One of these days, I'm going to have to beat Celestia's face in. Her stupid fucking sun is too damn bright sometimes. With that and Rose pushing me to get up, it was gonna be one helluva day.
"Cm'on, you know who you're meeting with today, right?" I fell back onto the bed, eyes half shut looking at her.
"If you can give me one reason I give a fuck about them, I'll get up."
"Equestrian Ambassador."
"Mother fu-"
Discord stood in front of Celestia, a scowl of disapproval taking the place of his usually cheeky grin. The throne room was impressive, he had to admit that, but it wasn't a lot of fun. Just a pile of stained glass and red carpet. Nothing special.
"Listen Tia, I know my end of the bargain has yet to be fulfilled, but do I really have to go there?" he sneered. She smiled a little, but she was hiding a stone-cold glare underneath it.
"I like them as little as you do. But I have scheduled meetings with Cadence and Shining Armor as of late, and I need someone to handle this." Discord yawned, stretching his arms behind his back and forming a seat out of them, which he promptly sat on.
"Send one of the dozens of nobles and bureaucrats. They can do this as easily as I can, if not better." Now it was Celestia's turn to scowl.
"I could, but there's a reason I'm sending you," she said as she paced around him. "Are you aware of why?"
"Because you secretly still hate me, even after my 'great conversion', as you call it?" She gave quite the appropriate facehoof.
"I don't trust the nobles. They'd do anything to get out of the hell that is their job. If I send one, they're not coming back. Secondly, I trust you." Discord almost burst out laughing, to which Celestia frowned. "I know it seems funny, but you wouldn't do anything too stupid. You like this little game we have going, where we each hate each other but won't kill the other because they're just too much fun." She was right on that; Discord really didn't want to kill her. If he did, well, that would have happened eons ago. "And yes, the bargain. You will serve me, and I make sure you don't end up in a stone coffin again, alright?"
"You make it so hard to like you. Fine. I'll do it." She smiled.
"Good. We wouldn't want those little magicians finding out about your big screw-up, now would we?" She...she knew, Discord thought. She knew!? Of course she knew. That bitch. Before he could respond, her horn was already shining in that familiar yellow glow. "Adios," she quipped, a goofy grin on her face.
"Oh you bi-"
POOF!
"Dammit..."
God of chaos? For such a crazy sounding guy, he was such a serious bastard. And he kept staring at me, like I'm some sort of painting in an art gallery. Stupid shit creeps me out.
"Good to see you." You could see the sarcasm dripping from his voice. I leaned back in my chair. It was alright to get comfortable here. We were the only two in the room, and it's a pretty big room. The meeting hall isn't used much, but when it is, oh man, you know it's some real shit. I yawned.
"Yeah, yeah. Save the sarcasm, we couldn't care less about each other, so let's just get down to it." Discord smiled.
"Fair enough. Celestia needs your consent for something." I raised an eyebrow, my hind legs propped up on the giant marble table.
"My consent? What in the fuck does she want my consent for?" He laughed. It wasn't one of those sincere laughs. It was a laugh where somepony just called you a dumbfuck and you're agreeing with it. That's the type of laugh.
"I don't know why she needs your consent, but it's about your dad." I stared at him, my eyebrows furrowing. I took my hind legs off the table and stared him right in his smug bastard face. My eyes turned emerald green for a second, flaring a bit at the sides. Ya see, when I get pissed off, that's a thing I do. It's all about my dad-no, Sombra's eyes. I don't like being associated with him.
"Alrighty then. What's it about?" My stare was making him uncomfortable. He could tell this was a touchy subject.
"Well, we've found some things that may have belong to your- I mean, Sombra. We need your consent before we start going through these things." Oh man, I loved dumpster diving. Something about finding something cool in a pile of shit is just so much fun. I nodded.
"You have my consent." He stood up to his full height, which was pretty impressive, stretched his back, and began walking out. "However," I said as he froze, "I am to come with you." Oh, I wish you could see the look on this asshole's face.
"W-what? Why?" He turned with a giant frown of disappointment and shock on his face. Not sure why he was so moody all of a sudden. I grinned.
"I've been doing my research. Come, I'll show ya." I jumped off my chair, casually exiting the meeting hall and walking down the stairs to the library, a cheeky bastard on my tail. I grabbed the book entitled Magic Through the Ages: Volume 2. Apparently the library staff couldn't give less of a shit, because it was still one the page I had fallen asleep on. The page had this picture of some giant mass of energy or something. It looked freakin' awesome, and I heard you can give it magical capabilities.
"Check it out. So there's this giant thing of energy, right?" Discord froze yet again, his eyes wide and scanning the pages frantically. This guy was starting to creep me out. "I just wanna know more about it, so I'm gonna find anything and everything about it. So that includes the Crystal Empire's public library and Sombra's personal library. Neat, huh?" I raised an eyebrow at him, his eyes still as wide as the fucking moon. "You doing alright, man?" He snapped back to reality.
"Yes, yes. I'm fine." Lying bastard was terrified. And I was lovin' it.
I knew that he created the energy. And I knew where it'd been locked up. Tartarus, the land of undead and probably some giant three-headed dog for all I knew. Thing is, one does not simply walk into Tartarus. Ya gotta be dead, and that's no fun. I'm not killing myself just to see some giant energy thing. I need to be able to work with it. And you can't use magic when you're dead. I'll be damned if Discord didn't make a way to get into Tartarus alive. He's one of those guys that will always give you some sort of trump card. That's a stupid fucking idea if you ask me, because what's the point of having so much power if you're gonna let them defeat you?
