Trixie saw it first, and then so did Twilight: Starlight has a problem, and it all leads back to her childhood. Something inside still haunts her and keeps her from truly fitting in. But when Trixie arrives one morning to mooch a free breakfast and propose a silly plan, Twilight never expected it to send her beloved student running from the room in tears.
The only way to deal with this will be for Starlight to confront her childhood fears, but this time, she'll have Trixie by her side. Still, all the planning and checklists in the world can't prepare Twilight for where this will lead them. In the end, all of their lives will be changed.
Please note that as of season 8, new additions to the canon have shunted this story into alternate universe territory.
Cover art by Little Tigress
Special thanks to the TheApexSovereign for prereading and valuable insight.
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This is looking really quite interesting.
Thanks. One can only hope. Honestly, I didn't expect it would take two 3000 word chapters to get Twilight and Starlight about to have a heart to heart, but these first two have to do a lot of story setup. I can only hope that it doesn't come off as too long-winded. Or strangely obsessed with pancakes.
For the record, I'm not just making this up as I go along. I have the story outline fairly well set, so I have a map and I'm pretty clear on the destination. But, this is the first time I've ever written a fanfic at all, so it's a bit of a learning experience.
So, please! Keep the feedback coming and help me make this little endeavor worthwhile for everyone here!
This is great stuff! Everyone is written well, the drama is good. It's paced nicely. I'll have more to say on the content once we reach it!
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Thank you. I was actually kind of worried about how Trixie was coming off, since I needed her to push for this odd request in a way that would sound sort of credible for her while also seeming obviously half-baked. What I’m going for here is Trixie is trying to be subtle, but doesn’t do it very well. The thing is, Twilight automatically assumes that she’s doing it for selfish reasons, while Trixie is trying to manipulate her in order to help Starlight. They’re both playing off their expectations of how the other one thinks. They’re both going to find that’s not as simple as they assume.
The next chapter’s going to be a bit more difficult to write, since it’s going to set in motion the events of the next three days.
That wonderful moment when a good B-plot presents itself to you...
So, for those of you wondering where chapter 3 is, I’m just waiting for some last minute editorial suggestions before publishing. I’m hoping to maintain a weekly (or at most biweekly) release schedule, so look for new installments every Friday.
Just as a warning, this is shaping up to be a long one. Hopefully, it’ll be worth your time to read.
Great chapter I hope you will be able to update before the holidays comes It will be nice to see if Twilights idea will work and I do like the mother daughter relationship you have between Starlight and Twilight. I also hope you have a few more moments of Twilight talking to little Starlight because she seems to have problems with her mother and and it would be intressting to see twilight fell that role and maybe have the other members of the main 6 fill certian roles of Starlights family because it could be a large proplem she has maybe she didn't have a big family to help her when she needed it.
Anyway thanks agin for the the update and I can't wait for the next chapter.
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Thanks. As I mentioned below, I aim to update either weekly or biweekly, depending on how inspired I feel during the week. So, hopefully you'll get at least two updates this month.
As for Little Starlight, this story will ultimately turn on her and her past. It's also going to delve into Trixie's character, but keep in mind that Twilight is definitely the protagonist here. Let's just say that her idea will be very much like Trixie's plan in this chapter: it will go perfectly right up to the moment that it doesn't.
Gotta say, I love your interpretation of these characters.
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The secret is that everyone is secretly regretful about their past.
Except Spike. Spike is totally cool with his past.
I just want to say that I completely disagree with how you view Starlight.
The fact is that poor impulse control and having trouble facing your fears does not indicate that was unable to grow up, so to speak. People with an anxiety disorder, for example, would likely have a harder time facing their fears then other people would. Plus the stronger a fear is the harder it will be to confront it.
As far as impulse goes, well some people are just more impulsive than others.
I would also like to correct you about the reason Starlight created that village. You said she created it to avoid facing her fears but that’s not true. She created that village because at the time she truly believed that the only way for ponies to be friends is if they are all equal.
Saying that she doesn’t face her fears is also incorrect. One of the major parts of To where and back again was Starlight facing her fear of being in a leadership position by having to lead a group on a rescue mission. And if you insist that Starlight’s village was a way of her avoiding her fears, then she faced that as well at the end of season 5 when she accepted Twilight’s friendship. Another example also comes from the season 5 finale; Starlight was clearly afraid of whatever punishment Twilight and her might give her but instead of trying to avoid it she calmly accepted whatever fate might await her. Bottom line, Starlight does in fact face her fears.
