Hands Short: Peace Treaty Between Shepherd and Starlight · 4:44pm Nov 9th, 2019
Starlight and Shepherd are sitting in Twilight's castle. Glaring at one another. Twilight is sitting between them, smiling awkwardly.
Twilight: "Well... Um... Shepherd, as you know, we're going to be having another Friendship Intern-"
Shepherd: "No."
Twilight: "Shepherd, please-"
Shepherd: "No."
Twilight: "We need to teach her the magic of friendship."
Shepherd: "She needs to be shot and left to be eaten by maggots."
Twilight: "I'm so glad you're not armed right now."
Shepherd: *Glares*
Starlight: "Listen, Twilight... Maybe you should let us talk things out? Alone?"
Twilight: "Are... Are you sure?"
Starlight: "... Yes. Yes, I'm sure."
Twilight: "Andrew, please-"
Shepherd: "I will not kill her. That's all I can promise."
Twilight: *Takes a deep breath, nods* "... It's all I ask." *She trots out, and shuts the door behind her. Starlight grimaces*
Starlight: "Okay, look... I did some terrible things and you have every right to hate me-"
Shepherd: "You nearly. Destroyed. The universe. Fuck you."
Starlight: "But I'm willing to change! I mean, you accept Chrysalis! She invaded your homeworld!"
Shepherd: "One: She was a junior queen who argued against all out conflict and she was right. Two: Her species was starving and on its last legs, forcing her to desperate measures. Three: She had to watch most of her race die because of mine. I can excuse actions like that if she willingly wants to redeem herself. You? You lost your best friend growing up and so decided to become evil? You nearly wiped out all of existence because you got friendzoned?!"
Starlight: "There-there were some steps between those things-"
Shepherd: "Oh golly gee! I guess I can forgive you-Oh wait, no. No, I can't. I can forgive actions taken out of desperation, but I'm not going to forgive a spoiled sociopath like you who nearly ended all of existence for whatever bullshit excuse you can come up with to justify your own powerlust."
Starlight: "Twilight thinks I can redeem myself. I... I want to believe I can."
Shepherd: "... Twilight wants to see the good in everyone. She's usually right. In this case though? I think she's wrong and that this is a mistake. To keep a monster like you around is just begging for trouble."
Starlight: "... You really hate me that much?"
Shepherd: "I love Twilight and everyone else enough that I will put anything on the line for them. I will do anything for them. The fact she's even willing to try and teach you not to be a horrible bitch is why I would do that for them. And if you understood anything about friendship or kindness or basic decency, I wouldn't have to explain it to you!"
Starlight: *Looks down at her hooves* "... I see."
Shepherd: *Takes a deep breath* "... However... I can accept... That I could be wrong. That maybe you do want redemption, and that this is a chance you don't deserve but maybe, maybe you won't fuck up. However... I'll make things crystal clear. I will never, ever trust you. I will not forget what you did. And the second you put one hoof out of line? I will kill you."
Starlight: "... You say that so easily."
Shepherd: "That's what you've made me, Starlight. So do us both a favor: Don't fuck this up, don't make me kill you. Because I'm at the point where I won't hesitate. Understand?"
Starlight: *Nods* "I do... In the meantime though, for your sake and Twilight's? Can we... Can we try to be... To be civil? It's not like I don't know you hate me, but you don't have to be a jerk about it."
Shepherd: "You tried to end existence, fuck you."
Starlight: "Please? For Twilight's sake? Maybe you haven't noticed but she hates when we fight."
Shepherd: "Of course I noticed!"
Starlight: "Then please?"
Shepherd: *Grumbles* "... Fine."
Starlight: "Good... Then maybe we can shake on it?" *Extends her hoof*
Shepherd: "..."
Starlight: "Please?"
Shepherd: "..." *Slowly, begrudgingly, takes her hoof and shakes it. Once. Just as Twilight comes in*
Twilight: "Oh! Sorry, I just... I was worried."
Starlight: "Don't worry. He can be trained."
*Which is when Shepherd punched Starlight as hard as he could, sending her crashing to the floor*
Twilight: "ANDREW!"
Shepherd: "What?! She's not dead! That's literally all we agreed to!"
Starlight deserved that.
This logically means that "Every Little Thing She Does" never happens in this timeline. I approve.
