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The headmistress of the Friendship School, Starlight Glimmer, is worried. Where did Cozy Glow come from? Who or what made her to be the force of evil that she was?
In her quest for answers, Starlight uses reflection magic to interrogate a shade of Cozy, a reflection, but finds that even as a mere memory, Cozy wields more power over Starlight than she had anticipated.
Rated Teen. Written for the Cozy Glow short story contest.
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This definitely got dark during the end. The fact that Starlight realizes Cozy Is her daughter yet shuns her anyway displays how sociopathic Starlight really is. Indeed, she seems more worried about how this realization affects her, and takes no responsibility for it. I think Cozy’s “enlightenment” was concluding that the ponies are actually self-righteous.
The writing is mostly good. There was a paragraph near the beginning that just ended, paragraph 3 to be precises. I think you meant to finish that thought, but overlooked it during the editing?
Hope to see more work from you!
10414252 Lol, quite right. Looks like a mistake made when copy-pasting from gdocs. How embarrassing! And on the third paragraph too!
Cheers. I actually really like Starlight; I'm a big fan of the vibe that she's not really a good pony by nature, but wants to be one anyway. May sound like a weird reason to like something, but yeah, I think she's great fun.
Damn, Starlight is horrible here. Not only to the real Cozy but also this shade.
Actually, the friendship magic attack only depowered Cozy. It was Discord, Celestia and Luna's personal magic that petrified her.
10414265 Might be me misremembering or misinterpreting the whole petrification deal.
I'm a big fan of moral ambiguity in general. One of the most interesting aspects of Starlight is that she was introduced as a villain (and not like Discord, either, who was much closer to a cosmic prankster) and I find it super interesting to see the show lean into her villainous traits. As the show progresses she becomes increasingly good-aligned, but it never really drops the vibe that being good is just a bit harder for her than it is for other characters. It's a struggle that I enjoy loads.
This was a nice read... I did have a cat with me... x.x
10414364 Nice, cats are the best.
Mine doesn't like to sit on me because I'm super bony and wiry, but he often naps near me on a cushion next to my chair.
Really nice story. Well done.
Though, I'm terms of the contest, I'm not totally sure how much it's a Cozy Glow story. It's a Starlight story that has Cozy as a cameo.
All that aside, it's always fun to see Starlight's old personality come out again, and an analysis of who and why she is. The idea of being good not coming naturally to her is great. We all kind of seemed to forget she was one of the show's villains at a certain point. Good show.
10414366
Yeah, he doesn't sleep on me or anyone. He rather sleep near them or against them. The later is only with my father.
Fun fact my room has to exterior wall (south wall (more than nord since the nord is kind of diagonal ok that's a tangent.) In bref there's an empty space between my dresser and one of the wall so he sleep there. And yes the radiator in the winter. I can understand during winter, but summer. Sorry got to hurry or I'm going to be late to school.
10414460 It is a risky game I am playing, yes.
I personally view Cozy as very central to the story; it's her actions that cause the fallout that drive Starlight to wanting to find out about her, and the story itself revolves around her origins and informs what her mentality is. I do not think the story would work without Cozy. That said, it is certainly true that a safer bet would have been to make Cozy the PoV of the story. That would be the sensible play.
I do not like safe very much, though. We shall have to see if I've rolled high or low. Besides... at least this way I'm pretty sure nobody else would have tried it.
Glad you enjoyed it nonetheless. It was interesting to write, even if it's a little out of my comfort zone.
Woah I mean really woah! Seriously a heck of a twist right here with Cozy Glow being the daughter Starlight abandoned, LOVE IT! Any chance of this getting a sequel because really think this idea has a lot of potential to be explored with.
10414475
Fair enough. Nothing wrong with thinking outside the box and taking a risk. Great story either way.
10414605 Probably not, but you never know! I've not done many sequels, but you are right, this could be fun to revisit; I actually want to do more with Starlight as a headmistress, and it might be a fun vibe to have her try and do stuff with a reflection Cozy Glow perched on her shoulder, so to speak.
