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No matter what anyone else says, Sweetie Belle knows that whatever that is in the mirror isn't her. That doesn't mean she can do anything about it.
An entry to the seventeenth Quills and Sofas Speedwriting Competition. Written in sixty minutes. Prompt was "Mirror" and genre was limited to horror. Presented here as is.
Now with a Russian translation, thanks to NovemberDragon, Randy1974, and Nuclear-pony-Jack. Find it here, here, and here.
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That was a good short horror story. With the red dots, I figured this would turn out to be Sweetie just worrying about normal puberty stuff, but no, looks like there's an actual monster.
I've said it on discord and I'll say it here again:
Truly a wonderful piece, the amount it manages to say in such a short word count, while simultaneously being a truly compelling horror story is fantastic. So many themes are woven in effortlessly, from a tangible sense of adolescent insecurity to the way we think about our self image.
And knowing the inspiration turns it from being 'merely' captivating to utterly haunting.
Really don't have enough good things to day about this. Really well done!
oof. This made me shiver.....it's good. Very good.
Ooohh, I like that. A little spooky, someone going crazy or a magical occurance with no way to differentiate, and a good sudden ending as tension peaked. Very nice.
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In a saner world, you'd have thought that for only a few moments, followed by "wait a minute, horses don't work that way"...
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If I had to guess, this ended on the first time Sweetie actually tried to touch the mirror.
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Luckily for us, this is not a sane world, and the show actually had ponies with acne.
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Acne... was not what we were talking about. (Wikipedia article because encyclopedias aren't dirty)
EDIT: Imma just pretend that was a royal "we" because I misread things rather badly. More or less everything still stands anyway.
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Sorry, haven't read the story myself yet, and assumed the "red dots" were on the mirror.
...
I know Rarity had her Nightmare. Does this mean we might see Sweet Nightmare too?
oh....it's just a mirror monster...
Sadly I am blessed (Or cursed) With a mindset that tries to bullshit its way out of anything slightly abnormal. (I'm thinking The Troxler effect.) Instead of going into a fifteen paragraph explanation about how, what, and why, like I normally do. I'm just going to say that because I'm not scared it doesn't mean that it's badly written. its quite the contrary in fact. I hand it a solid 7.9/10 so have this mustache
This has a really good blend of show and tell. You pick and choose when to give a scene and when to summarize. The paragraph with the blood dripping out of her eyes, cuts, etc. for instance, seemed like a good choice for telling rather than showing. It leads to a nice, concise story with good effect. Truly well done. I'd say it's near perfect, but I feel I don't really have the authority to make such a judgement. Anyone disagree?
Just a note: I didn't really find it scary... But, I mean, "spooky" stories don't actually have to scare you though, do they? I tend to avoid actually scary movies and such anyway.
I would have preferred if this was about Sweetie Belle facing a teenage identity crisis.
I went through that thing you know? That thing where you look at the mirror and you don't like what you see. You see yourself and you suddenly feel so dissapointed, so sad... "that's me?" you think. You might feel ugly, you might feel alien to your own body. Like you couldn't believe this body, this person wore THAT face. You thought you were... different, better, more beautiful. But you're not... and it hurts, it ruins your mood. It could happen same way with a photograph. It might be you, your past self, your current self. You delete it if it's in your phone or facebook. You don't believe what you're seeing.
Sorry. This just reminded me way too many things. I can now look at the mirror with a bit more confidence. I'm happier for it.
A slow descent into madness (or reality, depending on what the mirror shows). Nice story :)
Feh, mirror demon. Probably Freddy or the equivalent.
Get them all the time in Jersey. Just a minor nuisance compared to our politicians.
Creepy Stuff. Well done.
Eh. Cool story, but the ending could have been better.
Honestly, the whole time I thought it was a dream and Luna was knocking on the front door, trying to talk to Sweetie, but that restarted the dream.
Imma be honest here. That ending seemed a little anticlimactic. Though you're writing skills are incredible and you mannaged to communicate so much meaning and subtext with very few words (I envy you on that front), the twist just seemed a little too obvious. When you mentioned that sweetie belle was seeing her reflection with missing teeth, bleeding eyesockets etc, I couldn't help but role my eyes a little. Obviously, it was some sort of monster. This is Equestria we're talking about. Magical weirdness is kind of just the norm there.
And I even have a few ideas for how the ending could have been more compelling. For example, maybe the reason Sweetie's reflection suddenly looked normal is because she had taken on the horrifying appearance it had been showing her. Or maybe she gets sucked into a hellish mirror world while her reflection takes her place.
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This! This right here is another great idea. So much yes!
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Ooo. Those sound cool too!
Mirrors are more fun then television!
Oh boy, this story gave me whiplash. For most of the body, it had me thinking this would be figurative. Sweetie Belle was going through puberty and seeing herself in the mirror revealed a different pony than she was. Perhaps an allegory for her coming of age being her becoming an unrecognizable monster to who she once was. But with one line, this whole build-up I was expecting was atomized and replaced with something far darker.
This was impeccably done, and along the way, I didn't see the end coming. It's a world of magical ponies and a story of a young filly going through it. Red spots were understandable, acne and such, and the beastly features if they really were there was probably just an illusion exclusive to that mirror, as you laid out. All of it had me calm and expecting something else entirely. This was great!
i would have liked it more if it were about rarity talking about puberty stuff, i didn't finish the story though so maybe that happens
Hi, this was reviewed here. Thanks for picking me to review your story and I hope you find what I had to say helpful. Deuces!
