moment - just a moment - she thought she did see something. It wasn't easy to make out through the rain and the dark and because she was running, but she thought that she saw something in the window of the store they'd just been in. Something big. Something tall. Something dark and unusual and not shaped like a pony. 

Pinkie Pie didn't look at it for too long. She didn't want to. If she just turned around and kept running after Applejack, she could pretend she didn't see anything at all. So, she did. 

She kept running, and neither she nor Applejack stopped the whole way.

---

Before, I mentioned the absolute trauma left behind in the wake of the Black Death in Europe. Obviously, seeing entire villages blighted off the face of the Earth is going to fuck with the average person’s head pretty badly. Even though COVID-19 was a bad joke in comparison to the Bubonic Plague, the resulting trauma it inflicted on Western society is, years later, palpable. The images of empty cities, small armies of men in haz-mat suits marching through the streets, long lines of of masked people standing six feet apart all wrapped around grocery stores in clinics, mass graves, hastily and shoddily constructed hospitals, bodies laying under tarps in Central Park, constant, relentless imagery of needles and masks, all juxtaposed against the ridiculousness of dancing nurses, schmaltzy medical ads, slavish devotion and worship directed to once reviled pharmaceutical corporations, and late-night talk-show hacks performing musical numbers with dancing syringes has left an indelible mark of some form or another on everyone who witnessed them. I, for one, have lost pretty much every ounce of faith I had the medical establishment in the wake of the pandemic, and, more importantly, just hearing the names Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert fills me with violent urges.

The violent whiplash between seeing this nonsense juxtaposed against people suffocating with tubes down their throats was completely, 100% intentional, by the way.

Even though most of us have since readjusted to some sense of normalcy, there is a not-insignificant amount of the American population that has, as I’ve been telling people, brain fucked beyond all repair. Some of these people will, quite simply put, never be okay again. There will be people wearing N95 masks every time they step outside the sanctity of their homes for the rest of their lives. Even where I live, which was very… cavalier about the lockdowns, shall we say, you still see the odd person every now and then with a mask on in the store, or, more comically, while they’re alone in their car.

And, to be perfectly honest, if that’s what they want to do… well, that’s their prerogative. If someone is immune-compromised, I don’t blame them all that much. Hell, I’m still tempted to put a mask on when I get on a plane these days, if only because, when you think about it, you really could be sitting elbows to assholes next to total strangers who could have any litany of conditions or illnesses. Remember when airlines started bragging, Hey, y’know - we actually clean our planes, now? How is that supposed to make me feel any better? What were you doing before? And now that the scrutiny has lifted, have you gone back to just letting those things be flying toilet bowls, as you clearly admitted they apparently were until you were expected to be held accountable?

I suppose I’m revealing my own lingering trauma from the event, myself. It just goes to show that, even if you, like me, believe you’ve totally shirked all the knock-on mental effects of the pandemic over the past two years or so… you probably haven’t. And that’s okay. Honestly, there are things to be worried about. Chiefly, the absolutely bungled response from the powers that be. Whether it was malice or ignorance that influenced them to make the decisions that they did - and I’m sure you can reason out what I believe it was - it proved to anyone with two working eyes and a semi-functioning brain that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, if some virulent plague with a kill-rate of 90% did slither out of some Godless, dark corner of the world rather than conveniently slip out of some foresaken gain-of-function lab that shouldn’t exist to begin with, the authorities would be woefully unequipped to handle it, and, most likely, would be content to hide in bunkers as the world fell apart outside and devolved into Mad Max-esque dystopias of violence, road pirates, thunderdomes, and raiders dressed in BDSM rave gear.

I don’t think that much was lost on anyone. I’m sure there’s a few true believers that have drank enough Kool-Aid to genuinely believe the government truly did their best to get a handle on the COVID situation, but I think that even most people who enthusiastically hopped in line and pulled up their sleeves to get a nice dose of Science Juice weren’t all that satisfied with the way things shook out.

What I’m getting at here is that absolutely no one came out of the COVID ordeal the same way they went in. Everyone took something from it. Good, bad, neither - we all changed, and none of us will ever be the same. There’s a universality to the event that’s rather rare. It impacted everyone. Much like everyone alive to see the Twin Towers crumble in 2001, everyone in 2020 remembers where they were when the world came to a stop, and they will for the rest of their lives. It isn’t very often you see something that you know won’t just be a passing blurb in a history book - it will be something that historians centuries in the future will be writing entire chapters about.

When the Black Death decimated Europe, the trauma manifested in the art of the time. Events with such devastating, universal impact always cause ripples in the broader culture. Think about 9/11 again. What kind of movies became popular? What kind of music was topping the charts? Suddenly, the radios were playing country tunes about sticking boots up the asses of Middle Eastern leaders, the theaters were full of revenge-fantasies where American soldiers mowed down brown people in masse, and video games like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare allowed podgy civilians and children to drop into virtual Not!Baghdad and blow away faceless Jihadi baddies by the boatload.

In the aftermath of Black Death, pestilence-spreading devils flying over cities, dancing skeletons, and grotesque, gruesome imagery of diseased corpses and bestial demons became common place in paintings. The classic image of the Grim Reaper - a black-cowled, skeletal figure, harvesting souls with a scythe - began to take shape during this time.

One of the best examples of contemporary literature from the time is the Florentine Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, the contents of which are depicted as stories told by a group of young nobles sharing with one another as they sequester away in a remote villa to hide from the plague. The immensely gifted

Librarian of Celaeno

has an article on the author, in which he describes the work thusly:

It’s not the Trojan War imagined with knights and castles, but the world Boccaccio knew from daily life, or in this case, daily death. It would not be farfetched to describe it as the first post-apocalyptic fantasy.

I highly recommend you read if this sounds in any way interesting to you.

Every culture and society that has ever existed has used art as a means of coping with the grief, the destruction, the upheaval, and the chaos of traumatic events. This is an immutably human quality. Art is a means by which humans rationalize, reason, analyze, pontificate on, and, at times, find solace in the wake of such catastrophes.

This raises the question - in what ways has the America of the internet age expressed the trauma of the COVID years? Well, the answer is as interesting as it is complicated.

In a lot of ways, I’d say that it hasn’t. It seems that, when it comes to expressing the trauma of the Lockdown era, we, as a society, are constipated in a way - it’s not coming out, and no one wants it to come out. On the surface, at least. Put a pin in that caveat - we’ll come back to it.

When was the last time a movie about a plague made its way to the top of a box office? There were many songs written by various artists about the effects of the pandemic on both themselves and society at large, but very few, if any, were scraping their ways onto the charts and for the most part, no one wanted to hear them. The only one that I even know of, or even bother listening to on a semi-regular basis, is Remi Wolf’s Anthony Keidis, which, despite the absurd name-drop of The Red Hot Chili Pepper’s vocalist, is very much a song about the pandemic.

Everything's shut down, yeah,
And I don't have friends anymore.

Pretty on the nose. So far as I know, this song didn’t make much of a blip on the pop culture radar. But I like it.

When you look at the kind of music that the pro-jab crowd was putting out… well, it’s a mystery how straight gas like this knee-slapper stayed off the charts.

All in all, I think that the internet acted as a relief valve for the American public that rendered any mainstream expression of the pandemic trauma moot. Anyone who was feeling upset could jump on Twitter, vent their frustration, anger, and despair in an unhinged series of tweets, and get it out of their system rather than make any meaningful art about it. I’d also make the argument that small, independent creators or hobbyist, amateur artists were much more profoundly impacted by the adverse effects of the lockdown that larger, more mainstream creators. While the small-time amateurs were scribbling out vent art on their private DeviantArt pages to express their despair, the quote-unquote entertainers of Hollywood and the music industry were too busy luxuriously basking in the walled gardens of their multi-million dollar, sprawling estates. And when they did attempt to engage with the public about what was going on… well, it wasn’t exactly warmly received. Or well thought out. Or good. Or necessary.

