Twilight Sparkle is at her limit.
She has long since dismissed her original objective, forgetting exactly why she is stuck in this alternate timeline in the first place. Her only mission now is to stop the mare in her way— an adversary with uncanny magical strength and indefatigable purpose.
It’s time to finish this... once and for all.
Cover art by Huussii on Deviantart.
A dark twist on the Season 5 finale.
Proofread by Lightwavers and Level Dasher.
Edited by Dreams of Ponies.
Featured 8/28/17 - 8/31/17!
Chapters (1)
It's out! Good job, it was a fun read. :)
Well, so that's what happens when Twilight finally gets pushed too far... And I thought her battle against Tirek was something. Still, I do feel sorry for Starlight here, despite this version's insanity. Her backstory presented here would explain a bit. Constants and variables, constants and variables. Interesting read, to say the least.
8393272
Thanks for all the edits!
Ashes... ashes...
...We all fall down...
Damn, alright, fuck, i expected dark, but this... so normally i would just leave a command like " Yeah, that was about as good as i hoped it would be " or something along those lines ( which would already be high praise since i had really high expectations ). However, i don't feel like it would be sufficient, so let me get more in depth.
First of all, Twilight's depiction.
In the beginning i was feeling like you made her a bit too weak, because Twilight should at least be able to tie with Starlight ( though in my opinion she far exceeds Starlight's magical prowess). Naturally, that complaint cleared itself up over the course of the story. But even during her surge in power, you still made her feel like Twilight. What i mean by that is you couldv'e just made her kill Starlight halfway through and call that a dark story, and while i'm sure you wouldv'e made that work just fine, you didn't take the easy route. Twilight still wanting to hear out Starlight and thinking about reforming her all the way until the very end is exactly what canon Twi would do, good job and making her act that way.
Starlight's depiction.
Cocky, smug and drunk on power while in the lead. About how we would expect her to act, so once again, perfectly natural depiction of character. her suddenly switching to cowering in fear and panicking when met with overwhelming odds felt just was much in character, which i base on " a royal problem" , where she basically shut down once the situation escalated. So you depicted her well, but what was more impressive is that you actually made her origin story make sense. This version makes her have legitimate reasons for hating cutie-marks.
Speaking about her origin story. THAT is how the dark tag is gone. Not through excessive gore, or just through the topic of death. What you wrote here is far worse in my opinion. Multiple forms of child abuse. Then having the one beacon of hope in her life ripped away. Yeah, that's dark. What makes it even more depressing is her sacrifice in the end. there was alot in those lines. First, in the beginning of the story Starlight proclaimed she never considered herself a good pony, but the way filly her acted contradicted that. That just put a lot of emphasive of how much life fucked with that poor mare, and makes the already dark story just all the more so. Also, if you try to view the whole situation from the filly's perspective, it just get's even more sad. Imagine being her and suffering through abusive teachers, a sexually abusive dad and then the loss of the one good thing in your life, only to see that the road of suffering you were forced to take and somehow managed to endure let you down a path as dark as the things you went through. Yeah, devastating.
Alright, this certainly was the longest comment i ever wrote on this site, sorry about that. I just loved this story to pieces.
Also, i should probably put spoiler covers over half of this, but won't because i don't think anyone's gonna spoil themselves by glancing over this clusterfuck of a comment.
Dammit, man, saying anything would ruin the goodness. So, basically, holy crap. This far exceeded any and all expectations.
Only part i would have maybe left out was the bit with the cake.
...Damn.
That was friggin' awesome. Glad I could help after the fact.
That was really dark. And so good. I loved it.
Oh wow. I teared up at the end.
Noice.
8393316
I always love hearing what you have to say about my stories, makes my day.
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8393692
I'm glad you enjoyed.
8393770
That's a reaction I was hoping for, I'm glad you liked it that much.
8393879
And reading them makes mine, so youi posting stories is beneficial for us both. Which means: keep em coming
8393770
I really didn't. I always felt she got off a little too easily. You would think that the concept of tearing apart entire lives would put some strain on Starlight and Twilight's relationship, but I guess the show isn't that complex.
More punishment for Starlight. She messed with the fucking timeline! A perfect example of a person using timelines without being OP would be the Flash. Look at Flash when he changes the timeline, everyone he loves dies, he suffers great repercussion. Now, let's look at Starlight, she messes with the timeline, effectively destroys a thousand Equestrias, and she just gets off scot free.
that was sad, dark and everything in between
and yet that ending was probably the only way for filly Starlight to truly escape the prison of hell she had to call home
Christ, Jack... that hit me hard because of how relatable I found it to be. (No, I wasn't abused.) You haven't lost your charm. Keep up the good work... please.
The ending was climactic enough but having that somehow solve all the problems seems like a huge cop-out and it's seems counterproductive to their situations. If anything that seems like it would just make the situation a whole lot worse, not neatly wrap everything up.
Frankly it doesn't make much sense, getting rid of Twilight's friends in the alternate timelines didn't get rid of Twilight and Spike trying to stop Starlight, so why would getting rid of filly Starlight get rid of the adult version?
