An Apple Sleep Experiment
is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Dark Fic by Magpiepony. It's inspired by the creepypasta The Russian Sleep Experiment.
It all begins when Filthy Rich insists that the Apple family owes him more zap-apple jam. Granny is in debt to him and, as a result, he requests all of the year's zap-apple jam. With all of Equestria being in a drought, it won't be easy to meet this demand in only two weeks.
Applejack begins overworking, but she's not working fast enough for her liking. To make things worse, Big Mac had gotten heat stroke. She asks Twilight to mix up a potion that will keep her awake for a complete day.
The potion works tremendously... a bit too tremendously.
It doesn't wear off after 24 hours like expected. Applejack finds herself unable to sleep at all. As time goes on, this quickly takes a toll on the pony's mental stability — a side effect which bodes disaster for all of Ponyville.
A reading of the fic (complete with fan-art) by TheLostNarrator can be seen here
A sequel to this story, Another Apple Sleep Experiment, has been released, with all four parts being finished.
An Apple Sleep Experiment provides examples of:
- 13 Is Unlucky: Applejack killed 13 ponies before she was arrested.
- A God Am I: At the height of her madness, Applejack believes that she's transcended into terror incarnate.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Filthy Rich. Make no mistake, the show incarnation can be a bit of an asshole at times, but he was at least portrayed as a reasonable pony who respected his deals with the Apples (especially knowing the Zap Apples are the reason he's as rich as he is anyway). But here, he seems to really not care for the Apples period and is willing to screw over Applejack over their deal just to get some more money out of her family. It does not bode well for him.
- While Twilight's show incarnation is far from exempt when it comes to causing problems, she would always own up to her mistakes and find a way to fix them in the end. Here, she not only never tells anyone that the reason Applejack went insane is because of a potion she made, but she throws her under the rug and replaces her with Starlight Glimmer as the Element of Honesty. While it's unequivocally true that it was AJ who insisted to take the potion and went off the deep end, Twilight comes across as just as bad for never saying anything.
- Caught Monologuing: As Applejack gives Rainbow Dash her Hannibal Lecture, Apple Bloom injects Applejack with the cure, at the cost of the use of her legs due to Applejack bucking her into a tree right after being injected.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Lyra is strangled, suffers a skull fracture, gets eviscerated, and then has her face smashed in. She was alive and very much in pain for all of it.
- Dark Fic: The main plot revolves around Applejack losing her grip on reality and graphically killing several ponies. However, most of the darkness comes from the Psychological Horror elements of the story.
- Death of a Child: It's heavily implied at the end that Applejack accidentally killed her little sister Apple Bloom, though we later found out that Apple Bloom was merely paralyzed.
- Downer Ending: The story ends not only with several innocent ponies dead or injured — Apple Bloom strongly implied to be one of the dead (though is actually only paralyzed — but also with Applejack being imprisoned, with no recollection of what she was even imprisoned for and no idea what happened to her little sister.
- Exact Words: Even though Applejack made well over 400 jars of jam, twice the amount Filthy Rich usually gets, he demands every single jar.
- Gardening-Variety Weapon: Applejack uses various garden tools to kill ponies.
- Gaslighting: Twilight tries and fails to do this to Applejack at the end, but she's too overcome with her own horror and guilt to fully deny the existence of the potion.
- Gone Horribly Right: The potion succeeds in keeping Applejack awake all day and night. Too bad it doesn't wear off.
- Gorn: The phraseology certainly gets dedicated when it comes to Applejack's killings and the injuries she receives from bucking too hard.
- Happy Rain: Justified. Twilight was able to end the drought.
- Hero of Another Story: Twilight was working on a spell that could turn salt water into fresh water. After Applejack was arrested, Twilight was able to finish the spell.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Apple Bloom most likely gave her life to give Applejack the cure. She actually didn't die, as revealed in the sequel
- Heroic Second Wind: Seeing the Crusaders approaching Applejack, a badly beaten Rainbow Dash regains her will to fight.
- The Insomniac: Applejack drinks a powerful potion that leaves her physically unable to sleep. After a few days, it takes a toll on her psyche and she starts hallucinating.
- Ironic Echo: When Apple Bloom said that it was unfair that she and the other Crusaders couldn't help make the Zap Apple jam, Applejack responds by saying: "Sometimes you can't have what you want. That's just how life goes." Soon after, when Applejack said that it was unfair that Filthy Rich got to take all the jars of jam, he responds by saying: "Ain't about bein' fair! It's about knowing how to conduct business!"
- Karma Houdini: To an extent, Twilight, who gave Applejack the potion and and refuses to admit to anybody about her involvement with what lead to Applejack doing what she did.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: The same couldn't be said for Filthy Rich. The only downside is that Applejack is too out of it to realize that and is continuing to go after ponies she thinks is him.
- Mature Animal Story: An Apple Sleep Experiment is a psychological horror fic where Applejack accidentally goes on a murder spree and is left for dead by her best friend Twilight.
- Motor Mouth: Applejack speaks to Apple Bloom very quickly while making the Zap Apple jam.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Sweetie Belle is worried that Diamond Tiara would hold the Apple family's financial problems over the Crusaders' (especially Apple Bloom's) heads.
