Talk:The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 2/@comment-10390252-20151129141616

How would I have done this episode...? Hmmm...

I would have had the entire Mane Six pulled into the time vortex when Starlight goes back in time to alter history. After some initial confusion, they engage Starlight at the Young Fliers camp and take her out on the first attempt, capturing her after a high-SFX battle with her throwing every magic trick she knows into the game. Unfortunately, they were too late to stop her altering the events of that day.

They are dragged back to the present to an Equestria in the middle of a four-sided war between Sombra, Nightmare Moon, Celestia and the Changelings. Worse, Discord is hovering around finding amusement in further aggravating matters by inducting artistic little bouts of localised chaos. That's when the real saving grace of the episodes, Resistance Leader Zecora makes her appearance. After the Six make a few attempts to help the 'good guys', Zecora helps them interrogate Starlight (currently hobbled with a magic suppressing cap on her horn) with the help of a truth potion. Starlight explains that, after the scroll spell degenerates, they'll all merge into the ponies they would be in this altered time-line with no memory of the original. Naturally, she doesn't care about the broader problems, so long as she was still the total overmare of Equaltown. Zecora notes that it was the first place Sombra trashed when his forces crossed the Icy Mountains into Equestria proper and that its leader is now his court jester.

Zecora tells them that they have to go back in time and ensure that the original time-line is preserved. There follows a series of adventures as the Mane Six try to find some way to undo the harm as the jittery time-spell drops them off separately in various points in the past (including Starlight's fillyhood, where Twilight, Spike and Starlight witness Sunburst's painful moment of destiny and its affect on young Starlight). Finally, with all other options exhausted, they converge on the Young Fliers camp. At this point, Starlight breaks loose and throws herself into her own past self's magical attack. The resulting paradox creates a huge SFX feedback loop. The two versions of Starlight merge and her magic fails, causing her to plunge through the cloud to her doom... if Twilight didn't dive down and catch her. Twi rejoins her friends just as filly!Rainbow breaks the Rainbow Barrier and creates the first Rainboom.

Epilogue is in the Castle of Friendship. Starlight explains to Twilight that everything she did was for what she perceived to be the best interests of the ponies of Equaltown. Blocking the spell with her own self was the only way she could think of protecting them from the horrors of the war-torn alternate time-line. She then asks Twilight why she saved her life. Twilight responds that it was the right thing to do and she encourages Starlight to make new friends. Destinies do not have to pull ponies apart if you do not wish it to - She cites her efforts to make peace with Moon Dancer as proof of this. She points out that the loyalty that Starlight had shown to those she once ruled over could be considered 'friendship' too.

"I... don't know now to."

"I'll show you."

End as in canon with it very clear that Starlight has gone back to Equaltown, a place that is special and dear in her heart to serve her penance by helping the ponies she once tyranised. There is something very odd about the way she and Double Diamond hug...