Between Needles and Knives Recap+ Tailor Part 1 · 5:10pm Jun 3rd, 2014
So, after about half a year it finally is over. Somewhat following in the steps of the one who I could say Mentored !e on writing when i joined FIM, I suppose i should write a piece now and recap the whole story, as a bit of a afterward commentary. Also, this will have spoilers in it, so fuck reading the story, just read this for the juicy details.
incomplete story:
So, the first thing if want to mention is how I felt publishing an incomplete story. Well, i'll be honest. It sucked. I am starting to understand why some people give into pressure when they leave gaps from when stories need to be published. Luckily, though, nobody honestly cared about this too much besides me and the trusty editors, just like how almost no one is going to read this post, but I’d put this on the record anyway.
So most of the pressure was an internal nagging of leaving a story incomplete. I think that from now on i will always get the drafts ready and post after the the whole tale is done.
Sequel/ mystery
Now, with that out of the way, lets get to the story. With this being a sequel, i wanted to give closure to the story I started before, but at the same time, I didn't want to walk over already traveled ground. By that, most of the mystery from before was indeed dispersed off of Peace and onto the plot. While this does change the mood, it helps some of the monotony. In short, we already know Rarity is afraid of Peace and thinks he is going to kill her and Sweets. Besides the intro, I felt that there would be no purpose in going through that again.
Instead, I wanted to try to define Peace in this through his actions, sort of like the last story, except we do get answers here. I wanted to expand the world around him and how he interacts in it while making it feel different. I wanted to toy with things like non equestrian ponies, talking dogs, stags, my take on corruption and etc. Something that Rarity would not fully experience in Equestria. But, like with the first one, I wanted to keep the descriptions objective and impersonal. It may be a bit of LAS, but if you notice, I rarely show what Peace is thinking in the story, because otherwise, if i blatted everything out, half the story would be dead.
So, with all that out, I hope that anyone who read both tales now has some closure to the story.
Exposition and backstory:
Now, moving on from the story, i apologize if the exposition during Crocodile Tears became heavy, but at the same time, that was my plan all along. With the progression of the story, I wanted to have certain things there, like the opening in the cathedral, the theater, Celestia and Rarity in the office, etc. And watching the show was always going to be where the all of the dots were connected. In hindsight I could have used more hints in newspapers, but that would have involved more Rarity. While I agree it may seem sudden, I did base it off the idea of government black ops work and how you may feel if it was suddenly released to the public.
Take for example if Tom Clancy's ‘Clear and Present Danger’ was real, and that the American Government bombed cartel heads and sent commandos to sabotage cocaine production. Would it feel off kilter? Probably. But would you agree that less drugs is a good thing? Yeah!
Or, also consider the urban legend that at the height of the gang violence with the Bloods and the Crips, that Delta force commandos were trained to kill gangbangers, and their cause of death was deemed gang related violence?
So, while all of that story may seem sudden, I had planned to make that the way it is, and I did not just plop all of that down because I wanted to end the story.
Peace
Now, this had been a long time coming, so we finally get some inside information on the Customer, formally known as Mr. Esproc, P34C3. So, the first thing I want to mention here is that I do like to challenge myself when I write, and Peace was indeed a challenge. I knew full and well that Assassin’s in this fandom are often incredibly poorly done, and I knew full and well that he would hastily be called a Mary Sue at times. But, I knew that was going to happen, it was just Par for Course. So I just want to open up and say a few things about Peace that I aimed to cover when writing both of these stories.
First off, when I was making this character, I had to rationalize how a pretty pony in the land of candy could rationalize killing someone else for a living. I have a full backstory planned as a traditional narrative (a story which explains where he came from in the Theatre up until he defected to Equestria). But with that being said, I specifically avoided trying to cover any of this story. Like how I said above, I kept the narrative out of Peace’s thoughts or motivation in order to avoid a massive drop of Exposition, larger than the one in the theatre.
Other than that, being said, another thing that I did when I made this character was to make him already be experienced. By this, I mean that usually to avoid someone being a badass mary sue, it is often done that the story follows them as they gain experience, and through this, they will show flaws in their character and blah blah blah.
I wanted to avoid that. This is not a story to show him growing in skills, he has already had much experience in his line of work, and has already prove himself more than enough to be adequate in his line of work. He is not an assassin in training, and what he has in physical attributes shows for it, other than that, a mixture of intuition, planning and versatility is what makes him succeed over his enemies. (also, to add with that, I believe that in all honesty, the fact that he kicks the shit out of people was not too bad.)
So, while he is seemingly “Perfect” as he is physically, he compensates for it with by a tragic backstory and being emotionally broken.