- Precision F-Strike: "I told ya, I don't want yer fucking cure!"
- Replacement Goldfish: Starlight Glimmer is this for the incarcerated Applejack as the new bearer of the Element of Honesty.
- Serial Killer: Applejack turns into one, though she doesn't realize it in her exhausted state. She simply thinks she's beating up Filthy Rich even after she'd already killed him by the time Lyra shows up.
- Sleep Deprivation: Applejack drinks a potion that leaves her permanently unable to sleep. After a few days, she begins hallucinating, boding fatal consequences for anypony she comes in contact with.
- Stunned Silence: How Applejack realizes that Twilight knows what happened to Apple Bloom.
Another Apple Sleep Experiment provides examples (and spoilers for the original story) of:
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: For the actual show, at least. Twilight had chosen to guard over Ponyville to make sure that something like Applejack's rampage would never happen again; and thus, she refused to take over as Ruler of Equestria from Celestia and Luna, who end up not retiring. By the end of the story itself, Twilight has died while the remaining members of the Mane 6 have been taken into custody.
- Big Bad: Apple Bloom is revealed to be the mastermind behind the Mane 5's horrific encounters with Applejack, having unleashed a gaseous version of the sleepless potion upon them while they weren't looking.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Applejack is able to turn Fluttershy's pets against her… except it turns out Fluttershy was hallucinating. She actually killed Angel and the other animals were retaliating.
- Brought Down to Normal: When Twilight teleports to the apple orchard for the final showdown with Applejack, her magic begins to stop working for unknown reasons. And to make sure that she doesn't try flying over the Death Course, Applejack throws a hypergravity potion at her.Applejack: “I take it you don’t fancy the earth pony life, Twi?”
- Composite Character: Starlight Glimmer is still the bearer of the Element of Honesty. Which is why Applejack (actually Twilight) kills her.
- Couldn't Find a Pen: The word "Guilty" is written all over Rarity's room in Sweetie Belle's blood.
- Death Course: Twilight and Rainbow, without flight nor magic, have to go through one from the fringe of the orchard to the farmhouse, where Applejack is waiting for them.
- Dehumanizing Insult: Applejack, seeing Fluttershy as having no mind of her own, calls her a "critter".
- Downer Ending: Apple Bloom got her revenge, but she questions if it was really worth it in the end: Twilight is dead along with even more innocent ponies who did nothing wrong other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Fluttershy has been institutionalized with Rainbow, Pinkie and Rarity likely to join her based on the outcomes of their trials, Applejack is still comatose and, judging from the flatline in the very end of the audio adaptation, is implied to have succumbed to her injuries.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Applejack, after drinking some of Twilight's potions, gains super speed, enhanced vision, immunity to fire, mind control, and shapeshifting. Except not really, as it was all hallucinations on the Mane 5's ends.
- The Ending Changes Everything: While Applejack did escape, she was injured by a guard and left comatose. The encounters with the rest of the Mane 6 were actually hallucinations caused by Apple Bloom releasing a gaseous form of the potion, thus Twilight was the one who killed Starlight, Pinkie Pie killed the Cake parents and burned down Sugarcube Corner, Fluttershy's animals weren't actually brainwashed and she just killed them in a crazed stupor, and Rarity was the one that killed Sweetie Belle.
- Evil Cripple: Not initially evil, but Apple Bloom.
- Faux Affably Evil: Applejack speaks in a very laid-back, if somewhat gruff, way, even as she's taunting the Mane 5 and committing her crimes. Apple Bloom later does the same thing during her confrontation with Twilight before she kills her.
- First-Person Peripheral Narrator: In the audio adaptation, Rainbow Dash's segment is voiced by TheLostNarrator using her Applejack voice. So, when Rainbow Dash and Applejack are fighting, the story is being told from Applejack's perspective.The Fanfic: If Applejack wanted a fight, she’d give her one.The Adaptation: If I wanted a fight, well, she'd best better give me one.
- Foreshadowing: There are several hints in the story that the Mane 5 are hallucinating under the effects of the sleep potions, especially in the audio version. From the fact that Starlight dies confused when Twilight holds her, Mr. Cake glares at Pinkie Pie while he mourns Mrs. Cake's corpse, Pound fights and bites her after she saves him from the fire, Fluttershy's pets do not react to "Applejack" at all, she tells off Rarity for failing to cure her while telling Rainbow that she couldn't be cured, and, in the audio adaptation, the audio distorts when the Mane 5 think or "see" Applejack (not to mention TheLostNarrator's voice being replaced by other people, namely Scribbler Productions, GutiuSerande, and Ice Gaze, as the narrator).
- Holier Than Thou: Twilight actually sees herself as more moral than Celestia, when she compares her fight with Applejack and the resulting fallout, to Celestia's fight with Luna and its resulting fallout. Celestia vilified Luna and made a holiday to celebrate Luna's banishment (and made another holiday to vilify Luna further); Twilight kept Applejack's malignity a secret and made its holiday a day of mourning for Applejack.