What I’m getting at overall is that there are flaws in how you view Starlight. I’m not trying to change how you see her but I feel it’s necessary to point out when it contradicts what has been shown.
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It's not so much that she avoids facing fears as she's motivated by very deep-seated ones. There's a big difference. One drives behavior, the other represses. My interpretation of her is that she started her town for a very childish stated reason (i.e. Getting a cutie mark took her friend from her, therefore they're bad), but a deeper reading of that as I see it is her fear of making new friends after losing Sunburst led to her making a place where she'd never have to worry about it again. The problem was that no one in her town was really happy, and so she became more and more dictatorial in order to maintain the fiction she'd created. Twilight and the others coming in and wrecking her plans led to what was essentially a tantrum. They took her friends away, and so she'd get even by taking Twilight's friends away. Again, a really childish reaction.
So, my view of Starlight is that she's a case of arrested development. And there's a whole raft of issues to be explored with what little backstory we're given on her. Why did she only have one friend? Why couldn't her relationship with her family overcome his loss? Why does someone so powerful suffer from such anxiety? There are many reasons why she could be suffering a personality disorder, and I chose arrested development as my interpretation. I'm not saying that you're wrong about it not always being the reason for these issues, but for the purposes of this story, I went with this.
This story is ultimately born of how I see Starlight and Twilight's relationship, working toward an ending that came to me. It's idiosyncratic, but that's the nature of fan fiction. Ultimately, it's doomed to be destroyed by the show's canon. With that in mind, it's inevitable that your interpretation of Starlight will be different than mine. I'm sorry you feel that way, but this feels right to me, and so I'll continue on this course. It might irritate you to continue reading, but (to quote that YouTube video) it's okay to not like things.
I hope you'll continue to check in on its progress, and please keep commenting.
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I think you may be reading too far into things.
As far her anxiety goes, well that was no doubt a result of her reformation. Her world view was shattered and she had to relearn everything she thought she knew (the fact that Starlight herself flat out says that actually supports what I said about her reasons for making the village) and as a result she doubted herself and her ability to be good friend and that’s ultimately what her anxiety. It’s also why we haven’t seen suffer from much anxiety in season 7, because she’s gotten past that point in her life. Really the only time we saw her suffer from any form of anxiety in season 7 was because Twilight kept putting pressure on her (I am of course referring to A Royal Problem which actually inspired me to write a fanfic, despite how much I hated seeing Starlight suffer in that episode, which can be found here yay shameless self promotion).
Also, Starlight being angry about losing her village was actually justified when you look at it from her point of view. To her what happened was six mares she had never met before, and who had never heard of her, just came to her village one day for seemingly no reason and took away everything she had spent years working on despite them having no reason to as far as she could tell. Honestly, I think most people would be upset in that situation.
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Which is exactly what fan fiction is for.
Here's the thing about this story: nothing that happens in it can or will ever happen on the show. It's simply a story that came to me that I felt inspired to pursue. It is already mainly undone by the events of this season's finale because Starlight was incredibly mature and rational in it.
So, just view it as an alternative take on the characters. This is my first time doing something like this, so it's bound to stretch against a few boundaries.
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Fair enough.
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As I said, I hope you keep reading it. Despite my view of Starlight, you may yet enjoy it.
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I always intended to keep reading it.
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Oh, well thank you very much.
It pretty much is confirmed that it was an age spell. Starlight herself says they were actually in their child bodies.
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She also said it was "in their childhood home," which they clearly were not, since they never left the throne room. And Sunburst then later said that they were "pretending" to be foals again. Also, if she turned into a child, wouldn't she lose the ability to turn them back? Remember, in those forms, they also appeared to lose their cutie marks. I'm also pretty sure from the way Snips and Snails reacted when they were turned into babies in Magic Duel that you don't keep your adult mind when you get transformed that young.
I'm convinced that she cast a very good illusion.
(Also, story requires a difference between an age spell and this illusion spell, so...)
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Hi thanks for the reply i can wait then for the next chapter
Hi, everyone. Just a little update.
I'll be taking another week to write the next chapter, so no update this Friday (8 Dec 2017). I'd initially thought I could just dive right into getting them out to Field Day, but then realized that would be shortchanging poor Trixie. Also, I need to develop exactly how Field Day will go. It definitely needs to be lighter and happier after chapter three.
So, be patient and enjoy the holiday season.
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Changing their bodies does not necessarily mean she changed their age. Remember when Trixie used an age spell on Snips and Snails? She changed their minds as well as their bodies whereas Starlight’s spell only changed their bodies. Plus the spell also made it so that they were in their childhood home which suggests it was more of a transformation spell then anything.