It was insulting, really. And embarrassing. Really, really embarrassing, and I hope at least a few of the people who thought this pathetic display of feigned sympathy lay awake at night, unable to sleep from shame. That might be giving them too much credit, though. If they were self-aware enough to feel shame about such an act, they probably wouldn’t have done it to begin with.

If anyone did talk about the plague, they did so with the same glib, self-effacing humor that defines the culture of the 2020’s and the Zoomer generation. Most of what I recall from the time were hours upon hours of TikToks that were making jokes about how wacky and cuh-ra-a-azy it was being stuck in the house and having to wear masks (and maybe some poking fun at those stupid dumb-dumb Trumpoid conspiratards who wouldn’t take the Fauci Ouchie).

When the mainstream media did attempt to comment on the topic, it was met with resounding disinterest. Mainstream shows, movies, music, and other art about either fictional pandemics or people living through the current one failed to register in meaningful ways. Here’s a list of films about the COVID-19 pandemic. Did you see any of them? Do you know anyone who did? Did you ever hear anyone talk about them?

Exactly.

It seemed that the American public was desperate to just ignore the problem and indulge in any distraction to take their mind off what was going on outside while they were locked inside. No one wanted to see media about the troubles they were currently living through. No one wanted to revel in the misery of it all, even if the media, for a time, really, really wanted them to. After all, the biggest media event of the early Lockdown-era, if not the entirety of it, was a multi-part documentary about a bunch of degenerate animal abusers.

There’s something to be said about the American public’s steadfast refusal to engage with the whole thing, and the populace’s greater inability to meaningfully engage with problems, whether on a personal or societal scale, so much as ignore them and hope they go away on their own, or leave someone else to take care of them.

One might expect that, now that the worst of the COVID craze is behind us, things have returned to some semblance of normality, and we can look back with sober minds and clear eyes, there might be more interest in revisiting that time. However, it appears that the media has shifted gears to focus on the new crisis du jour, and harp on the continued rapid deterioration and political bifurcation of the country. Probably because they realize it might not be a good idea to have people hyperfixating on just how fucked up the entire COVID situation was. Then, they might get mad. Really mad. Then, they might do something. And that wouldn’t be good. Not for them, at least.

People seem much more willing to engage with the kabuki theater of political drama unfolding on the national stage, anyways. Presumably because the crisis of a country collapsing in real time before their eyes in a much more pressing threat than some nebulous virus that half the population didn’t care about to begin with, and the other half seems more than eager to forget about.

These days, even the biggest advocates of the lockdowns, mandated shots, and what not, seem to be dismissive of the whole ordeal. Suddenly, many of the same people who were convinced that the government needed to be sending the dirty infected off to camps have begun to say, Well, no one made you stay at home, or, Well, no one was making you get the jab. I believe that’s exactly what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was saying that the powers that be would start saying, like, two years ago, and, right on schedule - they are.

There’s a not insignificant amount of people who now seem convinced that the lockdowns never happened, and that trying to talk about it, or even saying, Hey, that whole Lockdown thing was kind of fucked up, will be met with accusations of, What Lockdown? I don’t remember any Lockdowns. You’re gaslighting me. I’ve had people tell me that it wasn’t as bad as I remember, which, yeah, I’ll admit - my memory is spotty. But not that spotty. I know what I saw.

The linked article claims that this isn’t some sort of willful attempt to ignore the massive pink elephant dropping logs of glittery purple shit in the corner of the room, but rather legitimate amnesia caused by the stress and anxiety engendered by the time. Forgive me if I doubt that.

Simply put - no one wants to talk about the pandemic anymore. Most want to forget it ever happened.

But, for as much as the culture seems ready and enthusiastic about putting the entire sordid episode of plague hysteria behind us, the invisible scars it left behind subconsciously sting. People may not have wanted to talk about the knock-on effects of the lockdowns and the residual trauma left behind, but, the thing about trauma is, if you don’t learn to deal with it and cope with it in healthy and productive ways, it will find a way to manifest. Whether you like it or not. If your house in on fire, you can ignore it, you can pretend it isn’t happening, you can screw your eyes shut and refuse to look at it, but until you deal with it, it’s not going to stop. At least, not until your house is burned down, or you’re dead. Either or.

I think in the coming years, we will see the greater impact of the lockdowns manifest in interesting and subtle ways that may not seem immediately apparent at first, but, upon closer inspection, will make perfect sense.

We’re seeing what I believe to be one such manifestation burbling up to the oil-slick surface of the dark and fetid bogwater that is TikTok at this very moment; a dark, strange, and disturbing trend that’s sweeping across the platform, unexpectedly and equally inexplicably.

What form is this manifestation taking?

Well, every society has used characters, symbology, archetypes, and other such things recognizable in their culture as figureheads to play out these expressions of civilizational grief and trauma. It’s why the Black Death was rendered in images of angels, demons, and skeletal specters, just as plague stories dating back to Mesopotamian times featured the gods and goddesses and folkloric figures that people of those times would have been familiar with.

Perhaps that’s why, in the age of the internet, it shouldn’t be surprising that the characters being used to play out these cathartic tales of plague, infection, societal collapse, and the abject terror of an unstoppable force of destruction…

Are ponies.

---

Applejack's farm was just as dark as Ponyville. None of the lights were on. But at least there was another pony there. Applejack knocked softly on the door and, after a moment, Pinkie heard the lock turn. It opened, revealing Applebloom on the other side. The young pony's eyes, tired and sullen, went wide with shock as they spied Pinkie standing beside her sister. Without a word, she pushed past Applejack and threw herself against the pink pony. For a long moment, Pinkie let her stand there, content to feel the warmth of her embrace. She wasn't sure why Applebloom started crying, but she got the feeling that it was something she needed to do.

“Hey now,” Pinkie said in a playful, scolding tone. “What's with the water works? There's no reason to cry when Pinkie Pie's around.”

Applebloom sniffled. “I - I know,” she said in a sniveling voice. “But - but I - I just -”

Before she could finish, she started crying again. Applejack guided them both inside and through the dark house, taking them down into the cellar. There, Pinkie saw the first light she'd seen all night. It wasn't much - just a simple lantern in the corner of the spacious storage room - but it was a welcome sight all the same. In the other corner, Pinkie saw another welcome surprise.

There was a heap of blankets in the corner of the room, piled so high and so thick that Pinkie didn't even realize that there was a pony underneath them until they sat up.

“Pinkie?”

“Heya, Rarity!” Pinkie sounded more pleasant than she really felt, though, she certainly was happy to see her friend. Rarity, in turn, met her smile with a look of sheer disbelief. Her mouth opened and closed, kind of like a fish, with no sound coming out until she seemed to just give up and smile herself… though, it wasn't a very big one. It looked like it was taking her a lot of effort to make it. Her violet mane, which had always been so lovingly and perfectly styled, was disheveled and unkempt. Her eyes were red and looked as if they'd sunk deeper into her sockets. 

“Oh… oh, thank Celestia you're safe,” said Rarity. Her voice was a bit scratchy. “Applejack, where - where did you -” Rarity stopped talking and started coughing. For a moment, it sounded as if she was about to stop, but she started again, and this time, coughed even harder. They were ugly sounds - raspy and violent. They sounded like it hurt Rarity to even get them out, and, when she finished, she slumped forward, breathing hard. Sweetie Bell, seated beside her, ran a hoof along the mass of blankets in some attempt to comfort her older sister. Sweetie Bell, too, had looked surprised to see Pinkie, but looked too concerned with Rarity to be very happy to see her. Pinkie didn't hold it against her. Rarity didn't look like she was feeling well. 

“Rarity… what's wrong?” asked Pinkie.

