let's talk about Starlight and her cult. Look out, rambling ahead. There's a lot because I've always found Starlight's backstory/villain motivation to be kind of weak. I made a few tweaks to canon material.~~~~Starlight Glimmer is about ten years older than Twilight Sparkle. Her story does not have a tragic beginning. As a filly, she had caring parents that spoiled her, a community that nurtured her, and most importantly, her very best friend in the world, Sunburst. For quite a long time, all was well.Then came that terrible day....the day Sunburst experienced a phenomenal magical surge, and subsequently earned his cutie mark. It all happened so fast that Starlight barely had time to process it-one moment, she and Sunburst were playing a game, the next moment, he was getting swept away by his thrilled parents, and the very nextsent off to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. She hadn't even gotten the chance to say goodbye....and as the months went by, Sunburst stopped writing letters. As though he'd gotten swept up with his fancy new magic, and fancy new school, and fancy newand fancy newAnd so, Starlight was alone.She did make new friends, but foals aren't generally eager to associate with blank flanks, and thus, all of Starlight's new friends eventually avoided her once they got their marks. One friendship after another ended, always ended....all due to those rotten cutie marks. Starlight grew up as a late bloomer, only adequate at magic, not exemplary like Sunburst was. She suffered the indignity of being a blank flank for years andand although blank flank children are often mocked by their peers, there comes a time where even the adults begin whispering among themselves.Starlight passed through childhood, puberty, and finally early adulthood, anddidn't have her mark. Her self esteem suffered tremendously, bowing into itself, threatening to collapse, until finally, to protect her self-concept, Starlight began developing delusions of grandeur. Perhaps she didn't have her mark because she wasthan other ponies. She wasOther ponies were things of contempt....miserable creatures caught up in how they could prove themselves better than their peers. Cutie marks were things of vanity, and only led to pain. She'd seen it for herself! Ponies with different marks lived in different ways, and inevitably, conflict and competitionemerged. Even Starlight herself was bitterly jealous of all ponies and their marks, and resented them greatly....but she grasped desperately at the idea that she, an adult blank flank, was special. Perhaps even destined for a greater purpose, to better ponykind somehow. It is here that Starlight developed a massive messiah complex.Starlight tried many fields in pursuit of her grand destiny. Magical research, spellwork, historical study, writing....but none of them stuck. She simply studied and mastered each field, and eventually, moved on to the next. Finally, she went into medicine....in particular, foal birth. She loved the powerful feeling of holding a newborn, malleable foal, and sheloved the way the parents would gaze at her after she masterfully navigated a high-risk birth. Pure awe....their baby's savior. Starlight reveled in that feeling, but it wasn't enough. She needed more. She was destined for great things, she knew it! Sheto save more ponies....from their most dangerous enemy-themselves.Starlight travels Equestria, trying to spread her personal gospel against the injustice of cutie marks. For a long time she was unsuccessful, as ponies found her aggressive campaigns and anti-cutie mark demonstrations to be off-putting. Finally, she retires to a rented mountain cabin, to isolate herself from those foolish ponies, and reflect on what she was doing wrong. Her meditation is interrupted at the sound of a shout. Starlight ventures out into the snow to find a white stallion lying injured in the snow, his leg broken from an apparent skiing accident. Starlight takes this young pony back into her home and eagerly nurses him back to health, cooing and fawning over him, and once again reveling in his immense gratitude and awe. As she has him effectively trapped and recovering, she decides to experiment with her anti-cutie mark rhetoric, using dear Double Diamond as a sample audience. He doesn't respond at first when she decries all cutie marks as evil-so she decides to change up her delivery. She cooes at him about how awful and unfair ponies can be-hasn't he ever been made to feel inadequate over his cutie mark? Hadn't he certainly been teased for being a blank flank as a child? Surely, he must have had at least one friend who'd fallen away from him after getting their mark. Surely, he must have been bested at least once by a pony with a "superior" mark. Wasn't it just a terrible thing that ponies were each so different? Weren't cutie marks inherently unfair?Wouldn't it be lovely if everypony were truly equal?Double Diamond eventually finds himself eagerly nodding along to this very nice, motherly mare. Boy, itbe nice if everypony could be equal, wouldn't it? He becomes so caught up in Starlight's philosophy that he ends up sticking around after his leg heals, and he acts as her assistant, helping her spread her newly honed idealogy, helping hand out pamphlets. Now gentler and more motherly in her approach, Starlight is finally successful in recruiting ponies into her way of thinking. She isn't able to convince many, just enough, such that she eventually shepherds a small herd of followers. She leads her flock to an isolated patch of land, where they happily build a new town, wherecan be truly equal.In the dark of the night, after pouring over ancient spellbooks and piles of