woot for new chapter!

Heh, looks like Rarity is slipping very firmly into Starlight's control.

No clue who the next target will be, though. She has Twilight brainwashed and can subdue Rarity effectively enough to write her off as a problem. Will she have fun with some other passengers, or start working on another of Twilight's friends? Pinkie still seems risky and Dash probably requires restraining or instant trance since she probably won't put up with a conversation induction. Then again with private rooms and a completely loyal Alicorn she could probably take anyone she gets alone as long as their memory can be adjusted quickly enough. Can't wait to see the next method she uses.

Clever indeed with the scented vanilla and coconut oil candles. I should remember that for... 'future reference'.

Love it

7752377
I'm not sure how I feel, this Starlight doesn't really feel li,e the one in the show at all. The show's Starlight has a deep seeded need for acceptance and desired friendship moreover than anything. It's what drove her to do the things she did. I don't even think I can guess at Starlight's motivations here. Which leads to another question. In the first chapter, Starlight seems to suggest that Sunburst was just a story she made up, not a character who exists, but Twilight finds him, and now the event she from The Crystalling are playing out. So was Sunburst real or not in this story?

I said I'd get this chapter out by the eclipse and it's dark outside right now so I must be on time :P

There's an eclipse? Of course there is. A once in a lifetime event and I'm in Europe. Friggin' America.

Rarity edging is very sexy!
8380822
Starlight has also had an extreme desire for control. That's not counter to wanting acceptance, because keeping others under her thumb makes sure they can't abandon her.

8381130
Her need for control is part of her personality, which isn't really the same as a motivator. Most control freaks don't go on mind control sprees, and since, as I pointed out, the Starlight in this story seemed to make up Sunburst out of thin air, her primary motivator from the show doesn't exist anymore.

8381148
Most control freaks don't have ungodly magical powers at their disposal either, heh!

Also, she told them a "ridiculous" story involving a friend. That doesn't mean Sunburst doesn't exist or that nothing happened between them. I always found Starlight's origin story one of the weakest aspects of her, so it'll be interesting to see if the story improves on it.

Incidentally... where do the characters here have their Cutie Marks appear anyway? O_O

8381162
The wording is confusing, so I'm trying to ask, you know, the author, not you, for clarification.
As for Starlight's "god-like" powers, again the first chapter implies that her great power is also fake, that her only real ability to match Twilight is with hypnosis. And Starlight's backstory isn't weak, just poorly explored, which is a similarity with this story so far.

8381185
There's a lot that could be covered within your questions in regards to the world building, relative power of Starlight and Twilight etc. I could create a whole blog post discussing that, and I may very well do that, but for now I'll address the two main questions as best I can, Starlight's motivation and its apparent difference from the show, and Sunburst.

I always found Starlight's backstory and reformation to be a bit trite and over-simplistic. The first chapter of this story was kind of a bit, poking fun at how simplistic I saw it, reasoning it was more like a cover story. However as some details have implied, Starlight didn't invent her backstory out of whole cloth. Sunburst does exist and knew Starlight when they were young. As sure as a gun on the mantle being fired, you can expect they'll run into each other and a more nuanced and complicated history will emerge.

As for feeling Star is acting out of character in this fic, notably saying "Most control freaks don't go on mind control sprees..." I would counter that Starlight canonically has gone on a mind control spree already as shown in the season 5 premiere. Starlight did not know about hypnosis at that point, nor did she outright enchant the villagers in her town, but her control in the village was based on classic tropes for cult mind control techniques such as love bombing and creating guilt for nonconformity.

And let's not forget that locking the Mane 6 into a room filled with a constant mantra about equality was considered a legitimate threat that would convert the Mane 6 to accepting Starlight's philosophy, given enough time. Starlight certainly does want friendship, but in the show, time and time again, she's shown her first instinct is to make that friendship mandatory.

To add another esoteric joke: Na na Na na Na na Na na Equality!

8381385
Thanks for the response, I was just a bit confused by the wording of the first chapter.

8381385
Sorry, I wasn't able to give a more depth response earlier, but now I can. So i never used the phrase 'out of character', and I certainly didn't mean to imply that she was. This is an AU story, one where you don't seem to accept Starlights backstory. That means OOC complaints are thrown out the window, they don't really apply to a character that isn't like the one in the show. My only uncertainty revolved around Sunburst and whether or not the story with him is the same or similar. If it is, then there's no problem. As you said, Starlight is more than willing to do whatever it takes to have friends and a feeling of belonging, including using magic to force others to go along with her.

