The Summerbug Factor

by Natsumushi

Chapter 2 - Pasts Revealed

As Fluttershy and Rarity made their way to the Ponyville spa, Fluttershy took a glance back at Summerbug and Rainbow Dash. It’s been a long time since I saw Summerbug! I never expected him to change that much, I barely recognized him. She thought to herself.

"Fluttershy, dear, is something troubling you? You look a tad warm." asked a concerned Rarity. It took Fluttershy a few moments to acknowledge the white unicorn's inquiry, and then realized that she was blushing.

"Oh! Uh...no. It’s just that I was...um...remembering some stuff from when I was still a filly in school." she replied bashfully.

"Is it something you'd be willing to share dear? I would like to know how your school life was! Mine was pretty fair, aside from countless love notes shoved in my desk on almost a daily basis."

"Well, I suppose I could. It’s just a bit embarrassing though, and a little painful." she began.

"You needn't force yourself if wish not to talk about it." Rarity interrupted, not wishing for her friend to recall anything that would upset the timid mare.

"That's very thoughtful, but it’s in the past now. I don't mind at all really. It’s just that I was surprised to see how much Summerbug changed over the years." Fluttershy replied.

The white unicorn's ears suddenly perked up at that statement and her eyes lit up with wonder.

"You went to school with him? Then why did Rainbow say they had just met? Not that I doubt you dear, but you did go to the same school as her did you not?" She questioned, taken aback a bit.

"Oh, course we did. But in Rainbow's defense, even I hardly recognized him."

"How so?"

"Well back then, he...um...well...how put this in a nice way...was a teensy bit on the hefty side." Fluttershy said, feeling a little bad at how tactless she might have sounded.

"Really!? Well he certainly grew into quite the handsome stallion. Why that onyx mane, sapphire coat and tiger-eye like...eyes, (oh dear, that certainly sounded a bit off). Why, he would be quite the looker after I get my hooves on him! Oh! But do continue dear, I'm sorry for interrupting you so much."

"Oh...um...okay. Well, the thing is that back then he got picked on a lot, even worse than me. His art was just so moving and inspirational that I instantly began to fall in love with it! But because of his talent, others started rumors that he was...um...into other colts. I wish I wasn't so shy back then, then maybe I could have stood up for him and possibly make his school years easier. And...Maybe we..." she trailed off quietly.

Back then, she not only loved his art, but also harbored a secret crush on him as well. He was fine back then, but seeing him again after all this time and how toned he became, old feelings surged back in such a profound way the she had to hide her face behind her pink mane.

"That you could what?" Rarity asked.

"So Rarity, how are you dresses coming along? I'm eager to see how your fashion week goes." Fluttershy quickly asked, hoping that the purple manned fashionista would take the bait and Fluttershy wouldn't have to share her embarrassing fantasy. And it seemed to have worked, because she suddenly began telling Fluttershy about her newest line; Emerald chic.

This brought the yellow Pegasus a much desired break, for she knew that the past would haunt her for as long as Summerbug stayed around.

***

After a quiet walk to the restaurant that Rainbow Dash initially suggested, Summerbug finally broke the silence.

"You're awfully quiet now Dash, what's on your mind?" he asked.

Rainbow paused momentarily as she pondered her answer, only to feel a blush cross her face. Unable to understand her sudden shift in feelings, she finally just asked him the question that had subconsciously been nagging her.

"Look, not to sound weird or anything, but have we meet before?"

Summerbug let out a "finally" Before turning to his rainbow manned acquaintance.

"Yes. You, Fluttershy and I all went to the same school. I was the fat little colt who asked you to be my special somepony on hearts and hooves day 16 years ago." He plainly and somewhat bitterly replied. Rainbow Dash suddenly remembered everything clearly, and stood in shock and disbelief at the revelation.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on a minute, you mean to tell me that you’re that Summerbug? The art nerd?" she questioned in her usual, tactless, zeal.

Summerbug's face reddened in annoyance. "Yes, I am, Rainbow...Dash.” he replied, desperately suppressing the urge to call her by her old nickname, Rainbow Crash. However they were out of school and adults now. No need for petty name calling.

"Dude! You look great! Not to be rude, but how'd you do it? I mean, you were barely any better than Fluttershy flight-wise. But now you can fly almost on par with yours truly." She boasted, and then added, "Why didn't you tell me sooner? We could've avoided the awkward conversation we had with my friends earlier."

"It's...complicated. I was a little surprised to see you, actually, not only in boring little, rustic Ponyville, but also without your shadow."

Rainbow looked down to see her shadow. Yep, still there.

"What do you mean? My shadow's fine. You feel okay?" she questioned.

Summerbug face-hoofed, "I was referring to Gilda: The griffon that never seemed to leave your side, ring any bells?" he asked, mildly frustrated.

Rainbow looked away, a mix of sorrow and anger sculpting her expression. “We don't talk anymore..."

"Really? You two were inseparable. What changed?" Summerbug asked as the two reached their destination. As they ordered their food, Rainbow Dash began to recount the event of when Gilda had come for a visit to Ponyville.

