A Mad Glimmer
is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic one-shot that follows the events of "The Cutie Map", written by FanOfMostEverything.
After fleeing the Equal Village, Starlight Glimmer is furious at her defeat by the Mane Six and the restoration of her followers' cutie marks. Sulking in the caves, she begins to plot her revenge and the takeover of Equestria. But she soon discovers that she's not alone...
Now has a sequel, A Crazed Gleam.
This fanfiction provides examples of:
- And I Must Scream: After taking Starlight to a Bad Future where the changelings conquered Equestria because of her, Discord turns her into a love generator so they can use her as a living battery.
- Bad Future: In the sequel, Discord takes Starlight to one where the changelings succeeded in taking over Equestria because she caused a filly Twilight to fail her entrance exam and run away from Canterlot in shame, ensuring she wouldn't be there to save her brother from Queen Chrysalis years in the future.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Because of Starlight's interfering with the Sonic Rainboom, at least one timeline exists where Twilight wasn't there to stop Queen Chrysalis from impersonating Princess Cadence and taking over Equestria, which is exactly where Discord takes Starlight to show her the consequences of her actions.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Starlight envisions a society where everypony can be valued equally while still being happy and contributing to society. Discord gives her exactly that, in the form of a timeline where the changelings conquered Equestria and converted the ponies into "love generators," mass-produced, genetically identical, barely sentient creatures just aware enough to feel love while being used as living food sources and batteries...and Starlight gets to be one of them. Delightful.
- Believing Their Own Lies: Starlight wasn't just using the equal-sign cutie marks as a tool to oppress all the ponies in her village; she really does believe every word of that pro-equalist propaganda she forces everypony to listen to. Her greatest dream is to one day be able to remove her own cutie mark, when all of Equestria has been equalized and she has no further need of it.
- Break Them by Talking: Discord gives an absolutely cutting speech to Starlight that lays out every reason why her philosophy of stripping cutie marks is morally wrong.
- Dark Fic: Let's just say the author has a far more brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech and a nastier fate in store for Starlight than the one she got in the show.
- Disabled Deity: Discussed. Now that she knows that the cutie mark-removing spell works even on alicorns, Starlight sets her sights on heading to Canterlot and removing Celestia's cutie mark. However, Discord suggests that Starlight was only able to yank Twilight's cutie mark off because the latter is a young, inexperienced alicorn, thereby implying she won't have the same luck with Celestia even if she can get to her and use the spell.
- Don't Make Me Destroy You: Discord's final warning to Starlight is that if she doesn't forget all fantasies of revenge or thoughts of rebuilding her equalist utopia, he'll inflict a fate upon her worse than anything she could possibly imagine.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Or "Here's The Happy Ending You Could Have Earned If You Made A Heel–Face Turn". When Discord is taking her through the time-stream, Starlight sees a glimpse of a future where she became an alicorn princess and married Sunburst. Unfortunately for her, because of her crimes, Discord is taking her to a much nastier place.
- Emotion Eater: In the Bad Future (or at least a Bad Future), changelings have created "generators", a race of fetus-like ponies mass-produced in factories for the sole purpose of producing that delicious, nutritious love.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Pretty much sums up how Starlight feels about the ponies of her equalist village turning on her and getting their cutie marks back.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Starlight is genuinely horrified by the timeline where the changelings took over and converted the entire pony race into living love generators.
- False Utopia: Starlight may think the ponies of her village were happy living there, but really, they had to force themselves to pretend to be happy every second of the day so they wouldn't be punished with solitary confinement and forced to listen to pro-equalist slogans on endless loop.
- Genius Loci: Changeling biomancy allows them to create semi-sentient buildings capable of repairing themselves.
- Happiness Is Mandatory: Discord describes the equalist village as "a regime where everypony wears a rictus grin for fear of spending a night in the propaganda hut." He's not wrong.
