LEGO Equestria Girls 2
Prologue
It was the middle of night in one of the many City Regions of the Lego World. The full moon shone brightly in the clear skies above the city. Although the city wasn’t bustling quite as much as it would during daylight hours, there was still plenty of activity to be found. And in one seemingly ordinary café on a random street corner, something not-so-ordinary was taking place.
Out on the nearby street, the seemingly harmless and ordinary noise of a crowd from within the café was barely audible. Inside the building, however, the reality was very different. The patrons of this particular café were arguing, and it was not just some of them, but all of them. Although the subjects of these arguments were isolated to each table, the amount of hatred and distrust on everyone’s faces was very hard to miss. There was even the occasional piece of food getting tossed through the air.
Yet, at one particular table over in the far corner, there was no arguing. Instead, there were three female voices, vocalizing simultaneously and in a repeated rhythm. Unknown to any of the shouting patrons, a sickly green mist was settling along the floor. This mist slowly leaked out of every minifig with an angry face, and flowed towards the source of the vocalizing.
At this table in the far corner sat three hooded minifigs. All of them wore the same blue pants and hooded jacket — two in purple and one in green. The only noticeable difference between these three was their skin colors visible on their hands and faces: yellow, violet, and blue, all of which were in a pale shade. The final detail on these particular minifigs was a red gemstone on a pendant, located on the front of their hood pieces close to their chests. In fact, it was these particular gemstones that were attracting the green mist.
The three hooded minifigs kept their eyes closed and held their hands over their pendants as they continued to vocalize. Once the entirety of that strange mist was absorbed into the pendants, the trio stopped their vocalizing and opened their eyes.
The first of these three minifigs to flip back her hood was the violet girl with the green hooded jacket, revealing a hair piece that was a darker violet with green streaks and held back in two long ponytails by a pair of star-shaped hair clips. She sighed and grumbled, “That was barely worth the effort, Adagio. I’m tired of fast food. I need a meal.”
As the violet girl spoke, the blue girl sitting next to her flipped back her hood as well, revealing a hair piece that was light blue with darker streaks and tied back in a single long ponytail. The concerned look on her face was very different from the one of frustration on the other girl.
Finally, the yellow girl — who had just be referred to as Adagio — flipped back her hood, revealing a hair piece of curly orange hair with yellow streaks and tied back in a large mass by a spiky hair tie. “Aria, the energy in this world isn’t the same as in Equestria,” she explained bitterly. “We can only gain so much power here, especially in a region like this one.”
The violet girl — Aria — grunted in frustration and exclaimed, “I wish we’d never been banished to this awful place!”
“Really? I love it here!” responded Adagio with a smile, which was quickly replaced with a sour expression.
“For realsies?” asked the blue girl in confusion. “Because I think this place is the worst.”
“I think you’re the worst, Sonata,” remarked Aria with disgust.
Sonata argued back, “Oh yeah? Well I think you’re—”
Adagio interrupted her companions’ argument with a frustrated growl. “I’ll tell you one thing; being stuck here with you two isn’t making this world any more bearable,” she grumbled, speaking the last word through clenched teeth.
“Breaking news from Canterlot City,” announced a female news reporter on the small television behind the nearby service counter. “Sunset Shimmer, number one on LEGO’s Most Wanted, has finally been arrested.” Adagio’s attention was slowly drawn towards the television as the reporter continued, “The details currently remain unconfirmed, but it is widely believed that Shimmer had only today managed to get her hands on a powerful magical artifact, turning her into what some have identified as a ‘raging she-demon’ with incredible powers.” By this point, Aria and Sonata had also turned their attention to the small television. “Her intentions remain unknown at this time, but the good news is that she was eventually stripped of her powers and brought to justice by a team that had been assembled just two days ago under Celestia Playwell, leader of the Canterlot City branch of the LEGO Team. The footage we’re about to show you comes from an outdoor security camera that managed to capture, from a distance, the moment of Shimmer’s downfall.”
The video showed a seemingly random group of small buildings at night, but just one second into the video, a spiral of rainbow light shot upwards from somewhere behind the buildings. Adagio’s eyes widened in wonder as she and her two companions silently continued to watch. The rainbow spiral reached a certain height before unleashing a beam of rainbow light straight towards a different location on the ground somewhere behind the buildings. Immediately after that, a pillar of light with the same coloration shot straight upwards from that second site and grew brighter until nothing but white could be seen.
Adagio suddenly gasped in realization and muttered, “Did you see that?” A wicked grin formed on her face before she turned her attention to her two companions and asked, “Do you know what that was?”
Aria and Sonata turned to each other in confusion, then turned back to Adagio and shrugged.
Adagio quickly reached over the table and grabbed Aria by her torso, pulling her close enough that their faces almost touched. “It’s Equestrian magic!” she growled in frustration.
Aria pushed Adagio away and sat back down as she argued, “But this world doesn’t have Equestrian magic.”
“It does now,” responded Adagio with a smirk. She turned to look out the window as she added, “And we’re going to use it to make everyone in this pathetic little world adore us.”
Aria and Sonata soon joined Adagio in staring out the window with sinister smiles on their faces. After many ages of being essentially powerless, an opportunity to take it all back had finally been presented to them, and they were going to do whatever it would take to make it happen.
There's a bit too much of captain obvious here. You don't need to spell out every last feeling and every bit of sarcasm out to the reader. It isn't necessary and you quickly get annoyed at it. It's also bad writing style. A well written dialogue establishes underlaying feelings and motivation simply by the said text with the aid of just a little bit of narration.
If you feel like you need to bring over more that just the text itself, add information about tone, expression or body language. You could for example say that Adogio says something annoyed. This in combination with the text brings over the sarcasm without directly stating it.
5583113 To be honest, I was completely surprised that this story got so many dislikes so quickly, so I'm very glad to see at least someone willing to provide constructive criticism. (I'm a bit of a perfectionist, plus there's nothing I hate more than not being told about something.)
I guess the reason I've struggled with the whole "show, don't tell" concept is because I want to make sure the readers understand what I'm saying, and avoid any misunderstandings at all (especially after one guy blew up at me on the first story from a misunderstanding). It just never occurred to me that I could end up being too obvious.
Interestingly, thanks to reading a certain random fanfic (and one of the comments to said fanfic) just two days ago, I think I'm finally starting to understand that concept. Progress on the next chapter, after learning this lesson, is already starting to look promising to me.
Normally, I would absolutely refuse to do any editing more than a day after publishing a chapter, but after receiving such rocky initial reactions to this story, I think it's best that I make an exception in this case. Give me a few hours to work on it, then come back and read through the prologue and chapter 1 again and please let me know if I did any better.