So, the first thing I want to cover is his backstory. When people say “tragic” backstory, it often means that the OC is a whiny little bitch who had everything go wrong for him/ or her. And while I could obviously have the same problem, there is one thing that I do differently that I at least think saves it. He was indeed a Child Soldier, meaning that he had no childhood, he was trained to fight and kill others on the basis that he was told to, he was turned into a weapon, and put into a position that would make anyone crazy. And, while I would admit all of that as the truth, I would also mention that what makes him stand out from the normal angsty wangsty bitchy Mary Sues is simply that he does not dwell in the past.
His past is his past, it is up to him decide if he allows it to rule his life. Like I showed with his accomplice Sonnet (Octavia’s mother), not many of the children survived. Many perished in the program in order to strengthen the stronger recruits. Next, the remaining assassins and sleepers were often killed in Action. And, for the remaining handfuls of the recruits who survived the war, many couldn’t take it. Some couldn’t take the guilt of what they did and how they were left out to dry, others could not adapt to a different life. The ponies like Sonnet or Peace had to adapt in order to survive. Sonnet, in the part where she was meeting Octavia, she openly says it, “You are the only good thing I’ve done in this world…” if not for Octavia, she would never have coped with her new life. Peace, on the other hand, uses his family as well his religion as a means to cope. The reason why this works for him is because it does not allow him to stop and reflect on what he has done while at the same time motivating himself to live.
And, for the one of you who is still reading to this point, I would like to apologize if the whole religion thing came off a bit quick and was left unexplained. While it is a part of his character, I felt that explaining it any further than I did would feel a bit overwhelming and unnecessary. But, with that being said, the rest of the religious aspect of him will be a story for another day.
Now, onto his emotions, like I said above, the lesser part of his character is who he is on the inside, and that is broken. Without retreading over his past, we can already see how he is crazy. But, at the same time, with his training and backstory, he can never truly be like a normal person. The closest he’ll ever be in consideration to you and me is when he is in disguise. He has a family, he has a job, and he has a purpose to motivate him, but when it comes to combining those together, to go from cross global espionage for Celestia to being at home watching his children and being with his wife is where he grows as a character. This story wasn’t about that, though. So I will acknowledge that he did not “grow” in a traditional sense here, since this story was much more about Rarity opening up to the world.
TL:DR
Peace is like Max Zorrin from James Bond: A View to a Kill. He was made into a superhuman as a child, but he has severe mental and emotional problems, and that is what makes him different.
Placeholders:
The next thing I want to mention is the placeholder OC’s I used. People use different names for them, but what I call a Placeholder OC is someone who really isn’t important to a story, but needs to be in it. Half of the time they don’t even have names. For example, the Secretary and Commander Stronghelm are two placeholders. What I would like to bring up here is that, while none of these characters are important or add too much to the plot’s progression, I do take pride in writing them the way they are and feel as if they strengthen the narrative as well.
I remember once that I watched the Pixar Movie, UP!. And in the commentary, someone brought up a great point about how they made the villain of the film. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, “hmmm, how much evil am I going to do today?” this statement made me realize 2 things. Just because someone is on the opposite side of a conflict does not mean their bad, and secondly, motivation is what makes a realistic bad guy.
Now, what this means in regards to my placeholders is that, even though these characters lasted for a few lines, I wanted to flesh them out to make them feel like real people. Shirk, the guard in the vault of the Archives building was a dick because that is who he was, it made him stand out. He could have been a blank soldier guy who said almost nothing, but there was room for personality. I could have made Balisong, AKA the terrible self insert, just another usher like the guy who tripped massive balls because of the flower, but that would have been a wasted snapshot of a normal person’s life in the story. Hell, Troy the stag in the first chapter was supposed to die, but as I wrote his backstory I began to feel sympathy for the stag and decided to change his fate and give him the chance to live.
Also, I did this because, with other stories when I write about Mr. Peace, I plan to have him be in disguise, but instead of just acknowledging who he is as he pretends to be someone else, I plan to switch perspectives to multiple people as events happen. Like what happened in the chapter “A wolf Among the Sheep” Rarity thought she was talking to Rainbow Dash about when the train would leave for the theatre, but in Reality it was Mr. Peace in disguise.
Origin of Peace
Now, before this gets too out of hand with superficial information, I would like to shed some light on how I made the character of Peace and who he was based on. When I started thinking of him, I had a few objectives to hit:
He needed to have a nicer suit than Agent 47
Smack more bitches that Roger Moore
Smoke more cigarettes than Sean Connery
Have more hours in a day than Jack Bauer
Beat the shit out of more people than Jason Bourne
Fuck more bitches than Pierce Brosan
Have more movies than George Lazemby
Be more autistic than Sterling Archer
Have more catchphrases than Arnold Schwarzenegger
Use more Disguises than the Master of Disguise
Be gayer than Ray Guillete (wait, wat?)
