@Background Pony #48EC
[ METAGAMING REMOVED ]

@Exuno
Thanks! I haven’t done anything like this before, just running with it by the seat of my pants. It started out purely off the cuff and I’m trying to roll with that and not get too far up my own cavity, but not let quality drop off either. It’s a puzzle to try and weave these things into one narrative without layering too many complications. Things kind of necessitate a “slow burn” approach with a few minor changes each time, which is fine by me. The “pretty” stuff was a carry over from that weird customer telling her she was pretty, but her clothes and name weren’t. There was some kind of influence going on there!

Each entry is getting a little long. I’m trying to find the right balance of narrative/content/brevity. I keep missing typoes and formatting too. Having to compose these a little at time before posting them, some stuff just slips through. I’ll try and take more time to refine them.

@horselover-fat
Thanks! What can I say? You’re making some fascinating stuff, and the meta-thematic spin on generative AI’s weakness is a creative use of chaos. The first one really inspired me to give that generic pony a story. Then I saw the older pic looked mostly consistent and decided to retrofit the story onto it. In for a penny…
Still trying to stay with the spirit of the material, the overall theme, and also having to watch what I add to match the ratings tags. I also don’t go in for the more grim “bad end” stuff so at least on my side there are places I’m not quite willing to take it.

Apparently I imagined Alex’s first week as a blur because he kept freaking out or butting heads with the boss and getting Simon Says’d, blanking until quitting time; so in my conception this image puts her at Wednesday morning of Week 2 (the first entry being Monday). Seems she’s working weekends to get through the probation that much faster, at least. If she makes it to next Monday without invoking Simon Says, she gets to remember her original name. I wonder if Alex/Lexi will manage the full 90 days!

@Background Pony #48EC
[ METAGAMING REMOVED ]

@Background Pony #48EC
Wonderful, thank you. The teasy commentary is top tier, and Lexi being haunted by pretty is great. This is everything I want from silly reality bendy TF minific.

I guess this is part three!
Part 1 unofficial story here: https://derpibooru.org/images/3285568#comment_10802662
Part 2 continued here: https://derpibooru.org/images/3267499#comment_10804778

Themes: mild body and mind alteration like in the artist’s description. Eerie stuff.

When Lexi’s mom dropped her off at the apartment Tuesday night, the unicorn girl set her hefty purse on the counter and collapsed on the sofa face-first. “Tomorrow I’m definitely going to quit,” she told herself for the seventh time in eight days. After five minutes of wallowing in existential misery, she sighed reluctantly and pulled herself back to her platform-clad feet. She looked down at the dress that had materialized on her yesterday. It was pretty. But it had to go. Lexi had been putting this off, but now it was time for a shower. Her first since the weird shop had robbed her of her old male body. She skipped it yesterday morning because she felt like facing this new body in the buff would somehow be admitting defeat, and she was still clinging to the faint hope that whatever happened would wear off again. But after a full workday of babysitting other people’s germy brats condensed into the three hours of after-school rush? She needed to get clean.

She took off all the oversized jewelry that had been applied against her will (though she had to admit It was Pretty), then slipped out of her dress after finding the zipper in back. She folded it carefully and put it on a rack next to her closet, which was filled with identical Pretty dresses. She sad on the bed in her plain underwear, which she regarded as quite unpretty but whatever, nobody was going to see it, and unfastened the straps that bound the high heels to her slender feet. She stood experimentally, but just as before her feet refused to relax down and let her stand flat on the floor. Sighing in exasperation, she tip-toed over to the apartment’s small bathroom and started warming up the shower. Then she finally turned to the mirror.

Lexi no longer expected to see a normal, human male looking back from the glass. Instead she was greeted with a now-familiar delicate, flour-white face beneath a huge mane of billowing white hair streaked with the same blue and magenta colors as the retro-themed lighting in the toy shop. She unclipped the decoration that was holding half of it up and it draped behind her like a cape, hanging below her two over-sized animal ears that twitched and scanned without her telling them to. She dreaded having to dry all that extra hair. Then she remembered the other half. Flicking her her voluminous horsey tail, she examined it with disdain. It had the same white and streaked appearance as her mane, and nearly reached down to the floor (probably would have if she could stand flat anymore). Another hassle to clean and dry.