Rarity mustered a weak smile as another sputtering cough escaped her lips. “N-nothing, Pinkie,” she rasped. “Don’t worry yourself, any. I'm… I'm fine. Just -” She paused and groaned as she shifted beneath the blankets. “Just… just not feeling all that hot at the moment, is all.”

“Not that hot?” Pinkie balked. “You look like you’re freezing! Literally!”

She noticed Rarity wince.

“Er - Pinkie…” Applejack sidled up next to her. “Try n’ keep yer voice down, alright?”

Pinkie felt a twinge of guilt. In the light of the lantern, she could see that Applejack didn't look very good, either. She didn't look sick like Rarity, but she did look as if she hadn't slept in a long time. There were dark rings under her eyes. It even looked as if some of the color had been drained from her coat. Like she was a little more dim than she had been the last time Pinkie had seen her.

“What -” Pinkie caught herself speaking too loud again. “What happened? What's wrong with Rarity? And - and where is everyone else?”

Applejack sighed. “I… I dunno.” She shook her head. “I told ya I'd explain everythang, but, truth is… I dunno.”

“Ya mean ya ain't seen what’s happenin’ to ponies?” Applebloom asked.

“Something's… happening to ponies?” Pinkie asked. “I mean… no? I've been asleep for, like, a while, now. I just woke up and everything was all… wrong.”

“Well,” Applebloom began. “‘Bout a week ago, ponies started gettin' sick all over the place. Everypony just kinda figured it was a bad cold goin’ around, but, then…” The little pony's eyes unfocused and her expression darkened. “They started… changin’.”

“Changing?” Pinkie asked.

“Uh-huh. Yep, they started gettin’ thin n’ coughin’ a lot. Hair starts fallin’ out. Then, they just… they -”

“Stop talking about it!”

All eyes turned to Sweetie Bell. The young pony scowled at her friend, one hoof still on her older sister's back. 

“I was just tellin' Pinkie ab-”

“Yeah, well, stop! I don't wanna hear it! And no one else needs to hear it, either.”

An awkward moment of silence followed. Pinkie looked over at Rarity. Her eyes were shut, and she was breathing hard.

“Is… is that what's wrong with Rarity?”

“No,” Sweetie Bell snapped. “She's not sick like that. She's just - she's just got a bad cough, and - and she's stressed out. That’s all.”

Applebloom opened her mouth to reply, only to be preempted by her sister.

“Applebloom.”

Applebloom went quiet at the sound of her sister's voice. The filly looked to her sister, then back at Pinkie Pie, and then just put her head down.

“Listen,” said Applejack. “I dunno what the heck's goin’ on out there, but it ain't nothin’ to worry about. Any day now, Princess Celestia’s gonna show back up and fix everythang like she always does, and every pony that got all weird and sick is gonna be just fine. Even Rarity.”

“Especially Rarity,” Sweetie Bell added.

As if to disagree, Rarity coughed.

“I hope so,” Pinkie Pie said. “Well, where's Twilight been? I mean, if anyone would know anything about what's going, on, it'd be her. And where's Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash?”

Again, Applejack sighed. “Well… we ain't seen Twilight since all this started. Or Fluttershy. And, uh… Dash. Well…” Applejack's gaze fell to the floor.

“So you've seen Dash? Have you seen her? Oh! Oh, oh, oh - let me guess. She probably went off to get help, right? Or find Twilight?”

Rarity’s eyes slowly opened again. Pinkie saw her exchange a look with Applejack - the kind of look that people who know a secret give each other when they don't want to share.

“Yeah,” said Applejack flatly. “Yeah. Somethin’ like that.”

She was lying. She knew that Pinkie Pie knew she was lying, too. But she didn't say anything. It didn't seem like a good idea. Everyone was tired. Everyone was so tense that Pinkie could feel it. The room was cold and, now, it was quiet, filled with the sound of rain pounding on the earth outside and Rarity's labored breathing.

“Y'know what,” Applejack said. “I think we've all had enough excitement for one day. It's late anyways. We should all turn in for the night.”

“That sounds like a lovely idea,” Rarity mumbled.

Applejack and Applebloom went upstairs and returned with more blankets and pillows. The two sisters bed down on one side of the room, far from Rarity and Sweetie Bell. Pinkie Pie took her own corner, nesting up against shelves lined with dusty boxes of both supplies and Applejack's family possessions. Pinkie laid down on a thin layer of blankets spread out on the ground. It was cold and hard and the blankets really didn't do anything to make it feel any better. After waking up on the floor, she didn't really like the idea of sleeping on the floor more. She didn't want to be rude, though. She didn't want to sleep, either. She wasn't tired. It was pretty obvious that no one else wanted to be awake, though.

“Hey. Pinkie?”

“Yeah, Applejack?”

Applejack was quiet for a moment.

“I'm really glad yer alright.”

“Me too,” Applebloom added.

“And me,” said Sweetie Bell.

“And me as well,” Rarity said softly.

Pinkie felt her cheeks begin to burn. “Oh… you guys. I'm really, really happy you're alright, too! And, look. We even get to have sleep-over! It's kind of exciting, isn't it?”

“Yeah,” Applejack muttered. “Sure is.”

She was lying again.

When Pinkie laid down, she wondered about Twilight. She wondered about Fluttershy. She wondered about her parents and sisters and Mister and Misses Cake. Where were they all? Ere they okay? Were they having sleep over parties, too? Hopefully none of them were sick. She found it difficult to sleep, no matter how much she tossed and turned and rolled around on the blankets. She missed her bed. She missed her parents. She missed a lot of things.

No one turned off the lantern. Pinkie was glad about that - she'd had enough darkness to last a while.

---

I’ve written about the bronies before. Twice, now. However, this is not a story about bronies. Not really. The impact they had on pop culture as a whole, where they spent years (horse)shoe-horning the colorful cast of technicolor equestrians of a diminutive size into the public consciousness through their obnoxious behavior, set the stage for this story, but they play a minor role in the following events.

As I mentioned in my second article on the brony subculture, there is a difference and a divide between the brony community and the wider My Little Pony fandom as a whole. They are intrinsically linked, yes, but they are very separate things. Whereas bronies have had a resurgence in recent years, currently, they seem to make up a sizeable but not majority fraction of the My Little Pony fandom. They probably don’t even make up half of it. A whole fifteen years after the Friendship is Magic series debuted - which, I know:

I feel it, too - but, these days, the My Little Pony fandom is much more diverse than it used to be. Rather than consisting of a horde of socially-maladapted manchildren from 4chan and Reddit, the broader community today is largely made up of young folks that simply grew up enjoying the show when they were children. There’s overlap between the bronies and these fans, yes, but they’re not exclusive, and, at times, they don’t appear to like each other very much.

One can only wonder why.

So, while the bronies may have catapulted the pony crew into cultural ubiquity, and they may be partially responsible for adding more gas to this trend, they are not the ones chiefly responsible for perpetuating it. In fact, in my research, it appears most bronies don’t actually like it, which is kind of surprising. Keep that in mind, as it does drastically alter the view with which you will view the proceeding information.

Also, fair warning - if you’re squeamish about body horror, proceed with caution. For as laughable as much of the content related to this phenomenon can be, there is a lot of very talented artists who have dreamed up some truly gruesome and unpleasant imagery. If you don’t think you’ll take well to cartoon ponies with realistic guts hanging out, open sores, and festooned with pustules, well - you’ve been warned.

In early December of 2023, Russian TikTok user Osushat² uploaded a photo slideshow depicting an alternate universe - which will be referred to as an AU from here on out for brevity - take on the My Little Pony, featuring the devastating effects of a disease called Pestraobia.

As you can see, the results of this disease upon pretty ponies are not pleasant. Most of the early material of this take on the subject matter appears to be Osushat exporting his military fetishism onto the ponies, and describing the survivors of the plague and their uber-grimdark battle against hordes of diseased ponies that rapidly evolves into an apocalyptic zombie outbreak.