Summerbug could barely believe what he was hearing. At first he thought it just a tall tail similar to the ones she would tell from their youth, but the more she continued the more pained she seemed to become. And soon things began to be clear, and he felt he needed to rectify with her, even if I didn't really change anything in regards to the past.

"Hey, Dash..." he began, unsure how this would turn, “When you first met me this morning, if I was snippy with you I want to apologize. For years I held a bitter resentment towards you, but now that I know a little more about you I feel I should come clean as to why."

"Wait, what did I do to YOU? If it’s because I turned you down, that's really kinda lame." she began, on the defensive.

“In part…yes. But Gilda had a claw in it too. Allow me to explain." He said, as he then recounted to rainbow dash what exactly transpired.

Author's Note:

Okay, So I know this is kind of short and that people are possibly getting eager to read about the fashion show, I am getting there, the next chapter will be a Flashback followed by the Pinkie-Pie-Welcome-to-Ponyville-Party party and then after that I plan to finally get into the whole Fashion show Shenanigans. I would like to possibly receive some feedback seeing as I never wrote Fanfiction before in my life till now. ^^;

Comments

[Civviq Writer]

Well, I think you got so many dislikes because RD seems a bit OOC.
But it isn't that bad, in fact, I can relate to her: when somepony asks you something way too much times, the one asked will be pissed off and the one who's asking (and especially somepony like RD) will be pissed off even more.

I hope I helped you a bit with this. To me, it just seems you have some ponies with a bad mood at your tail.

[Caelus-Streak]

After reading the three chapters, it's a good story having old friends reunite to some degree which in the first chapter with them, strangely knowing each other before, answered that question in the reader's mind in the third chapter, which I thought was well executed. Although during the second and third chapter, Applejack does tend to sound more like a hillbilly than a cowpony in some occasions and I noticed you sometimes misuse "ya'll" in conjunction with "you" which is not true: ya'll is pretty much a compound word in southern slang for "you all" but you're doing better than I in slang

Dont let those last few things get in the way of the good, I find this story great in how you intorduce Summerbug into the mix without setting off the whole lot of horrible self-insert logic that may or may not end up with them screwing each other, but I hold no qualms against it because I do read a few from time to time . Anyways you might want to review your writing as I noticed a typing error which I do make almost all the time but catch instantly, I assume you ment to type "quiet" instead of "quite" or the other way around. I forgot

[Natsumushi]

4241689 okay, thank you very much! I'll work on fixing her accent to be more appropriate. I'll also see if I find any other errors like the one you pointed out. I really appreciate the assistance.

4237156 thank you very much, I really appreciate the feedback. I'll definitely look over the chapters again and fix the aforementioned errors. I'll also try to get dash more in character too.

4241366 that would be really awesome! Grammar has always been a bane of mine, I would really like the help. I was really nervous about asking help, I'm usually really shy when it comes to such things. And also thank you for the advice. ^///^

[TheAccidentalBrony]

---WARNING: WALL OF TEXT BELOW---

4242088
I understand feeling nervous about this. Hearing honest judgments of your work by others, especially when those judgments may/are likely to contain negative opinions, can be uncomfortable. In the past, I've often avoided even posting comments for similar reasons. I have put my comments below, however, if you feel they will dishearten you, I'd encourage you not to read them. I mean only to provide helpful critique so that you may progress your craft.

4241366
Yep, I noticed several errors within the first few paragraphs. For me, that's typically an end point for a fanfic. I don't have a ton of free time between work, kids, etc., so I tend to stick to stories that a) have a substantial number of positive ratings, and b) seem well-written from the start. I could point some of these errors out, but they are too numerous to list them all. And besides, I think this comment addresses many of them anyway.

Secondly, though, I've noticed you have a problem that I've been working on as well: showing vs. telling . Going through several drafts of a project will help with this.

Here's an example:

Clearly Rainbow Dash was too impatient and eager to help her pal Twilight Sparkle get more accustomed with her new wings. Begrudgingly though, Rainbow Dash left calling back that she’ll be back later on in the day and that Twilight should be ready to go by then.

Rather than tell us, the readers, that Rainbow Dash is impatient, show us with her actions. Does she grind a hoof into the dirt? Scowl at Twilight? Let us figure out that she's feeling impatient, but give us all the information we'd need to do so about her posture, her movements, or her thoughts.

Rainbow Dash scuffed a hoof against an oak floor panel in frustration; forcefully enough, it seemed, to scrape up a bit of the finish in the process. She just couldn't understand why her friend wasn't more excited. After all, flying was awesome! The feel of the wind rushing through your feathers, the world way down below; there was nothing in Equestria that could compare to that! Nothing in some dusty old textbook, that was for sure.