I'm very glad you enjoyed the story regardless, though! It was interesting to write. : )
Cozy Glow was always a bizarre character. His end game made too sense. The show is full of character who appeared out of the void, but being a child it makes a lot less sense for Cozy. The show's 'remember the new guy' traits remained a blight on the show until the end.
I admire your herculean effort to make sense of the character!
10414828 I like the word herculean.
Nice.
One of the most interesting things about Cozy was her inspiration, which were quoted (at least according to the wiki article) as being Mary Dahl (of Batman TaS fame). Just knowing she was inspired by, basically, an insane woman trapped inside a child's body trying to use other people as set-pieces puts this really uncomfortable vibe onto her character, which I am there for.
I think that part of her appeal is that Cozy is kinda creepy. Like there's something wrong with her, and has this big disconnect between how she appears and what she is inside. It may not be nice but it is interesting.
Glad you enjoyed yourself!
I found it kind of... odd that Sunburst was never seen or mentioned in this story, between Starlight musing about having an assistant, when he's supposed to be the Vice-Headmare, and how Starlight's dabbling in complex/unusual magics, here.
...but anyway, that
nitpick(?)aside, I think it's interesting to contrast Cozy and Starlight, for all their similarities.Starlight did believe her own BS, and while not completely uncharismatic, it's notable that pretty much all of the Mane Six barring Fluttershy were off-put by her and her town, and that she, presumably attracted fellow misfits, and had to try to psychologically break those who disagreed down... after removing their talents, and another contrast would be that Cozy's emotions seem to be significantly more shallow than Starlight's, while the latter feels them thoroughly to a fault. Granted, was it all ultimately self-serving, partly motivated by envy in her warped perspective, because she thought Sunburst was too good for her at that point because of his special talent? Yes.
For the ones that came back from it, if Sunset fell due to pride and ambition, Starlight fell due to envy (regardless of if it was misplaced) and wrath (the latter of which is really noticeable for her second S5 appearance).
The closest she really got to real charisma as a villain was convincing two bullies not to bully Fluttershy, and it's probably easier to count the episodes she isn't insensitive without trying post-reformation, even if she could be astute at times.
Starlight became a villain because she cared too much, and has cognitive empathy troubles, misses social cues on a regular basis (even if she might have some psychology knowledge to help compensate), whereas Cozy was rather good with cognitive empathy... not so much affective empathy, though. (for what it's worth, I find some aspects of Starlight's personality as kinda correlating to autistic traits, relatable in that regard, and for something that isn't quite relatable to me, some Borderline traits [intense emotions, abandonment issues, impulsivity, dissociation when stressed])
...anyway, I think to put it short, Cozy in my eyes is what happens if Starlight traded her inherent power and what qualifies as a conscience/empathy (particularly pertinent for S5-S6) for natural charisma, shallow emotions (from angry, to cheerfully gloating again, and she didn't really seem to care about being thrown in Tartarus), and not needing validation.
...In hindsight, that was some rather good foreshadowing that Sunbeam is Celestia, and it flew over my head, lol. Well done, truly. You got me there.
It really is an interesting thought though, her working as a teacher at the School.
I think Starlight honestly did have a point here: she would not have made for a good parent back then, if Cozy's upbringing was particularly a factor for how she turned out. She may not be as inherently awful as Discord (he seems to be more of a natural sadist than her) and/or possibly Trixie ("Okay, I know history is important, but I never learned any of it, and look how I turned out."), but still.
All in all, it's a pretty interesting idea, this... and maybe I'm just not doing well enough in not being as angry as possibly intended with Starlight here... I dunno.
I think one of Starlight's biggest saving graces is that she tends to look up to others for advice when she feels she's failing, as a way to reign herself in, post-reformation, in this case, talking to Twilight at the end (their relationship is intriguing, in that she's willing to get on her case for not being her best self), but it could be a downside (Twilight, at least, thought that Trixie could be a negative influence on her, even if in the end, she helps Starlight confront her worst self; it can't be denied she had a point, after what happened when Discord made the wrong "friend").
