Vinyl is in a tough spot. She's behind on rent, and Octavia is not going to pay for her, again. What makes matters even worse is she's doubled booked herself to play at two popular clubs. She has no way of meeting all her obligations. Not unless there were two of her.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, but what happens when Vinyl actually gets to the mirror pool, and will she find what she think she will, or something very different?
Warning: Darkfic, Psychological Horror
Now with an audio reading! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueBJkvfiv0k&feature=youtu.be
Chapters (1)
And that is why messing around with the mirror pool is a stupid thing to do. 10/10
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You have some raw talent, and I like what I'm reading so far. It needs a bit more polish, such as editing, losing those huge chapter breaks and repeating "drip", but it's very good so far. This has my attention.
Excellent work I love it 11/10
You should go get this edited for grammatical/spelling editors, but the cohesiveness of the story still stands a bit. It was pretty good
DUN DUN DUN! Neat story.
Pinkie - "Mirror, mirror, mirror pool, who made vinyl so uncool"
6276268 Thanks, and yeah. I could use an editor.
Woah woah woah! How did this Vinyl act sooooo differently!
6276235 It takes place after the Pinkie uses the mirror pool on herself. Also, the mirror pool is a legend, and folks always have stories about legends.
6276117 Thank you. The huge chapter breaks were so I didn't confuse the reader tooo much, you know, showing time progression without having to write about every minute. And the Drips were to add tension, and also give a sense that there were a lot of pauses in their dialog. I guess I could have done without a few of them.
6276862 Are you asking, or are you saying it rhetorically.
6276881 Both to be honest.
6276916 In a nut shell, these quotes explain it.
6276948 Ohhhh, kay.
Btw I shared your stories to other groups.
6276953 I saw that. Thank you.
6277197 As I explain in the story, she's desperate to make both gigs, because she's convinced herself that if she doesn't, she'll be kicked out because she can't make rent and pay off Tavi. Mind you, I'm really playing around with Vinyl, and as there are stories where Vinyl acts totally different than what the norm thinks, I'm playing up that she's got two mindsets. A, impulsive I'll do what I want until I'm busted attitude. B, I'm a grown up who has to act responsible and make a living attitude.
It's also why the Clone acts so differently from her, because it's a different version of the DJ. It's the responsible one, not to mention it wants to live life, and not be used only for a few hours before turning into nothingness.
But hey,
Just a different way to look at Vinyl I suppose. Some will like, and some will dislike. It's critique that will make me better.
Thanks for your inputs, questions and opinions. They really make me think and in turn help me improve my writing style for the next story.
Wow, this is dark... and I like it. Very well done on the atmosphere and overall writing style, it kept me entertained the whole way through!
6281943Thank you.
Wow, I got the CHILLS from that last sentence...
Seriously.
6356197 Then I did a good job. Thanks for the read.
Wait, so what happened to which Vinyl?
6387620 I left it ambiguous for that very reason. You don't know which one she is...or do you?
Okay, let's start with what's wrong with it, since, to be fair, I do have some complaints. First off, the grammar. While it's never incoherent, it does have a lot of errors. How many? Well, here's the ones I noticed:
And that was just on a first read through, only counting spelling errors or sentences that are missing words. That's not even counting punctuation errors, sentences starting with but or and, or a few other things. It's not terrible grammar, but it felt like it needed an editor.
Another thing I didn't much care for was how it stumbled on the canon of the Mirror pool. Y'see, in the episode Too Many Pinkie Pies (where the Mirror Pool was first revealed), it was shown that the clones were different from the original in two ways:
1: The clone Pinkies lacked the real Pinkie's depth, and
2: They didn't have Pinkie's memories. (If they had, they would've remembered her friends, which they didn't.)
This story, however, ended up doing the opposite. The clone seemed deeper than the original, and she apparently retained all of the original's memories. It felt like it contradicted what we already knew about the Mirror Pool. This is a minor point, admittedly, but it still bugs me.
Also worth mentioning was the drip...drip...drip... thing got repetitive after a while. I think spacing them out a bit more, replacing some of the drips with just silence or descriptions of the dripping (ex: the cave grew silent, save for a lone dripping sound coming from behind her.) would've built up the atmosphere a bit better.
And finally, the pacing, while by no means terrible, felt a bit fast overall. There were some points that I think could've used a bit more description, some points that could've taken a bit longer to establish stuff. Hard to explain, but it just felt a tad rushed.
6482517 That being said, this story still did more right than it did wrong. First off, the story is quite atmospheric. I said earlier that bits of it could've felt a bit more atmospheric, but even so, it's still pretty dang solid in its own right. It felt heavy when it needed to, which is just what a good dark story should do.
In addition, the idea is interesting. While I'm not sure I'd call it Psychological horror, persay, it's still an intriguing idea, having Vinyl make a clone to make her life easier, only to have it become self aware and all that. It was an enjoyable set-up, and it pulled it off solidly.
