It’s hard being a reformed villain. Starlight Glimmer had big plans to change the world for the better. That was until Princess Twilight and her friends arrived in her town and derailed those plans. Now she’s living in Twilight’s castle on parole, and without a clear idea where she’s going in life.
Though a unique opportunity presents itself when Twilight offers her the chance to run Ponyville’s Hearts and Hooves Day celebrations, and she agrees to help. With Trixie and Spike by her side, she has new plans for what she sees as an outdated holiday. Pity for her everypony else has different ideas for the Hearts and Hooves Day.
A standalone Winningverse story.
Chapters (3)
...Goddammit, Starlight. Twilight, WHY do you trust her again?
Congratulations, Starlight. You're the new Rainbow Dash. At least in terms of romantic obliviousness.
This is certainly an interesting take on Starlight. Even narrowly-averted omnicide isn't enough to convince her that she was at fault and also possibly less than sane. I just hope Twilight's contingencies include "In the Event You Decide to Blow Off Everything and Realize Your Error at the Last Minute."
The kicker universe is the only reason I visit this site can’t wait for more
Go Starlight! I can see no possible way for this to go wrong.
This really made me laugh. I love this take on Starlight, and can't wait to see how her plans fail spectacularly (because we all know it's going to happen)
Actually, nothing Starlight did would be jailable. The village willingly gave up their marks to her, if people actually took the timg to listen to what the pones were saying. ' Cutie mark removal was a beautiful experience ' doesn't sound like it would come from somepony who had their mark stolen. And she builded that town to begin with and the other ponies moved there, so she didn't enslave a village. They came to her village and willingly had their marks removed. And the time traveling thing might as well not have happened, considering there was no effects from it.
She didn't actually destroy Equestria. This kind of thing actually needs proof. Except there is none, because nothing was actually destroyed. Where is this destroyed Equestria you speak of?
Seriously, does no one actually pay attention to what the characters actually say?
But I guess history is written by the victors, no matter how wrong they write it.
And no matter what you think, changing history is not against the law. No pony has the right to govern time.
None of this crap would stand up in any court of law. Unless you say the princesses themselves would just throw her in prison themselves without a trial. Which would make them dictators. Which would proove Starlight right.
Rainbow and Twilight have done more to deserve being in prison than her. I got a list the length of my arm of all the f**ked up things those two did. Like murder, terrorism, and massive property damage.
Also, the Princesses can't actually send anypony to a celestial body or turn them to stone. That is stuff that is done by the elements, which they can't control. The elements wouldn't even work on Starlight.
Seriously, does anyone even pay attention to the show?
8856246
They ARE dictators (that is not a bad thing, you're just indoctrinated against the word). They are a diarchy - any say the citizens have is due entirely to their kindness and desire to include the citizenship. You're just slinging around words because you're a Starlight fan and trying to ignore everything she's done. The proof is that you're basing her moral and magical innocence on our human world legal system, which no one would do unless they're scrambling for a viewpoint that lets them ignore enough to come out on top and be the most persuasive.
It's also funny that a lot of people who hate Starswirl for screwing up another dimension by tossing his villains into it are the same ones who say Starlight didn't create several worlds/timelines full of war, death, murder, suffering, slavery, and planetary devastation because it wasn't her original world/timeline. So it's okay when Starlight does it, but Starswirl does it and he's a monster. Double standards, I sense.
Just enjoy the story.
Oh, Starlight. How can someone so bright also be so thick?
... oh boy.
This is going to end in tears, isn't it. Something tells me Starlight hasn't learned anywhere near as much from her experiences as she believes she has.
Starlight is just made of good decisions. Stay the course! XD
8856336
She only created one of those timelines, the others came from Twilight trying to change the past while Starlight was trying to protect it from further meddling.