Steam began rising from the shower stall, so she finished undressing and stepped into the privacy glass booth. The hot water helped sooth some aching muscles, but she kept her eyes closed while soaping up and rinsing. No need to look, she told herself. Once her hair and tail were thoroughly wet (and heavy!) she squeezed some shampoo in the palm of her delicate hand and started to lather up. It seemed to take forever; she was used to five-minute showers but this much hair was going to drag that out many times over. Finally, some twenty minutes later, she had rinsed out the last of the shampoo and was satisfied with the cleanliness of her mane and tail. But they felt rough in her hands. Grumbling, she briefly stepped out of the shower and dripped her way to the mirror cabinet. Reaching inside, she picked up a little-used bottle of conditioner. Seemed like it was going to be a necessity as long as she was in this state. Returning to the warm steam of the shower, she read the instructions and applied what must have been a quarter of the bottle, top and bottom, letting it soak in for several minutes before rinsing it back out. At least her hair felt smoother than before.

Lexi gave up on toweling her five kilograms (probably) of wet hair halfway through and instead put on a bath robe (the same delightful pink with blue accents as her Pretty Dress, of course), grabbed her only spare towels, and headed for the living room. She set one towel out and sat down beside it, laying her damp tail out across the terrycloth and folding it up. She then draped the other towel over the back of the sofa and pulled her hair out so that it would hang over that and not soak into the furniture as it air-dried. Satisfied she wasn’t going to irrigate a mold outbreak with this setup, she picked up the remote and started browsing her streaming video service. One show caught her eye in particular, and Lexi found herself watching entranced as a team of breeders prepped their prize mare for the horse show. She noted the brand of shampoo and conditioner they used, and then decided that if a hair dryer was necessary for an actual horse, she’s probably have to pick one up too. Maybe tomorrow during lunch break.

Lexi woke on the couch to the noise of birds chirping on the balcony. She hadn’t meant to doze off in front of the TV. Checking her watch, she wasn’t late at least. Rising off the sofa, she found her hair (all of it) suitably dry, so she started packing a lunch while the coffee maker did its thing. The caffeine was eagerly consumed, accompanied on its journey by some instant oatmeal and a protein bar. Then Lexi changed from her bathrobe into one of the dozens of identical yet Pretty Dresses from her closet, did up her hair with the shiny ornamentals, put on her heavy bangle bracelet, and attached the large necklace securely before putting on her by now very familiar platform shoes. Throwing her lunch in an insulated bag and stowing that in her purse along with the other essentials, Lexi locked up and descended the steps to the waiting car below.

“I thought I done warned ya ‘bout them ballroom duds!” Creepy Boss boomed when Lexi arrived to clock in. “Them fluffy pleaty things gon’ snag and catch all over everything in my store!” he bellowed.
“They’re Pretty,” Lexi retorted defensively. “Besides, didn’t you throw a fit when I came in with baggy pants and a tee yesterday morning?” she pointed out. Was that really a day ago? She could barely imagine herself wearing stuff like that.
“Lassie, yer gonna go into the old wing and rummage through the Lost ‘n Found fer somethin’ less pertentious or we’re gonna have words,” the bearded old creep said with finality. “Givin’ up before the week is out? Betchoo don’t rem’mber our deal. Guess ya don’t want that old name back.”
“Old name?” Lexi’s ears snapped forward at the threat. Did she used to have another one? She knew “Lexi the Magical Unicorn” wasn’t a Pretty name, maybe the old one was Prettier. More to the point, if there was something the shop had changed about her then she wanted it back, whatever it was. And the last thing she wanted was another day of missing memory for arguing with Creepy Boss. “Okay, you’re the Boss,” she acquiesced. “Which way is the old wing?” she inquired, wondering how a shop this size could even have ‘wings.’
“Jus’ keep walkin’ back past the stock room, you’ll find it. An’ don’t be to long, I ain’t coverin’ for you all mornin’. ’Sides, anything stays in Lost ’n Found too long, it tends to get lost and NOT found,” he added menacingly.