8394292
Umm... because not only did Starlight merely prevent them from forming their friendships (not get rid of them), while Twilight and Spike were still affected directly by Starswirl's spell, with this ending... Starlight is dead from fillyhood. She never grows up to become her adult version.
Damn. Nice job, I wasn't sure what I was expecting going in this but good job. Really tied in her hatred for cutie marks pretty well with the culmination of everything young Starlight was going through. I think you pulled it off pretty brilliantly.
8394353
Preventing their friendship would be the same as getting rid of them in this case, since without it Twilight wouldn't be even be an alicorn and wouldn't be fighting Starlight in the first place, in all those alternate universes they also wouldn't have grown up to become themselves, yet they're still able to keep fighting Starlight.
8394384
Hm. Valid point about Twilight possibly not being an alicorn in the AltU's, but I stand by the 'directly affected by the spell' argument, as well as the alt-selves vs death. Sometimes you just need to have a little suspension of disbelief.
That's my last say.
I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means...
OHHH
That feels...mmm
I mean from (kid)Starlights point of view she started seeing Cutiemarks as evil, so when she sees herself, older, and WITH a cutiemark attacking an Alicorn...
Nice story mate
Ahh, the nostalgia. I should play some more Darkest Dungeon.
8394745
Finally, someone gets the reference.
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8394570
Glad to hear I hit the feels.
8394383
Glad to hear you liked it, I see your story's in the box as well. Congratulations.
8394756
The reference was obvious from the synopsis
"indefatigable purpose", who even says that? 😂
8394826
Lovecraft?
... Okay, yeah, that was a good one-shot. Thanks for sharing! Thought I knew from the beginning how it would end, and I was wrong. Whether on purpose or accident, that helped make what really happened that much more impactful.
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The ending reminds me of a scene from "Meet the Robinsons" where the main character says to the villain (a robot his future self invented) "I will never make you" and the robot ceases to exist
And thus a paradox was triggered that destroyed the universe.
No, seriously. This creates several irreconcilable causation paradoxes atop each other. The universe would rip itself apart.
8394822
are you kidding?.....that was a kick to the feels nuts
Yeesh! Now that was darker than I was expecting. But I suppose that was the point, so good job.
That ending was really impressive. Wow!
On the other hand, beginning is what I want to rant a bit about: it seems like a weird thing happening after weird thing.
Why would Twilight say something like this? Looking down on Starlight may be morally correct position, but it would clearly make her angrier.
It's not obvious when reformation became an option. Twilight's first idea in the episode was just to kick Starlight's ass (which is pretty understandable).
Very strange phrase: Starlight clearly brought Twilight there specifically to fight her.
Theme about Twilight being super-tired and needing encouragement from her friends is odd too, when most of the story she is actually beating the crap out of Starlight almost effortlessly.
It is not clear why would Starlight think that Twilight cares about something like this so much that she would stop.
Why would Twilight accept this gamble when stakes are so high instead of restraining her, ending time loop and discussing Starlight's very troubled past after?
It seems that even original episode's version of events prior to them going to Starlight's past looks better for this story (except a couple of very nice Starlight's taunts). I very much like everything that comes after.
Now you see this went about perfectly, that is until the end. You give greater justification to Starlight's hatred of Cutie Marks, the source (if nothing else) of her motivation to become the uber powerful Unicorn she did in the form of her abusive father and teachers. Twilight is also reasonable, even when Starlight forced her into taking extreme force she was still willing to hear her out because she wanted to hold onto hope that she was a good pony underneath which was sadly confirmed at the end.
Except my problem is how did the young Starlight know SHE was the villain in that scenario. All she saw (as far as we're aware) is her future self and a Princess fighting, she doesn't know the context of said fight and therefore has no reason to jump to the conclusion she did. What would have made it slightly better is if, in her anger at his leaving her alone, Starlight attempted to kill the young Sunburst, Twilight defends him and THIS is why she jumps in to save Twilight after that.
I also think Twilight's reaction is a little too negative. Yes it was a tragic situation BUT she still stopped a mad mare from causing Equestria to be destroyed/conquered by tyrants AND she could at least take some solace in the confirmation that Starlight COULD have been a good mare if circumstances were different. It isn't a completely hollow victory, certainly a tragedy but it could have been worse, at least in my opinion.
Still a really good take on the finale though.
Dust to Dust
8395517
It wasn't the filly who knew that Starlight was evil. It was Starlight herself, who killed the filly, therefore ceasing to exist.
I really enjoyed this. Also, this song comes to mind.
Wow. This was...wow. I kinda regret reading this. Don't get me wrong, it's written very well, full props to the author. Very good job! But, man. The anguish.
8395517
I think it's even more tragic the way it is. The implication is that Filly Starlight was precocious enough to know, through introspection, that she'd grow up to be a really twisted individual as a result of the abuse she suffered. That's heart-rending. If it had been written such that her conclusion was drawn from observing Twilight and Adult-Starlight's actions, it wouldn't be nearly as impactful.
8396887
Couldn't have said it better myself.
8397133
Excellently phrased.
Is the title of this a Bastielle reference?
8397988
No?
Wait... If Starlight doesn't grow up, she can't shoot herself... PARADOX!!