Yes...... GIVE ME MORE! XD but in all seriousness, this was really fun. I’m super curious to see who Spike’s little crush is. That’ll be fun. Also poor Trixie. Though I must admit I find it strange she is even bothering with even the pretext of subtlety. I always figured Trixie would use fireworks and cloud writing to ask some pony out! XD
8856424
Except she developed the spell that allowed the timeline to be altered, which makes her the most responsible for the various terrible timelines that occurred as a result of the meddling. Remember the key factor in all of those timelines occurring was the Mane Six not meeting and becoming friends, which SHE did each time completely intentionally. Even if you only hold her accountable for the first timeline, that still makes her responsible for a massive and bloody war between Equestria and an army of unwilling slaves that Equestria appears to be losing by inches. Also, time magic is highly illegal in the Winningverse.
Aw, I wanted to see Starlight interact with Storm Kicker. Given that to pull off that stunt in the Winningverse means that Starlight had to overcome both her defenses for the Friendship Castle and her father Tornado's defenses for Canterlot castle and the restricted library. Starlight must be real popular with her and the rest of the guard.
As an aside thinking through the other season finales in the Winningverse is interesting.
The Season 6 finale is difficult because even though Storm Kicker and the rest of the Twilight guard are as powerless as anypony else against an off-screen plot device, that's a lot more ponies besides Starlight to notice the Mane 6 acting strange and Cloud is probably always thinking about the threat of Changeling Infiltrators on some level given what happened to her mom and the ling that snatched Fluttershy would have to fool her and Blossomforth. You could have the Changelings snatch Cloud and Blossomforth as well but that's more ponies acting strange and raising more suspicions. It soon gets to the point that half of Ponyville needs to be replaced to plausibly pull it off.
The Season 7 finale probably just needs a few minor tweaks. Having Storm and the rest of the Guard's professional paranoia involved means that its more likely that somepony will at least consider the possibility of the Pony of Shadows escaping Limbo with the Pillars. That would probably change things from Twilight having no contingency to the contingency failing. Star Swirl will be just as upset either way.
The Movie is by far the hardest. Tempest's Airship Flotilla sneaking up on Canterlot undetected strained disbelief as is with the show's questionably competent guard. Against a proper security cordon designed by Storm and Tornado...
8856634
Conveniently, the season 6 finale is also fundamentally incompatible with Winningverse changelings.
8856683
You mean the whole "Chrysalis's hive mind and free willed changelings being separate so Thorax and Pharynx can't exist thing."
Chyrsalis is immensely arrogant I could totally see her trying again with a new breed of "smarter changelings," thinking that she's solved the loyalty problem this time. Once her influence is severed from the Hive Mind link by Thorax's love blast it could finally realize how crazy and self destructive she is and pick Thorax as a new leader.
You messed up the title. The correct title is clearly The Incredibly Dense Mind of Starlight Glimmer
And thus starts the story of.
How the Glim-Glam fu%#ed-up Hearts and Hooves Day.
8856691
That wouldn't be out of the bounds of possibility. Given the Monster's comments in "The Hunted", Chrysalis has a history of making experiments that backfired. First she made the fear-eating changeling-monsters, then apparently cast them aside but failed to get rid of them when they didn't work out like she wanted them to. After that plan didn't work out she eventually made the independent changelings that revolted against her rule and became the Free Minds. If this sort of thing happened twice, I could see her trying it a third time.
-headdesk and sigh- why did you sub Foal for Fool? A fool is a goof or an idiot, a foal is a child! I love your writing, but that substitution is really starting to send me up the walls.
If Starlight's mind was a black hole, the entire solar system Equestria existed in would have been obliterated by now.
She's dense.
Wait, what!? I guess I have been out of the Winningverse loop for a longer than I realized. Clearly some shit has changed. Cloud Kicker, Twilight's public relations secretary? Really? Last I knew, Twilight hated that pony, or at least just tolerated her. Wait, that was before she was a Princess... Okay, I've definately been out of the loop too long.
8857240
Considering the show did it in the pilot episode, it’s a pretty well established thing.
Huh, I like that Glimmy really does hold strong to very egalitarian ideas, shows that she wasn't just spouting pretty words in Our Town to convince them. Sounds like she has a hangup between real equality and moral equality.
