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"The fear of blood tends to create fear of the flesh" -Silent Hill's tagline |
The Silent Ponyville series is a Crossover between My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic and the Silent Hill series by Jake-Heritagu. So far the series has stayed away from Silent Hill's mythology and has opted for an approach to each story that is reminiscent of Silent Hill 2. Can be found here.
The first story starts out with Pinkie Pie waking up from a terrible nightmare, the worst in a long string of nightmares. Weary after two weeks of almost no rest, and depressed by the content of her nightmares, she seeks help from her friend Twilight Sparkle, hoping that the unicorn's booksmarts and magic can help her. It does. After Twilight casts a spell to delve into Pinkie's mind, Pinkie wakes up in a fog filled and dilapidated version of Ponyville, with no idea of what's going on. With nothing but a cryptic note and a lantern to guide her, Pinkie sets out to learn why she is having her nightmares. Is she able to find the truth? Or does the sinister, twisted version of Ponyville cause her to meet her end?
Each major story in the continuity has multiple endings, paying further homage to the traditions of Silent Hill, although each one has a canon ending where everything turns out for the best. However, that does not prevent the other endings from being Downer Endings on the level of Silent Hill's, enough so even to provoke the fans to start calling the author a monster. One alternate ending to Silent Ponyville 2 even prompted one fan to write a Fix Fic just because he found it that depressing of an ending.
Silent Ponyville Chronology:
- Silent Ponyville 1
- Too Shy For A Rainbow
- Silent Ponyville 2
- Silent Ponyville: Reunion (a story written not by Jake-Heritagu, but by Brony17. It started as Recursive Fanfiction, but the author added it to the canon. In-progress.)
- Study of the Mind Delve
- A Rainbow's Surprise
- Silent Ponyville 3 (announced, in-progress)
- Silent Ponyville 4 (TBA)
- Silent Ponyville 5 (TBA)
The Silent Ponyville series is a big progenitor of Recursive Fanfiction, with several stories either complete or in progress. A list of the major ones can be found below:
- Silent Ponyville: Blood Chronicles.
- Silent Ponyville: Setting Sun. (AU sequel to Blood Chronicles)
- Silence of Ponyville.
- Silence of Ponyville: The Shop. (set during Silence of Ponyville)
- Silent Ponyville: Darkness Scoots.
- Silent Ponyville: Catch and Reweave. (sequel to Darkness Scoots)
- Silent Ponyville: Spooky Song.
- Silent Ponyville: Loving Memory. (AU to the original Silent Ponyville 2)
Tropes are separated according whether they are common for the whole Chronicles, part of the main or the side stories. The same trope can still appear in several categories, if they're character relevant or relevant to the respective continuity.
Common tropes for the whole of the Silent Ponyville Chronicles:[]
- All Just a Dream: No, really the whole Silent Ponyville thing, and monsters included are literally the protagonists' twisted parts of their subconscious, but the dream can kill the pony while sleeping..
- Abandoned Hospital: Explored in Silent Ponyville 2 and Blood Chronicles.
- Alien Geometries: Memories of locations tend to disregard their initial positions and move to wherever they're needed- even if that means distorting the fabric of space and time. In Silent Ponyville 2 for example, in the Otherworld Fluttershy falls down a hatch in a house in Ponyville, goes through a tunnel and enters a house that is in Cloudsdale, a pegasus city built in the sky. Justified as her trauma happened in her hometown, not in Ponyville.
- Blood Chronicles lampshades this early on when the protagonist remarks to himself that the schoolhouse could only physically contain two classrooms at the most-- only to find it to be a large, public school-sized building on the inside.
- Alternative Continuity: Due to Recursive Fanfiction, numbers thriving.
- Ascended Fanon: The Silent Ponyville's author sometimes adopts details from the side stories into his canon.
- Blood Spattered Innocents
- Body Horror: If the monsters in the stories weren't enough of this trope for you, there's also MANY examples of this in the fanart section of the Deviant ART Group- some are based on monsters from the stories, while others are original designs.
- Chaos Architecture: The protagonists never know if the room they just left or the path they walked will be the same if they turn around and head back.
- Dark World: Trope says it all.
- Drone of Dread: The sirens signify impending world-shifts.
- Enemy Detecting Radar: All of the noise variety so far.
- Epiphanic Prison: The Otherworld is this for each character who gets drawn into it. It customizes to their personal most traumatic memories and experiences, trapping the character on several levels while forcing them to face these traumas to move forward. The ultimate epiphany is to let go of their past and negative feelings at which point they wake up.
- Psychological Torment Zone: Once again, the Other World, as described above.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: A whole freaking town.