If that's not the case, then her motivations for everything she's done needs to be explained. You asked whether or not the readers think she should be redeemed or not. The show's Starlight is a sympathetic character (yes, I know not everyone feels that way). Even if we disregard the likely hood her childhood was even more fucked up then the little of her backstory showed us, she still lost the only friend/person she ever cared about, and purposely isolated herself to never feel that pain again. Then she decided at some unknown point in her life that she didn't want to live that kind of isolated life and tried to create a utopia where no one would have to go through what she did. Then Twilight destroys her work, and her new friends turn on her, abandoning her just like Sunburst did, and she decided to try and do the same thing to Twilight. Starlight's revenge was very indicative of how Starlight feels about her villages loss. She tried to hurt Twilight in the same way she was hurt. We all know how that turned out.
This Starlight can realize what she's doing is wrong. It doesn't mean she should be forgiven or go unpunished, but it wouldn't end with her going down fighting.

By changing Starlight's revenge plan, you've already changed a great deal of how she feels and thinks. Your Starlight so far has the real one's manipulative nature ramped up twofold, and has yet to display the rage and loneliness that drove the original. If the Starlight in this story doesn't have the same backstory, or a similar one that would drive her to do what she did, if she's only doing this because she can, then she should burn. Just my opinion on the question.

8382061

Why would we see her rage? She's winning. Everything is going even better than before. Plus we have hints of her more complicated backstory and motivation from the dream and her obvious reluctance to have the Sunburst backstory explored.

8382155
Which chapter was the dream? I don't have time to reread every story each time it updates.

8382162

The beginning of Delayed Gratification.

8382278
Ah, that's why I didn't remember, it isn't a long passage. Yeah, it seems she at least feels the same abandonment over her villagers. As for the lack of rage, your right we wouldn't see any big signs of it, she is winning. I'd still want to know that if it's still there though. I was also implying that it was her rage that pushed her to try and do to Twilight what Twilight had done to her. The Starlight in this story seems cold in comparison.

Quite a fun read of Rarity's POV as she goes through what Starlight did to her. Seeing her please herself while stopping just short was certainly intense and once Starlight came around it really showed just how much control Starlight is taking. It's only a matter of time until Rarity falls completely to her.

i'm guessing she is going to the same thing she did to twilight in the next chapter in going into her mind and make a new sex slave

Would probably go against the tone of the story a bit if Starlight keeps trying to hypnotise Rainbow Dash, but Dash keeps getting distracted by- oooh, shiny.

I'd probably want to do Applejack next if I were Starlight.

8381162
Incidentally... where do the characters here have their Cutie Marks appear anyway? O_O

I think I mentioned in the author comments of the first chapter where marks are but have not explicitly called it out in the story text. Cutie marks are on the sides of characters hips. Racoonkun puts marks there on humanized characters he draws, as an example.

You've inspired me to call this detail out a bit more explicitly in the next chapter, should be a fun scene within the chapter :p

8383467
Being constantly distracted by ooh shiny sounds more like a problem she'd have with Pinkie Pie

8393083
That will surely be fun to read! And I looked back at the chapter in question (including notes); no mention of the marks' positions, plus all the links lead to artwork of characters with their hips covered.

I'm wondering something. Since Starlight's hypnosis can apparently cause Rarity to spontaneously cum that hard, does that then mean that Starlight has control or at least influence over her inductees' autonomic nervous system functions as well? Because that would be... interesting. She could simply turn off the body's reflex to sweat when overheating to make them hot, cause them to produce saliva or tears on command, change their blood pressure, make males spring erect just by saying the word, and so on. Then you get into possibly scary stuff like causing blood vessels to constrict as though you were freezing, possibly triggering the "brain freeze" effect if she targeted the roof of the mouth. Or even turning off breathing and heartbeat.

8393130
You're right. None of the pics I linked show it. It is a somewhat intimate spot so it doesn't show up so frequently

Here is A pic Racoonkun made of Gabby which shows the standard cutie mark location. If you scroll through his DeviantArt gallery there are some pics of characters in bikinis which show it too.

8393401
Don't go too overboard with the implications here. That particular command is a real thing that can happen with hypnosis, and something you may see at an R rated stage hypnotist show.

Not all autonomic functions are equal. Hypnosis mostly functions like a finely tuned placebo effect. I found a Vox article that gives a decent intro to what can happen.

You can induce all sorts of sensations or convince someone they are cold or warm or have brain freeze etc and their bodies will react as though it's true to some degree, but that's a far cry from instructing someone's heart to stop beating.

8393479
Can confirm, i have been made to cum on command via hypnosis. i was so sure it wouldn't work too. Oh my stars, was i surprised.