A touching story about Dinky and Lily, and Dinky’s struggle to come to terms with herself, or... well, himself.

- Dinky Hooves: A mare who is struggling with their identity.
- Lily Longsocks: The supportive roommate of Dinky Hooves.

The story was written for the Pride and Positivity Event, 2020, to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. Standing at 1,416 words, it’ll be hard for it to develop the characters.

The story is mostly told from the perspective of Dinky Hooves. From the get-go, we can see she doesn’t quite like being called anything feminine:
“Miss. I’ve always hated that word.”
“’Are you all right, dearie?’ the cashier asked with concern. I subtly cringed as she spoke.”
From there, we see her struggle with sexual identity through her talk with Lily, her roommate. At first, Dinky tried to hide her self-hatred from Lily, thinking she’s not worth Lily’s attention:
“No, it’s not okay!”
“”It’s not okay, it will never be okay! I’m worthless!”
From here, it’s Lily’s ground, as she consoled Dinky, and coaxed Dinky’s secret out into the open:
“You might not think so, but you’re the strongest pony I know. I might have super strength, but that’s nothing compared to you. You’ve always been so helpful and kind to others, always bringing out their happiness. I want to do that for you, so please, tell me what’s wrong.”
It’s at this point that the bottled-up feelings in Dinky are let out in full force, and it’s here that Dinky confirmed our thoughts on why she hate looking at herself in the mirror:
“... whenever I look at myself I feel this hatred that I just can’t understand. Everytime I hear somepony call me miss or lass or even dearie, I just can’t stand it. They expect things from me and always insist that I should be like what they think I should be, even if they don’t say anything.”
Dinky is angry. He feels this expectation from who might as well be total strangers to him, the expectation that he’s a mare, and thus has to act like a mare does.
But on the other hand, he’s scared of what it might entail for him and his platonic friendship with Lily, knowing that she’s the only one keeping him from running away.
Then the conversation turns:
“You don’t have to be.”
“W-what?”
“If you really hate being a mare then you don’t have to.”
This, I feel, might be moving a bit faster than I’d like.
The realization, while... plausible, feels also a bit rushed, like Dinky has just now put all the pieces together. It feels a bit weird.

Because it's such a short story, it's harder to talk about this.
Grammar-wise, I don't see anything that's incorrect.
The depiction of Dinky is something I'm not quite as well-versed about, since Dinky is not really in the spotlight in the show. But story-wise, I think it's a sensible depiction of Dinky. Lily, though not one of the Flower Sisters, feels not as overdramatic, but more sympathetic towards Dinky, which makes for a good relationship between them, both platonically, and later romantically.
Be that as it may, one may argue that it’s too short to properly address such a complicated issue as sexual identity, and I can see their angle. It's hard to write about such an issue in a relatively small amount of words. And as such, it feels a bit flat. I can see this benefitting from maybe one or two more chapters, just so that there's more time to give the characters, especially Dinky, some more depth, so that they won't feel like a stereotypical version of a character struggling with sexual identity.

This is a great story, and I thoroughly enjoy every moment.
My only complaint, I think, is that it was only a peek into this version of Dinky. I wish it was longer, maybe a chapter or two more, but as it stands, it feels like a good enough representation to me.
Category: Good Read