Very intriguing, the title drew me in. Though I think the switch between "it's puberty" and "it's a bloody monster" is a little quick, so much so that I didn't have enough time to guess for myself. If the ending of the set-up could have been dragged on, where Sweetie Belle describes more growth-related changes, then I think the bait-and-switch might have worked out better.
Have you seen the film Ginger Snaps? It's a classic werewolf movie, where one of the sisters becomes a werewolf at the same time she is developing into a woman. Within the film, she is definitely becoming a real werewolf, but the film is still using a real monster to convey the feelings that come with the more mundane puberty changes.
I think even if the monster in the mirror is real, it could still be symbolic of what Sweetie Belle sees in herself as her body is growing. Sometimes it looks fine, from afar. After she washes her face, she looks clean and better. But when she takes a closer look at the imperfections that ageing is leaving on her, she see a monster.
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Hey, thanks for the nice comment! Your interpretation isn't far off from what I had intended. I used to feel weird about telling people what my intentions were instead of letting them come to their own conclusions, but I think that's reductive, really. People can draw their own conclusions about a story regardless of whether I talk about what I was trying to do.
Anyways, rambly prelude out of the way, this story is symbolically about puberty, as a lot of people (including yourself) have noted. It's specifically about my experience with puberty as a trans woman, though. Rarity is kind of a combination of the voice in my head as well as the people I talked to, telling me that it was normal during puberty to feel uncomfortable with your body, and that it'd all be okay in the end. I can't exactly fault people for not noticing this, it was incredibly subtle because I didn't feel comfortable making it more blatant at the time, and most people don't experience gender dysphoria as part of their experience with puberty.
With the mirror, in the literal context of the story, it really is a monster. You're right about it being symbolic, though. The mirror is a representation of how every day of going through puberty and seeing these changes in myself was a little worse, because what I saw didn't match how I felt. It felt like my soul was being scraped away a little more each day.
This is probably the most explicitly trans subtext in the story. In the literal sense, Rarity's mirror is cursed and other mirrors aren't, but this is really a representation of how looking in a mirror in public and in private and can feel so different, at least to me. At home, looking in the mirror meant introspection and feeling all of that nasty dysphoria, so after a while I just did my best to not look in the mirror. When I was at school, I had no time to be introspective, it was more... formal, I guess? I made sure my hair wasn't messy or that there wasn't food in my teeth or something, but I didn't think about me.
Also, I haven't seen that movie. I'll definitely check it out, though!
Anyways, I hope hearing my thoughts was interesting, and thanks again for the comment.
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Very well said. I'm kind of sad I haven't read your stories until now. You have a lot of potential and I hope you keep building up that repertoire.
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Thank you very much. I hope I live up to that potential, and I also hope I'll have more stories ready to post soon.
creepy, but cool. very very well done
Scary
buttbut fun.It's a remarkable work since it manages to communicate so much in such a tiny amount of words while also being a very engaging horror story. From a genuine sensation of adolescent insecurity to the way we think about our self-image, so many topics are seamlessly woven together. jigsaw puzzle
Knowing the source of inspiration transforms it from'merely' fascinating to completely disturbing.
There aren't enough positive things to say about this. Very well done.
Huh, I went in thinking this was going to be a trans story. Then there were monsters!
Sadly the ending didn't do it for me. I expected the monster to move to the point that I implicitly assumed Sweetie Belle would be unphased by it—at least no more phased than any other time it surprised her. This left me feeling like I somehow missed the real twist.
reads comments
Oh. It is a trans story. Just... far more allegorical than I expected, I guess? I definitely got the premise of mirrors and dissociation with one's self but the monster was unexpectedly literal. I guess I really did miss the twist~
Still don't get the ending though. Is it the moment of giving up, creating a mask for the world to see, and doing your best to kill the part of you that is in pain?
oh hey it’s just like my favorite emoji
aww yeah Rarity really is Sweetie’s older sister and mom at the same time
aww, now im wondering if Rarity was ever a moody teenager
oof, flopping onto a belly must hurt
and oof, i wouldn’t want to be Sweetie Belle, in the spot of questioning her own perception of reality. the “red marks” really does make me think of the acne that comes with puberty
love how much this leaves to the imagination, and how effective it is for it, very creepy!
the note feels more subdued than the escalation quoted above. that makes this feel like this is Sweetie Belle just sort of adjusting to have this reflection that is not her staring back at her from this mirror, and that is an interesting thought to end on. maybe that feeling of resignation is part of the trans allegory as well?
i liked the mundane horror aspect of this! the paragraph summing up the various things that are not Sweetie Belle in the mirror was top-notch. but i don’t think i would have guessed this was a trans allegory without being told. maybe if i had had the specific experiences this was based on, it would have jumped out at me more? in any case, glad to finally read this most classic of fics!
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Oh god, please no.
this mirror is a monster, and monsters wear many faces.
this story is funny to me because ive had the recurring nightmare of seeing something different in the mirror since i was really young. i get that its allegorical so it doesnt really have to capture the horror of that moment of realization like im used to, which isnt a bad thing necessarily, its just interesting seeing something im so familiar with as more conceptually mundane than im used to.