True to his word, there was indeed a narrow hallway Lexi had never noticed just past the stock room. She was pretty sure it hadn’t been there before, but that wasn’t exactly abnormal here. She followed the hallway, which twisted and turned a few times, getting darker the further from the toy shop’s harsh and flickering 80s-themed lighting she went. But there was a dim light up ahead. With alarming suddenness, Lexi found herself standing in what looked like a disused gallery of the mall itself. Everywhere were strewn racks of clothes, forgotten handbags, discarded shopping bags, and what looked like old stock from a thousand stores. She glanced up at the ceiling, or at least where it should have been, and was met with swirling voids that seemed to physically tug at her eyeballs until she turned away. Although alcoves and displays shone in dim pink light on either wall, she couldn’t see any individual light sources.

Lexi was suddenly aware of movement in the distance. She stepped out of her heels and padded carefully, quietly, down the gallery. Passing rack after of clothing, some of which looked professional and some of which looked the polar opposite, she closed in on a pinkish heap of garments in the middle of the path.

“HI!” it shouted in a chorus of hundreds of small, high-pitched voices as it suddenly surged upwards inn amorphous fountain of clothing. Lexi staggered back and tripped over something as the living geyser flowed and re-flowed a constant stream of garments to maintain roughly its shape. Except for two blue items (shirts? pants? couldn’t tell) that stayed mostly in the same spot in relation to the rest of it all, directly across from her like two blue eyes.
“Who are you?” Lexi blurted out in a panic.
“I’m me!” the impossibly animated thrift-shop fodder replied in its multitude of simultaneous voices. “Who’re you? Are you lost too? Did you find me? Are we going home?” the all asked excitedly in unison.
“L-Lexi the Magical Unicorn, Lexi for short!” the prone hybrid blurted out. “I just needed some work clothes, I’ll be out of here-”
“Need work clothes?” the voices interrupted. “New outfit? Where! Where do you work!?” they inquired giddily.
“T-toy store, uh, creepy old guy…”
“TOY STORE!” the colony of clothing shouted with furious excitement. “MAKEOVER!” it announced before crashing down on Lexi like a tidal wave. She was swept up in a swirling maelstrom of fabric that slithered, pressed, fluttered, and fully enclosed her. She couldn’t see. She could barely breathe. She hoped nothing would snag on her horn. And the voices surrounded her with frenetic giggles that eventually seemed to change into a raucous conversation. As she was held firmly in the writhing mass, the chipper voices peppered her with commentary.
That dress is too formal for work attire = Toy stores are fun! = Casual Friday is every day = Stores are work, need freedom of movement = the 80s called, they want their prom dress back = too high contrast, muted palettes are in =
Every square inch of her body was trapped in the chaotic motion, as if she was in a tumble dryer full of angry snakes made of cloth. She was thrown this way and that, unable to see, hearing only the pixie-like chatter about her look, her sense of touch overwhelmed.

Lexi felt something sliding up her legs amidst the cyclone of clothing. Something securely fastened around her waist. Whatever it was felt very loose, then warm, then tighter.

She definitely felt her Pretty Dress being unzipped and her arms forced straight up as something slid over them and down around her torso. The same warmth spread from shoulders to tummy, but the only feeling of tightness she noticed this time was around the front of her chest as whatever they’d put on her was made to fit better. Or maybe it was her who…

Lexi was just about to give up on getting out of this alive when suddenly all the myriad voices chanted in unison.

Brushing a lock of her solid purple hair aside with her light grey hand, she decided this was a waste of time and turned to navigate the darkened hallway back to the main toy floor before Creepy Boss got mad. As she clicked her heels one in front of the other, her broad hips swaying automatically and a bit of a heavy bounce up top that she couldn’t remember feeling before, Lexi decided to never come back here again if she could help it. Something just felt off about all this. Besides, he’d warned her about staying too long in Lost and Found; the last thing she wanted to do was lose herself.

She hated this job. She hated this store. She hated the Creepy Boss. She hated the entire mall, for that matter. “Even if I make it through today without anything weird happening, tomorrow I’m definitely going to quit,” Lexi said.

Cool crazy background