For instance, here’s Pinkie Pie’s character sheet.

How does she hold an M16 with hooves? The same way she bakes cakes without fingers. Don’t think too hard about it. On the other side of things, here’s Rarity’s.

As you can see, she’s not doing too well. She’s apparently turned into the Joker and developed an crippling addiction to intravenously-administered pony methamphetamine. You hate to see it.

Despite being very simple, almost rudimentary videos that were little more than a slide show of rather lack-luster photoshop jobs set to sad music, it hit big on TikTok. In a month’s time, the original video had over 500,000 views and 40,000 likes. This little spark, dreamed up by some anonymous Russian pony fan, quickly set off kindling that I’m not sure anyone was even aware was present to begin with.

Less than two weeks later, TikTok user bunnyizcute would take the same general concept - execution and all - and start their own Infection AU, under the name of The Smile Virus. No guesses as to what the Smile Virus does. Even though the work was still rather amateur, bunnyizcute upped the graphic content.

Oh my God, what’s wrong with your fa-a-a-ace?

The Smile Virus AU proved to be more popular than the original Pestraobia AU, with other TikTokers adding more lore and expanding the scope to include other characters from the show, as well as scads of their own Original-the-Character (Do Not Steal) ponies to the mix as well.

Come January, the fad would kick into high gear and, much like an infectious disease itself, spread from TikTok and garner attention on other sites such as Twitter, 4chan, and Tumblr, though TikTok would remain the epicenter for content relating to the concept. Soon, there were not two, but rather dozens of different Infection AUs being dreamed up by creators, each one featuring some new, gruesome condition that was warping ponies into twisted, mindless, often flesh-eating abominations. The imagery with each new AU only became more graphic and disturbing, evolving from simple ponies with pale colors, manic grins, bloodshot sclera that looked more like crank junkies than disease victims to grotesque, deformed, nigh-eldritch abominations that look like creatures that would be at home in a Junji Ito manga.

Now, gruesome horror content is not exactly foreign in the pony fandom. Some of the most well-regarded and popular works within the fandom - most of them dating back to the Golden Age of Bronies - are stock-standard and firmly entrenched staples of creepypasta. There’s any entire Pony-centric Creepypasta Wiki. These guys loved taking cute little ponies and putting them in fucked up situations. Cupcakes is by far and away the most notable example - a story in which Pinkie Pie butchers Rainbow Dash and makes baked goods out of her entrails. It reads like a parody of a Saw movie, and would be hilarious, if it was actually meant as a horror pastiche and not intended to be taken 100% seriously.

Hello, Twilight Sparkle. I’d like to play a game.

This story was big big, back in the day. One of the first instances I can think of when I recall Pony fan content breaching containment and spreading to the public. At the time, the general concept of creepypasta and the community around it was also having something of a watershed moment in the internet culture, and the two fed into one another in an almost symbiotic relationship that encouraged more and more deranged stories about small equines murdering and eating one another.

Other examples of similar stories that found life outside the brony community were The Rainbow Factory, where it’s revealed that disagreeable pegasus ponies are dismembered and ground up to create - surprise - rainbows, and a fan game - simply titled Luna Game - which was basically just a simple screamer scare that, after a few minutes of moving a pony back and forth on screen, hit you with this image and a sound that would deafen you if you were wearing headphones.

Smilepony.jpg

Terrifying, I know.

There was are others, too, but if we went into them all here, we’d never get through them all before I went crazy and chopped up a pony to make them into mince pies.

The idea of an infectious disease ravaging the ponies is not even something foreign to the show itself. There are two canon episodes of Friendship is Magic that focus on such a conceit.

The first one - Swamp Fever - features a disease which infects ponies with pustules and, over time, slowly turns them into trees, which, in turn, grows flowers that spread the infection further. It should go without saying that, obviously, the show doesn’t show any of this, but, at the same time… that’s a little dark for a kid’s show, wouldn’t you say? Apparently, Fluttershy contracts the illness, but, since this is a kids show, it never gets any more graphic than her developing orange spots. I’ve read complaints that the episode could have done more. Because, y’know - seeing Fluttershy riddled with open, festering, weeping sores and bleeding out of her eyes would be perfectly acceptable to air on a channel with programming intended for eight year olds.

The second episode featuring some sort of infection narrative is called Twenty Eight Pranks Later. With a name like that, I’m sure you can tell what its riffing on. In this one, Rainbow Dash is being an obnoxious turd (what’s new) and playing pranks on everyone. She makes some shitty cookies or something, which, apparently, turn ponies into mindless zombies that want to chew every ounce of horse meat off Rainbow Dash’s bony ass, indicated by a rainbow rash around their mouths. Because apparently Rainbow Dash is such a piss-poor baker that her cookies not only turn ponies into zombies, but also spread oral rainbow herpes.

In the end, it turns out that everyone was just faking it. You know. As a goof. And to put the fear of God in her after they got sick of her shit.

This is to say that this kind of plague-centric storytelling and horror content is not exactly unknown to the pony fandom, pre or post the Golden Age of Bronies. For as long as there has been a pony fandom, they’ve been thinking to themselves, What if I made these little pony’s lives Hell? And then acted accordingly.

In fact, in an interview with YouTuber Fizzypop Peaches, Osushat revealed that he took inspiration for Pestraobia from a fanfiction simply titled, The Cough. In this story, the main ponies are holed up in a bunker to avoid a plague spread by coughing. Then, someone coughs.

But no one knows who.

Spoilers: It was Fluttershy. So she allows Rainbow Dash to execute her gangland style and stomp on her head until she’s dead. And then someone else coughs.

Also, I just have to add that, at the very least, Cupcakes and The Rainbow Factory, while laughable in their own right, were at least written with the competency you would expect from someone with a basic grasp of how to use a keyboard and a rudimentary understanding of English. The Cough, however…

Cormac McCarthy wants what this author has³. Or maybe it just translates better into Russian. Who’s to say.

While not nearly as popular as Cupcakes or The Rainbow Factory upon release, years later, we can clearly see which of the three was ultimately the most influential, because, clearly, there’s not a fucking sprawling, uncountable myriad of AU stories about various ponies baking their friends into delectable delights.

A little over three months after the inception of the Infection AU, it appears as if the trend has begun to bifurcate further. While plenty of creators are still crafting apocalyptic pandemic narratives via slideshows, akin to the original posts by Osushat, or drawing comics and, now, creating visual novel-style interactive shorts, others seem to be using the fad as a springboard to engage in a contest to see who can draw the most fucked up, diseased, and viscerally disgusting ponies.

And, uh… well, they’re doing a bang-up job, out there.

What’s funny is that, as previously mentioned, I found a lot of bronies who categorically do not like this content. It seems to be mostly newer fans of the franchise and outsiders that have taken this concept and run with it. Apparently, a lot of bronies are A-Okay with Pinkie Pie butchering her friends into cupcakes, but if you take their favorite pony and mutate them into some diseased, nightmarish monster with a taste for pony meat… well, that’s just a bridge too far. I’ve even seen some of them hand-wringing about the optics of it and asking, Is it really okay to be making graphic content like this out of a kid’s show? Which is… well, that’s fucking rich. Like, hey. Buddy. I remember the content you guys were putting out back in the day. Rarity with her guts hanging out is fucking tame compared to the god damn Rainbow Dash Jar incident. I don’t recall much concern for the children then.

Though I did see some exceptions, by and large, if bronies are engaging and creating this content at all, you can tell by the fact that it’s very… very mild compared to what others are making. They seem to prefer the more pared down flavor of Pestraobia, with less of the emphasis on body horror and more of a focus on bad photoshops and very basic zombie aesthetics. Probably because they really, really don’t like to see their favorite pony waifu… well, you know. Deranged. Must be hard to snuggle up with your Pinkie Pie dakimakura when this was the last thing you saw before you got off TikTok for the night.

