My headcanon for Starlight Glimmer (with new extra Sunset Shimmer backstory added) · 4:27am Dec 6th, 2015
So, here is my headcanon for Starlight Glimmer. The story she told Twilight was true, but incomplete; she tells that one because she sees it as a microcosm of all of the rest of her experiences that led to her hatred of cutie marks.
First of all, it's important to my headcanon that she is a lot older than Twilight; probably a forty-something. My entire basis for assuming this was that she just looked older, more matronly than someone who would be Twilight's contemporary, in her first appearance. And that she actually got the drop on Twilight, despite Twilight being presumably more powerful and definitely having fought more world-class villains.
Sunburst Shine and Starlight Glimmer were best of pals, pre-cutiefication, and promised each other they would be friends forever. When Sunburst got his cutie mark, however, and went to Canterlot, he was subtly pressured by his new friends to consider contact with his old ones kind of awkward and gauche. He did try, sort of; he had loving parents who brought him back home for vacations on more than one occasion. But he felt like he had no common ground with Starlight anymore; there was so much he was learning that she wasn't privy to, and he didn't want to embarrass her or show her up or make her think he thought he was better than she was (too bad she thought this anyway), so he just felt too awkward to reach across the divide.
In the meantime Starlight made new friends, of course. But one thing is fairly universal among foals, and has been for at least forty years and probably a lot longer... bullying a la Diamond Tiara is rare, but most foals more or less reject the company of their blank flank friends once they get their cutie marks. Twist did it to Apple Bloom, and Twist seems to be a very nice filly overall. It's not malicious, it just seems to be a normal part of growing up; before your cutie mark, you are a foal, and afterward, you are an adolescent on the path to adulthood, with a clear idea of what you're going to be when you get there. And Starlight was a very late bloomer. She didn't get her own cutie mark until she was in her 20's. So all of her friends her own age ended up shutting her out when they got their marks, and then the friends she tried to make of younger children also shut her out, and ponies started to whisper about her and consider her weird because seriously, why didn't she have a cutie mark yet?
Starlight did not appear to be a great magical prodigy; she was good enough, but she never experienced a magical surge. Her quest for her cutie mark, like the CMC's, took her in the wrong direction for the most part, as she tried out many things in an effort to find the one that would be her destiny. However, unlike the CMC, Starlight would try a discipline, study it intensely, and master it before giving up and declaring that she had to move on to the next thing. She was much less of a dilettante, and much more successful at the things she did; Starlight mastered everything she tried, eventually, but none of it seemed to speak to her soul.
This is because, as she discovered in her twenties, her special talent is mastery. Specifically, Starlight is particularly good at control and focus. Her cutie mark, controlled flame and the star of magic, indicates that magic is a wild force that she can control very precisely. She never had a magical surge because she never lost control. Everything she chooses to do, Starlight eventually can become very good at, whether she has any natural talent for it or not, because that is her talent. It's not a magical insta-talent thing -- it's that she's really, really good at studying, working hard, absorbing knowledge, and applying it with precision. Starlight doesn't try a spell if she doesn't know what it will do; she doesn't jump the gun like Twilight. She is slow, steady, and in the end, she generally wins the race.
She has reasons for this beyond it being her talent. Sunburst was taken by Princess Celestia as a personal apprentice (which led to him being practically feted by the town when he returned home, which led to her assuming that he thought he was too good for her and that's why he never bothered to talk to her), because he had powerful, flashy magic and a magic-related cutie mark that made her consider him a potential for the Element of Magic. He wasn't, though; it turned out that Sunburst had a passion for researching magic, pure experimentation with new or revised spells. He became a magic researcher in Canterlot, met his future wife (who shared his profession), had a beautiful little filly named Sunset Shimmer, and remained close to Celestia until the day he and his wife died in an accident caused by a spell they were studying. Sunset had actually already been taken on by Celestia as an apprentice by then, but Celestia had never expected to have to provide mothering as well, and though she tried she was pretty terrible at it... which is part of why Sunset ended up consumed by her own ambition. That, however, is her story. This is Starlight's.
Starlight was of course keeping track of Sunburst's life. She was rather obsessed with him, considering him a touchstone of her life, and believed fervently that as soon as she had her cutie mark, she could resume her old friendship with him. She never had a chance to. One of the problems of being patient and mastering things is that sometimes, you lose opportunities. She thought she had plenty of time to become a truly impressive mage, the moreso for being self-taught, so that she could prove to Sunburst that she was worthy to be his friend... and in that time, he married young and died young. Starlight never truly recovered. In her mind, Sunburst's special talent, the thing that took him away from her, also killed him. And her own special talent, the thing she had struggled for so many years to achieve, prevented her from reaching out to him while there was still time.
