//------------------------------// // Trotskyite Thursday // Story: Don't Make a Shadow of Yourself // by Ice Star //------------------------------// My second book was much different. Now that I've finally found a place to settle and the time to write, let me tell you all about it, sweet Sunburst. Oh, it was absolutely magnificent. Another text as banned as the works of Neightzsche are in Equestria. I know you never had an interest in politics, but trust me, my Sunburst, they're some of the most important things to know. Politics are best when they are about the abolition of anything that promotes diversity, difference, and categorization. In that way, it's like a magic eraser for any form of difference in authority and experience. What is mine becomes yours and what shouldn't be yours should be mine too. It's the eradication of beauty and talent, of the beasts we call culture and leisure. In a way, that in itself is beautiful, isn't it? I know that a world like this couldn't hurt anypony, and I want it so badly, my dear Sunburst. It's just such a shame that Equestria has never felt this way. The texts that rightfully agree with me are so strictly managed within the borders of the land claimed by the sun goddess. Copies of histories like the one I got my hooves on are seen only intervals of centuries and are confiscated by the guards. And how do I know this? From more foreign texts, of course. You don't travel outside of Equestria without finding out some very interesting things about the land you left. I just think that you should know, that everywhere I go, I know you should be with me. You knew how much you mattered to me, how much I adored you. Yet, you threw it all away, and for what? For worldliness and everything that we used to watch from the sidelines! For this toxic thing that ponies call 'success' as if that and 'education' mean more than what we mean TOGETHER! Even these books agree with me, that camaraderie and unity among ponies like us who hadn't ever had everything given to us... and then we must use that unity to CRUSH opposition, wouldn't you agree my little Sunburst? Well, you should agree with me. My second book has fully immersed me in this truth, and its truths are so powerful that Equestria herself has banned it and deemed those who trot along the path of a Trotskyite as following heinous propaganda! Will the injustices committed by those like Princess Celestia, who think they can ever claim to be something as unequal as a leader, ever stop being unleashed upon the world of downtrodden mortals like you and me? I think that the world could stand to have a lot more equality in order to have so much less hurting. Why, after the glorious ideals of Trotsky began to spread overseas on the eastern continents, creatures actually began to fear him and his circle of comrades! Sunburst, isn't that astounding, that a mortal could be feared by those in power? Even though the rulers of the nations closest to and including his native Sibearia were all mortal, they really started to fear for their own power and the cruel orders they maintained. Could you imagine if somepony like you or me managed to make an everlasting and oppressive goddess like Princess Celestia quiver with worry? I need to meet ponies like this. I need their stories to make me feel less alone. Trotsky was an east continental pony immigrant in a freezing country of bears and ice dragons. That's even lonelier than the life I live, and somehow he managed to find other comrades. In the Sibearian wastes, he managed to brew up plans with those who shared his interest in the demolition of order, communal living, and the warmth of royal blood across their hooves and paws. I don't think that it's wrong to say I understand the way they feel and how desperately they want that. I know that Princess Celestia cannot die, but there are times when I think about I know the goddess is not an omniscient one, yet I still cannot shake this awful feeling she could manage to scry me or have some form of power over me. Who is to say that the old sun-nag that brings our world light isn't capable of something like that? The thought of her scares me, Sunburst. You become more and more like a hostage she has claimed as I am left with my thoughts of rebellion. Is this how the Trotskyites of centuries ago felt? Paranoid and starved of security? I know they often faced literal starvation, and as much as I want to bring their thought back, every time I read over my worn book and come to their tragic ending I have to try not to sob. The Trotskyite rebels, my brave heroes, were starved and chased around their own homeland. The foul royal Ursanov family begged the world to help them, and even Princess Celestia in the west heard them. When multiple god-ruled nations send their armies and supplies to aid filthy royalists, do any righteous ponies have a chance? The sun-nag took part in the undoing of the few I can think of as heroes. The Trotskyites were right when they said it was more than the talented and minds of magic had to be eliminated like all the stories in my book of Walpurgisnacht. Nopony else was ready to hear what they said, and armies of hoof and claw captured them and executed them as if they were some kind of traitors. Ponies acting on the sun-nag's order assisted in the death of the only pony who I would follow and who offers me good teachings! How could I forgive her, Sunburst?! How can you stand her?! She allowed a tsar, his filthy tsarina, and their filthy cubs to LIVE! TO LIVE AS IF THEY DESERVED LIFE! My book still has some scorch marks around the edges, just near the cover. The title has been worn off with methods I can't say was from age or something much more intentional. Don't you think that's enough of a clue as to what happened to the publishing of the few who managed to remain in hiding long enough to chronicle the death of their glorious and inspiring comrades that called them to battle in the first place? Isn't this a testament of just how much the united royal armies were able to erase such glorious creatures from history? Why do all the wrong things happen to those who are oh-so-right? Sunburst, is there nothing that could make you remember me? Have you not once dreamt of me as often as I am burdened by you?