(Contains some S5 finale spoilers, just in case)
With their battles across time itself drawing to a close, Twilight finally seems to be getting through to her nemesis, Starlight Glimmer. But is it possible to reason with a pony so deeply convinced of their own philosophy that they cannot see true friendship? And if not, what must she do to make sure that such a danger never threatens Equestria again?
So, that season finale eh? I'll be honest, it probably would have worked better if the pace in part 2 hadn't been rushed so hard it went full blitzkrieg. This is just my own short idea of what could have gone down, while also tying it in to the events of the Quickverse. Hope you don't mind it!
Update: And then it had two stints in the popular stories? Wow, I've no idea what I did right but I'm glad you all generally like it. Thank you!
Rated Teen for psychotic pony murder attempts.
Meh, it's alright. i can understand why some in the basebreaker might like it but it just not my cup of tea. (Now if it was radiant hope who still believe she was correct even after all that damage she cause that be a different.) cause even starlight realize she screwed up big time when she last world. (Make you wonder if she purposely stayed in the past cause deep down what she was doing was wrong but was in deep denial). personally i'm going to wait out the basebreaker storm for awhile till it dies out like what happened twilight wings.
6684802 Fair enough, I just got the feeling that even if she saw the last world, she didn't fully accept that it was her fault.
Thanks for giving it a chance at least.
6684819 Thank you for being understanding.
Woah, that was intense. Interesting twist on what could have gone down and how Twilight could have responded. Will also be interesting to see how this turns out, considering Starlight Glimmer isn't the type to give up and she has the patience to match. Really nicely done!
6686989 Thank you!
I would honestly have been satisfied with the finale if this had been the ending, or some variation there off ^w^
6687194 You and me both. I can understand why it went where it did, but it would have worked better if they'd had at least 15 minutes to focus on it, not just the final seven. Glad you enjoyed the story.
6687261 You're very welcome, and I can totally agree with it, and there should have bee a consequence to her actions, so your story made a lot more sense to me than the actual show
Starlight was pretty clearly delusional with the fact that she thought one friend leaving for Canterlot was the end of the world. There's no indication she even tried to send any letters, she just kind of freaked out. I'd say this ending makes more sense if she's so insane
6688154 Exactly, she'd dug her hooves firmly into that broken view of the world and I thought she wouldn't have pulled them out without a serious fight, if at all.
The thing is... as crazy as she is, Starlight sees herself as the hero... when Twilight showed her the destroyed Equestria... for Starlight... she lost even her revenge...
6688337 As I said in a previous comment, I didn't think that she fully accepted the blame, considering that she seemed even more hell bent on finishing what she started afterward, on making sure she stayed in the right in her mind.
If nothing else, this is just an alternate universe take I planned to tie the events of the finale to my future stories. I appreciate the perspective though.
6688412
Yes when our beliefs are challenge, we NATURALLY become more zealot in them... but ...
6688461 But?
6688490
It also leaves us vulnerable.
6688694 Maybe, but Starlight wasn't vulnerable to Twilight. In her mind, Twilight was the living embodiment of everything wrong with Equestria. She had broken up the town and ripped Starlight away from her focus, she flaunted a method of friendmaking that Starlight would only see as heresy (and being princess of friendship only made that worse) and she had forced old wounds to be reopened just so she could find a justification for pressuring her opponent into submission.
In my mind (and thus, with this fic), Starlight's perception of the world had no reason to believe a word Twilight was saying. I'll leave it at that since I doubt anyone came to read a comments section debate.
6688733
Oh I agree. Twilight DOES embody 'ponies more important than others' that Starlight hates. But Twilight managed to turn it around by telling Starlight that losing HER friendship with Sunburst is what caused all this!
I was expecting Twilight to break off her horn.
6691082 I'm trying to keep my ideas from getting too brutal...For now, at least.
"Left" and "right" are relative. If the world's eyes lay elsewhere, then whose left and whose right are you talking about?
6760683 I'll admit looking back, that line doesn't make sense. My minds' eye was seeing things from the view we had during the episode, the left and right came from those shots. Sorry about that.
Meh
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This could have been a fine piece of work if it wasn't for how badly it clashes with the original.
Unlike this, the season five finale provided solvency and a satisfying resolution to the conflict.
This is a bittersweet ending where the audience knows there doesn't need to be one.
That just makes this adaptation look bad.
I know they are harsh words, but I mean every bit of them.
~Leonzilla
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Well the thing is, this isn't really the end of the conflict. Until either her death or redemption, Starlight isn't going to back down from her philosophy/vendetta. All else I'm saying on that front is that this wasn't her last appearance.
But thank you for the input.
7286944 This fic is marked complete and I see no signs of a sequel in the making, so while it might be implied that this was not going to be her last appearance, it would seem that it's actually her last appearance.
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While she does appear again in my story Heart and Mind, and she is continuing her actions there (even if she has lost it slightly more in the process), she isn't the main focus of that story. Hence I don't consider her future appearances to be a sequel.
7287735 maybe you should mention in an author note that her story continues in Heart and Mind to help justify not having a proper resolution here.
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That's...A fair point. Added one that hopefully doesn't give too much away. I'll admit I thought the resolution was pretty settled for what was originally a one-off but if it helps readers avoid future situations like this, I can do that.