Hey everyone. Just an update:
As is obvious, chapter 4 wasn’t published today. The reason is simple: I couldn’t work it out clearly in my head until only a couple of days ago. I plan to write it over the weekend and hopefully publish on Monday. Then begins the hard part: Field Day itself.
Amazing how much can change in a day, huh?
So, as most of you have probably heard, there was a massive leak of episodes for season 8 over the last day or so. One of these includes an episode that shows Starlight's hometown and family. So, as is the fate of all fanfic, the canon has rendered this story wildly out of the show continuity.
That changes nothing. This story was always going to be wildly out of continuity, so please just take it as such. I will continue it as though none of the new information existed. For those of you who can be patient, hold off until season 8 starts, and then you can see Starlight's actual past.
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You know I’m normally a patient man, but this is one of those situations where my patience has failed me.
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I apologize for not cranking out more words for you in a timely manner.
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I’m talking about the episode.
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That said, I appreciate that you seem to care enough about this story that you're impatient to read more. I spent the last few days discussing my plot ideas with my pre-reader, mainly to sanity check myself and make sure that the broad outline of where I want to go wasn't too crazy. Then the leaked episodes hit, and I got to see a whole lot of my head canon destroyed in one episode. So, I stopped to reconsider some stuff, and then decided to just say what the hell and continue.
The story will go on. I'm sorry I'm taking a bit longer to churn it out, but I don't want to just throw anything up here for the sake of a self-imposed schedule.
8617678
OOOOH!
(Blinks)
Okay, I totally misunderstood you.
8617684
Yes you did.
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I feel like I just relived Every Little Thing She Does.
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Ha.
I just noticed that this should say with Starlight Glimmer.
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Corrected. Thanks for catching that.
Hey all, just a little proof of life posting. The reason chapter 4 was delayed was a combination of the holidays, visitors, creative problems, and then the fact that chapter 4 was growing so large that I just decided to split it in two. So, chapter 4 is practically ready to post, and chapter 5 is nearly complete as well. I just want to hear back from my prereader before posting any more.
Starlight! A wise Pony always knows where her towel is.
More evidence that Trixie isn't a wise pony, either. She didn't bring one.
Great chapter I hope you will be able to update again soon and I hope we will see some more young Starlight talking to Twilight moments,
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I will be updating sooner than you think. And it will be a big one.
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Thanks for the reply I can't wait
Thanks for another great chapter what a lovly backstory to Trixie I can't wait for the next chapter. I hope you can update again very soon as I am hooked on you story and can't get enough.
PS
Maybe you can have a Stralight have a bad dream and gose to Twilight just an idea anyway can't wait for the next chapter.
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Thanks. I’m glad you’re enjoying it. Unfortunately, the next chapter won’t be coming that soon, because I’m still working through what’s to happen in it. So, please be patient.
And while I don’t want to give away what’s going to come, rest assured that there will be plenty of more scenes with little Starlight and Twilight. We’re not even halfway through the first act of a three act story, and there’s a great deal more to come. It’s just that I realized it was necessary to develop Trixie more, since this is as much her story as it is Starlight’s and Twilight’s.
Okay so you have Spike recommend chocolate macarons and then say that he recommended chocolate meringue cookies. Not trying to be rude, but how did you manage to make that sort inconsistency in a single paragraph?
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Because they're a type of meringue cookie.
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I had a feeling that might be your reason so I looked them both up ahead of time, so to speak, and found that they are completely different things.
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...
You know what, it's a fair cop. It does look a little weird in context. I'll have a look at it later. Thanks for pointing it out.
This story is great. I really like your interpretation of Starlight, and all the characters are really well written.
Also, after Starlight cast the spell on herself and Trixie, and everypony was shocked at seeing what effect it had on Trixie, my first thought was that Trixie had been turned into a colt and she would then explain that she had been born as a colt and had been turned into a filly later in life. But i probably just thought that because I myself am transgender.
Can't wait for more.
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Thank you! I hope you enjoy the rest of the story.
And your idea certainly would have been surprising, although I think something like that would deserve to be the center of its own story. As for Starlight, we’ve not even begun to delve into her childhood.
Anyway, although the next chapter likely won’t be released for a few more weeks, I’ve finally worked out its climax in my head. It’s going to be told from Starlight’s point of view (As these last two were from Trixie’s and the first three from Twilight’s), so it’s vital that I work out her psychology first.
This story is so .... beautiful, I love everypone's interaction, it seems so real to me.