Somehow, I'm Twilight Sparkle.

by Full Tome

4:14 (A.M.)

There’s a weakness; in the window; place my footprints; in the dark realm~

“Music? Oh wait, that’s my phone. What song is this?” I wonder, caught halfway between dreaming and being awake.

There’s lonely voices; like a scarecrow; in the hallway; like a lost ghost~

“Wait, what time is it?” I think as I smack my pillow off my head to look at my alarm clock, set to go off eight minutes later.

In the bedroom; I see a shadow; from the moon with light from a candle~

“Oh.” I say groggily, and then try to lift my head so I can slide off my bed.

*TANG*

On a bed-frame; lies a girl; her reflection; in the mirror~

“Freakin’ headboard.” I thought to myself as I slid to the side of my bed and went to stand... And then gravity seemed to shift.

Ladada dadada dadada dada dat dada~

I’m not used to tripping like that, and it took my mind off hitting my head, but it’d been awhile since I’d last done it, so it really doesn’t strike me as odd. I twist around to try standing again, but from the floor this time, yet somehow run into the same issue of lack a center of balance.

I like your eyes wide~

The fall was at least a little more graceful, as I didn’t manage to completely hit the floor. I was waking up with all this falling, that much I can tell you easily. I’m not getting much ground, which I find a little strange. “Blugh.” I sound out absently.

Ladada dadada dadada dada dat dada~

That’s when it struck me that my voice was currently very feminine sounding... “Weird, I sounded just like Twilight for a moment.” I thought for a moment... I’ll be honest, things were starting to freak me out at this point.

At least I was able to reach my phone now. Barely, but still.

Knocking at your backdoor~

Now that I finally... dropped my phone? Alright... That’s happened before. I swept my arm passed the outlet that my phone’s charger was plugged into, taking up the cord and lifting it in front of my face with my...

Is that a hoof?

Ladada dadada dadada dada dat dada~

Alright, now everything is starting to run through my mind from when I woke up to that point. I seem to have lost my balance when I went to sleep last night, I smacked my head on something it usually rests atop because I’ve got enough padding on the bars of my futon to make it so my head sits at the same level as the top of it, and I’ve got a hoof in place of a hand.

I’m now once again trying to stand up to head to the lightswitch, taking a moment to look to my legs to make sure I’ve got my footing right... and once again, I’m seeing hooves in place of my hands and feet, not to mention that my legs are sticking out at odd angles from my body.

At first I thought someone broke them while I was asleep, but then I noticed I don’t hurt, not to mention that when you feel enough pain while asleep, you wake up and I hadn’t been woken up once last night.

I’m not even paying attention to my phone as its alarm is going off, which isn’t really that hard, since it’s not my loud alarms. I take a moment to force myself onto all fours, which seems rather natural... except I have no idea how to walk around... and I’m once again too short to reach the doorknob, let alone my TV so that I can play games for a while to try and take my mind off things.

Everyone’s gone to bed at most five hours ago...

I feel afraid for my well being for the first time in awhile, discluding whenever I’ve been more than four and a half feet off the ground. I’d start hyperventilating, but that would only give me more reason to worry. Besides, I’m not short on breath or trying to take in too much oxygen.

Using what knowledge I had for walking on all fours from when I knew my body, I start moving toward my lightswitch so that I can take a good look at myself, since the sun’s not up and my blinds are down, like always, my room’s pretty dark.

This doesn’t mean I can’t see; I’ve lived in a dark room ever since I was thirteen. I’ve never liked to have the lights on, and so I left them off at night. Heck, I like the dark, so I even put a few blankets over my previous window to keep light from the streetlamp from getting into my room. I’m used to darkness, so seeing things isn’t an issue.

… Not that there’s anything on my floor that I don’t know exactly where it is, let alone what it is. I’m obsessive compulsive, I make sure my room is organized, and that means trash goes in a specific area.

Anyways, it feels a little goofy, but I could walk. I’m not used to the way these joints move. I mean, yeah, I’ve been curious, but going from phase zero testing to final phase isn’t my usual thing when it come to this.

Yeah, I almost never play video games on anything less than normal, and even normal is a difficulty level I hardly play, but there’s a fine line between ‘I want to know what this is like’ and ‘I want to play this game.’

I finally got over to my lightswitch, and tried to use my wall as support so I could reach the lightswitch. I’ll be honest, I failed the first time, falling to my right... which is where my door is... and my room having an awkward angle door, I hit my door, then fell backward onto my skateboard... which had a basket and bucket on it full of a whole bunch of stuff.

Lucky me, I only broke the handle of the basket where I mostly landed on it. That, and I knocked most of my stuff back into the bucket on reflex once I noticed my skateboard threw it upward a little bit where I landed on the opposite end.

