Men :D
Man? D:

Idk what else I can say about this tbh I just wanted to draw Starlight and her dads Firelight and Stargate. The little family had a tradition of taking a family photo every year to capture how they've all grown, and that included the before and after of Stargate's passing. He suffered from a heart attack.

Starlight ends up carrying on this tradition with her own family, but ofc insists on each picture being perfect so there's no obvious signs of something being wrong, unlike with the ones she grew up doing where they were free to express however they were feeling.

I was gonna go into all this a lot more with what Starlight's childhood was like, what triggered her to become a villain, what her motives were, etc, but honestly idk lmao. I was thinking since Stargate's death and Sunburst leaving happened in the same year she completely breaks (Sunburst was her only friend) and throws herself into magic studies. It gives her something to focus on but there's also her fearing being thought of as vulnerable (in her mind if she's vulnerable she's not valuable and hence not worth staying for). She also develops controlling behaviours based on her fear of vulnerability, she has to be in control of everything so there's no risk of anything going wrong and no one is able to leave/hurt her.

These ideas are further pushed when her dad Firelight tries putting a mind control spell on her, since she was becoming increasingly out of control and not listening. He himself wasn't necessarily controlling, he coddled her a lot after his husband's death though and couldn't think of another solution to keep her safe. She'd been pulling away from him too feeling suffocated by him, and this is the final nail in the coffin and gives her reason to run away. It also gives her more reason to advance her skills in magic to be able to protect herself, since if she hadn't been so good already she wouldn't have been able to fend off the mind control spell.

To Starlight she has to not just be good, not just be great, she has to be the best, since the best can't be wronged if there's no one better than them to do so. She does at some point try to make herself an alicorn, but the spell doesn't work and just gives her scarring instead. She believes she can still be just as powerful as one though without the wings. She'll end up wearing a coat/suit sort of thing when she takes over Our Town to hide the scarring.

Speaking of Our Town though, whilst travelling around after the alicorn spell situation she has an epiphany. She can be great sure, but if she can't be the best she'll just have to make everyone else around her the worst. This way she can still protect herself and stay in control without having to bring more risks to herself or trying the impossible. This also solves her living situation. She finds a low-population town and introduces herself to the townsfolk. She worms her way into their community and eventually finds herself in a position of power. It was a bit of a waiting game, but she didn't mind as much since she was the most powerful amongst them already.

Now that she officially had control over the town and its runnings, she makes changes. She starts a chain of whispers about finding freedom in equality. Everyone in that town was there to escape something, whether that be family affairs, the pressure of life, maybe some old criminal dealings, whatever the case they were there to be away from the world. To be free. Starlight offers them freedom in exchange for absolutely nothing. If they were all equal, there was nothing they had to live up to, no one to be better than. Losing their cutie marks was their token to freedom, but it wasn't really a loss or a sacrifice or an exchange or what have you, it was the one last thing tying them down. Conveniently, Starlight has a magical staff that can free them. She tells them she's been free all this time and it's a wonderful existence to live. Their cutie marks would be stored in an enchanted wall in a cave so it's not like they'll be gone forever, anyone can come visit the cutie marks any time they wish, but who would wanna do that anyway? It's just a sore reminder of their old lives. They're free now, Starlight can't stop them if they want to view the wall, but it is strange to want to torture yourself like that.

Word spreads of this mysterious town where everyone is equal and free to live. More than just the original townies end up here.

Everything is great. Everyone is equal. There's no ideals or standards they have to live up to. No family they have to run from. No bad past they have to be reminded of on a daily basis. They're free. So Starlight tells them at least. Does freedom really come with controls and requirements such as everyone looking the same or having to be happy? Um. Well of course it does! Now stop worrying your pretty little heads and get back to living the free and equal life you've always dreamed of!

It doesn't really matter much if everyone else is happy, so long as Starlight is. She's right where she wants to be. She's on top of everyone. Even if they wanted to no one has the power or ability to wrong her or make her vulnerable. Nobody gets to leave. She has full control. She's safe.

But then miss Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends come and ruin it all. Starlight should've known the outside world would come tumbling in one way or another. How foolish of her to think she was really safe. She should've known this wasn't going to work. Now she's vulnerable, and it's her own fault! She tries to defend what she'd worked so hard to create, but her efforts are in vain. She flees, plotting her next move. She gets the most peace and safety when she's hiding, but this isn't the life she wants to live. She needs friends! She needs to socialise! It's not fair that she has to be lonely just to be safe. She's not going to let anything take away what she wants anymore, not even life itself. Clearly she just has to try harder in making everyone else weak and vulnerable.

Starlight gets her hooves on a time spell, and just as how we see in canon she goes backwards and creates alternate timelines in an attempt to make Twilight Sparkle vulnerable enough to be defeated. Starlight doesn't care about the cutie marks or Twilight's hero complex, it's all just what she thinks is gonna get under the princess' skin the most. When Twilight makes her last speech about friends and new beginnings or whatever it was she was saying, Starlight has a realisation. Maybe she's been doing this all wrong. Maybe she never needed to try make everyone around her vulnerable to be safe. She doesn't need to change everyone else, she needs to change herself.

She was right all along! She /does/ have to change to be the most powerful. She /does/ have to be the best. Not just against her peers, but against the entire world! She should've stuck with her gut from the start! She'll have to play the long game again, and even embarrass herself some in convincing others she's vulnerable, but she needs to conquer. And she'll start with Princess Twilight Sparkle.