Sorry for the quote bomb, but I thought it was very eloquent. Glims is very literal minded and taking real ponies into her ideology has kind of tripped her up. I like that smart characters have some deep ideas and thoughts, beyond 'frightening complicated math' to show how smart they are. Philosophy is the real mind-bender.
8856246
Kidnapping 6 ponies; removing cutie mark of said ponies against their will; stealing said cutie marks; attempting to brainwash them as well; fraud (due to not having removed her own cutie mark, as well as lying about an artifact which was a stick); assault and battery; presumably stealing starswirl's spell from canterlot; which may even be restricted without explicit permission; stalking; breaking and entering (unless Twilight's castle is open to the public for some reason); sabotaging weapons of the state (elements of harmony, indirectly, but you'd still have to live under the rock not to know that at that point); attempted destruction and thus partial damaging of a spell which is still not her property. And all that is disregarding the fact that Twilight is technically royalty so we could add treason on multiple accounts as well. And we're completely ignoring the other results of the time travel spell.
As for proof, there are witnesses in the form of nearly an entire village. That's assuming spells leave no traces. Also, Twilight is still royalty. Just thought I'd mention that again. Some witnesses are still more valuable than others. And that's assuming there's no such thing as truth spells or whatever. Also, I assume she'd probably admit it considering she felt bad about it.
And... what makes you think that? You don't know Equestrian law. Everything I listed was just standard law on most countries on Earth, combined with general moral laws.
How would you know what courts of law exist in equestria? For all we know the sisters are judges. Or maybe they have truth spells. Or maybe they just have some random judges, most of which probably implicitly trust the princesses nearly completely.
Last but not least, being a dictator does not somehow prove her right. The main criticism lies in what she did, rather than the specific system of government she used to try to do it. Democratically choosing to kidnap 6 random ponies wouldn't somehow make it better, it'd just distribute the blame. In this case, she had the authority so she gets the blame. Quite simply really.
As a side note, I'm curious about which counts of murder you're accusing Twilight or Rainbow of. Massive property damage, sure, but then again it would appear that happens regularly enough that it's about as bad as jaywalking at that point.
Jeeze, bring Starlight Glimmer into the fold and suddenly everyone's an expert in morality and politics.
ANYWAY, I'm really enjoying this. I was a little confused on the timeline as it seemed this was taking place just before Starlight made friends with Trixie, seeing as how Twilight wanted Starlight to make a new friend, but then Trixie shows up and reveals they've been friends for a while. That little quirk aside, I'm once again reminded as to why Trixie is my main mare. She's just so much fun!
Not to take anything away from the other characters. Twilight's over-preparedness and concern for her student are cute and funny while Starlight's views on society are interesting and funny.
Poor Spike. I'm not seeing a pleasant time for the little guy in the near future, though I'm confident he'll get a happy ending by the end of this.
Looking forward to more!
I also really like that Starlight meant it when she said she believed in Equality. She's just not very good at it...
And Trixie's frustration is just going to build and build until we get the most spectacular and over the top Dramatic Declaration of Love in the history of Equestria. Cadence will feel it from the Crystal Empire.
8857413
The show is great, but they're not English Professors or anything. It's still wrong for the reason I stated, and dangit I stand by it!
This is where i stopped, sadly. This isnt a badly written story! But Starlight's characterization confuses me. I have gotten the impression that this follows canon very closely, but not only does she believe in equality still (and for seemingly different reasons) but she doesnt seem to know why she was reformed in the first place.
Is friendship not important for her in this universe? If so, then what is her motivation at all?
If this version of Starlight is our MC, then i will sadly have to pass on this one. Which is a shame, because I was really enjoying how well written it is
I'm having flashbacks to the original Winningverse story waaaaaaaaay back when.
That's what he's here for, sister.
Assist, or babysit?
Give it time.
Best friends.
Man, we really are having the obliviousness problem all over again.
Oh. My god.
That's going to cause some confusion if Starlight is Spike's new crush.
Spike was not completely ready for this amount of rebellion. Any amount, really.
A hint of Spike's special someone?
Oh ... oh!
Man, Starlight is dense.