Have a more annoying and useless support team than Solid Snake
And have a Dope-r sneaking suit than Sam Fisher.
…
…
Okay, all joking aside, I do have a few people I used as inspiration to make Peace off of.
First and most obvious, was Agent 47 from Hitman. Agent 47 was made to fill the purpose of making a perfect human. Peace was made as a weapon to combat Celestia, which although they failed to make an alicorn, they did make an incredibly versatile pony who could be trained to be a supersoldier. Like how 47 has to change his clothes to adapt during his assignments, I made Peace’s special ability to change his appearance to replicate body and voice. The flaw of this is that he cannot change clothing, but when working for Celestia, a coat of a special fabric was invented to change its texture with him, thus his Omnishield.
Next was Sam Fisher, This was the idea to use anything to advantage, like parkour, his wings, shadows, and etc. If you notice in either of these stories, Peace never fights fair, because he simply can’t. If he tried to trade blows or just go 1v1, he would probably fail because he can’t waste time, especially when he is on a mission, he needs to eliminate threats as fast and efficiently as possible in order to escape. So by means of using hidden bodyarmor, his weapons, stealth, and disguises, and anything else at his disposal, he can overcome opponents.
Next, we have Thane Krios. This is obvious, but this is where I added the idea of Peace being religious. To cut it short, I needed a way to have a person be completely fine with hurting and possibly killing others. And, as I thought of the most common motivations in the world, (sex, money, drugs, power, ego religion, family), The religion made the most sense. After all, how could you talk sense into someone who is willing to kill for their imaginary friend?
And, this may be shocking, but the last person that I used as inspiration for Peace was….
Clint Eastwood?
Yes, that is right. It somewhat surprises me, but I am a fan of the classic Spaghetti Western movies like The Man with no name Trilogy and Unforgiven. So, when I watch Clint Eastwood in these movies, I love the idea of having a character who is more defined by his actions than his words, and all the other characters know of him is based on his appearance. So, in tradition of “Blondie” or “the Man with No Name”, distinguished Peace based on what he was wearing, mainly how he was wearing his coat, The Omnishield.
Because of this, I am actually going to write a short western Themed story sometime soon.
So much yes.
Celestia:
Now, this was not too bad, but As a member of Protect Celestia and a member of the site who is a bit tired of the shit this character gets, I wanted to write Celestia into this story as the way I see her ruling. Often, writers are shit and use Celestia as a foil for their best pony or as a means to create conflict for their story, even though she is incredibly OOC. So, my mission with the chapter “The Seven Promises” was to write Celestia in character while at the same time willing to do anything to protect her ponies.
Most times, when a writer wants to show the Princesses doing something for their nation, they, themselves, go out into the field and will actually fight bad guys… and I must say that is completely convolutedly stupid that words can’t describe it. So I decided to take a chance and write Celestia as a Machiavellian Ruler, but at the same time, while she is fighting to protect her self-interests and agendas, those agendas just so happen to be her country and constituents.
Also, I wonder if anyone will see the reference I made in the final chapter with the mirror. Celestia tells the mirror to show her the ones she loves the most, and although she meant her sister… there were two ponies who happened to appear first… who would a woman love more than her only sibling?
A special thank you:
Also, I need to take the time out and thank the good editors of Editors R Us for the help that they did, especially FillyPhill. Phill had given me way too much of his time in order to get this story complete, and so I am very grateful. If anyone needs editorial assistance, I would recommend going to Editors R Us and you can find a editor that suits your needs.
So, thank you if you have enjoyed the story, and if you somehow suffered through all of that and made it to the end, then please tell me, because you deserve a cookie. The main story is over, but I intend to add in write a few short stories sort of like what I did with Part 1. Sorry for all that mindless rambling, but Im pretty glad the majority of the story is over... for all of its non-existent fans...
I must say that, for some reason, it was kinda hard to get the last 2 chapters done, and I don’t know why. But, with all that being said, this pales in comparison to some of the other stories I am working on right now.
Also, i want to add this even though im not one to really gove advice, but this happened to me when i was going through this story.
Do what you want to do, regardless of what other people are doing. If you enjoy it, then at least you can walk away with the appreciation that you did it for yourself. Otherwise, if you try too hard to please others, then you are in for a long and miserable road ahead of you.