This picture is splendid; it truly captures Starlight Glimmer's dark side, in both the facial expressions and the words in the background. Furthermore, the title is perfect: Exceptionalism is a lie---and indeed, she kept telling ponies all that nonsense about how back sticking out and keeping their cutie marks was, and yet she herself stuck out from the crowd, and was the exception to the rule, so by her own standards she was a lie. By excelling over the others through her powers and leadership, she herself failed, just as she kept telling them "to excel is to fail".As for the quality of art itself---this is fantastic! There is so much detail in the fur, eyelashes, and shading, but not so much that it is overwhelming, and the expression in her face is quite well-done; I love it! However, it seems that the cutie mark is too far to the right, and the shadows on the edges could be more of a gradient than they are now to seem less intruding into the main picture.Anyway, stunning work, and I'm glad you got it onto Equestria Daily!