Fourth Encounter
Daxisle stared out into the void around him, standing and looking out into the swirling blackness around him, waiting.
The godly earth pony knew he was coming, and he had every intention to face him when he did. The narrative needed to continue, and Shade was his only means to push it in the direction he wanted it to go, regardless of the the coming anger and cruelty the bat pony had planned.
Daxisle sighed, he knew he deserved every bit of the pony's scorn. After all, it was Daxisle whom had created him, who'd produced the horrible, awful life Shade had been forced to live. In comparison to the months and years he was kept in the box under the command of his superiors, under the works of deity himself, the painful tongue lashings were a minor consolation for him.
"So, you're here." Star Shade said, gliding down to stand before the deity.
Daxisle nodded, his glowing white eyes keeping their distant gaze. "I believe you've got a few things to say."
Shade smirked. "Odd how I've called you here for once." The pegasus remarked. "Guess I'm just becoming more and more powerful, huh?"
The earth pony deity gritted his teeth. "Speak your peace and be done with it. I've got other things to do."
Shade chuckled and shook his head. "Oh, I'm sorry. What else did you have to do exactly? I saw that interview you did with TL;DR." He said with a shake of his head. "You're really not very good at articulating yourself in real time, are you?"
"Are they on their way?" The ambiguously colored earth pony demanded, ignoring the backhanded question.
Shade nodded. "I delivered the message to where he would be. Found them in Vanhoover on the other side of the country looking for him. I didn't give them too many details on why they should believe me, but they'll come." His grin widened to Cheshire proportions. "You'll see to that, wont you?"
Daxisle nodded his head. "Yes, the narrative still needs to be believable, though. That's why you needed to inform them."
"Ohh, I don't know about that." Shade mused, putting a hoof to his chin in thought. "I mean, you've already pushed the suspension of disbelief so far already. Why not go the extra mile and just say: 'hey, guess what?! We found you'! Why bother with build up, believable convenience or any of that nonsense now?"
Daxisle shook his head. He'd been toying with suspension of disbelief more than enough already. He'd failed to give proper build up to so many events lately, throwing in last minute "hints" here and there when he'd thought about them, but still forgoing better and more subtle clues that would have really made the story more interesting and enticing.
"Yea, I guess you are kinda getting ahead of yourself again." Declared the lunar pony, flapping his wings and then beginning to lazily float about the void. "Especially now that you've threatened to kill off a main character and then brought her back to life. Funny how you always hated stories that did that, how you condemned them for not having the strength to hold to the sacrifice and then turn around and do it yourself."
Daxisle took a few deep breaths. "Krystal was never meant to die, not here anyways. I have no plans to kill her, or anybody for that matter."
"Of course you don't." Shade cooed, circling about the earth pony. "You couldn't kill her any more than you could kill Uppity. Not with what they represent to you."
The stallions smooth flow ceased, caught in Daxisle power. He raised his head casually and looked the deity in the unblinking eyes. "You know what I mean. Uppity, Macintosh, Scootaloo, Spike, Krystal... Sin. They are all what you want them to be, what you wish you could have."
Daxisle raised his hoof and slammed it on the ground, Shade following the command as he to slightly raised and fell to the floor.
"You know, the thing is that what you're doing isn't nearly as deep as you think it is." Shade declared whimsically, as if the blow hadn't affected him in the least. "This whole story is just propaganda for the libertarian ideology. Just a lengthy and ill written strawman against all forms of statism and altruism to justify your ideology of libertarian brutalism."
No it wasn't, if anything, the entire story was a massive critique of brutalism, if not an examination of it. Libertarian brutalism: The idea that freedom should be given for the sake of finding government's force of violence illicit and immoral, that the nuances and goodness that goes along with it were an incidental good, rather than an intentional good to be striven for. As opposed to Libertarian humanitarianism, where it was the good that freedom did was held in higher respects than the immorality of government and legitimized coercive violence.
Was it a massive strawman against the very concept of statism? Yes, that was pretty much how all hypothetical, politically inclined literature worked. Concessions were made, though.
And it was also a pop-culture/psychological analysis piece on modern male and female behavior, both the reality and the desired. Most Equestrian ponies behaved a certain way, the "ideal" way. Citizens of the Federation were meant as a representation of the realistic, at least as he saw them, behaving in realistic ways. The way of self interest superseding altruism and universal "goodness".
How the introduction of the real to the ideal and the synthesis there in with a, hopefully, entertaining story to go along with it.
"Another thing, you really need to work on your character personality development." Shade said, sitting up. "I mean, we all know that Krystal is just a a remix of Fluttershy. A motherly sort who'd never hurt a fly, submissive, weak, constantly seeking shelter and care from Sin and over Scootaloo. A Heart Trope that's meant to be liked and likeable. The only reason she exists was because you wanted to avoid the backlash of shipping Sin with one of the mane six."
"And Uppity." Shade continued with a laugh, gritting Daxisle's nerves to the nub. "I mean, what is she besides an obvious mix of Twilight and Fluttershy? A fair bit more capable than Krystal, but not by much. You know? It doesn't surprise me that you'd have Uppity do what she did and pair Sin next with a mare who was too weak to do anything like that. And don't even get me started on Annabelle's personality type and who she's a mix of."
"Ohohoho, keep going, Shade." Daxisle warned.