There’s also a growing amount of short animated content that, rather than focus on sheer ick-factor in particular, seem to dive into the well of analog horror to make content that generally focuses on psychological horror rather than a straight pandemic narrative… though, the Cronenbergian body horror aspect is still very much front and center. If I could, I would link individual TikToks that illustrate this, but linking TikTok is troublesome and, even then, I’m not going to sift through reams and reams of unrelated footage just to find the ones I’m looking for. The video below is a compilation of various Infection AU content from different creators that illustrate the stark juxtaposition of the classic slide-show-n’-photoshop side of the phenomenon, intermixed with analog horror entries that, in my opinion, are actually quite good. I suggest you give it a watch to see just how dramatically different the two are, especially when viewed back-to-back. If I might recommend the two that begin at 0:58 and 3:35, you'll get a very good idea of what I mean.

Interestingly, when looking at the most successful examples of analog horror - notably works such as the series that started the recent boom in the genre, The Mandela Catalogue, or other early examples, such as Gemini Home Entertainment - those, too, follow plots that largely focus on the conceit of some kind of infection.

Not to veer too much off topic, but The Mandela Catalogue is the chronicles of a small California town grappling with a veritable invasion of Alternates, which, enabled by screen technology through cameras, cell phones, televisions, and computers, stalk, kill, and take the identity of humans, before doing the same to others to bring more Alternates into the physical world, all with a heavy emphasis on the distortion of the human body and disturbing imagery. Because of this invasion of otherworldly forces, in the world of the Mandela Catalogue, the American government has outlawed the use of all technologies that make use of screens - or, at least, are trying to, and severely curtail their use while trying to maintain some sense of normalcy without raising alarm. This, naturally, creates a drastic shift in culture across the country, and forces people to live fundamentally different lives than they did before.

Pic unrelated.

Similarly, Gemini Home Entertainment details an extra-terrestrial invasion in which horrors from beyond the stars assimilate and mutate humans into unrecognizable monsters via an aggressive infection. Newer entries into the genre like Midwest Angelica, GREYLOCK, and others all follow similar conceits of inhuman invaders that either spread via body-snatching or some malignant infection, and invariably end with human bodies in very inhuman conditions. Even the infamous Backrooms series, which has since become a media phenomenon unto itself, the material made by filmmaker Kane Pixels began to feature elements of an extra-dimensional bacterial infection that risks seeping into conventional reality from the alternate plane of existence that is the eponymous Backrooms.

When it comes to analog horror, often the emphasis is placed on the medium through which the stories are told, which is typified by aping the visual aesthetics of low-fidelity mediums such as home videos, VHS tapes, and other analog means of recording - thus, the name. But what isn’t often mentioned is the constant through-line of thematic content seen in these stories.

Doppelgangers. Body-snatchers. Extreme body horror and the convolution, mutation, degradation, and irrevocable (and painful) alteration of the human body. Incomprehensible, unstoppable, and unknowable alien threats that cannot be opposed by conventional means. Societal breakdown. Rampant paranoia. A dramatic shift in human behavior. A virulent spread of… something. Even if it isn’t an explicit virus, most of these stories are about a plague of something that infects one person and spreads from that locus.

Analog horror is not exactly a new phenomenon. It’s roots can be traced back to the first found-footage films, such as The Blair Witch Project, and the first real success of the genre on the internet I can recall was Marble Hornets - a series featuring Slenderman that I have discussed at length previously in this article. Curiously, even in Marble Hornets, Slenderman’s presence is depicted as infecting the humans who come into contact with it, striking them with a mysterious sickness that forces them to medicate in order to even function.

Marble Hornets began in 2009, and, even from there, the elements of disease, plague, infection, and paranoia were present. However, the current boom of Analog Horror series on the internet didn’t really take off until The Mandela Catalogue, which aired its first episode in 2021.

There’s an argument to be made that, as the Infection AU phenomenon undergoes mutations of its own, and takes increasingly more cues from this genre of horror, it can, itself, be classified as an off-shoot or sub-genre of analog horror unto itself; a type of horror that, first and foremost, are plague stories.

I wonder why it is that this genre became so popular around that time?

---

A strange constant that I noticed between the various fan-made canons was the fact that, in the grand majority of them, Pinkie Pie was always a victim of the plague. In fact, if any of the main six ponies are depicted as Patient Zero for the plague in question, I counted a few where the first infected pony is Rarity, and, in all the rest, it was poor, poor Pinkie Pie.

This is an actual screen cap from a real episode. No, I don’t know the context.

I have to ask - what exactly did Pinkie Pie do to get pretty much everyone to almost unanimously decide to bestow upon her the dubious honor of First To Die In A Horror Movie? I think that it may have something to do with the aforementioned episode, 28 Pranks Later, in which Pinkie Pie is the first supposed victim in the conspiracy to scare the piss out of Rainbow Dash by faking rainbow rabies/herpes. I think. I dunno, I just read a plot summary.

And, sure. It makes some sense. She’s hyper-active. Spastic. She has a crippling addiction to sugar. She doesn’t have a concept of an inside voice and I don’t think she’s got the sharpest mind among her friend group. It stands to reason that she would probably consume something that shouldn’t be consumed at some point, out of sheer gluttony or ignorance, and end up coughing blood and vomiting out her intestines.

While these are not qualities that are conducive to riding out a crisis of any sort, I’m going to take the contrarian opinion and say that, in my humble opinion, Pinkie Pie would not be the first victim of a plague, or one of the first to die. In fact, after careful consideration, crunching numbers, running complicated simulations in the MetaVerse, and devoting entirely too much thought to rainbow horses in various apocalyptic scenarios, I believe I’ve actually devised the perfect, most scientifically accurate and statistically sound chart of which ponies would and would not feasibly survive such an event. Here's some music, to set the mood.

1. Pinkie Pie: While not particularly bright, she does possess an uncanny ability to stumble through catastrophe unscathed through sheer, dumb-luck. Much like Mr. Bean, she possesses almost preternatural good fortune, or perhaps divine providence, which enables her to unwittingly and effortlessly bumble through uneviable circumstances or dangerous situations. She can survive anything, so long as the results are sufficiently comedic. Kind of like a Looney Tunes character. Thus, I believe Pinkie Pie would not only not be Patient Zero, but is likely to make it through the entirety of the event through sheer comedic happenstance. According to my calculations, Pinkie has a 99.6% chance of survival.

2. Applejack: With a lifetime of hard physical labor behind her, a practical mindset, no shortage of determination, and a stubborn streak a mile-wide, I think Applejack is pretty much one of the only ponies equipped to handle some sort of crisis-level event. Not only is she smart enough to avoid infection, but also possesses the survival acumen to subsist in the aftermath. Her only real drawback is that she may prioritize the survival of her younger sister over her own, but I also believe that she is practical enough to realize that getting herself killed would be overall hazardous to her sister’s continued existence. My formulas dictated that Applejack has an impressive 91.3% probability of survival. Definitely a safe pick, if you’re assembling a team to survive an apocalyptic event.

3. Fluttershy: Being both an introvert and of a meek, reserved demeanor, Fluttershy would most likely hole up in her house and keep herself safe. However, her almost pathological need to help others and bleeding heart does mean that she runs the risk of putting herself in a risky situation for the sake of helping someone else in need, therefor opening her up to the potential of being infected. In the Swamp Fever episode, she contracts the illness trying to help another pony, which tells me there’s a history of poor decisions at play. Fluttershy’s survival odds stand at approximately 65%, give or take some decimal points. Respectable, but I also would caution against taking someone so timid along with you if you were in such a position.

