S. White (part 1)

A twisted modern fairytale

Queenie_Ally had everything she could desire. Nearly. She had thousands of followers across Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. She'd been recently approached by Estee Lauder’s marketing team to try out their new line of foundation in her videos. There were dozens of DMs in her mailbox every day telling her how beautiful she was, how her makeup tutorials had saved their dates and proms, and even their lives.

All of these things were... nice... she supposed. Any other beauty influencer would have died just to have her massive throng of followers, and that did give Ally great pleasure to think about. But that's not what she really, truly wanted.

What she wanted more than anything was an endorsement deal from Charming, a new makeup company that everyone couldn't stop posting about. Estee Lauder was good quality, of course, but it was also the stuff her grandmother had in her bathroom. Ally had already messaged Charming's Twitter account several times, asking them nicely, professionally, to check out all the enticing engagement she got on her account. Her page was the stuff of advertising dreams—and she knew it—yet they hadn't said a word in reply. Every day that went by without a response made her grit her teeth until she thought they might crack.

It's not that she couldn't afford their makeup. She could, easily, but that wasn't the point. She wasn't going to come off as a tryhard to her fans, kneeling at this company's feet for some bronzer and lip gloss. She did not beg for anything. Queenie_Ally got what she wanted. She’d just have to wait for a little while longer.

One day, when she'd finished another video to chop down and edit for TikTok, her phone buzzed with a text. It was from Hunter, her best friend in the entire world.

H: OMG ALLYYYYYY!! I have to show you something! Have you heard of Mi.rr?

She scoffed and texted back:

A: Mi.rr? Isn't that the smelly crap they gave baby Jesus?

H: No gurl you're thinking of myrrh, lol. It's a new site for influencers, can't believe you haven't heard of it.

That made her eye twitch.

A: I've heard of it, just didn't think it was such a big deal.

H: You gotta check it out, I swear on my dead mothers grave it's gonna be huge.

A: No need to get so dramatic, your mom isn’t even dead.

H: Srry lol. See for yourself, wait a minute tho.

Twelve seconds later, she got an email from Mi.rr saying she’d been invited to join the site. The home page was just a dark background with white letters, which she read as she scrolled down.

*

Mi.rr reflects the beauty in you.

Mi.rr reflects what you want to see in yourself.

Mi.rr reflects the big picture, the real deal.

Join Mi.rr, connect with your fave influencers, and see a new reflection of the world!

*

After making a new account, Ally started to browse, and she saw what Hunter’s hype was about. It looked sleek as hell, and easy to filter who and what she wanted to follow. There weren’t that many influencers there yet, but it had a function called “search by connections” which brought up a three dimensional web of creators, the strings in between them representing who followed who. That was cool, she had to admit. It also had a leaderboard to show who had the most followers, watches, and overall engagement in real time. Ally liked the idea of tracking her competition so easily.

Just for fun, she scrolled to the very bottom of the board to see which ugly losers were languishing down there—Ally didn’t count, of course, because she’d only just joined, and wasn’t ugly. At the bottom, with only seven followers, was a thumbnail picture of a beautiful girl, her skin porcelain white, with dark, curly hair that fell around her face and blood-red lips. Her handle was S. White, and she barely even looked real.

Of course she wasn’t. It was a filter. A heavy one. “S. White” was probably just some kind of A.I. model or something.

Queenie_Ally announced the site to her faithful watchers in a new video that very day, and they all started trickling in by the hundreds to follow her on Mi.rr. Hunter’s premonition was right; it only took a few weeks for Mi.rr’s reputation to spread far and wide. Pretty soon, makeup and beauty companies had made accounts there, too, including Charming.

Ally made new videos and uploaded them to Mi.rr every single day, checking the connections and leaderboard, too. She’d skyrocketed to the top of the board and stayed there–but of course, she expected nothing less. That S. White “chick” was starting to bother her, though, like a splinter under her acrylic nail. She was creeping her way up, slowly but surely. In fact, according to the connections page, a ton of influencers followed her themselves. They couldn’t have all been duped by an A.I. model?

Ally grumbled to herself, and finally checked out one of her videos just to see what the big deal was. S. White was definitely a real person. Her setup wasn’t even that good. The lighting was murky, she didn’t know how to frame herself right. And yet, her beauty shone through her cupid’s bow smile anyway, like a stupid, dumbass ray of sunshine. She couldn’t tell if S. White was fifteen or twenty-three; she had a timeless look about her that made her age impossible to place. Ally realized after a minute that she wasn’t using any kind of face filters at all to get that perfect glow.

How? How? What was her secret? Ally started rage-watching all of her videos, binging them throughout the whole day. She had videos about how to apply different kinds of eyeliner, and natural looking makeup, and comparing different kinds of foundation. But even without any makeup at all, she was more gorgeous than any girl Ally had ever seen.

Including herself.

Her stomach tightened. She was on the edge of throwing up her matcha bubble tea when she reminded herself to take deep breaths. Getting angry would only make the wrinkles around her eyes worse. There was no way in hell little miss White could match her follower count. Not in a million years.

One day, when she opened the connections page once again, there was a big, green line connecting Charming’s page with S. White. Ally had never seen that before. She hovered over it, and the word that appeared over the line nearly made her faint.

Sponsored.

Charming was sponsoring S. White? Ally caught herself before she screamed. This bitch had stolen her dream right out from under her nose, but Ally would die before she took it lying down.

With shaking hands and a smirk already forming on her face, Ally texted Hunter. He was an absolute drama hound, and she needed an attack dog.

A: Hunter, I need your help. Do you know S. White on Mi.rr?

H: Yeah, what’s up?

A: Do you think you can figure out how to dox her, or SWAT her, like you did that one girl who called me a ho on Insta?

H: Why? What did she do to you? She seems so nice?? Just show me on the doll where she hurt you emotionally and I will Tear. Her. Apart.

A: She got a Charming endorsement.

The bubbles under Hunter’s half of the screen faded in and out, stopped and started again.

H: Is that it?

A: For real? You know I’ve been dying for Charming to respond to me!

H: … you could both get endorsements, tho?

A: THAT’S NOT THE POINT. The point is she got it before me, and she doesn’t deserve it.

Nothing stirred under Hunter’s texts for a long time. Ally squeezed her phone so tight she thought one of her nails would pop off. Finally, he replied.

H: Hun, I think you’re seriously overreacting. She’s not a threat. She can’t get close to you, anyway. No need to get jealous.

A: I. DO. NOT. GET. JEALOUS. Why won’t you help me? I thought you were my friend?

H: I am! But you need to chill out.

Ally took a deep breath, preparing to do something she never, ever did. Beg.

A: Hunter, please?? I need you for this.

H: Not happening. Sorry

Ally seethed, tears forming in her eyes as she sent him one last text.

A: YOU ARE USELESS. Don’t talk to me again until you agree to take her down.

H: Whatever

Whatever? No one ‘whatevered’ Queenie_Ally, not even Hunter. With a scream, she threw her new iPhone against the wall, leaving a huge crack down the middle of the screen.

She was going to have to take this into her own hands.

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