- Fix Fic: While not totally meant as one, Jake's inclusion of both Slenderpony and Cupcakes!Pinkie was a result of reading some shoddy Slenderman fanfics and Cupcakes respectively.
- The aforementioned alternate alternate ending to Silent Ponyville 2 deserves mention here because Silent Ponyville's main author, Jake, thought it was good enough to make it an official alternate ending for Silent Ponyville 2, and even declared it canon to the original alternate ending's AU.
- Also, the first full-length Recursive Fanfiction Silent Ponyville story, Blood Chronicles, was based off of an Original Character created for the sole purpose of killing The Colt in two equally disturbing and highly gruesome ways in the short side story Spilled Blood and its alternate perspective Mind Screw sequel, New Bloodstains.
- Foreshadowing: Part of the Mindscrew, another homage to the traditions of Silent Hill.
- Genius Loci: Much like Silent Hill, it seems highly probable that the memory town itself is sentient somehow- particularly after Study of the Mind Delve confirms that an external force has been changing the spell's effects.
- Harmful to Minors: The vast majority of the protagonists.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: The actual purpose of the Mind Delve Spell is to grant the patient access to all their memories, even the hidden/surpressed, in order reveal traumatic experiences and deal with them. Too bad an alien force hitches it sometimes for hellish rides, manifesting the patient's personal demons and mixing them with the memories. As of Silent Ponyville 3 and in the side stories, however, other ways have been introduced with which the main characters are drawn into Silent Ponyville / the Otherworld in general.
- Killed Off for Real: When a character dies in the Otherworld they also die in the real world.
- Multiple Endings: Both completed Silent Ponyville One and Two have several alternate endings, most of them either Downer Endings or joke endings, with one canon ending that for both stories is the only true "good" ending (though there are arguably two good endings for SP 2). And the ponies have to really have to work for them. The same goes for the side stories Blood Chronicles and Darkness Scoots.
- Nightmare Sequence: The otherworld sequences, especially Otherworld Sugar Cube Corner. Just guess what this links to.
- Oh Crap: In-universe all the time.
- Ominous Fog
- Posthumous Character: While this has not been a confirmed trend for all of the Silent Ponyville stories, both Silent Ponyville and Silent Ponyville 2 revolve around the fate of Pinkie's little sister, Bellamina and Fluttershy's mother respectively.
- Recursive Fanfiction: Has developed some rather good ones, such as Blood Chronicles (Twilight accidentally draws herself and a Serial Killer Killer / Deadly Doctor into the cursed town) and Darkness Scoots (an OC who seems to be the arbiter of the Mind Delve spell is forced into cursing Scootaloo).
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Colt in Silent Ponyville 1, Demitri/Dexter in Blood Chronicles, and the unnamed mare from the Ask The Colt tumblr.
- Lampshaded repeatedly in the Ask The Colt Tumblr.
- Rule of Symbolism
- Sequel Escalation: First fic simply had Pinkie Pie entering the Fog World. Second fic had her, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash together (though not for long). Third one begins with the Halo of the Sun itself manifesting, deflecting Celestia's attempt to dispel it, and manifesting the Fog World for everyone.
- Adding to that, due to the Otherworld adapting to its victim's powers, Twilight fights a monster in the second chapter that would have been a boss monster in Pinkie or Fluttershy's Otherworld in terms of strength and agility. And she does so by wielding a sword with her magic!! The main character using an actual weapon is a first for the original Silent Ponyville stories.
- The sequel/side-story to Blood Chronicles, Setting Sun, starts with Pinkie in a dream, facing the Colt's spirit who intends to kill her. A triangular symbol sucks him in before he can go through with it, which also takes the various foals Pinkie saw in her dream, who are maybe or not other spirits. When waking up, she notices not only she's brandishing the wound the Colt inflicted on her, but also that all of Ponyville is screaming in horrible nightmares. And later the same force kills every prisoner in Canterlot's prison as well as the guards, one of whom the power possesses to overwhelm Celestia and sedate her.
- Shout-Out: To both the fanon concepts of Cupcakes and Slenderpony (see Fix Fic above).
- Surreal Horror
- Trauma Conga Line / Deus Angst Machina: If it didn't happen in the protagonist's past, you can be CERTAIN it will happen in the town, with severity Depending On the Author.
- Troubled Backstory Flashback: The town seems to enjoy forcing characters to relive the worst moments of their lives in as much vivid detail as possible.