Another thing about it is that, as a whole, the writing was really good. A bit fast at points, yes, and bits of it contradicted canon, but on the whole it was written very solidly. The vocabulary throughout the story was solid, the characters were likable, and the ending was interesting, due in no small part to how open to interpretation it is. Is this the real Vinyl who's gotten a reality check, or is this the clone? We have no idea, which I enjoyed.
Overall, I'd give this an 8.5/10 (Very Good
); While it does have some problems with grammar, and it has a couple of issues with canon, this is a very good story regardless, and it's getting a thumbs up out of me. If it got an editor, it could easily make my favorites list, thanks to its heavy, occasionally unnerving atmosphere, solid writing, and legitimately interesting premise. It's an enjoyable read, and I'm glad I read it. Cheers 
6482517 I do need an editor, and thank you for taking the time to look through this, catch errors and give me an honest opinion on it. I am taking some liberties with the cannon of the mirror pool. My mind kind of sees that the mirror pool reacts differently to each pony, as each pony is so different. Also, since we have only one episode about the mirror pool, I thought it wouldn't hurt to play around with the idea of memories being shared.
Part of the inspiration was a creepy pasta of two people discussing the idea of a transporter, and what actually happens. Their talk results that when they go through, it's not really them on the other side, but their clone, who has all their memories, and their real self was in fact destroyed at the other transporter. You wouldn't know that you never existed before, if you had all the memories of someone else and thought that they were yours. Hence, how Clone Vinyl acts.
I'm sorry you didn't like it at much as I thought you would, but thank you for taking the time to take a look at it. I know time is limited, and any time spent on my work means a lot to me. Thank you.
Sorry, this was written before I read your second part to it. Glad you like.
I loved it!
i r8 this 8/8 m8
The ideas are solid.
if I was going to live a good live, the old Vinyl had to go.”
So one of the vinyls is dead now?
7626822 what do you think?
Oh fuck! She could be the real one or the copy.
I enjoyed this, although the twist was a little predictable and the story could've definitely benifited from some editing. But still a pleasant read!
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I appreciate the comment. It's been a long time since I last wrote something, and it seems, looking back that ALL my work could have benefited from a second or third pair of eyes. I'm glad you like it. It's honestly one of my favorite stories I've written, the others being Caught on Camera, To my Beloved Sister, and All Hail the Muffin Princess.
10373209
Feel ya, also been ages for me. I'm kinda getting back in the loop. Believe it or not, I found this story because I literally googled "fimfic best horror stories" and saw this one listed in some guy's top five.
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Wow! To be honest, I'm kinda taken aback by that. I never expected this to make it into anyone's top five. Another one of my works, What have you done has had three or four audio readings, but still, thank you. This was a wonderful surprise.
Nice story! I might be in minority here but an ending with the clone Vinyl Scratch would be (more or less) the happy one for me. (;
Original Vinyl seems kinda heartless, and her arguments «it would be confusing» and «you weren't alive before» are quite weak. Ever heard of «twins», Vinyl? And I'm pretty sure you, too, weren't alive before you were born. (*;
Sigh. If only you were more willing to give your reflection a chance to live. Or were more responsible.
Huh. Just had a though: the clone can try to clone herself to overpower the original Vinyl.
Well this was clearly inspire by the Twilight Zone episode "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room." Albeit the original technically isnt killed in that episode. However, if Mirror!Vinyl is objectively better than the original, then I'm not going to shed any tears for the original, as the world is better off without her. You kinda had to break the established rules of the Mirror Pool to do that, but that can be expmained away. Perhaps the Pool works differntlt for different ponies. Pinkie made simple minded clones. Vinyl made clones with all memories intact. Maybe Rainbow's clones would fight the first thing they saw, and Spike's clones would have no will of their own and just obey ever order given to them no matter what. I could go on all day.
Anyway, great story, I loved it.
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Truth be told, I haven't actually seen that episode of the Twilight Zone. The fact that the mirror pool's rules aren't really fleshed out gives some room for speculation. What happens to the clones that are returned? Where do they come from? Pinkie did imply something more when she said, "It's not that simple. It never is."
In the show, the original Pinkie Pie stays in Ponyville, with the hint that one clone escaped with the episode where Rarity opens a shop in Manehatten, but what if that wasn't the case? What if the Pinkie that Vinyl talked to wasn't the original Pinkie? What if she was summoned and something bad, very bad, happened to the original Pinkie, and now the clone has to live as if she was the original? What if Vinyl wasn't the first pony to take her existence for granted and thought she could unsummon new life?
It makes you think, what else does Pinkie know, and why does she keep it so guarded? Why does she tell one of her best friends, when she knows them well enough that as soon as Vinyl goes, Pinkie knows what's going to happen?
Food for thought.