Cozy... doesn't really seek someone to look up to, by contrast, kinda defied it at multiple points throughout. She seeks to be on top, no questions asked, and she will manipulate you into giving her the opportunity, as naturally as drinking water, or walking, even if she'd be good at actually being a friend. She tricked Chrysalis and Tirek into giving her a possible opportunity, even if she miscalculated the "control chaos magic" aspect.
I believe someone else mentioned that they weren't turned to stone with Friendship Magic.
...sorry if I was kinda overwhelming with my rambling, especially if I'm being pushy, kinda find it interesting.
10414865 No no, it's all good. I actually didn't write this story to call Starlight out or to take sides on whether she's evil or not. I genuinely really like her; I think she's great fun.
I view Starlight's flaw mainly as being a need for control (and I lean into that a few times in this story, actually). I think that's the only thing that really makes sense given her backstory with hating cutie-marks, and a lot of her tics and relapses into bad behaviour seem to stem from similar needs to be in control (such as when she mind-controlled her friends and tried to literally wipe out cutie-marks because they were something she had no way of controlling). This is also why even if she could remove her own cutie-mark in the name of equality, she wouldn't. It'd mean giving up control over the ponies around her. We also see what happens when that control is taken away from her; she goes slightly apeshit.
A user named Crimmar had a pretty good insight as well in that he suggested that she (at the start of the show) viewed ponies as replaceable, and when she made her town she effectively made each and every one the same so that even if they did leave her, it wouldn't matter; she could replace them with a pony functionally exactly like them, so it didn't matter. This would also play into her struggling with dealing with Sunburst leaving. This was also why she wouldn't realise that maybe making the main cast not be friends would have terrible repercussions for the timeline; it wouldn't occur to her that only they could have saved the world, or that they could possibly be so special. Her arc afterwards involves her learning that other ponies are special and unique and that makes them worth more, and so on.
This is part of why I really like Starlight; she's a very complicated pony and even when she does bad things, it's usually for very interesting reasons if one looks into them close enough. I'm very interested to read your own interpretations on the matter, even if they do differ slightly from my own.
...oh, right, forgot to say, regarding Cozy's "enlightenment," I suspect Cozy (or her shade) is messing with Starlight for her amusement, because unlike other alicorns, when the power boost went away, so did her horn, unlike other alicorns that lost their magic, as far as anything we saw.
Would that be an easy conclusion for Starlight to make, though? Another question entirely, with that insidious seed of doubt being what it is...
10414883 That I prefer to leave to reader interpretation.
I know what I think, but this is something left rather vague by the show. I like the vibe that there's more than one kind of enlightenment, and some of them may not be nice, but I also like the vibe that Cozy would absolutely just lie to make others feel weaker compared to her, and so on.
You decide!
and now starlight's failure is complete.
Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you come from Cozy Glow?
10414875
Yeah, that's one of her notable flaws, overall. With Every Little Thing She Does, when the prospect of a social situation freaked her out, fear of disappointing others... she fell back on doing something she felt comfortable with, magic, to get by, as a means to retain a measure of control.
While she was rather tamed by the time of A Matter of Principals, and she was definitely the more sympathetic party (especially considering it was Discord's fault entirely that it was happening, her filling in), Starlight made a promise to Twilight not to let her down, running the School, and so she blew off Discord because of that, with him escalating as a result of her telling him not to get involved, when the best approach would've been to trick him into getting bored until he left.
She non-lethally blasted/banished him in the wake of him endangering students, specifically after he called her an "incompetent, power-hungry unicorn." (neither Spike or her acted like he was dead/gone)
In the end, with the mindset she was working under in S5, if every pony had no special talent... you're probably right, she probably wouldn't have given up her own in the end, the way she was going. She'd tell herself it would be necessary, but it would mostly tie into a need for control. It was a recipe for creating a true monster, the way she was going.
That's actually an interesting way to put it: the way her cult was, it tied into her abandonment issues, by being pretty much indescript, interchangeable, losing them (if it came to that, which hopefully it wouldn't in her eyes, for forsaking their individuality would make their purpose to be her friends, her "creating Harmony") would be less consequential as a result.
