Tirek's back in Tartarus, Discord's thoroughly learned his lesson, and Twilight's role as royalty has finally been defined. All's well in Ponyville...on the surface. But Equestria (not to mention Gaia) is much more than a single rural town founded by modest settler ponies. As the Agents of Harmony, together quite literally the embodiment of harmony itself, our beloved royal Council of Friends find themselves thrust into ever more conflicts concerning ponies of all shapes and sizes. Whether they like it or not, they will be tasked with figuring out just what it means to be a cognitive creature in the midst of this endless struggle we call life. A slice of life story reaching epic proportions.
Foreword: The world that has been created for this series is diverse and wildly entertaining, but I feel like it's inherently held back content-wise due to the fact that it was commissioned and is maintained as a "kids' show". Many aspects of this story will come from my own life, but in essence this is meant to be a reflection of what I believe life has become for us here on Gaia (or, as it's more commonly known in the States, Earth). Ideally, this will turn out to be a touching tale of desperation and adulation, and maybe even serve to open a few eyes along the way.
Now, I struggled with myself for a long time on whether or not to omit cursing, but have come to the conclusion that I will merely follow the writers' own example and use the creative cursing that's been established, along with a few of my own. As for what exactly constitutes dark material, there will be references to certain aspects of real life which will be reworked to fit within the context of the setting. Directly pointing these out for you beforehand would take away from the thrill of reading them for yourself, but you can rest assured that nothing explicit will be spelled out in plain English in this story.
Next, I'd like to take a moment to just say that this is only my interpretation of these copyrighted characters, and while I personally prize myself on my ability to method-act, I must insist that it be remembered that nothing which develops in this story has anything to do with the canon world whatsoever. I know it should seem obvious, but feel like it might as well be stated anyway. And, of course, I own nothing, not even the air I breathe.
An interesting beginning...
A few things that need to be fixed up, though:
(Oh, hay, here we go. Somepony punched his "persnickerty" buttons again.)
(Quiet, you.)
First, when you have a line of dialogue followed by an attribution of who said it and how, you end the dialogue with a comma, not a period, and then do not capitalize the first word outside of the closing quote unless it's someone's name, or the pronoun "I" (which is always capitalized). If the dialogue ends with ! or ?, you still use those, but then you must still treat dialogue-plus-attribution as a single sentence and do not capitalize the next word outside the closing quote. Examples:
Only when what follows the dialogue is not a who-said-it-and-how attribution, do you end the dialogue with a period and then begin a new sentence.
Next: You need to dial way back on the strange dialogue attributions, and just use "said", "asked", and "replied". (Or "added", if called for.) Not only are these perfectly acceptable, they're basically "invisible" to the reader, and the reader won't notice you using them repeatedly -- but they will notice you going out of your way to avoid them by using "jabbed", "ended", "intoned", "followed", "complied", "cooed", "pushed", etc. Save the high-dollar words like "cried", "exclaimed", "intoned", etc. for when you really need to convey a specific tone of voice for full impact; if you over-use them, they lose their effect, not to mention being just plain irritating.
Third: Don't abbreviate character's names into initials like AJ, AB, etc. in the narrative text. It's okay to use it in dialogue if that's how the characters normally address each other (i.e., don't have Twilight or Rarity addressing Applejack or Apple Bloom as "AJ" or "AB", because they don't talk like that), but you should never do it in the non-dialogue narrative. Also -- be consistent in how you refer to characters; he should either always be "Big Macintosh", or "Big Mac", but not sometimes one and sometimes the other.
Last: I suggest putting something more visible than just two blanks lines as a scene break. Try something like
[ center ]== == == == ==[ /center ]
which will give you a
== == == == ==
much more visible scene break indicator.
(So, are ya done bein' pedantic now?)
(That's your new favorite word, isn't it, Applejack.)
(Hey, you taught it to me.)
Yes, I believe that's everything. Class dismissed.
(Yay!)
Except for you, Scootaloo, you get to stay after class and write "I will not shoot spitballs at Diamond Tiara's cutie mark" one hundred times on the blackboard.
(Awwww, nuts...)
That guy before me... he's evil. But take his advice. You're story is brilliant... just needs some editing
4533082 Thank you for the well thought out and respectful criticisms. They will be taken into account ^^