//------------------------------// // 3) Being Honesty, It's Always About Control. // Story: Dear Diary: Sunset Shimmer's Best Friend // by Piquo Pie //------------------------------// Day 8 of being a better person Okay, Diary.                                                         You’ve heard me bitch and whine for the past week. I’ve been down on myself, I’ve let others hurt me, I haven’t been taking care of myself, and now that I have friends, real friends, they’ve been hurt because of me. But I’ve realized that who I am, Sunset Shimmer, did not change when I put on that crown. I am not a separate person because I let pride, selfishness, cruelty, malevolence, deceit, and depression drive me into a hole. I didn’t turn into a different person, but I did become the worst person I could be. Fortunately Twilight and the girls reset me, put me in balance. My hatred, my absolute jealousy, and fear of failure led me down my dark path. It led me into hell. Now that I’ve been led back to neutral ground, that path is still there, it isn’t gone. The difference is that I know the dark path and it’s dangers. It taunts me with false promises, trying to draw me closer until I can’t turn back. While I fear it, if I don’t acknowledge it and look where I’m going, I could find myself down that path too far to turn back on my own. Next time I won’t get a second chance, I won’t deserve it. There are an infinite number of paths in life. I’m not wasting my second chance. I’ve been doing some thinking, Diary. It’s how I realized I was always Sunset Shimmer. When I let that power posses me I was Sunset Shimmer, and now I am writing to you as Sunset Shimmer. The differences are small, but important. I’m still jealous of Twilight Sparkle Princess Twilight Sparkle, but I also owe her and respect her now. I still want to succeed and be strong, to have other ponies look up to me. But now I want to be strong for my friends and to have others look up to me out of respect, not fear.. I think some part of me still feel like I’m better than others; it’s why I’ve been trying to take all the abuse myself rather than solving my problems or getting help. I thought I could take it, that I somehow could, and therefore deserved, to handle the worse punishment for my crimes. I’ve almost been arrogant in assuming that in order to change I need to take more and more and grind myself down until the Sunset that made the mistakes is gone and a newer, stronger, Sunset can be built back up to stand as a stark contrast of humility. But as I’ve said, I’ve been thinking. Maybe those feelings exist because part of me still feels like it’s better than others, and others would have quite by now. It’s almost as if I am so afraid of pride and confidence that I’ve been trying to literally beat it out of me until it’s gone. It’s kind of ironic, then, because it’s that pride and confidence that have driven me to try to destroy my pride and confidence. So, I’ve been ignoring the help and advice and even some of the friendship offered by others. I’ve done this because I feel like they don’t know my limits and how much I feel like I needed to be pushed to never make the same mistakes that I made before. But, just because I think highly of myself it doesn’t mean that others aren’t better than me at things. It doesn’t mean I can’t be grateful. If anything, it means I should be grateful. More than that, I should show others the respect they deserve as I look upon them, learn from them, and better myself from their experiences. I’ve realized that there are many ways to go about things, that while 2+2=4, so does 3+1.  I know that I’m not the best person, but I also know that I’m not as bad of a person as I’ve been thinking I am. A lot of people make mistakes, I just happened to have knowledge that made those mistakes as bad as possible. Don’t give me that look, staring at me with blank pages, watching me try to put my thoughts together. I know I got off easy and that I still have a lot to make up for. At the same time I’m not some weak little girl, and I’m not a demon. I’m a person who deserves the same respect I should show toward others, even if I need to earn it back. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m not going to sit here and let others destroy my place. I’m not going to let others prevent me from working or scare me away from school. Most importantly, I’m not going to let my friends be hurt anymore. I’m going to make sure my life is a life worth living. It’s as precious as any other. That means I need to treat myself, and others, with respect!!! This morning I called the officer who was in charge of the case of my attack. I said I was ready to talk in detail. Applejack was in the room in the hospital where I called. She said I was doing the right thing. And she said she was proud of me. It’s been years since anyone was proud of me. I was kind of shocked, honestly. I mean, I had been so dumb in the first place and now AJ was proud of me just for cleaning up my mess. And it was a mess that got her hurt. I thanked her, but she doesn’t understand. It didn’t matter if I was doing the right thing. It mattered that my friends wouldn’t get hurt. It matters that those bullies will be able to learn their lesson, that they’d have a chance to get back on the right path and not fall down their own dark staircase. If it’s the right thing then that’s nice. But doing something because it’s right makes it easy to justify what you are doing as being the right thing. Being right is vague. I can’t afford to be vague. I can’t afford to slip because I can justify it as the right thing. I thought I was doing all the right things before and I couldn’t have been farther from ‘right.’ When the officer arrived, I told him everything about the attack, and why they did it. I had to skip over anything magical because I don’t know who outside the school knows about my incident. I just mentioned that I did some mean stuff at school. He said that between my testimony and Applejack’s, he could make sure the people who attacked us were punished. I told him not to, at least I said don’t punish them for attacking me. He could round up and scare the kids, but I had done bad things to them too and I wasn’t pressing charges. I wanted to apologize to them and give them a chance to apologize to me. Some of the religions in this world place a lot of respect in forgiveness, and it might be rubbing off. I didn’t want to push them down the road any more than I already had. I wanted to forgive them and make it easier for them to take the nicer path. Applejack objected. She said that they deserved to be punished, otherwise they wouldn’t learn. I agreed that the ones that attacked her should be, but the students who attacked me were just doing the same thing that the police would be doing to them. At some level they were scared of me and that was completely understandable. Going hard on them would just make them more angry and I’d be the one who hurt them again. It would all be my fault and their disdain for me would only grow. They only knew me for being a bully, and I needed to give them something different to think about. The first thing I was going to do was apologize to the people who attacked me. I need to talk to them so that they’d know I’m the same person who bullied them but that I was trying to be better now. If I don’t even try to explain that to them then how am I supposed to expect them to act any different? Ugh, I’m getting a headache. Everything ended up being more complicated than that. The short version is that after I was discharged I went to the police station. The police had scared some sense into the kids who attacked me by the time I got there. They let me talk to them and I made sure they knew that I was not pressing charges. I talked with each of them, one on one, and explained everything. Each time they apologized to me in turn, and we agreed that we were both in the wrong and would start over. We weren’t friends but at least I got them to not completely hate me. It felt weird, surreal. I don’t think I ever thought I would be forgiven for what I did. Yet some of those kids, even the Diamond Dog crew, seemed to be honest in their apologies. It felt, good? I think that’s the simplest way to put it. It kind of felt like a weight had been lifted from my chest, like I was breathing easier afterwards. I found myself looking forward to the next student each time I finished with one. At first I’d just wanted to get it over with, to make steps in the right direction, to complete a task and move on. What I ended up doing was honestly speaking to those whom I had hurt, the ones who hurt me. At first I thought it might just be a pony thing. We tend to be a bit more communal and peaceful after all. After talking with a few of my attackers, however, I realized they felt bad about what they did to me too even though they also felt justified. I guess, monster to monster, forgiveness and understanding can go a long way. I don’t think they’ll be any more trouble. It also made me think that maybe, maybe, if I connect with the other students too, all of them, then they will feel better as well. It could be therapeutic. Then we could all get over it together.  It was a bit harder dealing with Snips and Snails. They had looked up to me and were caught in the crossfire just like I’ve been. They were trying to avoid being bullied themselves by making me more of a target. In a strange and perverse way I was proud of them. They had learned something from me and had taken charge to secure their safety, something I had avoided until now. But that was the me that had gone down the wrong path. When I explained that to them, including me being proud but worried, they said they didn't know any other way. It made me sad but it also gave me another goal. So, here is the plan, Diary. Monday, I’m going to school early and I’m going to talk to Principal Celestia. There are some things at school that I want to do to apologize for and to show that I’ve changed. First, I am going to hand-write a personal apology to every student in the school. I’m not just going to apologize for taking over their minds by robbing them of their essence. I’m going to apologize to each and every one of them for specific things I’ve done to them, even if they thought it was someone else. They deserve to know the truth. Hey, maybe I’ll even mend a few bridges along the way. After the written apologies and need to start showing people that I want to make up for the all the pain and trouble I’ve caused. I know they’ve been meaning to fix the pitching machine. I’m pretty good when it comes to mechanical things, probably has to do with being a unicorn. I figure I can start there. That way it would cost less and actually get replaced before the end of the season. Rainbow would probably be able to get the team to let me try. After fixing the pitching machine, I’m going to organize a bake sale so that we can get vending machines replaced with ones that work. I’m sure Fluttershy and Applejack would be interested in helping with that. Pinkie Pie, too, now that I think about it. You’d think that a company would want to sell their snacks, but I guess they are rented by the school and the school doesn’t have enough to replace them. If I raise enough the rest will go to replacing the mascot uniform. That stallion is so old and dirty that it makes it hard to have school pride sometimes. I don’t need to buy a completely new one, since I’m sure Rarity would be willing to make one if I could just get the materials. It would probably be better quality, too. I’m going to have Snips and Snails help out with some of it, but I also want them to find something constructive to do on their own. They need to show the school that they aren’t bad people either and that they aren’t my minions anymore. So, Diary. That’s the plan as it stands. I’ll probably have to do a few other things to even get the rest of the school to leave me alone, but it’s a start. Now, if you'll excuse me. I need to pick up a paper and find some job opportunities. -See you soon, Diary. I love you.