And yeah, she had big trouble back in S5 understanding how despite differences, those particular friends could truly matter in the grand scheme of things, with the Mane Six, which is why it's great to contrast S5 Starlight with her S9 self that would decline to save herself, in favor of saving the Mane 5 + Spike, even if they just told her it's acceptable to escape herself, because they mattered more.
I think it's kinda unfortunate how some people tend to ignore nuance in some cases due to possible bias, in their recollections of Starlight's actions. For a couple examples, switching the Princesses' marks in A Royal Problem wasn't her first resort (which is visible progress since S6, and she isn't trigger-happy with magic after that point), but an action taken out of panic for tensions between them escalating, and Trixie didn't tell her not to sell her wagon in Road to Friendship, but in her mind, it'd be a win-win gift, to get her a bigger and better one, than one she assumed Trixie didn't like, because the latter didn't make it clear she possessed sentimentality for it, and Hoo'Far waited until Trixie stormed off to approach Starlight for the trade.
(You can also argue that in part, regarding the wagon trade, Starlight personally doesn't seem to be attached to where she lives per se, so much as she'd care about it being where her friends are, seeing as she didn't seem to really miss living in Sire's Hollow much, or her old village [she was far more pissed about losing friends], and she was projecting herself onto Trixie)
Overall, her most notable flaws are her impulsivity, her need for control, and her proclivity for anger, the last of which remained her biggest flaw to the end of the series. Starlight as a villain was, ultimately, a child that didn't properly grow up, and it shows.
...I do tend to think it's interesting if Starlight would be more ready than average to resort to lethal force, and I've been surprised by some people saying she wouldn't. I like the thought of her being rather violently protective of those she cares about, since I believe that's ultimately a natural extension of "hates abandonment," and her having quite the temper.
(for what it's worth, by all appearances, she did likely kill those flash bees, even if it was what I'd consider a valid response [that goop wasn't there before])
I also find it interesting that despite her thought process likely being on the organized side, Starlight tends to be a straightforward thinker, in comparison to Twilight. A tactician to Twilight's strategist (which had led to at least one of her plans falling apart, in that she doesn't always think it through thoroughly).
I think that gingerninja666 said it pretty well, regarding her character (pretty sure they have a Fimfiction account, anyway):
(that kind of thing is also likely why multiple comedy stories... probably aren't the truest to her character)
...and it took me a long time for me to put it into words, but I'm not sure Starlight's a bad person deep inside, per se, so much as she's a wreck trying to stop being one... if that makes any sense. ...I'll let you be the judge on if it's a distinction without a difference.
I think if there was a case of a character that's possibly an inherently (or at least, more deep-rooted) bad person trying to be good, on more than one occasion, with all of their ingrained tendencies, a great example would be Discord. He's regularly selfish, he has enjoyed bullying others, even in seasons past S4 (trying to banish Tree Hugger to another dimension in S5, Dungeons & Discords in S6 [making Spike and Big Mac feel pain out of amusement], A Matter of Principals in S8...), he's narcissistic, he's manipulative, affective empathy, with few exceptions, just doesn't seem to come easily to him, and his signature flaws have utterly devastated him multiple times, to the very end.
10414988
Completely fair answer, good points.
If she is telling the truth... she is still messing with her head, in the end, by not telling her everything, so it would be true to Cozy's character no matter what, probably.
10414835
Baby Doll remarked how her TV Show it turned out was the only time she was happy, thus why she kidnapped her costars and intended to murder-suicide with them. She was likewise truly happy with Croc, they were kindred spirits, both sideshow freaks, but when rejected, she repeated her impulse to commit murder-suicide, this time with Croc and most of Gotham! Baby Doll was an severely emotionally damaged woman.
Personally what I find jarring is how DISCORD was given to Fluttershy to redeem, and SUCCEEDED, and yet they never did that again with any of the villains! The real reason is of course that Discord's star power insisted he be brought back, but him repeating the same plot over and over would have been boring... but in universe this creates a unhealthy sense of dissonance with me.