She going to forget
8858068
I mean, I understand why you're angry. But it is just just a pun, playing on the fact that acting like a fool is acting as such a child might. Nothing really big or deep upon it, or something that the show staff made a mistake on. They did it intentionally.
Seriously, this Winningverse version of Starlight Glimmer is so messed up, and I shudder to think how long until Twilight and her friends have to blast her with rainbow power...
8858069
She likes having friends, but in this version she seems to have stopped because she realized her quest for revenge was destroying the world as much as anything else. She's also conflicted, because she's enjoying her new life but feels like on some level it's betraying her deeply held principles.
Meh at least in their chase I like to think that they don't need them to rule/own them, unless they well are friends or just want to have a good relationship with the princesses.
she is forgetting that not everyone wants to get drowned in paper work and reading material.
he is probably acting like an annoying idiot and getting on her nerves more than necessary in this story.
I mean more like "you have to do it "THIS" and "THAT way" and not how you want to do it!!!".
Not that I would be that against it or really against it, but I always like to see that in this chase Starlight doesn't really wants to be her stutend, I know they thought she was just dangerous but I think it could have been doen without her having to study frienship. I mean maybe get her a few friends, see if there are any that could get her out of her shell if needed and that would probably be it.
In a few uhhmmm (Staffeln), we probably find out something like she get's to be another princess doing something entirely different which has probably nothing to do with studying frienship, making me ask myself why she had to study it in the first place. I get the idea that it probably was to let Twilight do everything either Celestia already did or well she should have a studen like she was one.
Some maybe don't question it, but because of some stories and maybe some stuff in the show I sometimes question the circumstances about how or why some stuff happens.
Did they said it somewhere or do you just like to think she wasn't actually so capable?, I know some try so hard to say why Tempest couldn't have done that and I think the same goes maybe for Starlight.
Trixie tries to flirt....it isn't very effective.
Trixie flinched as though slapped. “What?! No! Why would you think that?”
Starlight how could you.......well I have one nice and actually romantical story like that. I mean one that isn't rushed and meaningfull.
hhhhmmm she is a fast one I guess, but if she know what she wants why not, however it just reminds me of most of the ......ah yes vinal stories.
I don't think the idea is to bad, I'm just not sure how bad it can go or what she maybe wants to do about it.
I noticed I got used to it, but I'm still not the biggest fan of the Twilight guard stories. I think there are reasons for and against it, even if the reasons for it are probably better, like her staying protected, but then she mostly needs some people to allert her once she is asleept, otherwise I could argue about the fact that she is stronger than her guards anyway.
Okay I agree with that one, she could at least do that as a nice gesture.
No matter if she is still like that, but I thought she didn't wanted to put her will on everyone (can it be said like that in a sentence (english?))
8856246
I agree with some of your opinion on it.
You don't need to see it like me, but for me it is the same with characters like Trixie a bit, where they get more blame than they deserve sometimes, even if her attempt to get revenge was more evil.
Sometimes it can get a bit frustrating how easily the others seems to find arguments against that kind of opinions, because maybe comis or show say it is like that, but I like to see it in a different light sometimes. No matter where the story goes I keep my opinion on this.
I kind of want her to find a way to adapt her philosophy in a way it will work in this story.
8856336
I guess the same thing could be said about every supporter of the opposite side.
I think it is actually better to think about it sometimes that just mindless consuming stuff sometimes no offence in chase it sounds like that.
8856604
not sure if I remember it right but as far as I know not the whole spell is made from her alone, at least from what I had read recently.
8858069
sometimes I like it if they aren't exactly "harmonized", like "come to the dark side, what we believe in is the only true and nothing else is right".
8860203
I get that. It just feels like such a derailment of her original character that they're barely similar. And the author is well-within their right, I'm not saying they're not. It's fanfiction after all! But there's barely any traces of the character I like here - the main reason she stepped down was because of Twilight breaking down her view of friendship, which ultimately eviscerated her equality philosophy which, in truth, was a reactive tantrum towards losing Sunburst.