The Main story Silent Ponyville contains examples of:[]
- Abusive Parents: Oh dear god, Fluttershy. If it's not her mother forcing her incredibly young daughter who doesn't have a concept of death yet into mercy-killing her, then it's her father's attempt at killing her, followed by systematically abusing her and attempting to ruin her life. Unsurprisingly, they're amongst the most hated of the characters in the series, even beyond the Colt, a character who's modus operandi was KILLING AND EATING CHILDREN, Cupcakes style.
- Although, to be fair, the Colt does have a few redeeming characteristics that they don't.
- Actual Pacifist: Fluttershy during the whole Silent Ponyville 2 story, she never killed a single monster, even if it almost killed her. Pinkie Pie almost counts, but she will fight back if she sees no other choice. But then again, not really, since she has three known kills, with the possibility of there being several more. It's implied that during SP 2 she would attack her Cupcakes persona on sight.
- Adult Fear: Lance lost his wife to an incurable sickness.
- Twilight hasn't only to fear for her safety but for Spike's as well, as their first encounter with monsters showed.
- All Just a Dream: Played straight until Silent Ponyville 3. Then the fog rolled into the real Ponyville...
- Break the Cutie: And how. If what happens to Pinkie in 1, and Fluttershy in 2 doesn't qualify, then this troper can't imagine anything that DOES. And from the look of it, 3 is shaping up to do the same to Twilight...
- Kill the Cutie: Prevalent in the 'bad ends'. One particular bad end in 2 was so soul-crushingly depressing that it prompted the aforementioned Fix Fic, as well as claims of the author being a Complete Monster.
- Break the Haughty: Similarly, Lance in Reunion.
- Creepy Doll: The headless Mannequin is an enemy in Silent Ponyville 2.
- Lance stumbles into a room full of mannequins. They are scary at first because he didn't see them in the darkness before he lit the room and saw what they are. Still, that they are there at all and in such numbers mean something - especially when you think of the Headless Mannequin in Silent Ponyville 2.
- Cutlass Between the Teeth: Pinkie's crazed Cupcakes!self attacks with a butcher knife clenched between her teeth.
- Some of the pony soldier monsters in Silent Ponyville 3 carry and use their swords like this, while others drax axes or spears.
- Death Glare: Fluttershy's STARE with which she cowed Pinkie Pie's evil (Cupcakes inspired) counterpart Pinkamina. Later she uses it on nurse Soft Cure who was trying again to be an abusive jerk to her. 'Trying' the keyword.
- Fluttershy seems to have gotten the STARE from her father.
- Did You Just Laugh At Slenderpony?: SP 1 has Pinkie defeating her version of Silent Ponyville with the element of Laughter. Fluttershy scolding Pinkamina, causing her to concede defeat in SP 2 also counts. Yes, THAT Pinkamina.
- Drowning Pit: Fluttershy nearly dies in one after she has stepped down into a cellar, water begins to rise and the way back up is suddenly much longer than before.
- Enemy Detecting Radar: For Pinkie a radio, for Fluttershy her mother's old musicbox, for Lance in Reunion a busted pocket watch. Twilight's is a medallion - through which, as a first, a voice seems to speak.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Twilight's eyes go white as she prepares and executes the killing strike against the monster attacking her.
- Infant Immortality: Averted in Silent Ponyville 1 when filly Bellamina's dies by the Colt's hooves.
- In Silent Ponville 3 Twilight suffers a horrible vision which averts this trope, showing her Spike dead. She feels it's a warning sign. Unfortunately, she's right as the monsters they encounter nearly kill them both.
- Kill'Em All: One ending in Silent Ponyville 2 shows this: Fluttershy, Dash and Pinkie all die if Fluttershy gets killed, because their minds are connected by diving together.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Nobody whom Twilight ever used the Mind Delve Spell on tells her what they experienced in their dreams. They only order her 'to never use that spell again', not specifying why it's so bad. She is understandably frustrated.
- Mood Whiplash: A Rainbow's Surprise's last chapter has Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy celebrating their marriage. The chapter's cheerful mood gets dampened by Celestia's omnious closing words. The actual mood whiplash comes, however, in the prologue of Silent Ponyville 3. We see the same scene again from Celestia's point of view before she tries to destroy the dark energy hiding under the town. But not only does she free the source of the Otherworld, it overwhelms her and materializes the Otherworld in the real Ponyville.
- Memento MacGuffin: Fluttershy's warning signal also doubles as this, being her mother's damaged music box from when she was a child. Also included: Fluttershy's doll (a sign of happier times), Pinkie's pink hair (representing her family), and the saddlebag Lance gave his wife (the start of their relationship).