Still, she didn't instantly decide cutie marks were the root of all evil. She wandered, discovering magical artifacts, studying things most ponies never had exposure to, being a loner -- not because she truly enjoyed being alone, but because she'd been hurt so many times by losing friends, she'd hardened to it. And most of the ponies she encountered as casual acquaintances in her travels were fellow travelers, and many of those were wanderers because they felt rejected by the ponies they'd grown up with. Often, for cutie mark related reasons, the way Troubleshoes became a wanderer. When they had other reasons for rejection, Starlight didn't tend to remember their stories particularly well; she noted the ones that resonated with her. Ponies all over Equestria were miserable and being driven from their homes because of cutie marks. The individuality that ponies cling to, represented by their mark, was clearly a source of misery and disharmony. The fact that most ponies are obviously pretty happy with their marks was lost on Starlight because those weren't the ponies she knew. The ponies she had actual conversations with tended to have something unpleasant in their pasts that led them to become wanderers.
When she tells the story to other ponies, she doesn't go into the whole lengthy thing. She tells of what started it all, the experience with Sunburst, because she sees that as shorthand for the struggle she endured her entire childhood. But in fact it wasn't one friendship she lost to cutie marks. It was many, over time.
Yes. This makes sense. All of it.
Head cannon fucking accepted. Especially that part about sunburst and sunset shimmer. I think that should be expanded though I don't know how you would make it a real story versus just an exposition dump.
Good stuff. Thanks alara. :)
She acts maternal; as a matter of fact she's one of the few fictional examples of an "evil motherly type" in recent popular fiction intended for children. One of the interesting things about her is that she has neither an actual husband nor any true children of her own: instead, she was the sole "parent" in the "family" of Our Town (in terms of authority); if Double Diamond was her lover he was very, very socially submissive to her, and she clearly had authority completely superseding that of any biological parents over the actual children she saw in town. Any from any school that acknowledge any non-chemical motivations would recognize that she substituted her ideology and organization for more normal equine motivations such as love of husband or protectiveness toward children.
She seems more experienced and "set in her ways" than Twilight or any of her friends (even Applejack). I don't know if it's the voice or the animation style, but she sounds and looks a decade or two older than any of the Mane Six. On my chronology they're 22 to 27 now, so Starlight's probably in her early forties. I had her be 42 in Post-Traumatic because she looks and sounds a bit "shopworn" but not showing any actual decrepitude.
With my Twilight Sparkle being 22 (the youngest of the Mane Six, because she started in Friendship Is Magic at 17 as a young prodigy), that means she's just old enough to be Twilight's mother; also (stretching it a little) old enough to be the mothers of everypony save Applejack (my AJ is now 27). Happily for them, she isn't -- but my point is that she's almost a generation older than the Mane Six.
I like your proposed biography for her though it's inconsistent with mine at some points (specifically, I think that she too was one of Celestia's special students). I could definitely see her as a (relatively) late bloomer, though. My CMC are 15 when they get their Marks, so it's not implausible that Starlight Glimmer was well into her teens, or even a bit older, when she got hers).
I've wondered myself whether or not Sunburst were related to Sunset Shimmer. If Sunburst were exactly my Starlgiht's age he'd be 42-43, so a lot depends on Sunset Shimmer's presumed age. If she's as old as Twilight, he'd be just old enough to be her father if he sired her early -- earlier than my Ponies usually marry, but maybe she gets her passionate impulsiveness from him, and he sired her before he married her mother (leading to a hasty wedding, which you'll see in some of my genealogies). Indeed, Sunset Shimmer could easily be a few years older than Twilight (as the IDW comic shows) consistent with this: maybe he sired her at 17-18, married her mother at 18, in which case Sunset could be 23-24 now -- young enough that it wouldn't really mar the whole Kindred Spirit thing she has going with Twilight.
I thought what I wanted to see more than anything was SunburstXStarlight shipping. I was wrong, now I want to see Starlight trying to be a mother figure to Sunset Shimmer most of all.
This is beautiful headcanon, and it gels very well with the show and its themes. It's brilliant.
Now, if only the show had even hinted at it...
Oooh. I like this a lot. Especially the ties with Sunset. Accepted. I usually have qualifiers with that, but for this one, one hundred percent accepted.
Headcanon read,
Headcanon mulled over,
Headcanon accepted!
This makes sense. A lot of sense. We can thus expect her to be a sort of team mom when she gets her head straight.
You took the low point of the finale, and made this brilliant masterpiece of headcanon with it. I am in awe of your skill.
Reasonable, logical, and disturbingly believable. I especially like the idea of Sunburst being Sunset Shimmer's father. This is definitely something for me to consider. I'm not sure if I want to adopt it quite yet, but I've yet to see anything as well thought out.
¡This is great headcanon!
I'd like to add something as another possible reason for Sunburst not contacting her after he got his mark.