Andrew is right. She needs to be shot and killed. Fucker is messed up and dangerous.
Now I want to see what happens when Shepherd finds out that Twilight puts Starlight in charge of shaping vulnerable young minds as school counsellor.
I'm rather confused where this is coming from. Before we got two story-blogs about how Shepherd set her up for a date, then just smiled and looked on as she banged her crush. I haven't actually read Hands yet, so maybe I'm just not familiar with his mindset.
5152661
5152687
Well she did help save the world once since that time maybe he thought that was enough redemption to forgive but not forget
I know this isn't the focus of the story, but thank you SO MUCH for at least pointing this out. So much of the fandom utterly don't pay attention to the chronology of what happened with the Mane 6 and Glimmer, and misses the whole focus of her mindset. She takes umbrage with how a Cutie Mark took away her friend. The conflict she faced as a filly wasn't (just) a missing friend, it was the realization that part of life was out of her control. So as an adult, she creates an entire neighborhood and social circle she controls. But then the Mane 6 come across this, and yank her out of her totalitarian comfort zone, tearing down her life's work. That's when her fixation with Twilight begins. Specifically, her friends, and her life story about how everything has gone seemingly perfect for her.
An issue with how The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 2 ends is that because this show always places emphasis on friendship, it ends up talking more about her relationship with Sunburst, because she didn't have REAL friends at Our Town; just people she lived vicariously with. So Starlight being broken up about Our Town, the loss of community and home, didn't factor as much as it should have during Twilight's effort to calm her down. We just go back to the trope of EVERY choice in someone's life originates from one hour of a person's total lifespan. It's a big problem, but that 2nd inciting incident from the start of Season 5 is still clearly referenced to:
But that last bit is foreign to Starlight, because even for people she ostensibly cares about, she never wants someone having their hands on the wheel of HER life. That's why her conflict escalates to time travel; nothing controls her, not even fate itself (a very Rick Sanchez aspect). Which is a huge problem in Equestria, where Destiny is a tangible force that literally marks everyone. That's how Starlight took the concepts of equality and community and turned it into something so nasty; she doesn't want to yield to anyone or anything.
Starlight also can't exactly bring it up on her own. "No Twilight, I didn't want to destroy your life because I lost my friend; I did it because you took away my servants!" She knows that wouldn't endear her to anypony, and the show probably figured that wouldn't endear her to the audience. As intimidating and real Starlight's cult felt, I think the show was WAY too trepedacious with examining the relationship between an abuser and an abuse victim. Compared to say, Steven Universe (even though that didn't always nail the landing). That's a dynamic that also could have been explored more with Chrysalis interacting with any of the reformed Changelings, but the closest we got to that was Ocellus's nightmare vision.
Nit's nice to see Pony Stalin get punched in the face.
5152687
One act is for a friend. The other act is for an enemy and someone he supremely distrusts and believes is irredeemable.
5152687
It's just posted out of order. That's my bad.
5152650
No, logically it means that after it happened, Shepard killed her. Though it's possible he was out of town at the time and Twilight swore everypony to secrecy.
5152856
I'm just saying, the explicit threats on Starlight's life might make her a bit more risk-averse.
One thing that bothers me about all the Starlight hate is that she did not set out to destroy the universe; she did not try to destroy the world. All she was trying to do was break up Twilight's friendship. Seems like such a little thing, right? Yes, there were horrific unintended consequences, but when they were shown to her, when it was made clear what she was doing, she stopped on her own. They tried to make her stop and couldn't, she had to be made to want to stop. And when she realized the extent of the damage, she did stop.That's why she gets a redemption arc.
5152875
Yes, which is why eventually Shepherd forgives her and befriends her. But at the start, he still has the terrible futures she created in his mind and the trauma of living through them, so it's understandable he's still hostile.
5152880
Yeah, I didn't mean to single you out in any way. I guess I get frustrated when I see someone who has royally effed up get treated as though whatever they caused was their goal. Maybe I'm projecting.
5152875
Okay, this is a point of pedantry, nothing more, but she wasn't just trying to "break up Twilight's Friendships". If that was all she wanted to do that, she'd have gone back to episode 1 and stop Twilight coming to Ponyville. After all, it's not like that being when her friendships started was some big secret that'd be harder to unearth than her cutie mark story. Instead, she goes right back to childhood and tries to stop the event that, from her... somewhat skewed perspective, led to Twilight having a better life than her. Whether or not doing so was the primary motivation for her actions, the fact remains that she was attempting to completely destroy Twilight's life.