- My God, What Have I Done?: Silent Ponyville 1 - Pinkie almost says this word for word after she killed the White Filly. Silent Ponyville 3 - While Twilight doesn't use the words after she killed the monster, her reaction of guilt and grief is heartbreakingly similiar to Pinkie's.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Due to Celestia's interference, she freed the force who creates the Otherworld to manifest for everyone in reality. It also seems to have captured her...
- Oh Crap: In-universe all the time. But the really big one comes with Silent Ponyville 3's prologue, with the Halo of the Sun itself manifesting, deflecting Celestia's attempt to dispel it, and manifesting the Fog World for everyone. Lampshaded by the author.
- Old Shame: an in-universe example: Study of the Mind Delve reveals Twilight wrote terrible self-insert fanfiction when she was a filly. Celestia is amused.
- Ominous Music Box Tune: Silent Ponyville 2's equivalent to the radio.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Type O Other, as in 'not really zombies but close enough'.
- Discussed and lampshaded by Spike and Twilight after fleeing from the pony soldier monsters. Spike believes their the real deal, Twilight points out they don't fit all the traditional characteristics of the zombies they know from stories. She still says they look close enough to zombies.
- Shout-Out: The scene in Silent Ponyville 2 with Rainbow Dash standing in a burning room is reminiscent of Angela's final fate in Silent Hill 2, although both scenes carry different backgrounds and symbolism.
- Split Personality Takeover: If Pinkie dies in the fight against Cupcakes!Pinkamina, Pinkie is gone and the latter overtakes her mind and body. It's implied this ending will lead to the story of Cupcakes.
- Tomato in the Mirror:
- Pinkie: Her baby sister Bellamina was killed by a mass murderer killing and eating children. Bellamina didn't trust him, but since Pinkie did, she went along to the 'party'.
- Fluttershy: Her mother's mind was so far gone due to sickness, she forced her innoncent daughter, who hadn't a concept of death yet, into mercy-killing her. Her father tried then to kill Fluttershy because he believed she had killed his wife without a reason before settling for regularly abusing her.
- Tragic Keepsake: The red ribbon Pinkie Pie finds in the first story she ties into a bow in her hair. And then when she returns to the real world and finds the ribbon gone, she asks for some red ribbon to replace the one she had during her journey through Silent Ponyville. She is still wearing that red ribbon in her hair in the most recent entries to the story, which take place several months after the first.
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Both Pinkie and Fluttershy.
- The Un-Reveal: We never learn what exactly Rainbow Dash's version of the Otherworld looked like, what she faced for monsters and, most of all, what her past was before coming to Ponyville.
- Video Game Remake: Jake, as well as developer Mavro Manitari and whoever else is involved with the project but as of yet unlisted, is in the process of releasing Silent Ponyville 1 as an actual video game. Information about game development, as well as the eventual copy of the the game, can be found here.
The side story Silent Ponyville: Blood Chronicles contains examples of:[]
- Acid Pool: The room where Dexter is found has one, which Twilight is suspended above, having clearly been tortured, and is later plunged into the acid, killing her. Represents the way Demitri lost his face and his natural fear of acid.
- Afraid of Needles: The variation on the classic Silent Hill Nurse monster plays on this by attacking with a syringe full of acid.
- Afraid of Blood: Played with- Demitri starts off with a strong Blood Lust (which he hides from Twilight), but towards the end, his fantasies about how all the blood got there slowly fade, but his feelings on blood are never directly stated.
- Alternate Continuity
- Anti-Hero / Byronic Hero
- Asshole Victim: Only two of Demitri's victims' identities are ever disclosed- one was the stallion who murdered his parents right in front of him and threw acid in his face, and the other was The Colt from Silent Ponyville 1. Also, Demitri makes it abundantly clear that he only ever kills murderers- although he is very quick to jump at the possibility of a pony being a murderer.
- The Atoner: Demitri, in Ending 4.
- Anvil on Head: Game Destroyer, the author's Author Avatar, drops an anvil on the original Silent Ponyville's author's avatar, as "punishment" for the extensive Fluttershy abuse in Silent Ponyville 2.
- Auto Cannibalism: One of the ways Demitri tortures The Colt in New Bloodstains. The Colt is disappointed in his taste.
- Batman Grabs a Gun: Demitri at the very start of Blood Chronicles, then later, Twilight Sparkle, even though it ends up not doing her much good.
- Beneath the Mask: Depends on how the reader answered the "Test of Character."
- Black and White Insanity
- Black and White Morality: Played with extensively.
- Black Cloak: Demitri in Spilled Blood and New Bloodstains, and Hooded Pony in Blood Chronicles.
- Black Eyes: Demitri, RIGHT before a kill.
- The Blank: Almost all of the monsters Demitri faces. Slender Mane even shows up for a brief cameo in the woods.