Shade took no notice of the threat.
"Something else I also find funny, you've condemned the "motherly" female arch-type in this story. Hay, you've devoted an entire chapter to it. And yet how do: not one, not two but all three of your female, love interests, creations act? Motherly."
Daxisle forced a deep breath and pointed out that no, it wasn't the arch-type he took exception with. It was the response of males to that arch-type. He'd made both Macintosh and Sinbad stand against the milquetoast male, even if Macintosh was one at first.
"Yea, and then you'd made Shining Armor one. Along with all the other males in this story." Shade countered, shaking his head. "But that's how you make your main characters stand out, isn't it? Instead of making them more interesting, you have to make everypony else look weaker by comparison."
It was hard to keep himself in line hearing all of this, Daxisle knew how much of a hypocrite he was being by writing those characters that way, but... he also had a secret liking for them.
"You know what? Fine, I'm a hypocrite, whatever."
Shade frowned and tilted his head. "Aww, well it's no fun if you don't get angry about it."
"Yea, okay. Was there anything else?" Daxisle asked.
Shade jumped up and took to he air again. "Yea, were you ever going to address that build up for the social justice thing back in Ponyville? Sin and Scootaloo have been taking up a nice bit of story lately." The pegasus paused and furrowed his brow. "Yea speaking of which, how are you going to make those two tie in again? If I may say, there is alot of ground to cover between a story line about social justice and another about uncertain revenge."
Now that the bat pony was thinking about it, there was yet another story line that was slowly falling from view. Malich and his bit to do with the changelings.
Daxisle shook his head with a chuckle, a small bit of reservation leaving his form from the lack of hostility. "I'll let you know when I figure it out."
"Oh don't act like you've got no plan." Shade called whimsically, flapping his wing to give him some speed. "Finding ways to find and fill in loop holes is what you're good at, or so you like to think. If you were a real pony, I'd wager that would be your cutie mark in some way."
Daxisle gave that thought a moment and pressed his lips. To be a real pony? That... would be weird.
"Oh don't act like you've never thought about it." Shade said. "Isn't that what Sin is? Just a self insert who's ponified?"
Daxisle couldn't help but let a harsh bark of laughter at that. "Alright, you've got me, Shade. I'm a former politician gone rogue, chasing people who tried to kill my best friend. How did you figure me out?" He said sarcastically. "Oh and my dad and brother own a successful, nationally dominating business that acts as a country wide security force and military, yea, like, true story and shit."
"Not what I mean and you know it~" Shade called in a sing song tone.
Meh, point still stands.
"Right, was there anything else?"
Shade was quiet for a moment, content to just enjoy his circling about the earth pony.
"Hmm, well, I have to ask..."
Daxisle pressed his lips, this was not his day.
"Why bring up the big moral conundrum now?" Shade asked, his voice void of any teasing or malice.
Daxisle quirked a brow and asked for an elaboration. Shade took a moment to organize his thoughts and articulated in the best way he could that: it just seemed a little forced. The story had plenty of room for the actions of the Trotski to be shown. As it stood for the longest time, Luna's allowance of them to continue and perceived inaction against them made absolutely no sense.
A newspaper or two about the failed attempts at poisoning the cloud water supply that Sin or Spike had come across would have been a nice clue. Sin stumbling upon another failed attempt to sabotage the organization himself after or before Appleloosa would have been another great tidbit, anything to give some kind of indication to Luna's works against them. To show that she actually had sufficient reason not to act, rather than give the perception that she was an incompetent ruler playing favorites.
Nothing like that had ever come up before, and it would have been great ways to hint or point to why Luna hadn't acted. Yet, there was nothing, nothing at all.
It wouldn't have detracted too much from the story, and would have made a lot of sense to have in. Both Sin and Spike had a thing for knowledge, and newspapers weren't exactly hard to come by. It was a small plot device, but still one that is should have been incorporated because it would have added a lot to the conversation between Sin and Luna.
"Instead we have a piss poor excuse of why Luna doesn't bring up their actions or explain her motivations at all. Sad thing is that it's probably better that way too, with as convoluted as you've made this whole thing." Shade said. "You've been hammering in the emotional exposition and conflict so hard lately, I'm surprised people haven't said something. We get it! It's a bad situation, everyone's hurt and guilty and doesn't know what to do. Give it a rest! It's bad enough you took all of this time to write up that whole thing, but the fact it's all going to ultimately go no where is the part that really grinds my gears."
Daxisle gave the pony a flat look and took a minute to prepare a response. "Okay, first off, it is going to go somewhere. Secondly do I look like J.K. Rowling or Jim Butcher to you?"
"I do not know who they are." Shade replied cheerfully.
"Yea, well they're successful and well published authors. I'm just some guy on a computer, writing a story. So, you'll have to excuse me if my works aren't the literary equivalent to fucking Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci here."
"Excuses." Shade said dismissively. "Hindsight is a bitch, I guess."
"I guess." Daxisle agreed. "Now, is there anything else?"
Shade shook his head. "No, just a little advice going forward, maybe think ahead and try to have a smoother flowing narrative is all."
Daxisle shook his head. So this is what it was coming to, huh? His own creation developing a metaphysical consciousness and giving him tips on how to write the story he was taking place in. Critiquing the deity's works and testing his creator's patience.
If only the batpony was absolutely correct in his analysis...