Some people compare me to Twilight Sparkle. Twilight fucking Sparkle. Who in the hell is that, and what kind of name is that? Seriously, I have no fucking clue. I heard she was a princess or something, I don't keep up with this shit. Apparently she likes books. Alright, first of all, yes, I like books. However, she reads books just to learn things. I read books that will actually help me. What's the use of learning the amount of fucking electrons in a plutonium atom? I'll never wake up and say, "Man, so great that I know this shit!" Nah, I like hooves-on things. Reading something and using it. Tonight, I was feeling dark.
Corny Joke Flare piped up as I read through the spell and its uses. "Man, you really put the dark in dark magic!"
"Next time you make something like that up, I'm finding a spell on shutting up your subconscious."
"Party pooper," he called.
"Eat a dick," I yelled back. God I hate that guy. But he's got some good ones. I read through the spell one final time. Man, this was some creepy shit. Ya ever have one of those friends who invites you over, and he's got a shitload of candles everywhere and all and he's chanting something? It's like that, but at least I'm alone. I can't stand company sometimes. Ya gotta act a certain way for everypony, and it's such a boring act. Hell, I have better conversation with Corny Joke Flare and Guilt Trip Flare than I do with some of these ponies. Anyway, I started getting on with this. I ran up to my room and sat down on the stool in front of the mirror. I shot a beam of energy at the mirror. It reflected back, enveloping my body in my own orange aura. I focused really hard, shutting my eyes tightly as I tried to travel into my subconscious. When I opened them again, oh man, it was like nothing you'd ever seen.
A wall of dark magic surrounded the area. Honestly, it wasn't that big. But what was in it, oh man. You had access to everypony's mind. Literally. You could become part of their subconscious. You could see what they were thinking. It was beautiful. I stood up shakily. That spell took a lot out of me. I slowly trotted to the one I was looking for. All of the "minds" which were just giant, empty glass tubes, were marked on the top with a name. With so many, you would think it was hard to find the one I was looking for. But no. They had a whole spot reserved for him. I guess they were afraid that his mind being too close to other minds would fuck them up or something. I came to face the humongous tube. This was stupid. Why was I doing this? I stepped into the tube, placing my hind legs against the padded backing and placing my hooves against the respective ends. Kinda like you were in a cryogenic lab or something. I looked up at the roof of the tube as I felt the energy begin to swell up. Scrawled in red ink was "King Sombra. Why are you in here, you stupid bastard?" Good question. Crazy Idea Flare said it was cool.
Your method of writing dialogue makes it very hard to tell who said what.
The way dialogue is normally written when the writer is omitting "he said" and " Bob asked" is:
"Oh, come on, man, that is not funny."
I pointed at the shaving cream all over Steve's head and laughed my ass off. "Oh yes it totally is!"
Steve smushed the shaving cream in an attempt to remove it. "You're an asshole."
But the way you're writing it goes:
"Oh, come on, man, that is not funny." I pointed at the shaving cream all over Steve's head and laughed my ass off.
"Oh yes it totally is!" Steve smushed the shaving cream in an attempt to remove it.
"You're an asshole."
Now, in a sequence like this, where we know that "I" am laughing at the shaving cream and "Steve" is trying to remove it, it becomes obvious from context who is saying what. But as soon as it is slightly less obvious, it becomes really hard to track who is saying what. And you're not writing Discord in a distinctive "voice" that makes it very clear who he is as opposed to your character, who is also a sarcastic asshole, so it is hard to tell them apart.
Generally speaking, when you have a character speak during a paragraph, actions performed by characters in that paragraph should have that character as the subject. There are exceptions, but the pattern you're performing, where the speech by Character A is always followed by action by Character B in the same paragraph, is needlessly confusing. Just rearrange the paragraph breaks slightly so that the action by Character B that you had previously stuck at the end of Character A's dialogue line instead comes at the start of Character B's dialogue line, and you will correct the problem.
Also, Discord is not being funny enough. The fact that he's actually scared shouldn't prevent him from being sarcastic and/or silly; he might actually do it more because he's trying to hide that he's scared. The interchange between him and Celestia worked well, but as soon as he's talking to the main character his character goes flat.
3817662 Fair point. I'm not a very good writer, so I'm always a work in progress. Thanks for the insight though, I'll be looking to clean this up eventually.
3817671
Your work isn't bad. The avoiding "he said" in favor of sentences describing action is actually a good technique that makes writing more vivid and engaging to read; it's just that you have to be careful where you're putting your action line. (This is not to be confused with a thing you are *not* doing that is a terrible idea, which is replacing the word said with a zillion synonyms. "Oh no!" he expostulated. You're not doing that, and that's good, I just don't want anyone who reads this comment to be confused and think that that is what I'm suggesting. :-))
Everyone sucks when they get started and the only way to get better is practice, so if you enjoy writing and want to get good at it, you're going about it the right way. :-) One thing it is hard to do when working with an OC you really like is preventing them from getting all the good lines. I think part of the reason Discord turns flat when interacting with your OC, while he's still more or less normal with Celestia (and btw, I *loved* Celestia admitting that she, too, hates Discord but loves hating him and messing with him too much to ever kill him; I had relationships like that with enemies in middle school myself, and I was the goody two shoes of the pair, so I totally get that), is that you like your OC too much to let anyone else shine around him. But that is paradoxical because it actually makes your OC less interesting to read. Keep up witty banter that allows both sides to zing the other and you make an entertaining sequence that keeps readers interested in your OC.
Good luck!
3817804 Thanks. I've taken your advice into consideration. I think the other thing I should start working on is the massive dialogue parts. This may be just me, but it gets kinda boring when it's just going back and forth. But once again, thank you for the constructive criticism.