and backrooms
Like a room
Like a tomb
It is nothing
This is nothing
Without a space
Without a breath
To give
To take
To forget
To make
Sometimes right
Sometimes left
Sometimes up
Sometimes down
Forward and backwards
Around and around
We tried
We failed
We cried
We wailed
And in the end
As in the beginning
We can always start
We can always start over
With you
Without you
The form
The formless
But always
But unless
A backup
A backroom
To pick from
To throw away
With
Without
The buzzing
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Well ya certainly gave me a buzz
Congratulations! You have created a story that p*ssed me off more than any other story in my relatively short time on this site!
Considering that I typically consider myself a fairly mellow person, this is quite the achievement!
Bravo.
So that was a thing. I don't really know what else to call it.
9634329 Performance art.
I ... still don't get it. Did this Unicorn Twilight got replaced by an Alicorn Twilight? And did the same happen to Spike after gaining his wings?
9634339
And the Treebrary.
The point I believe this story is trying to make is that once a certain level of growth is reached you can't really go back. Twilight got replaced with a more powerful / 'whole', 'complete' or 'fixed' version of herself. One that could do all the things she as a unicorn, couldn't but is born of the result of her growth.
As she goes through each room and each cycle Unicorn Twilight realizes this more and more. That she is no longer needed and that her job is done so it's time for a more updated and fixed version of herself to take the reigns (as the discarded feathers seem to have hinted).
The description given to the rooms and their appearances all seem like hints to death and growth i.e. Twilight died and was reborn a new.
The maze to me seems like a symbol of imprisonment and the way it appears neverending and shows signs of others also being possibly trapped there remind me of the Minotaur trapped in a maze. A sign that a progression made cannot be unmade, and Unicorn Twilight having completed her duty has been sent to a place where she exists with no other purpose but to simply be.
Like looking at the past and knowing you can't change it and that it will always still be there.
Or...I could be wrong
One step forward and two steps back. I definitely get Lovecraftian vibes from this. Getting lost in a place only to realize that the you that leaves isn’t you. This is reminiscent of Blink in that you are left behind while the newer you goes out.
9634305
It helps to just kick back and enjoy the experience.
9634377
holy shit i love this
9634377
I think this hits the nail on the head. It would make so much sense.
9634718
I want to, I honestly do. But for me, the "experience" was boredly waiting for another chapter to show up, only for it to be a photo of another hallway and three random sentences that repeated one thousand times each.
And then having the whole story get deleted on me, because "avant-garde".
There was barely anything equitable to a coherent plot. I learned nothing. I never even felt scared. All I got out of this story was that I felt like sh*t this morning because I stayed up until almost 1 AM waiting for it to come to some sort of conclusion.
At this point, I can't help but feel a little bitter.
9634377
That is an interesting thought... Wonder how many of "us" are trapped in this "limbo" when we have had life-changing experiences?
Take for example a car crash.
You survived.
You are also dead.
Your old self replaced.
And with this back and forth in this last part got me thinking of Rosalind & Robert from Bioshock.
9634351
heh heh
9634901
And hey dude, that's completely fair. Obviously not everyone's gonna like a story like this. There's nothing wrong with that. Don't feel you need to justify yourself or anything.
9635122
I don't know, it's just... if I can't justify why I hate something, what right do I have to hate it? The fact my comments are currently being swamped in downvotes doesn't really quell those concerns, either. :P
But thanks, though. You made me feel a bit better about having the opinion I did. And in the end, regardless of whether I loved or hated this story, I think it's going to stick in my brain for a while. In that regard, this story has claimed a victory.
9635203
I think shortskirtsandexplosions set out to try something completely unique and different, regardless of whether it would be liked by all or heavily hated. Personally, I like it, though at the same time I can understand why someone such as you would think it's stupid or at least doesn't appeal to you. If everyone liked the same things there wouldn't really be any stories at all.
very
a v a n t g a r d e.
I'm gonna upvote this, but I'm not gonna like it.
Right, I was here last night like most of the people who read this but for those who haven't, I'll just catch everybody up:
This story is based on a creepypasta called "The Backrooms", a sort of eternal limbo of muted yellow tones, florescent bulbs humming, and the smell of old carpet. These "Backrooms" are most often found by accidentally "noclipping through reality", and most of the entrances, for lack of a better word, are in places where reality just feels weaker. Mental Health Clinics in the middle of the night, gas stations down unfamiliar side roads, waffle houses at 3 AM, and the like.
This story took a different spin on it, it seems, and made the Backrooms a sort of limbo where Twilight Sparkle the Unicorn ended up after the events of Magical Mystery Cure. Hence the repeated phrases of "They replaced you", the lavender feathers on the ground, etc. Twilight is endlessly trying to find a way out of this limbo while two voices seem to both encourage her, but demean her at the same time. She never finds this exit and perhaps just accepts that she's been permanently replaced and this limbo is her new reality, it's not very clear.
Honestly, being here from the beginning, seeing this strange story pop up, it's title changing every few minutes, the description changing, the cover art being endlessly duplicated and then changing again, and the chapters appearing and disappearing... It was quite the experience. I won't lie, it certainly threw me for a loop and it made me wonder what was going to happen next. But then the story mysteriously vanished. I assumed for a moment that the mods got tired of this particular story's constant updating and things continuously changing, but here we are, the following day.
For what it's worth, this... experiment was certainly interesting, but after seeing 3 chapters, each one 4 times as long as the last and all of them saying the same phrases over and over again... It got stale. And then the story disappeared. It left a bad taste in my mouth and I don't like admitting that about a story so unique. Credit where it's due, the story kept me intrigued for a time, even let me research a new creepypasta. But I honestly think it fell a bit flat, the big "production" of it was a little too much and by the end of it, I feel that the ending, while creepy in it's vague sense of hopelessness, was disappointing. I put a like on this story in order to track it, and I had hoped to give it a Favorite if the story ever came back, but after the whole production and the lackluster ending, I'm afraid that it's not gonna happen. It was long, tedious, and the sense of mystery faded not long after I scrolled through almost 200,000 words trying to find some sort of secret.
TL;DR:
All in all, this story was creative and a unique take on the writing and reading experience, but I think it tried a little too hard close to the end of it's production. If I had to give it a rating out of 5, I'd give it a 3/5. Worth the read post-production, but the experience of the production was a little bit too much.
I got some weird The Stanley Parable vibes from this. Unsettling, but all together I'm not sure if I like it or not.
I, for one, feels more intrigued by the building in which these photos were taken than by the rest. The empty rooms, the long corridor, ...
9636090
Funny you say that.
I took a single glance at the cover photo, the description, and the chapter titles. First thing to come to mind was: "huh, feels like an SCP."
That was most decidedly a thing. Sorry I didn't stick around for the full performance, but the aftermath is nicely haunting indeed... if a bit repetitive. Though apparently not nearly as repetitive as it used to be.
9636931
Well, not the *origin*, but where I know it from - an SCP article, SCP-2614.
Here's an unfortunate thought:
If everyone's interpretations of who this Twilight is continue to be true...
What happens once season 9 ends?
I fucking swear I've seen this image on reddit somewhere, probably SCP smth
okay skirts
i see what you did there
Welp, going through a bunch of pretentiously-written 300-word chapters, whatever this story was meant to convey was lost somewhere between the author and his keyboard. Some of the comments are suggesting that the story was changing and updating while they were reading, and that this was "performance art" that you had to "experience live". Unfortunately for the author, this is a site for written stories, not...whatever it was he thought he was doing. As the 'story' is right this moment, this was a waste of time to read, and really doesn't belong on this site at all,
plus it's breaking the 1,000-words-per-chapter submission rule.9642129
Actually, the rule is that stories must be 1000 words long before submission, not chapters. Furthermore, I don't mean to tell you your business, but there are ways to critique a story you dislike without being rude about it. It's fine if you didn't like it, but that doesn't mean you should be nasty.
9642826
Eh, guess I remembered the rule wrong, my mistake on that. But I don't see how my comment was "nasty"; sure I didn't sugarcoat it, but I didn't insult the author or anything that comes to mind from that term.
9642840
Well, calling a story pretentious is one way. Plus the comments which I assume are meant to be sarcastic; "3deep5me".
You're absolutely entitled to your opinions and I would absolutely die for your right to voice them, but just make sure if you're making your voice heard, people are going to want to listen to what you say. Calling or implying something is pretentious simply because of an experiment in writing doesn't help anybody, and it certainly doesn't give the author worthwhile feedback other than that you don't like it and you think it was pretentious.
If I had to be honest, I agreed with your notion about the story's underlying mood or message being lost due to it's erratic nature, but it's important to say it in a way that doesn't sound needlessly insulting.
But once again, I don't mean to imply that I know better than anybody else or that I'm "holier-than-thou", I just think that perhaps your previous comment could've been worded a bit more constructively. That's the point of critiques~
9643139
I see. I did make the "3deep5me" comment after a few chapters into the story as a way of jokingly saying that the grand message or setting of the story wasn't getting through to me, and I fully expected it to be explained/better alluded to in later chapters. However, when I got to the end, I had learned more about the story from the comments than from the story itself.
The gimmick of the left, right, and center text (as well as the entire setting) was explained in the comments as being a reference to a creepypasta; the story itself relies on it heavily as its narrative device since there's no narration and everything you actually read is being said inside Twilight's head. This is hardly the first story to contain only a character's inner monologue or a conversation between two characters as the entire story, but it's the first one I've seen that used this frankly obnoxious spacing and disjointed sentence structure. The chapter names apparently used to be different and changed as well, giving the impression that they had some significance to the story, but at present time there's just a list of chapters all titled "and backrooms" which means either their significance was zero or the author gave up on it. Each chapter starts with an image or animated .gif at the start to "set the scene", although some comments suggest that they were basically used wholesale from the same creepypasta setting, while thousands of other stories are able to describe scenery without literally using an image of every single place the character sees.
I wouldn't say I called it pretentious because it was an experiment in writing, but rather because it was trying too hard while teasing at some grand theme that was better communicated in the comments than the story itself, as well as being sold as a live-experience performance-art that is of course gone a week later. If you want to recreate that experience for your audience, there are all kinds of options: designing a webpage yourself that will constantly move things around and give the impression of activity, recording a video of the "experience" so that everyone can go through it at the same pace, making a game or program in a CYOA-style, to name a few. Using a static written story that was, apparently, deleted, resubmitted, had 10-40k word chapters added to it after publishing that were just the same words repeated thousands of times, had chapters renamed and moved around and images changed as well, is a very poor way to convey that kind of experience. Given that SS&E is hardly new to this and has written quite a few "experimental" stories, this isn't something that would have come as a surprise; therefore it had to have been done knowingly, and thus is pretentious.
I respect your own willingness to respect the opinions of others, and I recognize what you're saying as being fair and having merit. I hope that this explains I was not just rashly slapping a label on the story, but did have actual reasons behind it. And calling a duck a duck should never be considered "nasty" lest we let our emotions reject reality in favor of being offended for others.
9643589
That does make things a lot clearer, and I'm glad that you pointed it out to me. I really do prefer having civilized discussions with people rather than trying to get on a high horse, if at all possible. And thankfully, that explanation not only served as it's own critique of the story but it also just goes to show that if you give people respect about their opinions rather than go at it with the torches and pitchforks mentality that a lot of people leap to, you can usually not only get a desired result but even learn something yourself!
And I have to really appreciate the insight from your perspective, as someone who read the story post-production and didn't see the "grand performance". Honestly, this insight from both sides of the fence should help SS&E with other stories and experiments and hopefully, they might try something like this again armed with the knowledge they know now. So, I'd just like to thank you for hearing me out, as well as for helping me understand your side of the story. People could learn from you!~
9644551
You're welcome, and that's kind of you. Thank you as well for being open to listening.
There's no better time to read this than 4 in the morning.
Uhh... you alright Skirts?
Ehm, good job on implying that something needs fixing, when it doesn't... Twilight could have grown more as unicorn. If anything, being alicorn broke her. She lost to Starlight. She saw herself at fault - when it was either steal the pearl or let her country burn. She started making decisions that majority disagreed with. Not that she ever had much choice...
9987915
OK, f*cktards. Tell me. Where am I wrong?
1) Twilight became better as alicorn? She made decisions, that majority started calling her out on. Loudly.
2) Steal pearl or go home a traitor? Not much of a choice, now?
3) Seeing right through Trixie's sh*t, when she manipulated Stalright to abandon a pre-planned f*cking dinner? Twilight is wrong, of course.
I'm tired of sh*tstains that say that in each and every scenario Twilight is WRONG, when she actually had the RIGHT IDEA all ALONG.
Want to prove me wrong? Tell me, what Twilight should have done in each and every situation, and I'll tell you the possible scenario, that should have been avoided at all costs.
Awful
Came by this story late after it was presented for my perusal by a friend on reddit. There are a few choices here I don’t entirely agree with, but respect none the less for their effort to remain true to the tone and mythos of the original creepypasta which serves as the setting.
The twist is a pleasant one, and I like how the story hints at what is happening (happened?) and about to happen (continuing to happen) with regards to Twilight the silly unicorns fate. I would have liked a more defined and conclusive emotional response, but the setting doesn’t really allow for conclusiveness outside of those which are vague or apocryphal.
As it stands though, this is one of my favorite creepypasta turned pony fic adaptations, and I appreciate the work that must have gone into presenting this as mysteriously and surreal as possible.
Nice work.
The buck did I just read?
Contemporary poetry. Also why doesn't FimFiction have a poetry tag?
Read in the comments that some chapters have been deleted?
Is that going to put gaps in this story, then? Should I bother with it?
I like the pictures. I also understand tension is a part of “scary”. But the truth is, people do get… bored by that, as well. Obviously. You can’t just keep the tension at the exact same level for chapters on end and expect people to stay interested and on the edge of their seats - you need to dangle a hint of hope or something that seems like a reprieve for the character, so that the harsher beats of the story make more of an impact. I mean, it’s been said that, “There is only one plot line: nothing is as it seems.” So, you’ve given us a labyrinth of corridors, with the most banal of things - like the existence of chairs - highlighting that this strange abandoned place should have or once had a use beyond ‘place for character to be lost/left inside’. We have a pony, presumably Twilight Sparkle because the name keeps popping in - though if this is based on madness then anything goes and at least you’d have a twist there, trapped by what seems to be an outside influence (I believe I read something that referenced a mare, which as far as I know could be Twilight herself). We have repetition of the idea that she and potentially Spike have been replaced, the narration referring to her as a silly Unicorn rather than an Alicorn even though she sees what are presumably her own feathers, her memory is disjointed (where did the string come from, etc). So, we’re either looking at a Twilight who didn’t manage to solve the spell and ascend, an aspect of herself that was perhaps left behind when she did ascend and thus feels replaced and abandoned on a psychological or real metaphysical level, a weird mental revenge imposed from the outside, or a Twilight that has simply gone completely insane.
The reader, at this point, wants to be surprised by something clever that has not been done before. I am that reader. I feel like I just read a really predictable knockoff of the last chapter of The Dark Tower series. That’s it. Basically, by the time I finish this comment I’ll have forgotten this story exists. It had a potential but it didn’t happen.