discarded notes, Starlight finally invents her Cutie-Mark Removal Spell....and immediately, she earns her own cutie mark. As though it were all destiny!The townsfolk praise Starlight's mark, and she bathes in the adulation, before reminding her fellows that cutie marks are the root of all inequality. In a dramatic demonstration, Starlight aims a driftwood "staff" at herself, and pretends to cast a spell to remove her cutie mark and replace with an equality symbol. As her flock looks on in awe, Starlight boasts of being the first to make the sacrifice, and thus the first to know true liberation from the sin of individuality. Who will join her? After some uncertain murmuring amongst the crowd, the first volunteer comes forth. Then another, and another, and eventually all the townsponies, either through social pressure or shaming, agree to have their mark removed, and locked into the vault.Starlight loves her town, and her ponies love her.......even when the need arises for strict food rationing. Even when Starlight insists that her ponies commit her equality sermons to memory. Even when Starlight insists on banning elaborate hairstyles and clothing. Even when Starlight tasks certain ponies with recruiting new citizens for the town, with the eventual threat of punishment if they don't meet their recruitment quotas. Even when Starlight catches a young couple whispering a plan to escape, and orders them to be publicly beaten.Eventually, we know what happens. The map draws Princess Twilight and her friends to the Equality Village, and they end up freeing the citizens. But Starlight escapes by the skin of her teeth, utterlyat having her town-her entire life's work- so easily shattered by that wretch of a princess, and her namby-pamby, sanctimonious talk ofShe'd hadPower, control, and most importantly, ponies that'd worshiped her and revered her word as gospel. Starlight swore revenge, and spent months developing the perfect plot, fine-tuning every detail. In the end, she bests Twilight Sparkle with her time-traveling spellwork, dragging the princess through altered timelines fraught with war, genocide, and despair, and in the end, Starlight threatens to destroy everything, if it means Twilight can suffer, and Starlight can prove her superiority. Twilight's only hope, of course, is one last speech on the value of friendship. Twilight appeals to Starlight's loneliness, and offers her hoof in genuine friendship. Starlight, exhausted, afraid, and finally....takes Twilight's hoof.Aaaaand cue rainbows, friendship, cutesy song, la la la. When news reaches Canterlot, Queen Lunastorms Twilight's castle and interrupts the happy ending, arresting Starlight at once for conspiracy to treason and crimes against ponykind. Hmm.Starlight is imprisoned for a few months, before Twilight manages to convince Luna that Starlight is too dangerous to be left to plot and grow bitter, and instead is an ideal candidate for reforming. Luna eventually agrees as a favor to Twilight, though she monitors Starlight's dreams for some time afterward, and demands reports on the former cult leader's progress.Starlight has since learned to trade out her desire to be worshiped with a desire to have real friendships. Though she does still struggle with being too intrusive and domineering, and had to learn not to use highly invasive spells to "helpfully" resolve other ponies' friendship problems. Learning the magic of ethics was an uphill battle, though the lessons learned eventually made Starlight a happier, warmer pony, and made her forever grateful to her new, very dear,friend, Princess Twilight, as well as the kind, mercifully patient residents of Ponyville. Starlight's trying her best to be better, really she is.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~bluahdiuhediuahiu so manyIf you read the whole thing then color me impressed. Some of this is highly inspired and partly ripped from writer AlaraRoger over on Fimfiction. Her profile is here: www.fimfiction.net/user/137331… some quick notes:-Celestia and Luna were open in their distrust and dislike for Starlight,Luna, who may have granted Starlight a nightmare or two (forcing her to relive her tyrannical cult days, from the perspective of the ponies she hurt) as punishment.-Sunburst's magic burst as a colt made him an immediate target for Celestia, who was still very much on the lookout for a champion to defend Equestria and free Nightmare Moon. She took Sunburst on as a personal student (yet another proto-Twilight, like Cadence and Sunset Shimmer), but unfortunately, Sunburst never lived up to the spectacular potential he demonstrated as a child, and eventually he left her school in shame, before Celestia could stop him. Many years later, after the events with Flurry Heart and the Crystal Empire, Celestia is able to express to a tearful Sunburst that she'sof him, and always has been.Sunburst and Starlight of course rekindle their friendship, and each look forward to each other's visits and long, detailed letters.-Double Diamond had a heckuva crush on Starlight in the past, and Starlight knowingly exploited it.-Starlight eventually finds a very close friend in Sunset Shimmer, and the two have secret talks about their shameful pasts, and similar growth into monsters. The two bond so closely that they regularly visit each other in their respective worlds, before Sunset finally decides to return to Equestria for good, to be with Starlight.other headcanon series stuff:Like my art/half-intelligible rambling? Consider donating to my Ko-fi page! Any and all donations are greatly appreciated, and go toward purchasing things I need to live ~ Check it out here, please and thank you: ko-fi.com/R5R3C0MF