#whoops i signed 24-pretend it says 25 okay /silly

[enquire]

Starlet Cheers

Only four remain! But today, here's Kizuna. Her color palette really gave me trouble. I was playing around with purples or darker shades of pink, but in the end I just had to surrender to the pink and pastel pink lol. Part of me is also still wondering if I should have made her a griffin instead?

First, gonna write the little design notes here instead this time.

-she almost always keeps her hair up to keep it out of the way. Pigtails seem to provide the most motion while cheering so they've become a staple.

-her pack has cheer stuff (pom poms, etc) but also makeup.

-her white markings are natural, but she paints on the stars in a way that makes it impossible to tell the makeup apart from them. To the point that some ponies believe the stars are natural too.

-her cutie mark is a combination of a pompom and a star. The star motif has been a part of her cheer persona ever since she started, getting her cutie mark just cemented it.

-she uses the hoof poms that appear in a few episodes: they attach to the bands on her hooves.

Starlet Cheer was raised in Canterlot by her single mother, Silver Chaser. The two of them lived among the city's upper crust and were quite well off in those days. Unfortunately, right around the period Starlet earned her cutie mark, they fell upon hard times, and eventually had to move away entirely. The supposed friends they had in Canterlot offered little support. And worse, the majority of them slowly stopped seeing them at all.

The financial insecurity hit her mother hard, and led to conflicts. By the time Starlet grew up, and moved away to travel for her profession, things weren't really the same between them. Because of her experiences, Starlet has a somewhat harmful relationship with status and wealth.

When her cheerleading career took off, it became far easier to go back to living as she once had. But being beloved by all from afar made her more lonely than ever.

It was only after she visited a small town in the middle of nowhere to cheer at a track meet that all of that started to change. Though she claimed to hate living in a 'backwater country town' when was hired to cheer there again, she hung around longer than the first time. This pattern continued, until eventually, she essentially started living there. Though she said she was 'just visiting' it was clear that somehow, she'd found a home with the ponies there.

Though it's undeniable that Starlet is one of the meanest ponies you'll meet, her vanity and pride come with a level of dissatisfaction towards herself and, when earned, a deep loyalty towards her chosen few. Of course, she would never reveal any of that without a fight. Just like she keeps it a secret that she sends a good chunk of the bits she earns back home to her mother. Her biting words often have a basis in something true, or even concern, on occasion. Though not always.