More pertinently, I think, in that very description, you kind of touch on part of why her turnaround rang so hollow for many, myself included.
Okay. But what if there weren't? What if her attempt to destroy Twilight's life hadn't caused a future she didn't approve of? What if it was, say, Big Mac or Carrot Top who she wanted revenge on, eliminating these messed up futures (ignoring, for a moment, the whole butterfly effect, any-change-causes-chaos aspect, since she was ignoring it)? Would she have stopped then? Or would she have ruined their entire life and then cheerfully walked away, patting herself on the back for a job well done? Given everything we see, it seems like the latter is far more likely.
Like with her later little... incident, even when she stops, she clearly has no idea what the actual problem was. What she did wasn't only wrong because it turned out badly in a way that affects her and that she didn't approve of. It was wrong because trying to completely wreck someone's life is a bad thing to do. Had she stopped out of any kind of guilt for her intent, maybe it would've been easier to swallow. Heck, if she'd just seen the Twilight from a non-obliterated reality being miserable and felt guilty for the pain that she intentionally caused her, that could have worked quite well. But no, she just stops because things didn't turn out the way she wanted them too. Our (future) hero, everybody!
That said, I should point out that I'm not disputing your basic claim, that she wasn't trying to cause those bad futures. Just that that's... really not all that exculpatory.
5152961
You don't think so? I think that intent matters a lot. It's the difference, for example, between First degree murder, and negligent homicide. It's the difference between being a distracted driver, and trying to run someone down with your car.
Regardless, I see that in my original post I wasn't as specific as I thought I was being. I was intending that my complaint be about the number of times I've read vitriol directed to her, with their complaint being that she had tried to destroy the world, and was forgiven for it. You don't seem to feel that it matters that it was an accident. I feel that it does. Fair enough. I think that we're just going to have to accept that we're not going to see eye-to-eye on this.
5152967
Okay, I worded that last part extremely poorly, I do apologize for that.
I'm not saying that those futures being accidental doesn't excuse her specifically from causing those futures. I'm saying it doesn't excuse her from the terrible things she was trying to do.
In fact, I absolutely agree that intent matters - if Twilight had caused those futures with her own time shenanigans, I would not for a moment think to castigate her for them. The thing is, though, intent doesn't just cover the things one wants to do; it also includes the things one is willing to do. After all, if I wanted get a sandwich and someone else had taken the last one available, so I killed them and took it, saying "Hey, all I wanted was to have a sandwich!" wouldn't exactly be the best defense. In that case, the murder wouldn't be specifically what I was after, but I still would have willingly done it and could be held accountable for it.
And Starlight? She wasn't willing to totally destroy the world, so, indeed, holding her cuplable for that is questionable. But, even if we assume that all she wanted was to destroy Twilight's friendships (which I am really not convinced of, but we'll say it was), she was willing to completely destroy her entire life and cause significant disruption to the timestream, rewriting the future with the potential of harming it. Yes, she wasn't trying or willing to obliterate the world, but that's kind of the definition of a low bar and I don't think it exonerates her for what she was trying and willing to do. Still, I do see where you're coming from about blaming her for those futures, even if I'm not entirely convinced myself.
On that note, I do want to say that I sincerely appreciate you trying to end the discussion where you did and on friendly terms - agree to disagree is a sadly rare thing to be suggested, let alone accepted, and I probably wouldn't have done so if I hadn't realized that I massively miscommunicated. I am fully willing to agree to disagree on whether or not she deserved the redemption arc (though, to be honest, the fact she got one is far less of an issue for me than how it was executed, but that's a whole different topic) and this post is not intended to attack you. It just that I wanted to make my position clear so I didn't come across as supporting a position that I'm not. I apologize for that but, as the previous post may have mentioned, I'm kind of a pedant at times.
5152760
Nyet. Pony Jim Jones, you mean.
I'm gonna have to reread the whole story. I've not read any new chapters in well over a year, on a lot of stories.
Let the fun commence!
5152880
In your version of events, did he go with Twilight on her time-travelling adventure? Or did he somehow retain the memories of each alternate life he lived?
5157206
The latter. Something about humans and his proximity to the spell being cast.