Please Proof Me!

A full year had passed since arriving in the Crayola-themed lands of Equestria. Anon still wasn’t sure how he chanced upon the world of pastel equines and magical living standards. He was told it involved some kind of accidental misfiring of cross-dimensional dueling. Not that it mattered how it happened. He was the sole human being in existence, and that came with many benefits.

Their horse leader, who everyone strongly insisted that he called a pony, set him up with a decent place to live and a weekly stipend. He even got bonuses depending on what he allowed them to do, from magical testing to simply talking about his life. The ponies were open and friendly, always ready to give him a helping hand, or hoof. So long as he disregarded the crazy shenanigans they’d pull him into at times, things were pretty great for him.

“Hey Redheart,” Anon called out, waving her down on the street.

“Oh. Hello Anon.” She looked reluctant to speak with him. “You’re not here to tell me about some other horrible human diseases are you?”

“The lives of a human are a perilous one. You never know what’s around the corner, waiting to strike us down! Mad cow disease? Or perhaps the Andromeda strain?”

“Being around you makes me nauseous enough as it is.”

He nodded his head. “Our lives are fraught with danger, yet we adapt and triumph. We can handle a bubonic plague or two. Now the Wheatus disease? That’s like, super bad. Lots of humping and dumping, not good.”

“Why do I feel like you’re making that up?”

“I feel offended you’d think that! I believe you should consider your patient’s feelings.” Redheart sighed, looking frustrated. “I do have something not related to our horrible human health to ask of you. Have you seen Rainbow Dash?”

“No, I haven’t. Although, we’re likely to see her come in next week for a broken wing. It’s kind of a routine at this point.”

“Crap. You’re the eighteenth pony I’ve asked so far.”

“Why not try heading to places she tends to visit?”

“I would but it’s hard hunting down clouds. They have a habit of drifting off.”

Redheart rolled her eyes, walking away while ignoring his words. Anon clicked his tongue, thinking about what to do. His best friend had asked him to help the other day, yet he couldn’t find her anywhere. All of her hangout spots were left untouched and she certainly wasn’t working.

Walking home after a long day of running around town, Anon slowed to a halt a few feet in front of his house. Laying down in front of his front door, curled up and sound asleep, was Rainbow Dash. Picking up a nearby stick he walked up to her, lightly jabbing her in the hindquarter.

“Come on,” he droned on. “Get up. Do something.”

Dash mumbled in her sleep, blearily looking up. “Wha…?” She rubbed her eyes, staring up at Anon. A moment later she let out a gasp, jumping up in the air. “Anon? What are you doing here?”

“I kind of live here. I should be asking you that.”

“Oh, right.”

“I’ve been looking all over town for you, you know. Kind of annoying finding you here.”

“I said I’d be here today. Don’t you remember?”

“No, you didn’t. You mumbled out you needed my help and then looked all red in the face and flew off saying something in the wind I couldn’t hear. And then you crashed headfirst into some random pegasus in the air, sending the two of you off to who knows where. Most of my time today was roaming the hospital to see which room you took.”

Rainbow Dash let out a laugh. “Yeah, poor guy. But whatever, you’re here now and I can get your help!”

Anon rubbed his face, “Okay, I’ll pretend that I didn’t waste my time hunting you down, but only because you’re my bro. What exactly did you need my help with anyways?”

She opened her mouth, shut it, and then looked at the ground, trying to say something. “Well… You’re always talking about things from your world and while some of them are really weird, like really weird, some of them got me thinking.”

A chill ran down his back, feeling apprehensive at the situation. He wasn’t expecting his bro to try any of the things he’s mentioned in the past. Twilight had warned him about setting a bad example. And he’s told his bro a copious amount of things he’s withheld from others, many not rated for kids to hear at all!

“I kind of thought it’d be fun to try out and, well…” Rainbow Dash dug inside a bag on the ground, trying to pull something out.

Sweat trickled down his forehead, the anticipation killing him. ‘Oh god. Twilight said she’d blast me but I didn’t believe her! Why didn’t I believe her?’

Pulling out a stack of papers, Rainbow Dash shoved it out toward Anon, squeezing her eyes shut. “Couldyoupleaseproofreadmyfanfic?!”

He stared at her, trying to get his heart to calm down. Hesitatingly, Anon reached out, taking the papers from her. His mind needed a moment to catch up to what she said.

