Diary of My Better Self

by Rethewa


Chapter 1

Day 1:

It. Has taken me. Four hours—four! Four hours!—to learn how to hold a pen. A pen! Who spent their life with hooves and then decided pens were the future of communication? Honestly. Might as well be using carrier pigeons, these things are so slow like this.

I can’t go on like this. I can’t, I really can’t. I haven’t left the room these… these creatures gave me yet, it’s so awful out there. They don’t have an internet! You have to… see things in person, actually touch things you want to buy, speak to merchants, it’s—it’s horrid! What a backwards time these creatures live in. I’d almost feel bad for them, if I didn’t have to share their circumstances.

And… and I’m one of them, now.

They say I can’t go back yet. Not until they know how I got here. I can complain about things all day long—by this point, I already have, writing all this down takes so long—but I’m scared. I want… I want all kinds of things. My favorite plush chibi-me, at least one of my smartphones—Sandra should do, she’s both reliable and trendy—the support of all my SnapGab followers…

I don’t know how I’m going to get through this.

Someone’s knocking—I should go.

My name is Vignette Valencia, and I’ve been a pony for a day. If you ever find this, send help, a daring rescue attempt—but not too dangerous, please, I’m more delicate than these savages—and a great deal of sympathy and O M G this pony will just not stop pounding at my door who does she think she—


Day 2:

What a mess I must be. There’s a mirror here, somewhere—there must be, right?—but I can hardly bear to think about looking at myself. I’m not like some of those fortunately “disabled” hussies who hardly have to work to be stick-thin—my figure was the result of countless hours of not sweating, not eating, not… look, it’s harder than you might think, alright? That the swirly thingy took all that and just threw it away and made a mockery of me like this is sooo abhorrent I just can’t even stand to think about it!

Point is, I’ve just woken up and I feel hideous and now I’m crying as I write in my diary and unlike last time I don’t want it and thousands of supportive emojis aren’t just a selfie away!

Sigh.

One of the ponies, that winged princess of Friendship—they actually need a school for that here, can you believe it? Savages, all of them—wants to take me outside and show me around. I’ve said I’m not interested, but she doesn’t seem to have listened.

Oh, look at that, she’s knocking on my door again. Honestly, this place is like someone took the worst parts of a cheap motel and a prison, mashed them together and called it friendship. As if.

Whatever. Fine, fine, I’ll go indulge this silly pony—I hope she’s grateful.



I’m finishing this entry an hour after I started it. That was… not the princess, as it turned out. No, it was an… eerily familiar pony who looked very much like someone I knew, and wanted me to visit her boutique with her (And, just between the two of us, she seemed rather taken by me).

And… she’s marginally more interesting than the rest of these backwater horse-creatures. Alright, fine, I supooose I can brave the outdoors with her.

This is going to be awful.


Day 3:


Day 4:


Day 5:

MY HAIR!


Day 6:

O
M
G

Has it been three days already?! I feel like it’s only been a few hours, I’ve just been—no, no, no, don’t do it, I’ll lose a whole week at this rate—

It’s just—it’s so poofy—and so swishy—and so shiny and huggable and NO NO NO don’t you dare look at that mirror again—I could just sway in front of a mirror and watch it flounce about for hours!

This. Is. The best. Thing~!

#I<3VV

I’m Vignette Valencia, my mane is the most fabulous thing on this planet, and you know what I don’t care I’m going to go admire it some more because it deserves it goodbyyyyyeeeeee~


Day 10:

Oh, I’ve never been so glad to be so exhausted. It’s taken my three whole days, but I think my exquisite posing-for-selfie skills have finally been transferred to my new, sleek, sssexxxy pony…



Aaand taking a second shot at this entry a few hours later. Turns out I look utterly sublime sprawled out on a couch just so.

Who knew that all it took was an immediate crowd of fawning adorers to correct one’s ailing self-esteem? If all those ponies hadn’t flocked to me when I’d been dragged outside, I’d never have been brave enough to actually look at myself.

Now, though...

Hmm… I wonder…

If I were to wear glasses—they’d look viciously adorable, of course—maybe they could have little mirrors mounted on the insides? Small things, just so that my beautiful visage was only ever a glance away?

… Or I could just stay here and look at myself in the big one.

Yes, let’s do that.


Day 11:

So I went out for a stroll today—carefully, because while I’d love to spend hours brushing my mane, doing so with the purpose of getting twigs out sounds absolutely ghastly—and a few fillies came galloping up to me to tell me how pretty I was.

And then they said that I must be as pretty as “Princess Celestia.”

Apparently, the pony monarch is regarded as the most beautiful pony in all of Equestria.

… There is only one thing I must do, now.


Day 12:

I’d forgotten how horrible the lack of an internet is. It is sooo much harder to challenge someone to a selfie-off when they’re only reachable by mail.

But I’ll manage it somehow. Enlightenment will reach this Princess Celestia, one way or the other… (I know you can’t hear what I’m doing, but imagine a fashionably villainous cackle here, please? Kthxbai).


Day 15:

I. Could not. Have asked for anything better! One of the ponies in the palace apparently caught word of the challenge I issued the princess and leaked it, and now it’s in newspapers everywhere! Oh, this is amazing!

Being a social media queen wasn’t all that bad—anyone who says being famous isn’t worth it hasn’t ever tried it—but when I’m an actual queen... I am going to be made queen after this, right? That must be how it works. Their princess is the prettiest, so… well, whatever, I’ll bat my enviably luscious eyelashes as often as it takes to start a revolution if I have to.

This train cannot get me to Canterlot—ugh, what a tacky, last-season name; note to me: rename Canterlot when you're queen of it—quickly enough.

Oh well. Time to rehearse. I could always use some…

Oh.

Oh my.

The most… not most, but—yes, actually, the most exquisite pony just—oh my. She’s looking at me. She’s—I’m looking at—no, no really I—

I think I’m going to faint. How does one—oh, how stylish I must look as I lose—


Day 16:

I…

Have never been…

Sooo… thrilled…

To be so exhausted.

<3


Day 17:

Whew. Alright. I’ve got a lot to say and I have to do it before she wakes up again. Because—ahem—reasons.

Anyway. I met this mare named Adagio—OMG, that name; I could say it all day long, it’s so deliciously exotic, so effortlessly sensual, so—

Focus.

So, she’s… not supposed to be here, really. Says she snuck here through a portal while the ponies weren’t looking—how dare they not look at her! But, anyway, she’s here now, and—this is the really fun part—she’s aiming to see Princess Celestia too! So cray, so cray, but I love it! Apparently, she was aiming to do something else—something blissfully mischievous, I’m sure—but then she heard ponies whispering about Celestia’s mane, and as soon as they mentioned her shampoo—apparently that’s what makes her mane be all breezy and ethereal, who knew?—Adagio just knew she had to have it for herself. And I am so on board with that.

Oh, she’s stirring! If this is the last entry—oh no she’s almost—ifIdon’twriteanymoreIdiedofabrokenpelvisandIregretnothiiiiiing~!

xoxo


Day 24:

The weeks just speed by when your world’s rocking, don’t they?

“We’re still going to see Celestia soon, right?” I’d said to her last night, and she to me this morning.

“We’ll get around to it” was what we had each said in reply.

She’s lying next to me right now. Fast asleep—she is so very beautiful when she’s still and calm.

If someone looks exactly like you, you can look in—admire—their eyes and yours at the same time.

Somehow, I think the next “We’ll get around to it” will turn into “why bother?”

And I’m alright with that.