4. Rarity: The only reason that Rarity ranks below Fluttershy is because, where as Fluttershy would most likely sequester herself away, Rarity’s more extroverted nature increases the likelihood that she would be in public when the crisis breaks. The need to protect her younger sister would also increase the chances that she may engage in risky behavior in order to either save her from a dangerous situation, or put herself in harm’s way to scrounge for supplies to provide for her. Unfortunately, Rarity’s familial piety would most likely result in her putting the needs and well-being of her sister over her own. Rarity’s odds of making it to the end are only at 49.8%. I’d give her the benefit of the doubt and round that up to an even fifty, if I could, but the math shakes out.

5. Twilight Sparkle: Twilight is almost never depicted as a victim of the plague, though this mostly stems from audience bias, as Twilight is the chief protagonist of the series. If one removes this bias and strips her of her main character armor, her almost suicidal sense of altruism and Faustian hunger for knowledge would compound to create a scenario in which her desire to find a cure and work with the infected to deduce one would put her in close proximity to danger and most likely result in contamination. Twilight only has a questionable 31% chance of survival. Don’t hedge your bets on this one.

6. Rainbow Dash: Again, Rainbow Dash is almost invariably depicted as a survivor. Even though she does possess unmatched physical abilities above those of her peers, she’s also a dumbass. Being impulsive, arrogant, and stupid, but with none of Pinkie Pie’s good luck, I have no doubt that her lack of any meaningful survival instincts would result in her being among the first infected. Rainbow Dash has approximately 1.42% chance of surviving a crisis. And that’s with a generous 4% rounding error.

I find it telling that Pinkie Pie is such a constant staple of not just these Infection AUs, but also much of the Pony-centric creepypasta. I think that, in a way, it could be argued that she’s almost the face of them. And, on the surface, it isn’t all that much of a mystery. Out of all the core cast of ponies, Pinkie Pie is the kindest. At least, from what I’ve seen. She’s friendly. Bubbly. Always laughing. Always trying to make other’s lives better. She seems to have a bit of a darker side, one that’s more melancholic, more reserved, more dour than her usual persona, but it’s not often that it manifests. Usually, she’s the most upbeat, the happiest, and often relentlessly, if not aggressively, positive. If Twilight Sparkle is the brains of the outfit, Applejack the good sense, Rarity the good taste, Fluttershy the compassion, and Rainbow Dash the, um… uh… the Spirit, I guess, then Pinkie Pie is the beating heart at the middle of it all. I imagine that, if all the ponies had some sort of falling out, Pinkie Pie would be the one left in the middle trying to put the pieces back together again. It’s easy to take her energetic, spastic, and, at times, almost manic demeanor and pervert it into some kind of deranged, unhinged, I’m da Joker-esque kind of mindless lunacy that’s belligerently insane for the sake of being cuh-raaa-zee.

I remember seeing this image a lot, back in the day.

But I also think she’s the one, more than any of the others, that cares the most. Unconditionally so. She’s easily overlooked as the happy one, or dismissed as the wild one, or even just the stupid one, but she plays an integral role in the inter-personal dynamics of the main cast.

Am I reading way too much into this? Yeah, of fucking course, but -just bear with me, okay? I’m going somewhere with this.

All those traits make Pinkie Pie the prime target to warp and twist into something grotesque. The sweeter the character, the more bitter the result when they’re turned into some kind of horrible, unrecognizable, shambling, flesh-eating, blood-soaked horror, and there isn’t a character in the pony line-up sweeter than Pinkie Pie.

If you’re going to corrupt something, break it down, change it from the inside out…

Don’t do drugs, kids.

What better place is there to start than the heart?⁴

---

For a pony that hadn't been very tired when she laid down, the sleep that Pinkie lapsed into was deep, dreamless, and unfortunately short. What sound stirred Pinkie first, she wasn't sure. It all happened so fast that, really, it could have been all of it at once. 

The panicked shouting of Applejack, Applebloom, and Sweetie Bell. The clatter of hooves against the hard cellar floor. More than anything, it was the coughing - awful, ragged, nasty sounds. Violent whooping and heaving and wet, phlegmy gurgling that sounded like melted chocolate coming to a boil in a pot, mixed in with groans and grunts and cries of pain.

Pinkie was only tired for a moment before the sounds all woke her up, quicker than a mouthful of pure sugar. Even though she was awake, it was hard to keep track of everything at once. Sweetie Bell was crying. Crying and screaming. Applebloom was dragging her away from Rarity, over towards the stairs, while Applejack yelled things like Go on and Get out until they were upstairs and the door shut. 

“Applejack?”

Applejack didn't seem to hear her. She stood near the back wall of the room, watching Rarity with an expression of fear the likes of which Pinkie had never seen. It made her scared, too.

“A-Applejack?”

That time, Applejack glanced at her, but only for a moment. Rarity made a noise that didn't sound like any a pony should ever make. It was deep and guttural, something between a shout and a scream and a retch all at once. It hurt Pinkie to hear. She thought that, maybe, she should do something. What, exactly, she didn't know, but it seemed like Rarity could use a hug, or maybe just a good hoof on her back.

“Pinkie!” Applejack had to shout to make herself heard over the awful sounds that Rarity was making. “Pinkie, stay back! Don't get close.”

“What's wrong with her?” Pinkie shouted back.

Before Applejack could respond, Rarity started coughing. Something dark and gooey and chunky like salsa splattered on the floor in front of her, gleaming in the orange lantern light. Rarity's shadow grew and shrank and formed all sorts of weird shapes as the pony casting it writhed on the floor, her legs going in directions they weren't meant to go. Her eyes were wide and the whites were pink like a bubblegum, with long, thin webs of angry veins running through them. Something slimy dripped from her lips. Her teeth were stained pink.

That's when Pinkie heard the cracking. Crunching, like hard hard candy between teeth. Snapping, like bubbles popping in fizzy soda, as Rarity’s bent in places without joints. Hooves splintered and split. Flesh bubbled and bulged and pulsed and pulled against Rarity's skin before it split with the sickening sound of splitting tissue, revealing hairless flesh between the seams, glistening with slick, sticky amniotic fluids that clung in thick ropes from one end of the torn flesh to the other. What remained of her once luxurious white coat began to shed, falling down in a shower of thin, white hairs that coated the ground around her lick snow, while her mane grew and thickened and changed, falling over her face and hiding the gruesome changes it was undergoing behind a shroud of purple hair. Pinkie watched as Rarity’s muzzle shifted and changed, receding back into her face while bone and teeth and skin alike violently and loudly reoriented. Thin, spindly digits clawed at the ground, sprouting from the bulging, bony growths that had pushed their way out of her hooves. Worst of all, her back legs snapped forward with a sickening crack, reversing, bending forward and sinking to the ground.

The moans of pain subsided and waned into coarse, ragged breathing as the thing that had once been Rarity sat before them, hunched over on itself, head down and face obscured. It was a grotesque mockery of life, utterly unrecognizable as a pony. Long, reedy limbs that bent in strange ways, grasping claws, fleshy and devoid of hair save for a long, disheveled mop atop the head.For a long, long while, no one said anything. All anyone did was breath. Pinkie Pie swallowed and found her throat tight, blocked by an uncomfortable lump that had swollen right in the middle of her neck.

“Rarity?” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper.

The thing that had been Rarity stirred. Strange digits twitched. Its back arched. Slowly, the head raised. Locks of violet hair, matted with sweat, fell away, revealing an utterly alien face of a creature Pinkie had never seen before. Pale, almost pinkish skin. A small nose, with eyes, wide and panicked, on either side, with a strange mouth underneath framed by soft, pink padding, still stained with a thick, disgusting mixture of blood and other, more solid things. Pinkie felt her entire body grow cold as the thing’s eyes met her own. The mouth opened and closed several times, like the absent, thoughtless movements of a fish looking for food, before a single word in a hoarse, croaking voice came from its throat.

“P-Pinkie?”