- Bloodstained-Glass Windows: Revelation A's setting, for the Final Boss Battle against Twilight Sparkle.
- Blood Lust: Demitri, full throttle. Or just Dexter, depending on your interpretation on who/what Dexter is...
- Cain and Abel: Demitri's father, Trifecta, and his partner Dark Shade. Exactly how close they were is never made clear, but they were more than likely Heterosexual Life Partners until circumstances forced the latter to murder the former. This trope is also likely why Dexter, the manifestation of Demitri's dark nature, insisted he was Demitri's brother.
- Came Back Wrong: Twilight, in the Bad Endings stemming from "Revelation A".
- Color Coded for Your Convenience / Convenient Color Change: Demitri's eyes change from their normal brown to red to black as Dexter gains more control over Demitri's actions. Also, in Revelation B, Dexter reappears with a contrasting Palette Swap color scheme.
- Color Contrast: One of the big themes throughout, the most obvious being the many Black/White contrasts, but there are also numerous examples of other contrasting colors, the most predominate being the contrasting of green acid contrasting red blood and Twilight's purple coat.
- Contemplate Our Navels
- Coup De Grace Cutscene: Demitri tends to finish off bosses that can talk by holding them at gunpoint and engaging in a final conversation before delivering a final headshot as a Finishing Move.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Poor Demitri...
- Dead All Along / Dying Dream: The "Game Over" ending.
- Deadly Doctor: The main character Demitri, who was a surgeon before he was "dismissed".
- Death By Origin Story
- Death Glare: Twilight and Demitri exchange a fair number of these throughout the story.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Though not actually touching her at the time, Twilight dies while Demitri holds her with his magic, having caught her to late to save her from her Cruel and Unusual Death.
- Doesn't Like Guns: Oddly enough, Demitri- he frequently wonders aloud to himself why he even brought a gun with him at all, since he NEVER uses them to kill ponies, normally. Likely due to how his parents died. Also, in one of the bad endings, Demitri shoots himself with it.
- Also, Twilight herself bears animosity to firearms, but mainly due to their association with violence.
- Dr. Jerk: Demitri, before he fled the profession after cutting off a patient's face and dismembering their corpse. So much for the Hippocratic Oath...
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette / Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Demitri as well as his mother, in the Redemption ending. His father and Dexter's true form in Revelation B both invert these tropes.
- Enemy Within: What Dexter eventually turns out to be.
- Enemy Without: Dexter in the Good Endings stemming from "Revelation B"
- Evil Orphan: Arguably Demitri, despite his being Happily Adopted
- Face Stealer: Part of Demitri's MO.
- The Faceless: The hooded pony that begins stalking Demitri after the battle with Dexter.
- Fake Memories
- Finishing Stomp: Demitri seems particularly fond of these with standard enemies, and is there as a Shout-Out to Silent Hill's traditional gameplay. May be a way of invoking Kick Them While They Are Down for Demitri without the Kick the Dog implications.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Arguably Demitri and Twilight.
- Forgiveness: Deconstructed.
- Forgiveness Requires Death: Revelation B has Demitri confront the Hooded Pony that has been tormenting him through the final act and kneel before him, expecting to be killed or receive some sort of punishment. Instead, the Hooded Pony simply lays his hoof on him and a warm feeling comes over him.
- Freudian Excuse: Demitri himself deconstructs this, realizing Dexter was never responsible for his start of darkness but he decided on his own to give into his urges. Dexter is just the most malevolent part of himself that enjoys tormenting and killing others.
- Gainax Ending: The extremely and deliberately ridiculous "ZOMBIE" Joke Ending.
- The other two Joke Endings- "UFO" and "GD"- also could count.
- Game Face: Demitri takes off his mask to reveal his true face to The Colt in New Bloodstains, and to Twilight in Revelation A in Blood Chronicles. In both cases, those who see his face don't live to tell about it.
- Genre Savvy: Demitri, partly due to having gone extensive psychological assessment as a child, and partly due to being a criminal fugitive and knows most forms of self-defense in case he were ever to be discovered and pursued.
- Give Me a Sword: Demitri gives Twilight his gun and his pager when they decide to split up in the hospital.
- Happily Adopted: Demitri ended up in a happy household that is seen to have genuinely loved and cared for him growing up, encouraging to use his talents productively.
- Harsher in Hindsight / Hilarious in Hindsight: The story starts off with the protagonist conspiring with prison guards to get "alone time" with a convicted child murderer, whom he brutally murders, setting the later events in motion. One year later, cue Silent Hill: Downpour...
