I noticed the similarities between the images and wrote a sequel here: https://derpibooru.org/images/3267499

@Background Pony #B504
Really I prefer my stuff a lot lighter than this, but I have seen HLF’s stuff before and just got inspired to do something along those lines by this freaky picture. Something about the combo of typical AI weirdness and HLF’s strange direction with the prompts and dialogue grabbed a neuron so I had to make something that brought it all together.
A tribute, idk.

@Background Pony #B504
Also thank you. I can’t believe there’s another person as deeply, creatively into this tiny niche, but it’s gooooood. Weird hot horse girl TF bullying. <3

@Background Pony #B504
Holy shit this is amazing, thank you

In the stock room of the weirdest toy store in a mall that was still clinging desperately to profitability, Alex sat amongst the ghastly dolls and indistinct, molded plastic crap. The 80s-themed white, magenta, and blue lights made everything look like a vaporwave nightmare. Especially since they flickered, just beyond the normal range of perception. But you could see it in the choppy after-image of anything or anyone that moved too quickly under it. Like cheap holiday fairy lights, they led one to believe that smooth motion was impossible and things only existed in choppy, stroboscopic instants. It was like how if you drilled down, you saw things exist as quantum particles instead of continuous waves.

The lighting conspired with the crowded shelves to turn a toy store into a desolate yet teeming mass. Alex could rarely make out where one item ended and the next began. It was as if reality itself was too slippery here in the shop. Especially on days like today.

Today, by all appearances, this Alex wasn’t the Alex who had clocked in at 7:58am. And it wasn’t the first time.

“Alex, you KNOW the prosecutor wanted you to get the maximum sentence for shoplifting to ‘make an example.’ You’re only working at that weird store because our lawyer pulled strings with the owner and he was willing to forgive you if you promised to be on your best behavior. If you quit, you’re violating the terms of your plea deal. No son of mine is going to spend time in prison.”

“Mom, listen to my voice. Right now I’m literally no son of yours. I’m either your daughter or, like, your livestock or something? Are unicorns livestock? You know horse doctors are way more expensive than-”

“Honey, just try and stick it out until the end of your 90 days. I’ll pick you up after your shift, okay?”

“My shift? That’s just it, Mom! I don’t know if I’m going to shift back this time! Hold on, Creepy Boss is back and he’s holding some kind of bag. Please get me out of- hello? Hello?”

“Ya only got fifteen minutes left on lunch break, laddie. Or should I say lassie? Heheh. I figgered you’d be jabberin’ on that phone like you young’ens do these days, so I got ya some lunch.” His club-like hands flickered in staccato motion from the harsh, 40-something Hertz lighting in the retro-themed toy store. With a heavy thud, a large tubular leather pouch with straps landed at Alex’s all-too-dainty, platform-heeled feet. “Best eat up, you’ll need yer strength fer pony rides when the after school rush arrives!”

Alex looked nervously down at the stiff sack, some of its contents already spilt on the floor. Tiny, irregular granules. Chopped oats, from the look of them. It was a feedbag. And Alex slowly realized that a pleasant, inviting scent was wafting up to meet his- well, her nostrils. Alex wanted more of that smell. She wondered how it’d taste. Her mouth instinctively chewed on empty air for a moment before she realized what she was doing.
“H-hey!” she protested. “I don’t eat … that stuff.” Her voice lost the force of its indignity before she even finished the sentence. The thought of rejecting a big bag full of oats that smelled so wonderful robbed her conviction. Was she telling the truth? Suddenly it was hard to know if she meant it or if she was just arguing out of principle. She tried to make a gesture of kicking the bag away, but only mustered enough force to gently tap it with her toe.

“Ey now, rem’mber your deal!” the gruff old man said with a sharp grin. “Ya work for me, doin’ what I says, and on yer best behavior. S’the only way ya gonna convince me you ain’t just a thief what belongs in the hoosegow! Now we got a crowd o’ tykes comin’ here in an hour and those wee ones are gonna squeal in delight fer ridin’ on a real live unicorn! I’m gonna sell so many plastic tiaras and frilly li’l princess gowns and King Arthur swords!” he nearly cackled in delight, just thinking of all the margin he’d make this afternoon.

Alex barely registered his greedy machinations. Was the feedbag getting bigger, taking up more of her vision? Or- She suddenly braced upright, realizing she’d been unconsciously leaning forward. Towards the bag of oats. It was like waking up from half-sleep. Suddenly alert, she closed her eyes and stood upright (so she wouldn’t be tempted to look at the bag on the floor).
“I’m not giving horsey-back rides to a bunch of brats in public!” she snarled, stamping one of her feet and instantly regretting it when she felt the reactive jiggling echoing around her feminized frame.

