Starlight Glimmer is ready to be dealt whatever punishment she must receive for her crimes. Thankfully, Princess Twilight Sparkle is a generous mare who believes in friendship and second chances. Instead of jailing her or worse, she decides to teach Starlight about friendship and become her mentor. All is well... for fifteen hours or so.
The next day, Starlight Glimmer is back where she started. She is ready to be dealt whatever punishment she must receive for her crimes. Unfortunately, Twilight has already dismissed her of her crimes yesterday morning. Starlight was supposed to be at Applejack's, so why is she back at the castle, and in the same panic as yesterday?
The same thing happens later that day. Starlight suddenly disappears and then reappears just as suddenly, no memory of the previous several hours. She's suffering from the side effects of the magic she used. Now, if only fixing this issue was as easy as casting the original spells had been. But what if no cure can be found?
Step Right In And Start Again is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic oneshot by shortskirtsandexplosions
that can be read here. It has a infamous reputation for its existential horror themes.
Step Right In And Start Again provides examples of:
- Accusation Fic: The fanfic gives Sixth Ranger Starlight a punishment for her actions in season 5. However, the punishment goes way, way too far in this case.
- Amnesia Loop: Every time Starlight's time loop resets, her memories of the previous iteration vanish as well — she begins each new instance believing that she just gave up her plans for revenge and is about to be judged by Twilight for her crimes, leading her to suffer increasing panic and confusion as the world changes more and more around her.
- Dark Fic: Starlight is given a Fate Worse than Death by being cursed to be immortal, but without any memories of the past day and always in a loop.
- Downer Ending: Twilight and co. are unable to fix the time loop or kill Starlight, and Starlight is forced to continue looping until long past the heat death of the universe.
- Failure Is the Only Option: No matter how hard she tries, Twilight can't break the time loop, free Starlight from it, or even give her a Mercy Kill.
- Fate Worse than Death: Starlight Glimmer is forced to relive the same few moments at 8:15 AM. After fifteen hours she disappears suddenly and restarts the next day with no memory exactly at 8:15 in the morning. This keeps on happening even after the planet itself, and later the universe, both die.
- Gosh Darn It to Heck!:
- Applejack curses with "Land's sakes".
- Rainbow Dash has the line "—but if she can't even remember more than a few gosh-dang minutes, then what's the friggin' point?!"
- Twilight yells at Starlight to "drink the dang potion".
- The Great Offscreen War: Partway through, Equestria is suddenly at war with the changelings. The reader is just as out-of-the-loop as Starlight.
- Natural End of Time: As the story progresses and history goes on, the world becomes increasingly aged and worn around the constantly-resetting Starlight — eventually, the Castle becomes a broken-down ruin in a field of barren rock surrounded by the eroded cores of ancient mountains, then vanishes completely as the world becomes an endless field of ash, and finally nothing is left but empty darkness at the absolute end of the universe.
- Oh, My Gods!: Starlight uses "Goddess", such as in the line "Goddess help me with what they have in store".
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Starlight finds Twilight sitting alone in a broken-down castle years in the future. She's too far gone after her friends have all died.