7288025 I like it.
Darn good one-shot. I can't believe I missed this story earlier. Anyway, excellent job on the exchanges, action, emotional content and wrap-up in all the right places. And, yeah, this ending is, sadly, more realistic than the actual episode's end. There ARE times when "Bittersweet Ending" IS the best we can expect.
7607839 Thanks, that's kind for a rush job 'how it should have ended' piece by someone who was somewhat burned out from two months of warming up to writing again. Bittersweet endings are a part of life and even if it's the best to hope for, they can lay the groundwork for better endings down the line.
Noice!
7685499 Thank you, much appreciated!
What a wonderful, likely-more-accurate ending to the finale. You displayed the characters with much skill here. You've earned yourself a favorite.
Only a couple errors that I noticed:
The comma should be a semicolon, since you're separating two independent clauses in the same sentence.
I'm assuming that you meant "shots," correct?
And just one last thing. It's not an error, per se, but I feel like it's worth saying. You use the "having just as many problems" phrase twice in a very short section, and it just feels a bit literally awkward. It goes along the lines of "Redundancy is redundant." I think it might be better to replace the second appearance of the phrase with "Just as with Spike, Starlight was having problems of her own." That's just an idea though.
Again, great story. An overall good depiction of an accurate Equestrian present.
8443723 Thank you very much! I've fixed those parts you pointed out and hopefully grown out of the redundancy in the almost two years since I wrote this.
8443747
Glad I could be of service! I myself just posted my own (beginning to an) alternate end of the season five finale. I hope you might check it out and let me know what you think.
Not in a million years
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9308257 Yeah, she certainly didn't get out with that attitude.
...Weird to look back at this now and see this was what I thought of Starlight at first.
9308576
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Eeyup, with the reasons she gave for creating a cult in a town where everypony should be "equal" on her point of view, it's not surprise that she comes of a certifiably insane
I'm pretty sure that we can all agree that she got off way, way too lightly
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9308579 Tbh I'd debate that, considering seemingly everyone (in show and in fandom) refused to let her move past her mistakes despite her efforts to be better. Even now people still act like she's the worst despite ponies having let it go since mid-S7. But like I said, I've come round to Starlight a lot since then.
Plus, let's be honest, are there any ponies who aren't insane to some degree? Except Applejack of course.
9308690
?
You mean like how AJ went crazy from overworking and sleep depirvation in Season 1 Episode 4 'Apple Buck Season'
I was convinced Starlight's punishment was going to be so much worse. Huh, guess that tells you the kind of stories I am used to.
Interesting story. Glad I found it.
10266576 Possibly so, though through my other stories it ended up being a very slow burning punishment. Long story short, after this she spent a few decades going even further insane (a lot of her dreams involved brutally torturing Twilight), was broken out and created a new version of Our Town where she routinely wiped memories so she could commit further atrocities on the townsfolk, and then having the reality of what she was doing and her plans hit her at once, leaving her ultimately reformed but deeply suicidal with regret and self loathing.
You'd never guess she's my favourite pony from all this
Glad you read and enjoyed it all the same.
10267376
Sounds like a lot of it was self inflicted though, and a equal cutie remarking (as horrible as it is) about as close to a fitting punishment as you make (it is also not permanent like I thought it would be).
I find her a interesting character myself. So what did make you start to like Starlight? I would like to hear about it if you're willing.
Another one I see, we all know how this goes, Starlight refuses reformation, she gets stopped, and then she’s punished, at least her punishment wasn’t overly brutal, you earned an upvote.
10583173 Yeah, ultimately it ended up hurting Twilight far more. And myself in a sense, my views on Starlight have changed a lot since I wrote this. Glad you liked it and thanks for upvoting!
I don't really like how Starlight is portrayed here but it's not so bad that I'm downvoting it. In my opinion Starlight's claim to destroy the spell after seeing the dead world was mostly bluff. Altough if she was called on that she probably would destroy the spell cause she was very unstable. I see Twilight's actions as offering Starlight a way out of a lose-lose situation which Starlight believed was her situation.
10694317 Trust me, I'm not happy with it these days either.
My thought process at the time was that Starlight considered Twilight's efforts a bluff in turn. That she still only cared about her friendships and making her way right over Starlight's. Any method she could use to get one up was worth the cost. In turn, Twilight felt she had been backed into a corner, a situation she'd never dealt with before that would be lose-lose for her, and made a judgement call that hurt her far more in the long run.
Hi
Interesting AU/one-shot. I have a complicated view of Starlight Glimmer, but I do feel her reformation was rushed and half-baked.
I have read reformation fics that try to fix the story and they are good. This take: Starlight rejects redemption is good.
The overall story with Twilight can’t get through to Starlight and resorts to force and magically taking away her powers was good.
Much of the writing and paragraphs are good.
The characterizations are great.
Twilight has a big heart and doesn’t wish to hurt Starlight, but has no choice. A burden of being a leader who strives to do right.
Starlight is a bit crazy. Consumed with revenge, and self-righteousness, blinded to the harm she is causing and thinking Twilight and her friends are the evil ones. And now she’s in a cell.
Just my preference. I think a continuation would be nice. Maybe she gets therapy or something. Or not. Your choice.
The wholesome standards are high.
The language is clean.
Nothing is suggestively offensive.
No extreme violence or any other vile content.
I hope you like this review. God bless
Data Seeker
Poetic Justice