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Both times] Dexter dies, Demitri uses the shotgun he took from Dexter to finish him off.
- Improbable Weapon User: Demitri uses a surgical scalpel as his only melee weapon, and relies on it surprisingly often. Justified, though, since it was Demitri's Weapon of Choice as a surgeon-turned-serial killer, and no other blade is present throughout the story.
- Hollywood Acid: The "wrapped-up" monsters spray the stuff from their chests, the monster nurses attack with syringes FILLED WITH ACID, and the room where Demitri fights Dexter features an Acid Pool. All of which allude to how Demitri lost his face.
- I Owe You My Life
- Kill'Em All: Both of the Bad Endings, and the GD Ending.
- The Killer in Me: Inverted. Demitri spends the entire time thinking he is fully responsible for his actions, and is shocked to discover that he has an alter-ego that was actually doing all the killing.
- Latex Perfection: Demitri uses a special chemical to turn the faces of his victims into these kind of masks, and constantly wears one to hide his own horrifically mutilated face. Also, Demitri is seen wearing an actual latex example of this trope during a flashback of his last day as a surgeon.
- Leave Behind a Pistol: What Dark Shade was afraid Demitri's father would do, and why he killed him and his wife.
- Leaning on the Furniture / Rebel Relaxation: Demitri does a sitting/lying version of this pose, complete with Badass Arm-Fold. May also count as Slouch of Villainy.
- Let's You and Him Fight: Revelation A.
- Man in White: Demitri.
- The Mole: Demitri's father and his fellow officer, Dark Shade. Leads to the latter killing the former and his wife.
- Moral Sociopathy
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Why Dexter kills Twilight.
- Natural Spotlight: Draws Demitri's attention to the Test of Character in the classroom, and then later Twilight is found moping in the gym under one.
- Never Found the Body: It's never said how Demitri deals with the bodies of his victims- except for their faces, which he keeps as masks. The exception is his first victim, Dark Shade, whom he left in pieces and scattered about the OR.
- No Face Under the Mask
- Note to Self:: The mad scribblings on the wall reading things like "DO NOT OPEN" were written by a young and very frightened Demitri.
- Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Dexter, before being locked deep within Demitri's mind after using Demitri's body to attack and nearly kill a school bully.
- Not with the Safety On, You Won't: Unsurprisingly invoked when Demitri tries to teach Twilight how to use a gun before they decide to split up. Also, it should be noted that the gun in question is a revolver, meaning it probably wouldn't have a safety at all.
- Except that guns are said to be almost NEVER used in Equestria, meaning that the ones that WERE made would probably be designed to be as deliberately difficult for an untrained novice to use as possible.
- OOC Is Serious Business: Twilight's uncharacteristically emotional behavior is noticed by Demitri after it dawns on him that he has been unusually more open and less careful with his words around Twilight than he would be under normal circumstances, and begins to suspect that it may be an effect of the town.
- The author has insisted on multiple occasions that this was intentional, which seems to imply that the unusual behavior of the characters might indeed be the town's way of playing on Demitri's fear of having his Dark Secret exposed.
- Pay Evil Unto Evil
- Poetic Serial Killer: Demitri, particularly in New Bloodstains.
- Prophetic Names: "Demitri" is a Portmanteau of "demi", which means "half" or "in two", and the name "Dimitri", which is a derivative name of Demeter, the Greek goddess of harvest. Both duality and "harvesting" (that is, the association between harvest and Judgement Day/Death themes) end up becoming key themes throughout everything Demitri in Demitri's life from his parents' death onwards.
- Psychic Surgery: Justified by the fact that Demitri is a unicorn with magical abilities, though it's mentioned several times that Demitri was considered a god among ponies when it came to surgical operation regardless of magical ability. Lampshaded by The Colt in New Bloodstains when Demitri practices his art on him, successfully managing to remove The Colt's own stomach from his chest, force him to eat it, and still have time to do a number on his intestines and organs before The Colt finally bleeds out.
- Recursive Fanfiction
- Redemption Equals Death: Lampshaded and brutally parodied in the "GD" Joke Ending.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni / Sibling Yin-Yang: Demitri and Dexter.
- Red Right Hand: Demitri's true face, which he keeps hidden under a mask made from the face of one of his past victims.
- Revolvers Are Just Better
- Scars Are Forever: Demitri's true face.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Dexter, who was sealed deep within Demitri's mind through rigorous psychological therapy, though he has a habit of breaking out whenever Demitri is about to kill.
- Serial Killer Killer
- Shotguns Are Just Better
- Shout-Out: Several:
- Most obviously, Demitri is a blood-obsessed Serial Killer Killer whose parents were killed right in front of him. And, in case the reference wasn't blatant enough already, his dark side is even NAMED after Dexter.