The grizzled shopkeeper’s eyes narrowed and his bushy white beard sank a bit with the scowl behind it. “Ya ain’t backin’ out o’ this deal, lassie. I’m the boss. And in case ya hadn’t noticed, ye’r the hoss. Eat yer lunch, it’s regulations. Employees gotta have a lunch, and oats ‘r what’s good fer mares. Even glitter-sprinklin’ horn-headed ones.”

“No way, I’d rather go sit out into the food court looking like this,” Alex said, waving her slender hands up and down her figure to emphasize the point, “than be treated like some farm animal!”

“Simon says eat yer oats, lass,” said the imperious shopkeeper with a low, measured tone.

The eye-straining antique pattern of humming white, magenta, and blue lights in the store suddenly gave way to a swirl of green, yellow, red, and blue patterns. Alex’s head swam as the details of her surroundings went fuzzy behind the orbiting cloud of colorful, ghostly lights. The toy store faded. The phone slipped from her hands and was forgotten even before it hit the floor. The ordeal of the court case and the lawyer’s office and the police station all slipped out into the mists like unwritten histories of the past, no more hold on the present than whether it rained on a Thursday in April on Mars 1,000,000,000 years ago.

There were only three things that existed right now; Alex, a bag of delicious oats, and the owner of the store. Everything else was consumed by the formless dancing light in green, yellow, red, and blue.

The ever-shifting quartet of color took hold of the owner’s words before they even reached Alex’s floppy ears. They passed some sort of message to the oats, and the oats in turn pulled Alex to them like a leaf on a sluggish stream. She didn’t even notice the small passage of time from the command to lowering herself on all fours to taking her first wonderful bite of the crunchy, fresh, incredible oats. They tasted like green, yellow, red, and blue. Alex. Oats. Eat. A relationship as natural as gravity. That’s all there is to it, because Simon Says.

Alex kept munching on the bag of oats as Simon Said more things, which caused the colored lights to shake and leapfrog and whirl around each time.

Simon Said that Alex’s name today was Miss Lexi the Magical Unicorn (Lexi for short).
Simon Said that when lunch break was over, Lexi would put on the frilly saddle from some long-unsold rocking horse in the stock room. Green, yellow, red, and blue agreed that Lexi would do that just as Simon Said she would.
Simon Repeated that Lexi would be giving unicorn rides to eager children when they started flooding in at four o’clock.
Simon Said that Lexi would be the best and prettiest unicorn they ever rode and make them all feel like little princes and princesses for as long as his stock of storybook-themed toys lasted, or until closing time (whichever ran out first).
Simon Said that Lexi will be on her Best Behavior today. Green, yellow, red, and blue were sure she would and that’s all there was to it for Lexi. She would to be on her Best Behavior today.
Simon Said that if Lexi took the initiative and stayed on her best behavior all this week without making Simon Say again, Lexi might have her old name (whatever that was…) back next week.

When it came down to it, Alex was always on his, her, or their best behavior when Simon Said. Even if Alex didn’t remember that later. Didn’t remember the green, yellow, red, and blue lights. Didn’t remember how they made everything else disappear when Simon Said things. Alex could never remember much about the workday whenever there was an argument with the boss, just that this job was awful and the boss was creepy. Alex always just wondered why he/she/whatever hadn’t quit this lousy job that day, or the day before it, or the day before that.

Lexi blinked.

Lexi was standing behind the register. The store was empty. The flickering white, magenta, and blue lights still cast their eerie, harsh light on aisles of ugly-looking toys. Slowly, her large ears picked up the soft and sparse crowd that passed through the mall beyond the storefront.
It was closing time and Lexi was still a unicorn girl or something, except now her back and her knees were sore and she had the vague impression that a thousand children had been squealing excitedly all afternoon… but the details didn’t resolve themselves into a coherent picture. Lexi didn’t remember much about the workday after a failed attempt to plead with her mother during lunch, but she was sure that it was an awful job and that her boss was creepy. But maybe she half-remembered something about taking the initiative this week, and not fighting with Creepy Boss on every little thing. If she did that, it seemed like, she could have something back. But she wasn’t sure if that was a real memory or not.

“Oh well,” Lexi customarily told him/her/themself after another day of indistinct drudgery in the weird shop where reality seemed forever slippery, “I’ll definitely quit tomorrow.”