Remember the books nearly fell on Starlight. Children tend to either accentuate or minimize the negative consequences. In this case, it means that Sunburst's mind came to the conclusion that he nearly killed Starlight. It doesn't matter that both of them were stacking books. What matters in his mind is who they nearly fell on, and that his perception of himself was of a good pony. And so, out of guilt, he never contacted Starlight ever again.
The only problem with Sunburst being Sunset's father is that Sunset should be about a decade older than Twilight (at least according to time passed in Equestria). Her time as Celestia's apprentice had to end before Twilight hatched Spike, and in the comics you can see little filly Twilight in the background.
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It's not that implausible. Twilight seemed very young, and Spike seems to be adolescent by our years. If she was 10, and now Spike is 13 and she's 23, and Sunburst ended his apprenticeship, got married and had a kid at 17-18, and Sunset threw an adolescent "You won't make me a princess? Fine! You're not really my mom anyway!" tantrum around 16 and left then... then she's about 6 years older than Twilight, and Starlight Glimmer is about 46. Assuming they all age like humans, anyway.
My own head canon origin for Sunset Shimmer goes like this:
Celestia + G1 cloning mirror (yes that was a thing) = Sunset Shimmer.
That would make a lot more sense.
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But why? Aside from the sun cutie mark there are no similarities between them whatsoever. Sunset Shimmer doesn't look like Principal Celestia when they're both human, her unicorn form doesn't look like either Celestia's form now or the pink-maned younger form she is generally drawn as outside canon, there are no points of similarity in their personality except that they are both capable of being very manipulative... what made you decide there was enough similarity there to posit Sunset as Celestia's clone? I could maybe have bought daughter, considering that I've seen more ridiculous fannish parentages postulated, but clone seems a huge stretch between two ponies who look nothing alike and just have vaguely similar cutie marks.
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If Celestia was running out of time to FIND an Element of Magic to save Luna, she'd MAKE ONE.
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Well, true enough, but Sunset just seems really unlikely to be a clone to me, due to having no resemblance to Celestia whatsoever. Given that Celestia plays the long game, you'd think that if the result of her last-ditch effort was Sunset Shimmer, it would be because Sunset is her daughter. I could buy Sunset being the result of parthenogenetic ipse-duo-ovo fertilization (where one female contributes two eggs that are then combined into a single blastocyst; we don't have that technology ourselves yet, but with advanced magic, it might well be possible), if Celestia didn't want to mess around with trying to find an acceptable sperm donor. A cloning mirror would certainly be easier but doesn't seem as if it would result in Sunset. Heck, Fleur de Lis seems like a much better candidate for a clone of Celestia, physically.
Hmm. Now I find myself wondering, if Celestia was desperate enough to clone herself and the result was Fleur de Lis, what could have happened to Fleur to reduce her magic to normal unicorn levels so she was not a candidate for either the Element of Magic or alicornification?
Also, what if Trixie was an attempted clone of Luna, based on 1000-year-old mane strands, who didn't work out because of the genetic degradation of 1000 years on alicorn body parts that aren't attached to the alicorn anymore? Given that Luna's child form, the one she appeared as at the end of Friendship is Magic, is essentially the same color palette as Trixie but a darker saturation of both mane and coat...
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If she WAS born using the G1 cloning Mirror, the original idea was that Celly modified it so Sunset WOULDN'T be her douppleganger (enabling her to have her own life) but still having her immense magical power.
It's better than Twilight Sparkle having ALWAYS been chosen by the tree of harmony to be Magic, and Sunset Shimmer being raised by Celestia to be so was a mistake/accident rather than say Sunset's OWN FAULT for getting greedy being why she didn't.
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I agree that Twilight having always been destined to be the one sole Element of Magic is kind of crap. Presumably, your cutie mark is not decided before birth, otherwise why does it wait for manifestation? I think Twilight was chosen to be the Element of Magic the moment she had an enormous magical surge that occurred as the result of a magic event that bonded her destiny to five other fillies, which presumably happened after Sunset had already started to go seriously off-course, possibly after Sunset had already left Canterlot. (My Twilight was ten when she got her cutie mark, and Sunset's about four or five years older than her.)
Sunset wasn't destined to be the Element either; nopony is destined for it until they are. A choice is made someplace in their life where the force of Harmony decides, yeah, you look good. Prior to that happening, any sufficiently powerful magic user could theoretically be the Element of Magic. So yeah, I agree that it was Sunset's own damn fault that she could not be the Element, and in part this was Celestia's fault for not recognizing her issues and countering appropriately. (I don't blame Celestia for this -- without her sister, I feel that Celestia was becoming more and more unglued from the mindset of an ordinary pony, and as hard as she tried to stay connected, she had no true friends or confidants for centuries because after they'd died on her often enough her heart would have turtled up for self-protection.)