I rolled off my skateboard onto my side to stand up, and picked everything up that I didn’t knock back into their containers and set them back inside. That being said and done, I now went back to trying to turn my light on.

Or at least wanted too, because that’s when my alarm clock started screaming at me to wake up.

“You’re a little late!” I yelled at my alarm clock as I walked over to turn it back off. I still felt off balance, and the struggle to turn off my alarm clock did little to improve my slowly degrading mood.

Lucky me, my family is a bunch of deep sleepers, so I can get away with yelling at inanimate objects at 4:14. (4:14 A.M. For those of you who use the A.M./P.M. system.)

Oh, and my phone’s alarm is now in snooze mode, so it’s playing Echo by Gorilla Zoe now. Good song, I think. Once the lyrics came along I actually started to hum it. Not surprising, but I really am sick of hearing my voice as Twilight’s.

After I stride back over to the door, I try propping myself up on some headboards I’m planning on using as furniture for my room... which, fall over under my weight, since I’ve forgotten that they're not exactly well balanced.

Once again, I have stuff on my floor that shouldn’t be there, and I’m not a whole lot closer to getting my light on so I can see myself. In fact, with my camping bag that’s sitting next to some beds that are still sitting in my room for some reason, I’ve managed to move the headboards-that-are-soon-to-become-furniture away from the wall where they’re supposed to be.

Once again, I try propping myself against the wall to reach my lightswitch, and to my further frustration, I actually manage to do what I’ve been trying to do for the past ten minutes.

After cleaning up my room, again, I finally get around to looking at myself. No, I don’t have a mirror, I’m not a girl, I actually had to look down at my feet to see... Hooves.

I go to look at my hand... Another hoof.

I look back at my legs and see... Oh no...

That’s Twilight’s cutiemark...

You know how I just said I’m not a girl?

Scratch that, the feminine voice I’ve been hearing is mine, and it’s Twilight’s.

Somehow, I’m Twilight Sparkle.

Comments

[jakol]

Description is good, but this dude sure seems to be taking the fact he's Twilight. If he recognized the voice, he should've panicked a bit more.

Still, it's your story (But isn't someone already doing this?)

[McPoodle]

Tome asked for some in-depth criticism of this story, so here’s my impressions of the first chapter:

Alright, so I like this opening, contrasting the lyrics of a song with a stream-of-consciousness description of waking up in present tense. I don’t think present tense is a good idea most of the time, but here, it seems to work...until you suddenly switch to past tense after your character hits his head. After that it’s mostly past tense for a few paragraphs, with some slips back to present (“I twist around”).

“TANG” is a rather odd onomatopoeia to use for hitting your head, unless your headboard is made of brass. I would have thought “THONK” or “TOKK” would be more appropriate.

The phrase “that much I can tell you easily” seems to stand out to me, and not in a good way. The trouble with any first-person story is who precisely the narrator is telling his story to, and this bit suddenly makes this sound like a conversation. But the opening with the song lyric and present tense would not have happened if you’re in a room telling this story to someone, so I think you need to work out for yourself the circumstances under which the narrator is putting this story down, and keep to that as you go forward. That’s a good idea even if you have no intention of spelling out what those circumstances are in the text of the story—in fact, it’s more important if you don’t want to spell them out, as it means your consistency will allow the reader to make an educated guess.

I never heard of the song (I never do; my tastes are too different from everybody else’s in this fandom), but I think the lyrics work well, with talk of a girl on a bed, mirrors and voices suggesting incipient madness and/or sinister forces plotting against your character.

“‘Blugh.’ I sound out absently.” That first period should be a comma. Also, your character can recognize Twilight’s voice merely from “blugh”? (“Oh” doesn’t count—he was only semi-conscious at the time.) I’d have had him start saying a full sentence out loud. For maximum irony, I’d have him start a typically Twilight Sparkle sentence when he catches himself—something like “What is going on around...here?”

Your character starts feeling odd just from the voice and being lower to the ground. Completely leaving out the fact that (typical for a PEV awakening scene) he’s taking forever to open his eyes, I’d throw something else in there—sense of smell, long neck, huge tongue...something.

“I swept my arm passed the outlet...” That should be “past”, not “passed”.

“Is that a hoof?” I would definitely italicize that sentence—it’s a pretty big revelation. And now we’re back to present tense again.