- Ironic Hell: Starlight's final fate is to be transported to a timeline where the changelings took over Equestria because of her and turned into a love generator for them to use as a living battery, with her mental faculties intact the entire time. For extra points, the world she's trapped in is one where everypony is happy, a valued member of the community, and contributes equally to society...just not the way she envisioned it.
- Logical Weakness: Starlight's cutie mark-snatching spell doesn't work on living beings that don't have cutie marks to begin with, like Discord.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: According to Discord, a changeling pod creates an illusionary world for the victim trapped inside where they believe they are loved, and thus produce love in return, which is then consumed by the changelings.
- Narrative Profanity Filter: "Starlight’s response was incoherent and would’ve been unprintable if it weren’t."
- No Mouth: At one point, Discord gets bored of Starlight's ranting, magically removes her mouth, and traps it inside a hunk of crystal.Discord: It’s not much fun when someone’s taking essential bits of your body, is it?
- Not Worth Killing: Discord caps off his Breaking Speech by telling Starlight that the only reason he didn't personally deal with her was because he knew the Mane Six could do it themselves. This is what comes the closest to breaking Starlight, as she's always believed herself to be the future savior of Equestria who will someday bring harmony to all ponies.
- No-Sell: Starlight's cutie mark-removing spell fails on Discord, because he doesn't have one. When she tries to maim him with a destruction beam instead, he grabs it and eats it like a piece of candy.Discord: Ugh, flavorless. I should have guessed.
- Outside-Context Problem: From Starlight's point of view, Discord is one. She's only ever dealt with ponies who she could disable by yanking their cutie marks off, or other mortal creatures she could otherwise fight with magic, but along comes a reality-warping Eldritch Abomination with no cutie mark whatsoever who cannot be beaten with conventional magic, and who can do whatever he likes to her.
- Papa Wolf: Part of Discord's reason for visiting Starlight in her dreams is because he's angry that she hurt the Mane Six, who he genuinely considers his friends.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: In the "Queen Chrysalis wins" timeline that Discord takes Starlight to, the changelings' society hundreds of years in the future is powered by an artificially engineered race(?) of fetus-like ponies called "generators". They're barely sentient enough to feel love and psychologically incapable of feeling anything else. But hey, at least they're happy!
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Discord wastes no time pointing out all of the critical flaws in Starlight's equalist philosophy.
- Shut Up, Kirk!: Starlight is too bullheaded to even try to consider that Discord might be right about her village having been a False Utopia where nopony is actually happy.
- Starfish Language: According to Discord, changelings communicate through transmitting emotional signals instead of a spoken language, although Chrysalis being able to speak normally in the show suggests that they can do both.
- Take Over the World: Starlight's ultimate goal is to strip every pony in Equestria of their cutie mark and create a perfectly equal, harmonious society.
- To the Pain: When Starlight still won't change her mind after a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, Discord warns her that if she continues to seek revenge, he'll permanently imprison her in a pocket dimension of his own making where he can have a ton of fun coming up with new ways to torture her.Discord: I find death distasteful. It’s the ultimate assertion of unchanging stasis over chaotic potential. No, Starlight, I’m not going to kill you. I'm not ever going to kill you. I will keep you tucked away in your own personal subdimension, where you will experience agony after agony with no hope of respite or even becoming inured to the experience. Every pain will be as fresh and shocking as the first time you ever stubbed a hoof as a filly. And you know what? (gives her a Slasher Smile) I think that with a stress doll like you, on whom I can vent my every cruel impulse, I can be a much, much better person to everypony else.
- What Could Have Been: In-universe, Discord allows Starlight to see glimpses of different futures that happened For Want Of A Nail.
- Winged Unicorn: At least one timeline exists where Starlight atoned for her crimes (or perhaps never committed them at all), studied magic like Twilight, became an alicorn princess and eventually married Sunburst.
- You Will Not Evade Me: When her attempts to fight Discord fail, Starlight tries to teleport away. She's immediately snapped back to the middle of the cave.