I feel Starlight in and out of universe being considered "utterly evil" before surrendering to Twilight as jarring... when before she was something far more dangerous than evil, she was well meaning, well intentioned, and believed she was saving Equestria from mind-control butt tattoos and thus was justified in everything she did to free ponies of the mind control butt tattoos.
Wasn't a satisfying read. I don't think Starlight compares to Cozy in terms of being evil/wanting power. After all, Starlight only wanted revenge (to make ponies equal after a cutie mark took away her only friend, and later to take away Twilight's friends because Twilight ruined her plans). She was never truly evil (even though she used manipulation a lot and mentioned how important it was that a Princess 'joined her cause'), because she almost immediately gave up after seeing that her actions would cause an apocalypse. Also, I don't remember anyone calling Starlight Glimmer simply "Glimmer", ever.
AND the magic that Celestia, Luna and Discord used to turn villain trio into stone was NOT "friendship magic".
By the way, this story is not about Cozy Glow.
Yeah, I can see that the darker stuff isn't your usual thing. Though if you ask me, you did very good, I rather enjoyed it.
A Spider-Man reference, then a race joke? Oh sir, you do tickle my funny bone, even in this morbid story.
Honestly, makes me dislike the ending even more.
Discord sure didn't deserve an ounce of sympathy or redemption and he's literally part of the ending fiasco, had Twilight bold face lie to protect him when he teamed up with Tirek and is arguably the most successful villain of the group.
Starlight might be trying but I frankly wouldn't trust her, or any of the Element Bearers for that matter with the constant special treatment and free passes.
I can't feel bad for Starlight. She screwed up, someone else is paying the price and I doubt she'd ever do anything to fix it-and if anything is it'd be centuries down the line.
And then when Twilight find the mirror and use a spell to see is magical and find Cozy, she reveal what mommy Starlight did and is banished to Tartarus
No, she hasn't. She's just gotten better at manipulating you and you're completely oblivious to it.
Good story.
Not a fan of all the Starlight-bashing in this story. Not to mention she's nowhere near old enough to be Cozy's mother.
10417811 I mean, in my opinion, Starlight did pretty much everything right, from trying to find out where Cozy came from to realising that the reflection was trying to manipulate her and responding firmly and decisively, to refusing to let fear and guilt stop her from investigating talking to the reflection and potentially finding a way to turn it to good like she was...
That said, looking at some of the other comments I have I'm a little nervous to voice those opinions, lol...
10417864
The thing is it's a reflection.
It's not a living creature, it's at best a construct.
The real person is still a statue for arguably less then what Starlight did and the one that led them there is still free.
In the end it doesn't matter how bad Starlight feels, nothings changed as far as the status quo is concerned.
That's been my biggest issue with the show since it's inception, the two faced holier then thou approach and the clear bias in the treatment of characters.
The amount of selfish, shortsighted actions taken by Celestia and others would make them untrustworthy at best and down right international criminals to be brought before a court at worst.
But never once is anyone shown being fed up with it.
A very interesting read, to say the least. This the first fic I read that portrays Starlight as a bad person who was always consciously manipulative and cruel and selfish, but after her reformation forced herself to be kind and selfless in order to maintain, well, the magic of friendship.
It is quite a step from the usual genuinely good person who was simply misguided or delusional in the past but thinks of herself as evil due to self-esteem or identity issues while her questionable choices post-reformation are made connected to something of an autistic behaviour or similar mental disorders.
One could still apply the latter interpretation to this fic to an extent, though. They are not entirely different perspectives, after all, but rather two points in the complex spectrum that is her potential personality and nature, and yours is very interesting. Very good story, sir.
10415241
As a big Starlight fan, this conversation was such a delight to read! It's not common anymore that I see a brand-new insight about her that turns out so... right. "She desperately wants to be in control" is something that went completely over my head, both in this fic and since I first saw her character, but it fits her past motivations and flaws that she struggles to overcome so darn well.
10439408 This is the sort of nuance I find very interesting in characters. It's something that is pretty absent from the rest of the main cast, and whilst I do like them loads, even the meanest of the main six kinda have this inherent goodness to them and, even if they can lose sight of it, have a strong sense of right and wrong (except maybe Fluttershy, depending on your interpretation, but that's a Hot Take and Controversial Opiniontm for another day, I'm sure).
