Rainbow Factory

"Now a rainbow's tale isn't quite as nice as the story we knew of sugar and spice

But a rainbow's easy once you get to know it, with the help of the magic of a Pegasus Device"

A pair of young pegasus ponies, Scootaloo and Orion, are getting ready for their final flight exam, which will either make their lives if they succeed, or break them if they fail. But during the exam, a pony twists her wings and catastrophically crashes before their eyes. A chain of events leads to all three of them failing the exam and being taken somewhere unknown, where the glorious city of Cloudsdale won't have to suffer failures such as them.

But the exile turns out to be even worse than expected... Instead of being deported to some unknown land, the three find themselves inside the Rainbow Factory. Barely anything is known about the workings of this place, besides the fact that it produces rainbows. But now, the three are finally about to find out where those beautiful rainbows gracing Equestria really come from...

And Celestia help them all.

Rainbow Factory was first written as a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic-themed song by renowned brony musician Glaze, aka WoodenToaster. While it clearly suggests the cheerful Rainbow Factory depicted in the show is not all it seems, it leaves the actual details to one's imagination. Aurora Dawn later wrote a fanfiction based on the song. Warning: similarly to Cupcakes, this contains canon character "reinterpretation" and is grimdark as fuck.

Find the song here and the fanfic here, but much like Cupcakes before it, there's also a dose of Nightmare Retardant here courtesy of My Little Pony the Mentally Advanced Series.

Rainbow Factory contains examples of:
" : You deserve this, you worthless whore of a foal!"
 * Ax Crazy:
 * Cold-Blooded Torture:
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: pretty much the entirety of the upper-rank Factory officials...
 * Darker and Edgier: the fanfic itself to the show, big time.
 * One "alternate ending" is even darker than the fanfic itself - in it,
 * Disproportionate Retribution:


 * Downer Ending:
 * Et Tu Pluvi Arcus Impetus
 * Fantastic Racism: not exactly racism, but the Cloudsdale society is extremely prejudiced about poor fliers - so much that pegasi who fail their final flight test are exiled somewhere so as to not shame the city.
 * Human Resources:
 * It's All About Me:
 * Jump Scare: Go ahead, click the link and scoll all the way to the bottom, I dare ya..
 * Kill the Ones You Love
 * Man of Wealth and Taste: The manager of the Factory wears a suit. Most Factory workers, even the lower-end ones, do as well, though.
 * Madness Makeover:
 * Morality Chain:
 * Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate: Doctor Atmosphere, arguably. He's not exactly an evil genius, but he's got an eerie vibe about him.
 * Nothing Is Scarier: in the original song, the evils of the Factory are left to the listener's imagination...
 * Not That Kind of Doctor: Doctor Atmosphere explicitely states he's not a medical doctor - he has a degree in engineering, and tells the group that he won't conduct any evil experiments on them.
 * Powder Keg Crowd:
 * Powered by a Forsaken Child:
 * Released to Elsewhere: All the ponies think the flight test failures are exiled to another country, while the reality is quite different...
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
 * Room 101:.
 * The Social Darwinist:  is a type two.
 * You Have Failed Me: