TThat Isn't Me

• MLP: FiM
• Horror

Sweetie Belle dreads looking in the mirror. No one else seems worried, though, so it's probably fine.

• Sweetie Belle

wishcometrue · 1.2k words  ·  355  12 · 6.6k views

Howdy howdy, gang, today we’re going to be tackling a great little story, one that I admit to reading before. Let me be clear: today we’re talking about a story from my friend Wishcometrue called That Isn’t Me. If you’ve ever been around in the Quills and Sofas Speedwriting Discord server, you’ve probably heard of it or were there when it was written.

Now this isn’t the first time I’ve reviewed something that I’ve already read and enjoyed, and I do try to stay as close to objective as I can get. So while this piece is in my favorites list, I will get into some of the things I thought could have been improved upon, or could have been better.

That being said, it’s a good fic.

Let’s hit it.

The plot of the story is at its heart simple, as most things are. Sweetie Belle goes through the same routine every morning while staying at Rarity’s: Rarity wakes her up, she washes her face, and looks in the mirror. But every day her reflection seems to change a little bit.

Rarity assures her that it’s just because she’s going through puberty, and Sweetie decides to believe her. But as the days go on and her reflection keeps changing, to the point of reflecting bruised eyes and missing teeth, she grows less and less certain.

On the final day, she looks into the mirror as confidently as she can and proclaims ‘that isn’t me.’ And then her reflection smiles at her and laughs.

So let’s unpack.

As I said earlier, this story was a speedwrite, or a story that was conceived and written in the period of an hour. Some of the other stories I’ve reviewed are also speed writes but I feel it’s crucial I bring it up here, because we should keep this in mind when analyzing concepts of the story.

The chief complaint that I can think of, and is reflected by a glance at the comment section, is that it doesn’t quite do the unexpected, it’s not exactly a ‘scary scenario,’ and it’s pretty short.

Let’s go one by one here. The chief complaint I’ve considered and that I’ve seen in the comment section is that this story does not exactly do anything interesting, per say. It’d probably be valid to feel a little empty if you’re considering this story in the context of the MLP Universe, where a mirror monster may not be that out of the box or even original.

I’d say this is perhaps a fair assessment: the ‘twist’ of the story is when Sweetie’s reflection proves to be something different entirely, and as others have said it’s easy to go “oh, just a monster in the mirror, those are probably a thing in MLP.”

I’ll confess that this isn’t a thought that occurred to me until later. On my first read through I didn’t really have a problem with it, possibly because I approach stories from a different context than that of most other readers, but I guess it’s noteworthy nonetheless.

Next, the story isn’t exactly scary. I didn’t find it as much of a spooky, in-your-face kind of horror story but not every story really has to be like that. While horror might be defined by these kinds of stories that keep you up all night, I’m a fan of stories that are of the more brooding and dreadful variety, the kind that forms a knot in your stomach and keeps pulling and pulling on it.

I think that’s where this story falls under. It’s not so much about the spooks or the gore or anything like that, but it’s about the subtleties and implications. That tiny little hint that something’s not quite right here, but nobody can figure it out until it's too late.

Finally, “it’s too short.” Again, in defense of the story I bring up the speedwriting portion. For being conceived in an hour, a thousand words really isn’t that bad. Could it have been longer? Sure, but as it stands this was a really impressive story for me, so the length didn’t quite bother me that much. If the author did want to expand I could think of a few spots to build on, but it’s not something that I feel is a “must-do” for this story.

Now that those complaints are out of the way, let’s move into why I feel this story is so good: it executes its subtleties and undertones very, very well. There are a lot of other running themes that go beyond the idea of “mirror monster” that are all played very strongly. Throughout the tale we can see concepts of adolescence and growing older through Sweetie growing worried about how she’s changing and becoming different, which Rarity attributes to puberty rather than the more literal implications of what Sweetie is telling her.

There are both figurative and literal changes going on within Sweetie here and both of them seem to contribute something to the story. There’s also a strange feeling that carries throughout the story, for example the emphasis of someone knocking on the door to end each section. One can draw many interpretations from these implications, including ideas of maturity, a changing body, dreams and nightmares, and others. So while it can be easy to dismiss this story as “uncreative,” I’d challenge that and encourage the reader to look a bit deeper, because this story’s got a lot more going on below the surface than it may get credit for.  

Sweetie Belle is, obviously, the central character here and she’s portrayed extremely well. I love how she’s well and truly aware that what she’s seeing in the mirror isn’t her, but like the story description says, there’s nothing she can do about this.

And this ties back to the literal/figurative undertones as well. She knows that she’s growing and maturing, perhaps, but knowing this fact doesn’t make it any easier to accept or deal with. This couples with her changing reflection quite well: while she knows the mirror isn’t reflecting her, it doesn’t really do a whole lot for her. 

I didn’t really have any major problems with the grammatical aspect of this story, it’s very well polished and pretty solid on that front.

Now if there’s one complaint I can make, it’s a very minor and technical detail but I’ll point it out nonetheless. The middle of the story calls back upon Sweetie’s morning routine that opens the story, saying that every day she washes her face and looks in the mirror… yet there’s no actual mention of her looking in a mirror in the first section. Rather, it reads

Trodding into the bathroom with my eyes still clamped shut, I turned on the sink with my magic and dunked my face into the cold water. With that little booster of adrenaline now, I pulled away and opened my eyes for the first time that morning. I wiped my face with my towel and placed it delicately back on the rung for it--Rarity would have flipped if I didn’t--and inspected myself.

I can see the implication of the mirror being after ‘myself’ but when I first read it I interpreted this as her literally looking at her body and checking herself, not looking in a mirror. The statement after talks a bit about her mane and her coat, which could be done with either eyes or reflection, so if a reader isn’t paying attention they might miss it.

Again that’s just a super minor thing, so don’t let that distract you from the rest of the story. 

So in conclusion, I really liked this piece because of what it does and implies, and that so much is going on beneath the surface level. That being said, however, I am operating in a reviewer capacity here, and I feel that what hurts the story the most is that it’s hard to get over the barrier of it not exactly doing anything new or unexpected. A more skilled reader could probably figure out what’s going on pretty easily and get turned off by not having a driving question to keep reading, although it is a short story so they might read it all anyways.

But while that will hurt the funny numbers I put at the end of this review, I still think it’s a good story: I know the numbers don’t often reflect what I’m saying, which is just a thing that they do sometime. Maybe give it a shot sometime. 

Up next is another story by Wish, The Perfect Hearth’s Warming. See you then! 

If you’re a fan of the more subtler, dread-building genre of horror you might like this piece. But if you’re looking for something a bit more abstract it might not appeal to you. 

Wish, this really is a pretty great story, though I respect your claims that it isn’t your best work. Putting all the memery aside it’s a lovely little tale and you’re a really great writer! Always looking forwards to reading whatever you write next! 

Plot: 5
Characterization: 8
Grammar: 9 

Average: 7.33

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After reading the story today by seers suggestion, well you seem to be a bit biased indeed and try to show this story in good light. I undersand it is a friend and also a fellower in the quils and sofa server but this story is quite dry and uninteresting to be honest.