- House Fire: Thanks to Pinkie's carelessness in her fight with Applejack, Sugarcube Corner has burned down. To make matters worse, it's eventually revealed that Applejack wasn't even in Sugarcube Corner at all.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: After having locked away Applejack and covering everything up for seven years, Twilight finally gets her comeuppance being put under the torture of the potion gas, and ultimately is killed by Apple Bloom in the very last chapter.
- Kick the Dog: As messed up as it was, there could be made a case made in Twilight's defense about locking up Applejack. However, no such defense can be made for returning Pinkie Pie's letters and lying that Applejack rejected them—thus making Applejack feel more isolated, nor making Applejack believe she killed her sister. That's just a dick move.
- Memorial Statue: Every year, an ice sculpture is carved to commemorate the thirteen ponies that Applejack killed, as well as Applejack herself.
- One-Winged Angel: It seems that Applejack turns into a Timberwolf/pony-like construct monster for Rainbow Dash to fight and kill... and then it's subverted when Rainbow Dash sees Applejack just around the monster's corpse... and what Dash killed was actually Soarin.
- Professor Guinea Pig: Applejack treats herself like one when she drinks Twilight's potions to find the sleep-preventing potion.Applejack: "Guess you better hope these kill me then, huh? Dangerous to combine so much magic… I can only imagine the hell I’m in for if I drink the wrong ones. Not that it matters. I suppose death’s another way out of this hell you’ve saddled me with. Does that make me the experimenter… or the experiment?"
- The Bad Guy Wins: Apple Bloom's revenge's scheme goes off without a hitch, with Twilight dead and the others likely to be institutionalized alongside Fluttershy for their delirium-induced crimes.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Applejack gives one each to her former friends.
- Her speech to Twilight is about how she was hiding and hoping that everyone forgot about what really happened.
Applejack: Yup. That dirty little secret you’ve been trying to hide for years. Betcha thought I would’ve faded into obscurity by now, huh? ‘Fraid not.- Her speech to Pinkie is about how she gave up on Applejack when she believed the lies that she was being told.
Applejack: Twilight made sense. She had to keep up that perfect little image of hers. I wouldn’t expect Dash to give a shit, and Fluttershy’ll do whatever the hell the rest of ya’ll tell ‘er to do. Rarity’s another story, but you Pinkie? What’s yer grand excuse?!- Her speech to Fluttershy is about how she cares more about animals than other ponies, and that she has no opinions of her own.
Applejack: Guess it was too much to ask to keep faith with your friends, when it’s them animals you really give a damn about. Then again, you’re swayed one way or the other by any pony with an opinion, ain’t ya?- Her speech to Rarity is about how she, despite being able to cure Applejack, was too scared to do anything; leading to Apple Bloom's fate.
Applejack: What happened, Rares? What happened because YOU didn’t cure me sooner? TELL ME! I WANT TO HEAR YOU SAY IT! Oh. I see. Yer still lyin’ to yerself, ain’t ya? Ya still think yer innocent.- Her speech to Rainbow is about how she was stupid for thinking that she was able to cure Applejack.
Applejack: That’s what I liked about you, Dash. The only pony I knew without a lick of common sense, just a whole lotta stupid. The only pony who thought she could cure me. Well, ‘You think there’s anything left in here to cure, Rainbow? Do you still believe you’re savin’ me?’- Apple Bloom gives a massive one to Twilight over letting Applejack take the fall for her initial murder spree, and then kills her to finally complete her revenge and give her peace.
Apple Bloom: I don't care. You betrayed her. You left her to rot, thinking y'all can just sweep it under the rug and forgot it. Threw her away like she was nuthin'! Funny how friendship don't mean shit without honesty, huh? - Red Eyes, Take Warning: Applejack and Fluttershy's pets (though it's later revealed that her pets weren't brainwashed and Fluttershy just killed them in a fit of potion-induced-insanity).
- Ruder and Cruder: The sequel is far more profane than the first story.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Rarity believes that Applejack was merely a victim of that accursed potion. Although, it's implied that Rarity was lying to herself.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Subverted. Pinkie started throwing knives at Applejack, but thanks to Applejack's super speed, she dodged them all. Subverted in a different way a few moments later, when Applejack threw a knife at Pinkie, only to kill Mrs. Cake instead.
- Time Skip: This story takes place seven years after the events of the original story.
- Trauma Button: Pinkie Pie refuses to make anything with apples anymore because "apples reminded her too much of sadness".
- With Friends Like These...: Apple Bloom hates Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo for abandoning her. Scootaloo couldn't stand to see her with broken legs, and Sweetie blamed her for what happened.Apple Bloom: Fuck ‘em both ‘s far as I care.
- Would Hurt a Child: Applejack would be willing to kill Sweetie Belle to avenge Apple Bloom. She succeeds. However, it's later reveal that it was Rarity who killed Sweetie Belle.
- Apple Bloom is similarly shown to have no qualms about having the Cake twins endangered in her revenge scheme, let alone likely scarred for life from seeing their parents murdered and their home destroyed.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: The events of this story happened not over the course of three days, but three weeks.Apple Bloom: Ya see, from what I gathered, the Sleepless Potion makes time all fucky for its victims.