- The Lying Figure from Silent Hill 2 appears, except restrained with a plastic-like membrane as opposed to skin and represents different things.
- Dexter, Demitri's Alter Ego, refers to Demitri as his "brother". Also, the second phase of his Boss Battle has him using a hopping-from-perch-to-perch tactic similar to that of The Fear from Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater.
- Demitri used to work in Operating Room 18-OR, and the song "Turn Around, Look At Me" is used to signal the presence of a boss monster.
- Demitri cuts off his victims' faces and occasionally wears them as masks Hannibal Lecter-style.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: "There is someone... Walking behind you... Turn around... look at me..."
- Start of Darkness
- Strapped to An Operating Table: Implied to happen to most of Demitri's victims, and his use of a scalpel as his Weapon of Choice suggests at the very least that his victims are always restrained somehow. We see him actually use an operating table for his first kill in a flashback in Blood Chronicles, while the short stories Spilled Blood/New Bloodstains have The Colt strapped to the very table he himself had used to kill his victims on.
- Take That Me: Game Destroyer in the GD Ending.
- This Is Unforgivable!: Young Demitri, to Dark Shade. Dark Shade responds by throwing a vile of what turned out to be acid in Demitri's face.
- Through the Eyes of Madness / Unreliable Narrator: Both Spilled Blood and New Bloodstains tell the same story, only from different perspectives. However, since both perspectives are from two equally insane murderers, and the fact that some events change between their recounts, it is impossible to say which story is more reliable.
- Treachery Cover-Up: The truth behind Demitri's parents' deaths was covered up by the police for fear of implicating one of their undercover officers. They even went so far as to insist that Demitri's first mask made it impossible for him to talk in public until the situation had died down entirely.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Demitri is seen in a flashback to have stabbed a bully that threatened him half to death with the pocket knife he stole from said bully in his school years.
- Two-Faced: Demitri, in a rare lateral example; he wears a normal face cut off from one of victims that appears normal, but removing it reveals that his real face is horribly burned beyond recognition.
- Uh-Oh Eyes: Demitri, whose eyes change color as he is about to kill/torture someone, normally from brown to red, but also occasionally to black. His Alter Ego Dexter is only ever seen with these eyes, and its heavily implied that the eye color change is a sign of his presence affecting Demitri's actions.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist
- Where It All Began: Most of the interiors of buildings seem to become places where key events that influenced Demitri's descent into becoming a serial killer took place. The exception is Sugarcube Corner, but it holds significance as the reason Demitri wound up in Ponyville in the first place.
- White Mask of Doom: Demitri wears one constantly. It's made from the flesh of one of his past victims.
- Also, apparently he was forced to wear a latex one while working as a surgeon.
- White Shirt of Death: Played with a lot. Demitri's white coat is certainly there for the dramatic "blood against white background" effect, but most of the time its his victims' blood, rather than his own.
- Unsurprisingly played straight for the "Game Over" ending.
- White Void Room: The motel where Demitri's parents were killed, which appears drenched in blood (likely as a Shout-Out to Dexter) near the end of story, and then again in Ending 4, in pristine condition and where his parents converse with him.
- Would Hurt a Child: Dark Shade.
- Your Head Asplode: Dexter. Twice if you count his second death in Revelation B.
The side story Silent Ponyville: Setting Sun contains examples of:[]
- Alternate Continuity: It's not only an AU to the original 'Silent Ponyville' series, but also one to Blood Chronicles.
- Anyone Can Die: Gruesomely hinted at in the prologue: the wounds the ponies suffered in their nightmares carried over into the real world. And then the mysterious force killed both prisoners AND wardens inside the Canterlot prison.
- See entry for Sacrificial Lion.
- Badass Princess
- Crucified Hero Shot: The "Remastered Cover" for the fic drawn by the author himself.
- Dark Reprise: Pinkie is heard singing one of "Giggle At The Ghostly" in the Basement Otherworld of the Shack in Chapter 7.
- Destination Defenestration / Super Window Jump: How Applejack commits suicide/is killed- the broken glass causes her to bleed to death.
- The Dreaded: The executioner pony that appeared in chapter 2 in a painting makes its entrance in chapter 7. The scythe it held is actually its limb, and its presence alone terrifies Celestia.
- Everything's Better with Princesses
- Forced to Watch: What the town itself seems to be doing to Celestia.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Celestia finishes off the Queen Wasp monster by impaling it through her horn, and Rarity is found impaled on a spike in the Otherworld version of the Carousel Boutique.