Rarity - if it really was still Rarity - looked down at the limbs she now used to support herself. Her eyes twitched and her mouth trembled as she watched new, unfamiliar digits claw at the hard ground beneath them, the plates of hoof-like claws at the end of each of them scraping against the concrete. Slowly, uncertainly, like a baby using their legs for the first time, the shaking limbs rose. The digits flexed in slow and strange clawing motions. The thing gingerly touched its own face, issuing small sounds of fear and worry as they the examined new and unknown features. Each second that passed, its breathing grew more haggard. The claws sunk deep into the soft flesh of its cheeks.

The thing that had been Rarity opened its mouth, and, in the unmistakable voice of Pinkie’s friend, screamed.

---

I have not seen My Little Pony discussed this much online since the hey-day of the Brony community. When the newest season of the animated series released in 2022, I didn’t hear about it. No one was talking about it. It didn’t make more than a tiny ripple in the broader internet culture.

But these diseased ponies are certainly making a splash in the toxic waste-waters of internet culture. Not only is every YouTuber that explains or analyzes or, worst of all, simply reacts to online horror content talking about ponies, but larger, more noteworthy content creators that simply cover different aspects of internet culture are covering it. The ponies are back in a big way, and they’re covered in noxious pustles, drooling blood, and lurching along in search of flesh. It’ll be interesting to see the knock-on effects from this. Will this trend introduce a new generation to the ponies of Friendship is Magic? Will it make new fans of Friendship of Magic and breath new, fetish life back into the withering, terminally ill body of Brony community?

I can’t say the popularity of this trend and it’s viral spread across various platforms is all that surprising. For one, the absurdity alone is enough to catch one’s eye. The concept of Ponies, but Body Horror is one that’s so patently ridiculous that of course it was going to capture the attention of people who make careers showcasing and laughing at weird online phenomenon. But I don’t think most of the attention is coming from ridicule. I think most people seeing this content, to some degree, genuinely like it. Many of the larger content creators covering this fad have all said that not only did they enjoy the content - well, at least the better made ones, that were more akin to analog horror than a glorified Power Point presentation of photoshopped ponies - but that they were actually disturbed by what they saw. I have a pretty high tolerance when it comes to horror material, so I won’t say any of it scared me. But I can’t say that some of the more grotesque pieces didn’t make my skin crawl a little.

And, to be totally honest?

I kind of love it, too.

Like, yes, a lot of it is low effort shoops and slide-shows, but, at the same time, the more graphic art made by actual visual artists who understand the medium… well, maybe I’m just an easy-mark, being a fan of grotesque body horror and horror in general, but I dig it. It’s kind of like a cheesy B-movie - yeah, it isn’t high art, but if you engage with the media on its own terms and accept that, yes, it is silly, ridiculous, and absurd, you can have fun with it the same way you can find enjoyment in something like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes or Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

As mentioned above, more than any other content created by the brony community during their golden age, pony-centric creepypasta always had a tendency to hit escape velocity and breach containment from the fandom. Horror has a way of transcending the trappings of fandom, and that isn’t a phenomenon unique to the pony fandom. If you took a shot for every creepypasta about Pokemon, or Sonic the Hedgehog, or Mario alone, you’d be dead before you got through the first column of stories listed on their respective Creepypasta wikis. Sonic.exe, Pokemon Black, and MARIO all stand as examples of this. Even if someone isn’t interested in Pokemon or Sonic or Mario or colorful ponies, they’ll still be interested in the grotesque, pulsating horror in the middle of it.

It’s just human nature to pervert and corrupt innocent things. As stated above, it’s why I believe Pinkie Pie is the most common character to see in pony-centric horror content. And I get it. It’s fun to take these properties and make them all fucked up. Even I, in all my infinite wisdom, sometimes get the urge to take the Pokemon franchise and give it a more realistic (albeit not edgy or grim-derp) spin, because, fuck - the actual people in charge of that property ain’t doin’ much with it.

Post-apocalypse stories have always captured the attention of a wide audience, and, when you have a roster of pre-made characters and throw them into such a situation, the appeal is pretty clear. There’s something inherently fascinating about taking a pre-existing stable of well-known and familiar characters and using them like paper-dolls to play around with the ideas of what would happen to them if, basically, everything in their lives were upended. If society fell apart around them. If, suddenly, their lives were changed, utterly and irrevocably, and that everything they were familiar with was, without warning, different. And not in a good way.

What if, one day, they couldn’t go outside for fear of their health?

What if, one day, the basic necessities of every day life were unavailable to them?

What if they suddenly had to reorient their entire lives to follow strange and unusual rules, rituals, and routines that made their every day lives inconvenient, if not outright dangerous?

What if they were suddenly afraid to be around those they cared about? What if they couldn’t see them? What if circumstances made them hesitant to even be around the people they love most?

And what if those circumstances turned people they once considered close friends, if not family… strangers? What if those that they trusted the most were, overnight, untrustworthy? Unreliable? Dangerous? What if all the people who made their life worth living were suddenly threats to their very existence?

I wonder why such a concept might strike a chord with people in 2024?

---

“I think she’s dead.”

“She’s not dead. I think. She might be in a hyper-glycemic coma, though.”

“Oh, good heavens. Did she eat another Costco cake all by herself?”

“Did she, um - did she aspirate a skittle again?”

“Aw, hell. Don't tell me she took a damn pill she just found layin' on the ground a second time.”

“No, no, no. She didn't do any of that.”

“Oh, thank goodness.”

“She was trying to see how many of those cosmic brownie snack cakes she could eat in one sitting.”

“She was doing what?”

“Bro… how many did she eat?”

“I lost count around twenty three.”

Philomena Diane Pye - better known to her friends by her childhood nickname of Pinkie, stemming from her penchant for the color - flung herself upright. She was only dully aware of the small crowd that had accrued around her stepping away, giving her more space. She jerked her head around, surveying her surroundings and sending long, unruly curls of hair dyed an aggressively bright shake of magenta slapping against her face. It looked as if she was in one of the less trafficked and more remote wings of a more obscure building on the campus of the community college she attended, though she wasn't entirely sure why she was there, or why she'd been laying on the floor. Her confusion turned to excitement as she saw that the onlookers were her friends. Well, she considered pretty much everyone she met a friend, but these were her best friends. They were all there - Tiffany Sparks, Rachel Diamandis, Raine Bowe (though she'd always prefered her own nickname, Dash), Felicia Shies, and Abigail Jackson. None of them were smiling. In fact, most of them looked concerned. Except Abigail. She just looked kind of disappointed.

Pinkie still smiled.

“Oh. My. God. You guys - I just had, like, the craziest dream.”
Her friends exchanged looks with one another that Pinkie didn’t really understand. Abigail placed her hands on her hips, staring down at her from beneath the brim of the cowboy hat she always wore.

“Was it another one of them, ah - them pony dreams you been gettin’?”

“Oh my God, yes,” Pinkie gasped. “And - and - and you were there!” Abigail flinched as Pinkie jabbed a finger, covered in several bright bandages of various neon colors, in her direction. “Yeah, yeah! It was you and me and there was, like - the crazy sickness, or something? And it was kinda like a zombie apocalypse, except, like -” She turned to Rachel, who was staring at her funny (but not in a ha-ha funny way). “Yeah. You were there, too! And - but you - you were a pony, but you had this, like, disease, and you turned… into a person.”

“I… I did what?” Rachel looked uncomfortable, like Pinkie had just accused her of telling a lie. 

“You turned into a human,” Pinkie reiterated. “You turned into a person from a pony! But it was, like, really gross, with, like, all your bones cracking as your little pony body stretched out and you were all, like -” Pinkie did her best imitation of the squelching sounds of pony-Rachel’s grotesque transformation she recalled from her dream. She didn't do it much justice, but it was still a good try. “Dude,” she heaved. “It was so real… I don't even think it was a dream. I think I'm, like… seeing things that are actually happening in some other universe. Where we're little ponies.”

Abigail sighed. “Girl, you have got to stop watching them dang multi-verse movies.”

