So as a rule, Starlight is NOT one of my favorite ponies. Neither is Trixie, to be fair, the way they're written in the show puts my teeth on edge...

But there's a couple people in the fandom that can really sway me by their own character building, and one of the is owlcoholik , (and one is Loryska ). Owl's version of Star is pretty cool, and takes a hard, full on look at things we've done in our own history with coal mining and looking down on people in that kind of work, and how once you're in... it's like as not you'll never get out and you'll never get thanked by anyone who didn't know you.

This reminded me a bit of one of my other big fan faves: the podcast Old Gods of Appalachia (Also on Patreon, just like Owl and Lor) because it looks at the Appalachian folk and their myths and their struggles and doesn't pretend it's something they 'deserve' for being 'backwood', and Owl's Star feels like she'd fit right in, and maybe even find some welcoming arms there, even if accepting them hurt.

I DO like Sunset Shimmer, who kinda got screwed in the EG movies. (Honestly they go through so much stuff about how you have to EARN being an Alicorn, (unless you're Flurry Heart and your gift is magical chaos and parental burnout.) But they never gave it to Sunset, who put in more work than most of the EG, but Sci-Twi just... gets to have it because her equestria counterpart has it. That is a plot hole you could fit a fair sized building into.

She's also kind of an example of one of Celestia's failures, and how playing keep away with things after you've encouraged people to seek out knowledge because you get love for it -kinda backfires-. She just... never explained anything about the mirror or why anyone might see themselves as an Alicorn in it, just 'nope pay no attention to that thing that showed you things you never thought were possible, -you're not ready (and you know Sunset heard 'good enough') for that-. Kind of fits into the whole gifted child burnout thing where you try and try and try and people keep telling you how advanced you are for your age until... you're not.

Sun and Star kind of feel like they fell hard in different directions and kind of collide in the middle from different ends of the social tiers, and I kind of really like that. I just wish i had a better grasp on how I'd write the weird, dark 'Old Gods/EG/MLP crossover plot that would really give them a chance to shine in ways the show didn't, and maybe poke some holes in the toxic parts of Sun's early friendship with the EG6, and how it left her still in a place where she feels like she's constantly having to prove she's worthy. IDK.

Someone wanna write this for me? LOL