- Lured Into a Trap: The entity behind the Otherworld in this universe possessed the dead Captain Lance to come close enough to Celestia to sedate her.
- Mirror Monster: Will happen at some point, as the released scene art shows.
- Mood Whiplash: Pinkie's pleasant dream devolves literally into an inferno when she follows a colt inside a house and down into the burning cellar, seeing various other foals on fire. She grabs the same colt she followed to save at least him, but he changes into the Colt - the serial killer who killed her sister.
- Prehensile Hair: Applejack uses it to hold her weapon, a .45 Magnum, which Celestia acquires not too long afterwards, after the rather sudden death of its previous owner.
- Prison: The first setting of Celestia's Otherworld is an seemingly endless (no matter where she looks, she can't see neither ceiling, bottom or walls), abandoned and dark prison.
- Royal Who Actually Does Something
- Run or Die / Fear Is the Appropriate Response: Despite being afraid, Celestia mostly feels (restrained) disgust/pity for the Otherworld's creatures and killed them to save her life. Come chapter 7 where a monster appears whose presence alone sends her into panic and running away before she even sees it.
- Sacrificial Lion: The third chapter poignantly kills off Applejack soon after she is introduced, and then reveals that the rest of the Apple family are dead as well.
- Then, later, Rarity is found impaled in the Carousel Boutique, and a letter from Twilight found in Rarity's bedroom alludes to the fact that another of the mane 6 may already be dead.
- Watching Troy Burn
- Your Mind Makes It Real: The wounds Ponyville's residents suffered in their nightmares carried over into the real world. Justified as it wasn't the usual Otherworld they were in. This one is reserved for Celestia this time.
The side stories Silence of Ponyville and Silence of Ponyville: The Shop contain examples of:[]
- Alternate Continuity
- Doomed by Canon: Knick Knack died in Silence of Ponyville after he entered the Otherworld. The Shop is showing what he experienced during his time there.
- Fan Service: When Knick sees first the back end of a Vile Mare; but their front makes it into...
- Heroic BSOD: [Gr]Annie Smith collapses when she realizes that Knick is dead.
- Killed Off for Real: Knick Knack. The Shop shows his travel through the Otherworld and ultimately why he died.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Not by much but [Gr]Annie Smith is stubborn, confident and strong from the work on her family's farm; Knick Knack is more soft-spoken and less confident than her.
- Off the Rails: Knick Knack is the first (main) character in all Silent Ponyville stories so far who has broken the rules. He has ignored both times the obvious, blue door, and broken open a chained entrance whose locks he was supposed to open with numbers he had found before. He literally goes off the pre-given rails made by both the entity behind Silent Ponyville and his own mind.
- Panty Shot: Knick has a 'Hello, Nurse!' moment when he sees the attractive back end of a filly with panties. She loses then any appeal when she turns around.
- Shout-Out: The Shop introduces enemy ghosts and many holes which break the laws of space and time.
- The Nurses from Silent Hill 2 inspired the Vile Mares as of Word of God.
The side story Darkness Scoots and its sequel Catch and Reweave contain examples of:[]
- Artifact of Doom: Dream Catcher's Mirror
- Genre Savvy: Having lead many others through the nightmares before, Dream Catcher is well familiar with the rules of engagement in place in the otherworld.
- Infant Immortality: Averted in some of the endings of Darkness Scoots.
- Mirror Monster: Not-Dream Catcher (Not-Me)
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Taken to the literal when Dream Catcher breaks the siren.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Both Not-Dream Catcher and Soul Weaver do this quite frequently.
- Reality Warper: Soul Weaver has displayed the ability to change the scenery around him as he sees fit.
- Room Full of Crazy: The Hallway of Drawings, symbolic of all the drawings Dream Catcher did before he lost his sight.
- Rule of Three: The Hydra symbolizes Scootaloo's friendship with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, with all its hardships. One of its three heads is chopped off, representing Scootaloo's disappearance from Ponyville.
- The Character of Dream Catcher has an alter-ego named Soul Weaver, and a doppelganger (Mirror image) whom he calls "Not-Me".
- See You in Hell: Soul Weaver's line: "Fall into your darkest dream, you pathetic excuse for a pony. I'll be waiting for you when you get there."
- Not-Dream steals this line in Catch and Reweave to use on Dream Catcher.
- Shadow Archetype: Dream Catcher's feelings towards Soul Weaver and Not-Dream Catcher.
- Split Personality
- Enemy Within: Soul Weaver
- Torture Cellar: Soul Weaver's version of Dream Catcher's Basement.
- Weirdness Magnet: Dream Catcher and his Dream Walking Ability.