Looking back towards the bed, though, Rainbow Dash saw that Twilight had already settled peacefully beneath her sheets again, and it was clear even to her that her friend wasn't moving anytime soon. She let out a sigh, her brow furrowed as the pile of blankets in front of her rose and fell with a steady rhythm, before begrudgingly walking back over to Twilight's bedroom window. After looking back over her shoulder one final time, she limply flapped her wings and took to the air. It seemed it would be a little while longer before she had her "new flying buddy" after all. But maybe today, after Twilight'd had her sleep and her morning dose of coffee, she'd actually show some enthusiasm, rather than just finding another excuse to avoid flying practice in some "royal business" that had to be done.

At this point, though, that sure didn't seem likely to Rainbow Dash. At all.

The above is a brief rewrite. Not claiming its good, or better than the original, but just my take on how I might flesh out that sequence.

The Writing Guide right here on FimFiction isn't a bad place to start, either.

Some other observations, just from skimming the first chapter:

I'm not exactly buying the premise that Rainbow Dash would be so shocked/offended by a pegasus on the ground. After all, she's been friends with a certain yellow mare since she was a young filly, and that pegasus only takes to the skies when it is completely required. We know other pegasi live in Ponyville, as well. It just seems like an odd sequence, and is another thing that might prevent me from reading further.

Use of appropriate colloquialisms. The use of the word "Guy" in this story does not line up with Rainbow Dash's typical manner of speech. It's not technically a grammatical error, though I suppose it is in the same line as the OOC behaviors already mentioned.

Use of internal voice. This can be used to great effect, but in this story, it seems somewhat awkwardly placed. Don't worry -- I'm pretty sure my stories suffer the same issue.

Spacing. Your spacing is inconsistent. It makes it hard to judge where new paragraphs are, and interrupts the flow.

Pacing. Everything is a bit rushed. There is very little description of anything occurring, at least, in the first chapter; it is almost entirely conversational. And the conversation that is there lacks some of the tension that was probably intended. For example:

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but my pal Twilight…ahem, excuse me…PRINCESS Twilight, has been so busy with her new job that she rarely has any time for her best friends! It’s almost like she’s totally blowing me off! Well, me and the others…” she corrected sheepishly. T.M.I. Dash! He’s a random guy, why the hay would he give two bits?

“That really does suck. Don’t you think your being a bit petty, though? If she’s a princess you should expect her to be busy with that kind of crap. Not that’s it’s really all that fair.”

“Rrrr…I guess you’re right. Besides, Rarity’s should be the petty one, prim and proper; that one.” She chuckled.

Problem solved! Wait, what? Exactly. Conversations never flow this easily; neither people nor ponies are so easily talked out of their feelings about a matter. There should be some back-and-forth here to a) build tension and b) build character, both for Rainbow and your OC.

Speaking of your OC, this could be another reason for the lack of views or likes. Sorry, I tend to avoid stories featuring OCs, and doubly so for new writers. Many others do as well. At least it's not an HIE.

Out of show references. Some people appreciate this kind of "in-group" humor. I do not. “Why so serious?”, "derp", "mach 5" and the like have the effect of, again, removing the reader from the fantasy world (Equestria) that these stories take place in.

LUS. This is mentioned in the Writing Guide, but there are quite a few "cyan mare"s and the following line is, well, painful:

an orange coated, blonde-maned earth pony with a Stetson hat and a canary yellow Pegasus with a semi-styled pink mane

It's Applejack and Fluttershy! Just say Applejack and Fluttershy! We know what they look like. Describing them like this gives us no additional information, and frustratingly forces us to decipher your meaning.

I could add more, but...I think this is enough, for now. Try to find someone who will edit for you, or, barring that, try going through several drafts before publishing.

And read. Read a lot. I haven't read any DashXOC fics (I guess there's Memoirs of a Reality Jumper, though that's also an HiE), so I can't recommend any, but generally speaking, I find it helpful to go out and re-read some of the best fics in any given category to remind myself how they are written. Anything from Cloudy Skies, for example, brings the feels. Stories like "Twilight's List" do a fabulous job of building a romance from a platonic situation. I don't know your age or your circumstances, but it's typically said that it is best to "write from life". Obviously, none of us are pastel-colored ponies, but these ponies have many of the same experiences we do. For a shipping fic to work, you have to get us invested in the relationship. Because you're using an OC here, you need to get us invested in the character too. That means backstory. Complexity. Make them a character that we can identify with, that seems real. Not just a "Gary Lou", but a character with flaws, a character that we don't always like.

Love is tough. I've got three stories, only one of which is posted, that have a romantic plot or subplot, and in all of them, I'm having trouble striking the right balance between hamfisting some feelings in and leaving things vague or morose. Its been quite a long time since I've been involved in the whole "falling-in-love" scenario, so I need to draw as much as I can from the experiences of others, or the stories they have written from those experiences, as well as what I can recall to put it together. But it's still tough to get it right. And romance, without capturing the emotions, is pointless.

Well, I've probably rambled enough here, but let me know if you want any more feedback. I don't have a lot of time, and I need to get back to work, but there you have it. Of course, you probably should just disregard all of this, coming from a new author himself whose stories aren't terribly more popular than your own. And I do apologize if I was too harsh here, its just the way I tend to be. Please don't take this as pure criticism; just as a place to improve from.