After a heated argument, Ruby Pinch, a student in the School of friendship, is sent to the School counsellor. her name is Starlight Glimmer, and she can pride herself of a perfect record. No student has ever been sent to her more than twice, and she had dealt with every problem faultlessly. She might very well be the main reason the school works as well as it does.
And yet nopony knows it. The teachers tend to take her for granted, and nopony has ever inquired on the secrets of her success.
maybe it's for the best.
That is, until Rarity gets in the picture.
Chapters (1)
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There's another story on FIMFiction called the Long Con. This story feels like a prequel to that one and that is amazing.
You get a
Let's be honest. The way Twilight has been doing things, the school should have crumbled and Neighsay proven right. (Heck, he's been proven right numerous times already) The show tends to ignore this fact. This doesn't bode well for the nation.
Any ruler needs someone with Starlights background, otherwise they would fail. Someone willing to get their hooves dirty for the greater good which is Twilights dream. Which is why I am thankful that a little bit of old Starlight is still there, but used for good instead. Kind of why I want to see her in Canterlot by Twilight's side instead of running the school. I wouldn't trust the other 5 with decisions involving the nation without some Starlight input. (Especially Pinkie and Rainbow).
It's already proven most dragons are assholes and most griffins are greedy and most yaks are destructive. We have only seen outliners that were different. Relying solely on Twilights believes in friendship are not going to cut it when ruling. Starlight here has the right idea. And if Twilight is as smart as people think, she already knows this. Becoming close with a pony who can ensure her own beliefs have a chance to succeed.
While I think that Starlight is 100% reformed and is in the good side now. I just see that she has a different way of facing things, while first she tries to do it in the Twilight way, If that fails she does it the way she thinks is right. She has her heart in the right place, but her ways of doing it are a bit questionable tho.
I believe that she really believes in Twilight, and will do anything to help her, no matter the consequences
That aside, ok story.
While I don't think the canon season 8 Starlight really wants to make someone think a certain way, like she did during her "Equality" days, that part of her seems to be gone and she proved it by her speech in the Season 6 finale, but she does still tend to be impulsive when she tries to something to help, and she's far more willing to take risks, compared to Twilight. Compared to Season 6, she's calmed down, but it's still there. Starlight's also one of the more complex characters in FIM that's not as easy to understand compared to many other characters, and might even require a high empathy level to do it, if you can't personally relate to her.
Where Twilight is a "Lawful Good" Starlight is like a "Chaotic Good", who really is good, wants to help others, just like a Lawful Good-type, and will obey the rules, but is much more willing to bend or even break them, if "the rules" just aren't working, or if she truly thinks she has a better idea, though it's not quite the same as doing whatever you want, just because you want to do it.
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It's kind of why I love Starlight. I was never a big fan of the strict to the rules goody two shoes types of characters. It's why I never really cared about Superman.
I can't help but feel like Starlight could have significantly cut down Rarity's argument by pointing out the factor of consent. Starlight makes it very clear that she doesn't do this because of the power, she shows that in both cases here when she gives a choice. However, the argument could still go on for many reasons: one is that she is offering choices to the desperate, who are far more likely to sway to a specific decision; secondly, she offers these services to children, most of whom are again, desperate; and finally, we have no solid proof that she always gives a choice, she could in fact only give the choice when she is fairly certain her desired outcome will happen.
All of that being said, this is a very complicated matter, and aside from this key point I think it was handled very well!
And then Twilight married Sombra.
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Thank you!
Also, The Long Con was a very good reading, thanks for the suggestion!
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When Sombra practices mind control, it is pretty easy to make the association between the 'evil' character and the 'evil' act... But when Starlight, someone that we assume to be good, does the same we really have to wonder about why she is doing it. In this case, her heart is in the right place: she is doing this for someone else, and because she really believes it is the best (if not the only) way to have the school work. Which it might actually be. Also, I simply love the fact everything I've written is not completely out of character for Starlight (She has enslaved a village and used mind control on 5 of the mane 6 for much less serious reasons)... I'm quite thankful there is a Character like her to work with!
But the story is actually less about Starlight doing what she is doing, and more about Rarity grappling with it. Out of the mane 6, I think she is the only one (with the possible exception of Applejack, but is a bit of a stretch) who strikes the right balance between idealism and pragmatism to be against it on an ethical basis but to realize that in practice it might really be necessary, which I think is a meaningful conflict.
Also, the fact twilight is at the same time very smart and quite naive allows for a certain ambiguity about her knowledge. She might know, she might not know... And this, too, has interesting implications to account for.
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To be fair, Ruby certainly didn't imagine she was going to be basically hypnotized. And if Starlight thought Rarity would tell someone her secret she probably would have just made Rarity forget everything. In her position, Starlight really wouldn't have left anything to chance, with or without consent.
With Love,
The Marshmallow
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What I never liked is how people think Starlight has always used mind manipulation magic, when you only really did it the once in that one episode, and she got the spells from Twilighs library. Twilight has admitted to using mind manipulation magic more.
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1. Starlight uses mind control to maintain peace at an experimental and international community. Twilight uses mind control so she has something to write about to Celestia.
2. If this story is about Rarity, you screwed up badly. Rarity’s conclusion is basically “we’re characters in a children’s cartoon, so please be the adult and make our childish dream work.”
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She was quite good enough at having ponies do her bidding even without magic. And even if the mechanics are different, that's still manipulation.
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Sorry, what I meant is that, in the end, more than a discussion in which Starlight considers what she is doing, we have a discussion in which Rarity ends up accepting it. She is the character that has an 'arc' of sort throughout the story, which is coming to term with the bleakness of reality and the limits of their 'childish dreams'. Starlight is the engine moving the story forward but doesn't change her perspective throughout it. We could argue she is the main character of the story, but she is definitely not the 'protagonist', so to speak.
What the story is 'about' is still if what Starligh is doing is right or wrong (or nor right nor wrong)... It's only a matter of how to approach the topic.
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No. She never used mind control MAGIC before that one episode.
And Twilight admitted she used that spell multiple times in the past. She evens says it's worked every time. That should have been a red flag.
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I never denied the manipulation. I just never got why people assumed she always used mind control MAGIC.
Eeeeeh... I don't know about this one...