“Yeah, yeah, that's, um - that's wild, Pinkie. That’s real crazy,” said Tiffany. She adjusted her glasses and smiled, though it wasn't a very big one. “Did… did you remember to take your meds this morning?”

Pinkie nodded hard. She took her meds every morning, right after she brushed her teeth. At least, she usually did. Unless she forgot. She was pretty sure she'd taken them that morning. But would she remember something she forgot?

Uh-oh.

“Well,” Tiffany said as she checked her watch with a sigh. “It's almost one. We should probably start heading to class. Do you, um… do you feel alright?”

“Yep!” Pinkie chirped. “I feel better than alright. I feel like I could survive a horrible plague that would wipe out ninety-five percent of the population!”

“Might not wanna be talkin’ like that when ya get to class,” Abigail muttered. “People are gonna stare. More than they already do.”

Raine extended a hand, which Pinkie accepted with a loud clap of skin. With a grunt, she pulled Pinkie to her feet. As they all began to walk for the exit, Raine stayed by her side.

“So, uh - was I in your dream?” asked Raine. 

Pinkie shook her head. “Nah. You weren't there.”

“Oh.” Raine looked a little disappointed, but she bounced back quick. “That sucks. I think I'd be, like, the best person you could have around if the world was comin’ to an end.”

“I dunno,” Pinkie said with a shrug. “No offense, Raine, but I feel like you'd actually die first. Again. No offense.”

Raine balked. “Dude. Seriously? Come on. If there were, like, a zombie apocalypse or monsters or something, I'd totally be like - hey. Watch this.” She paused to perform some enthusiastic but awkward karate chops, slicing through the air with small grunts of exertion, and nearly swatting Felicia across the face as she did. “See that? No zombie could even get close enough to sniff me. Not with moves like that.” 

Pinkie opened her mouth to explain her perfectly rational, reasonable, and well-thought out argument as to why Raine would probably be the first among them to get torn limb from limb by a hoard of zombies, especially with moves like that, when -

Someone sneezed. 

---

As I said before - Americans are great at ignoring things. It’s why we were sitting inside watching a homosexual meth addict animal trafficker act like a fool on television while the largest wealth transfer in human history was pulled off right out from under our noses, and, even if we got the inkling that something might just be a little off, most people were content to shrug and go back to their couch. It’s why there’s a senile idiot and a life-time grifter in the highest office of the land, blithering and defecating himself while his handlers and their friends in high places continue to loot this country for everything its worth. Crime, drugs, unemployment, isolation, depression, and deaths of despair soar, and most people seem okay with pretending that it just isn’t, even as their catalytic converters are swiped out from under their car, gas prices shoot into the stratosphere, and it cost $15.25 to buy a McDouble that used to be on the Dollar Menu on a lunch break that used to be paid for while a tweaker overdoses on imported fentanyl that came across a border that exists on a map and nowhere else only two feet away.

This willful ignorance is a defense mechanism. Realistically, what can any one person do about these greater macro-societal? You can keep your own house clean and your own finances in order and your family taken care of, but anyone who is in a position of power to actually do anything to change things seems expressly and flagrantly uninterested in doing so. So, really, all one can do is keep their head down, shut up, and focus on what’s in their immediate purview.

We like to think this American steadfastness is unique to us - a quality imbued by the rugged frontiersmen and boundary-pushing profit-seekers that left a sclerotic Europe behind to forge a new destiny and tame a new land. That is true, to a degree, but I’d argue it’s also a remnant of the classic British stiff upper lip of the founding stock and, even more so, the English Calvinist puritans that preceded them and left an indelible and over-sized impact on the nascent culture. But Western Europe as a whole has a culture of put up and shut up. While many other cultures across the world have utilized other means as a way of coping with mental duress - meditation, group activities such as song and dance, a little bit of animal sacrifice, so on and so forth - Western Europe has a distinctly stolid approach to the hardships and life, and the solution has always been twofold - either talk to a priest in the confession booth, or sit down, take a shot of something strong, and get back to work. These days, we take much the same approach, though our culture seems to have swapped the liquor bottle for a pill bottle, and firewater for pharmaceuticals to keep you comfortably dumb and whistling Dixie as the world falls apart around you. Perhaps this is some greater resonance of the strong martial culture of Rome, Greece, and the Indo-Europeans that has emanated through the ages. I couldn’t really say.

And, I must stress here that, despite mental health never being more openly discussed in our culture before, we, as a society, have never taken mental health less seriously than before. The only reason that you see YouTube ads for Call-In “Therapists” on Zoom or hear talking heads in the media make hollow chatter about depression and anxiety and the importance of being open about them is not because we, as a culture, have suddenly decided to take these things seriously. It’s quite the opposite. Whenever a suicide takes place, there’s a lot of empty talk about reach out and get help and having a serious conversation, but, on a macro-cultural scale, no one is interested in talking about it, and sincere help is in scarce supply.

Mental health has been commodified. There’s a lot of talk about all these things. There’s not a lot being done to address the underlying cause of these mental health maladies saturate our society from the ground up.

We are a profoundly sick people.

And these issues are not things that go away on its own. You can’t just shut your eyes and hope they work themselves out. It takes time, effort, and, above all, dedication to process them and work it out of your system. Often times, it doesn't go away at all, and persists as a stain on the fundamental fabric of what makes a person who they are. It's not unusual that the stains inflicted on a person by their worst trauma will simply become part of who they are. That stain can fade with time. It can be scrubbed at. It can be bleached. But, much like the red wine your drunk aunt spilled on your mom’s white sofa that one Thanksgiving… it never truly goes away. And, no matter how much it fades, no matter how dim it becomes or how easy it may be to overlook, there will always be those times when you catch sight of it and you can't just ignore it. It will be as bright, vivid, and ugly as the day it was put there.

This is natural. This is normal. This is part and parcel of the human experience. Grief, loss, trauma - in a way, those are a toll that must be paid for the privilege of being alive. It's something that all of us, at one point or another, will contend with. To have is to lose. To love is to grieve. To feel is to hurt. Terribly so. A person cannot have one without the other, and I think that much of the reason we grapple so heavily with these more than at any other time in history is that we in the West, as a culture, have forgotten that these things are all intrinsically tied to one another, and one cannot exist without a complimentary opposite. We firmly believe that we can have the metaphorical cake and, metaphorically, eat it, too.

These negative antipodes to the things that make life worth living must be dealt with in healthy, productive ways. Otherwise, the stains they leave will grow, and, in time, if left unchecked, will come to consume a person entirely, and it will manifest accordingly. Especially in ways that even the bearer of the burden are usually unaware of. Trauma is slippery like that. It can worm its way out unwittingly. It can control someone, and they’ll never even know it.

And, if someone can’t consciously talk about trauma, if they can’t express the anguish, if they can’t even acknowledge that it happened at all without being shamed, humiliated, shouted down, and being called a lair… how are those emotions expressed? Much like an awful churning in your stomach, the burbling and bubbling of bile, that nasty, unmistakable, and unignorable tickle in the back of your throat and the building pressure in your esophagus… you can’t hold it back forever.

It has to come out somewhere.

1. It could also be a kidney stone, but at the same time, it wasn't exactly the right spot, and I don’t have a diet that’s conducive to creating kidney stones. Not that it really matters, but still.

2. Most videos I watched on this phenomenon verbalize this name as Osu-shat, but I belive that it’s actually pronounced like Osu’s Hat, and is likely a reference to the popular rhythym game, Osu!

3. Apparently, this copy of the story on the dedicated Pony Pasta wiki has been somewhat altered, but I’m actively choosing to believe this is what the original text looked like.

4. I think there’s also no coincidence that Rarity and Fluttershy are also almost always portrayed as infected victims, as well… but I’ve given enough critical analysis of a children’s show about talking cartoon horses as it is.