Very glad you enjoyed the story! It was a risky one to stick in a Cozy Glow contest, but I'm rather glad I did it anyway. : )
10415338
I agree well intentioned is more dangerous then evil which is why starlight was such a threat/ villain
Don't go anywhere, story. I may do a mini review after I read
10417864
I usually don't read stuff tagged as 'dark'. 'Cause I'm a little mimi and reality sucks enough as is, these stories are my way of fleeing from stuff. However, in my brain, your name is synonymous with quality writing and so far, this included, you never disappointed me.
I tend to agree with your opinions here. She did good and I don't consider it 'Starlight-bashing'. I never really gave it much thought how old Starlight is, in relation to others, so I don't have any strong opinion on if she could be related to her like that or not. It works out in the frame of the story, which I suppose is the important part.
Your incredibly satisfying writing aside (sneaky praise), I can't help but draw comparisons between mirror-Cozy and the Tantabus. Or at least, right now, I'm thinking about it. Obviously, Luna and Starlight are two very different personalities... depending on the author's interpretation, I suppose, but still. I just... she's keeping the mirror. She might tell herself that she'll try to reform her, but I'm asking myself if, perhaps, she's just doing the same thing to herself Luna did when creating the Tantabus. Maybe mirror-Cozy will just be a tool of sorts for her to use, so she could punish herself.
While she doesn't seem this auto-aggressive, she still struggles with 'being good' and she obviously has more than enough regrets. Honest regrets that still hurt. That's potent soil to foster such behavior.
While it might be a poor choice of words to say that I 'enjoyed' your story, I did enjoy your writing, as usual, and I don't regret giving this a try.
Thank you.
11099324 It's interesting you bring up Luna and the Tantabus since I've actually been mulling some stuff regarding that over myself. I've not wanted to put it in a story yet because Luna fics are very well-trodden ground by this point, but there are ideas I might want to recycle into other stuff later.
I actually wondered if it would be cool if the Elements, when they 'reformed' Nightmare Moon, actually just repressed the parts of her that made her into Nightmare Moon; jealousy, anger, spite, ambition, and all that kind of good stuff... deep into her brainy-parts, and the tantabus could have been a manifestation of that. I wondered if it might be cool to do a story hook along those lines. We'll see, I guess!
Glad you enjoyed the story. Sometimes contest stuff can be a little hit-or-miss, since I have been known to over-extend concepts in order to get them finished in time. I'm somewhat fond of this one though, and of Starlight in general.
11099382
Certainly an interesting premise. I mean... it brings up all kinds of questions about how the elements actually work, what they actually do. Supposedly, this is the 'good guys redeem you via laserZ'-thingy, so I find it hard to imagine that it would actually 'destroy' anything.
Luna became Nightmare Moon because her jealousy got the better of her. So, to put it into other words, something in her emotional landscape got horribly out of balance. The elements might be just 'correcting' that balance, then. Dampening the overgrown jealousy back to a more moderate state, like trimming weeds in a garden.
Still a scary thought, that something might just 'change' you on such a fundamental level without your consent, but that's a wholly different can of worms.
Also makes me think about other emotions getting out of control. Would it make any difference if it weren't jealousy, but, let's say... anger? Greed? Lust? Eh, got a little too much of a 'seven sins'-vibe.
But yeah, if the elements don't 'destroy' anything, that path would still be open to be trodden again, if she isn't careful. What was rebalanced, can get unbalanced again. Maybe the Tantabus isn't even the 'old' Nightmare Moon we knew, the one driven by jealousy.
What would a god-level powerful villain driven by guilt even look like? Is that even a possibility? Hm. Maybe it's more of a 'I will make you hurt'-villain - on a very personal basis - than one that seeks to conquer/destroy the world.
I'm looking forward to this story of yours. Any story of yours, really, and I'm quite sure I'll come around to it eventually.
I enjoyed this one, thanks for a nice read!
11197665 Cheers, glad you enjoyed it!