If Starlight still holds to these principles, I feel like we need to see the author's version of her reformation as well. Because then, I'm wondering what the core principle of her philosophy (friendship) even came from. Because actual inequality via cutie marks doesn't really exist in Equestria.
8860332
I get that viewpoint, but it doesn't really apply to canon-Starlight (though it does to this version of her, which is why I can see you liking this version of her). But in-canon, Starlight didn't really hold to any genuine philosophy except, "Differences breed disharmony," which is absolutely extreme and nonsensical until you realize this was all an elaborate tantrum towards losing Sunburst. Then you understand.
8860332
The spell was based on one Starswirl came up with but she altered it in order to use the Map to prevent the Mane Six from becoming friends, resulting in each of the increasingly terrible timelines we see in the show.
8860358
I know what the show wants us to see and stuff and yes Starlight has to act like that in the show, I just think you can look behind what the authors wants you to see someties, the authors from the shows I mean.
I remember some arguments with others I had about celestia and you probably know some theories or talks about why she let's twilight do everything and stuff. I mean everyone can believe what they want or prefer, or just have their own little "how it should be list in their head like me", but uhhhmm well you can easily find arguments against everything I guess, only what the show shows, naturally supports those who just prefer it like it is. I mean they can always say "look at the show", but it's just funny to think about it deeper sometimes.
I'm not sure if I managed to write that exactly how I wants, but just to be sure I think I understand that you are not exactly against my opinion so everything is cool.
8860381
Well the way I see it that supports my argument, maybe not completely but it does.
Damn, this looks really interesting and promising so far and it is very pleasant to read.
8860333
What I'm expecting to see for the major conflict with this Starlight is that she's conflated egalitarian ideals (yay!) with Harrison Bergeron Equality (run!) So she's legitimately conflicted. Being egalitarian is pretty self evidently good but she sees the problems (which she's getting) as part of the package. Separating the two out is a good character conflict.
8860135
I know they were aiming for a horse pun, but foolish and childish aren't the same thing. Childish means behaving like a little kid who threw a tantrum or some other thing a young child would be expected to Grow Out Of, while a fool is an adult who leapt before they looked, like someone who thinks "PET THE DOGGY!" before they think "ask the owner if doggy is friendly."
Alternately, Pinkie Pie is a Fool, a jester who does silly things on purpose for entertainment, like when she dumped flour on herself for the Cake Twins.
8860580
I'm sure it's going to make for an interesting story. Just not one about canon-Starlight Glimmer
8860612
As I said, "some" children. And while it isn't the same, it's just meant as a silly little thing for people to laugh at. There's a point when you're tearing into a show for something very tiny that does not have any effect on anything. :P It's like 'mane' obviously doesn't mean 'main', yet it is used that way in the show many times. It's something for people and kids to laugh at. It doesn't detract from the actual storywriting at all, and definitely not from Chengar's well-built universe.
8860614
This Starlight is actually based off the backstory written within this story here, which lies in the same continuity of the Winningverse, which was released before the Cutie Re-Mark came out, which helps to explain a few differences between the universes. ^^ Though I do see why you might not enjoy it if you were expecting a more canon-following so that's understandable.
8860628
...Where did you get 'tearing into the show' from? No, really, where. It's one minor nitpick of a bad pun, not a condemnation of the entire production. If you're going to jump all over me for that, this conversation is Over.
8860648
Erm, my apologies. I didn't mean to be rude, and I'm sorry if I was. ^^; I did not mean to offend, but my apologies all the same. I was was a bit harsh in my saying, but I added ':P' to emphasize I meant no ill-will. I actually rather love debating, and 'tis my fault for resorting to that.
Decent start.
I'm keen to see where this goes.
I wonder how much of Ponyville will be left standing by the end. Its nice to see a "reformed" Starlight who still believes in equality, the show version dropping that trait made her less interesting. This is Winningverse, so that means Starlight came from Freeport originally, right? I kind of hope to see some reference to that at some point.
With all those lists Twilight made, there had better be a "In case Starlight goes off the deep end again" contingency. Then again, not like Twilight's the most sane pony either, so its sometimes a wonder local time space hasn't collapsed yet.