The Unequal (Spoilers/Summary) · 4:28am May 11th

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/297597/the-unequal

Alright, so this will be the last review in my backlog to do until I take the time to read another story.

The Unequal was a very interesting story. It's funny that the story was in a list recommended to me by a former contact of mine in 2016 and I kept that list for 8 years and only really looked at it at the time of my reading. As of the time of my writing this blog post, I started reading it 2 weeks ago and finished a week ago. So it took me roughly about a week to read through.

For those of you who may know me, Starlight is what me into the fandom in 2016. I had a massive interest in her for years, but I had never read anything about her until I read the Olden World in 2021 and I haven't read anything about her since other than the Olden World's sequel, the Immortal Dream. Both are fics on this site. Look them up. They are very good.

Now, the Unequal starts off with Starlight having victory over Equestria - she Equalizes everyone and assumes complete control over Equestria. As a result, everyone is forced to act according to the way she wants them to. Everything in her reign over Equestria goes well until a filly shows up in Ponyville. This filly is never named and she is the one in the image up above. This filly has a very Cozy-Glow like personality, is sort of clown-like, and gives me fever dream sort of vibes. She has a very jester-like persona in my mind's eye, she is extremely unsettling. Starlight's magic doesn't work on her and Starlight tries everything to Equalize her, but the filly keeps on going and brushes it all off. The Filly begins to sew seeds of dissent throughout Starlight's conquered Equestria, with the goal of defeating Starlight - and over time, the Filly drives Starlight insane through her mind tricks and trickery, making Starlight extremely afraid of her as time goes on.

Starlight tries various plans to defeat or brainwash the Filly, but all of them fail. There are many theories in this story about the Filly's origins, such as a stallion invoking a curse during Discord's reign, the Filly being Starlight's daughter from an alternate timeline - to the whole story being in Starlight's mind when she is in the caves outside of Our Town. The filly herself rejects any kind of familial relations with Starlight. Whatever the case is, it is never confirmed - the Filly is however, an eldritch entity who can travel between universes to punish evil. The Filly appears when the heroes of the setting are unable to defeat the villain, and the Filly prefers to focus on the psychology and mental aspects of defeating someone, but, she is extremely powerful magical wise. There is something about this Filly that evokes a visceral fear in me, that I cannot really put into words, but also a deep dark fascination, and that is where this story really shines.

My favorite bits are definitely the ending, with the Filly and Starlight in the cave. Is the Filly just an imagination of Starlight? We don't actually know, the story doesn't say either way. The Filly also takes down Chrysalis in this story, and uses Chrysalis's plans for her own. The Filly is truly something else, a true enigma. I like not knowing, because that's just part of the character to me.

Occasionally, I find musics that I associate with a story - and here is the one that I associate with the Unequal story.