Tear Jerker / The Power of the Equinox

• Twilight's transformation into Dimmed Star is a big heartbreaker for everypony who loves her: her friends, Spike, Princess Cadance, Princess Celestia, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, her parents, and Shining Armor. Celestia, the Mane Five and Spike in particular blame themselves for it due to the fact that their act of leaving Twilight alone at the wedding rehearsal led to Chrysalis imprisoning her in the crystal caves, which in turn led to her transformation.
  • In this fic, poor Shining Armor remembers barely anything about what he did under Chrysalis' mind-control spell, so learning that he banned his little sister from his wedding is all the worse for him.
  • After Spike learns of what happened to Twilight and that she's locked up, he hyperventilates and passes out. He afterwards enters a Heroic BSoD, with a Madness Mantra included.
    Spike: It's all my fault, I never should have left her. I'm a bad friend, I'm a bad friend, I'm a bad friend…
• To Celestia, what has happened to her student is like a repeat of her own little sister's stunt as Nightmare Moon. When Dimmed Star tells Celestia her new name, Celestia runs out of the dungeon all the while she's haunted by a memory of the corrupted Luna renaming herself as Nightmare Moon.
  • When Celestia goes to the Mane Five and Cutie Mark Crusaders' quarters, she fully expects them to bombard her with accusations and insults for imprisoning Dimmed Star (though nothing that extreme happens), and she believes she deserves it all.
    Princess Celestia: They have every right to hate me. I hate myself for much the same reason. I can't believe I let this happen. I can't believe I let this happen again… To a sister… and now to a dear friend… Oh Starswirl, what would you have done…
• When the Mane Five and Celestia express their guilt to Dimmed Star at the wedding hall, she's reduced to a wailing mess whom Shining Armor immediately embraces and tries to comfort. It looks like there could be reconciliations following… until the Entity fills Dimmed Star's mind with her bad memories from the rehearsal, causing her to use an Ink-serpent to throw her brother against a wall, leaving him heavily bleeding and comatose before he can even realize what's going on.
  • When the remorseful Dimmed Star visits Shining Armor at the hospital, she has a flashback from her fillyhood; Shining bravely stood up to two stallions who were robbing a mare and received a beating for it, but he still managed to prevent one of them from leaving with the book he just bought as a gift for his sister. As Twilight cried against him, he simply kept reassuring her that he's fine. As the flashback ends, some of Dimmed Star's black tears fall onto the bed sheet.
• Though she doesn't want to admit it, Dimmed Star feels lonely with the distance that has grown between herself and her loved ones. Unfortunately, she refuses to Turn the Other Cheek like Twilight Sparkle would have done.
• At the end of the 15th chapter, Business Savvy, angry that Dimmed Star wasn't condemned for killing his son, is drinking in a tavern. He has placed on the chair next to him a pint, with the picture of his son leaning against it.
  • On Hasty Vote's prodding, Business Savvy tells that Dream Gavel always wanted to join the Royal Guard. His father wanted him to follow in his hoofsteps instead, but Dream Gavel went behind his father's back and got accepted in the Guard. Business Savvy was furious with him, but he still felt proud for him, as did Gavel's mother who took on that day the picture which the mourning father is now clinging to.
• Scootaloo is revealed to live in a rathole with her adoptive parents. Her mother Vibrant Glow constantly wastes money in gambling, and her father Brutus Meadows is a drunk who often physically lashes out at Scootaloo. She's covered in bruises and scars so much that she covers them every day by using the makeup kit she gained from Sweetie Belle as a Hearth's Warming Eve present.
  • Scootaloo remembers that her adoptive parents were loving before Vibrant Glow started gambling just a few years after adopting her. After she fell into debt with people whom she couldn't pay, Brutus had to sell even Scootaloo's things to cover the debts. Scootaloo wishes to have those happier times back.
    • The flashback Brutus has of the day of adoption reveals that Scootaloo was left at the orphanage's doorstep as an infant. She didn't have any real friendship with the other orphans, and she refused to be called by any name that wasn't chosen by her parents. It looked like she was going to spend her entire fillyhood in the orphanage since nopony seemed interested in adopting the pegasus whose wings were small for her age. Brutus and Vibrant Glow, however, chose her without taking the time to speak with the other candidates.
• In the 28th chapter, the My Life Flashed Before My Eyes moment of Brutus and the serious regrets it causes in him give him a sympathetic depth that wasn't there before. He was a shy colt when he first met Vibrant Glow by becoming her seatmate at school (they even accidentally touched hooves). When they grew up, they were happily married, but they were unable to have a foal. Vibrant Glow (whose abdomen is scarred) is shown crying over her deceased infant in an empty foal's room, and this is implied to have happened several times. When Scootaloo's adoption is shown, Brutus is begging the past versions of himself and his wife not to adopt Scootaloo, knowing what he'll put her through. The scene then switches to Brutus abusing Scootaloo and then killing Vibrant, with him being unable to stop neither of them. He then finds himself in the Everfree Forest, with Scootaloo hidden by the shadows. He tries apologizing to her, only for the filly to be reveal herself to be decayed. As she and the equally grotesque Vibrant Glow bear down on the horrified Brutus, the filly declares that they can now be a happy family forever.

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