“Alright, now everything is starting to run through my mind from when I woke up to that point.” This sentence sounds really awkward. Either put a comma after “mind” and change “to that point” to “to just now”. Alternately, I’d suggest something like “I begin to think back on everything that happened to me since I went to bed last night.” The next sentence is also messy: you’re listing three events, but the middle one has many more words in it than the other two. Do we really need to get into the mystery of how your character managed to smack his head on the futon? It’s not that important, and I don’t think you even address the question in the next chapter. For the best impact, I think the three points should be the same length, so take out the futon speculation. For even more impact, I’d make the three points into three (or four) one-sentence paragraphs: “I lost my balance when I went to sleep last night. I smacked my head on my futon waking up. I’m a lot shorter than I used to be. And I’ve got a hoof in place of a hand.”

When he looks at his legs, how exactly is he doing this? You don’t need to put it in the text, but after reading this same action in so many stories, I just have to ask. Is he looking between his arms, in which case I think his head will probably smack against the ground because of his unexpectedly longer neck? Or is he craning around to see them from the side? In which case there’s no way he won’t notice the neck.

“At first I thought...” Frankly, I think you need more thoughts in this, as it shows his mental state better. “Did someone break them while I was asleep? I asked myself in a panic. No, I quickly realized, I’d certainly be feeling the consequences if that were the case.” The extra bit about the pain waking him up is unnecessary. (The thing about a present-tense stream-of-consciousness section in a story is that it needs to reflect the mental state of the protagonist. He’s beginning to panic, so this needs to go by quicker.)

“...let alone my TV so that I can play games for a while to try and take my mind off things.” I’m rather amazed that gaming would be enough to distract someone who’s body has completely transformed from what has happened to him. But then, I’m not as young as I used to be, and I never was much of a gamer. I guess I’ll take your word for it.

“Everyone’s gone to bed at most five hours ago...” That’s a thought, so put it in italics.

“I feel afraid for my well being for the first time in awhile...” “Well being” should be a single word. And “awhile” is too vague for this situation. Replace it with “months” or “years”. “Discluding” is not a real word. I’d throw some personality in here, with something like “(That doesn’t count any time I discover myself to be more than four-and-a-half feet off the ground.)”

Now that bit about not hyperventilating feels real off, as I think the other commentator on this chapter has noted. He’s way too calm in this situation if he’s able to rationalize not hyperventilating. If you must have that in there, I’d point out the rationalizing: “Now, you might think that this is the one time in my short life when it would be perfectly rational to hyperventilate, but my reason kicks in at just that moment, reminding me that such a response is not appropriate for a scenario where I had no need for extra oxygen. Perhaps I am grasping at any train of thought that keeps me from realizing what has happened to me.”

“...My blinds are down...” You should have a semicolon instead of a comma after “down”.

Your character doesn’t keep his lights on at night—who in their right mind does? Oh, you mean before you go to sleep? Change it to “after sunset” in that case.

“Previous window”. This seems confusing to me, like it honestly isn’t a window anymore, instead of being a covered-over window. I’d advise taking out “previous” and add “ever” between “streetlamp from” and “getting into my room.”

Now the bit about testing phases and video games—I thought that was good, a way of showing how you’re trying to avoid thinking about what happened by dwelling on something familiar.

“Angle door”—should be “angled door”. “A whole bunch of stuff”: Rule of Funny says you should list it: “five snot-soaked tissues, four drafts of the plans for the perfect backyard trebuchet, and a broken pencil from that time I tried to twirl it around my fingers at the same time one of my friends Rickrolled me.” Yeah, that’s kind of lame (and assumes that the basket is a wastebasket), but it’s definitely funnier than “a whole bunch of stuff”, and you take advantage of every moment of potential physical comedy that you can.

“4:14”. Shouldn’t that be “04:14”?

“Echo by Gorilla Joe”. “Echo” should be in quotes, because it’s a song title.

There’s a difference between “Good song, I think” (with italics) and “Good song, I think” (without). The first one is him thinking to himself that he likes the song. The second one says that he has doubts about whether or not the song is good or not.

The bit with the boards and his reaction is another good character-building moment, demonstrating the obsessive compulsive nature you stated earlier.

Anyway, the tl;dr version of all this is: put everything in present tense, and think carefully about how this character would actually react to what’s happening to him; when he’d think things out in detail, and when his thoughts would start getting sloppy.

[Pinklestia]

This story needs some editing.

[ThEvErYdErPyBrOnY]

4251657 bro hoof? /)

[Vinyl-ScratchDJ17]

3594815 YESS but it still interesting. somehow I feel picky with these stories. like say a person turn into a certain character like maybe a bum becomes oh say...June Bug. I don't care really. now if it were a bum that turns into a more likable pony like vinyl scratch, I want the character to be somewhat like vinyl wether they know it or not. I'm not making any sense am I, your 'highness' oh and you must have spilled pink paint or something on yourself lol