“You wrote a fanfic?”

“Yes?”

“Seriously?” He looked at the papers, seeing the front page had a Daring Do drawing on it, standing beside a blue thing vaguely looking like a human. “You wrote a fanfic about Daring Do.”

She started to blush, giving him a nod. Fanfiction was a small hobby he did in school, something to let him explore into the worlds he enjoyed while sharpening his, admittedly, dull writing skills. When he told Rainbow Dash about him writing fanfiction, he never considered she’d find an interest in the idea.

“As a bro, I feel obligated to help you when you need it.” ‘Seeing as it’s my fault, after all.’ Anon picked up her bag, walking toward his house. “Come on, let’s chill out while I look at this.”

Walking in, Anon threw the bag on a hook, continued into his living room, and dropped himself on his couch. He patted a cushion, inviting Dash to sit by him. She slowly made her way in, taking a seat, looking back and forth between the papers and him.

“So my story, it’s ah, um, ehr...” She took a moment to calm herself. “It’s very much a work in progress. So yeah just read at your leisure, ah-ha-ha-ha.” After her forced laugh, she gave him a smile.

Anon hummed, flipping through the pages. “Looks kind of long. What’s the story about?”

Dash sputtered, trying to get the words out, “Oh yeah, it’s a, um, a story about Daring Do being very daring!”

Anon held the cover of the story up. “With a human?”

“Oh, uh… maybe?”

“They’re holding hands. Or hooves. Hands and hooves.”

“It’s a friendship thing! Like, they are friends and, uh, become even better friends?”

“The cover makes it look like they seem to really like one another,” Anon said, flipping to the first page.

“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it,” she spoke softly to herself.

The very first page held the title, ‘Daring Do Admits Her Feelings’. Anon could take the hint that it was a romance, explaining why his bro was embarrassed. He never thought Dash was into that kind of thing, but when writing fanfiction, anything was possible. Perhaps she really just wanted to explore more into what she wanted to see in Daring Do.

There were quite a few pages in his hand. A quick peruse showed what looked like a novella’s worth of reading material, much of it with odd pictures taking up space. Taking his time, most of what he read was about this obliviously stupid human character and Daring Do on an adventure that leads absolutely nowhere, walking around in circles about their feelings.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

“Hey Daring!” he screamed at you, the coolest friend in the world.

The dashing pony came running from a long, large open field full of grass.

The human let out a laugh that filled the pony with happiness. “I had been looking all over for you bro! where you been!”

“Sorry, I was also looking for you Nameless! I really wanted to hang out!”

“Oh that is cool,’ lets hang!”

Nameless dropped his large structured body on the ground, spreading his wide, muscular arms out on the grass he was laying on.

Daring Do jumps up and landed on his broad chest, lying there with a smile on her face.

“You said you wanted to talk to me right?” Nameless says, moving his arms around Daring Do tightly.

She felt very warm and happy like this

“I wanted to ask you something but I’m afraid it’ll hurt our friendship”

“Whaaat? I would never leave you bro! Come on lay it on my bro! What did my greatest bro want to ask?”

“Its about the bro thing……….”

“Is their something wrong?” he asks concerned.

That was just like him, always looking out for his friend.

“I don’t like being a bro for you, I wanted something more.”

Nameless looked up, confused at your words.

“So what like, a super bro? A major bro? A really cool bro?”

You stop his talking by planting a kiss on his lips real quick.

Holding him there for an eternity you move away from his surprised face.

“How long have you felt like this Dashring?”

“For a very long time I just didn’t know how to say it.”

Daring looks away unsure how she could take it if Nameless rejected her.

“I get if if you don’t like me anymore or want to be with me but…”

He stops her by grabbing your body close to his, hugging you against his large chest.

“That sure is one way to go about it,” he said with a soft smile before kissing you.

Your heart was beating so fast from this! Youve never been so happy in your life.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Anon, finally finished with the story, looked at the cover. Rainbow Dash stared at him, fidgeting in her seat before looking away. After that scene it was a quickly written ending, going off to live happily ever after. It felt flat and rushed. He could look over some grammatical mistakes here and there, but the story itself was not enjoyable.

With some finality Anon placed the papers down, letting out a sigh.

“S-So?” she asked, appearing apprehensive, hesitant on what he’d say. ”I-Is it possible－ I mean any good?”

He wasn’t sure how to go about this. His bro was made of strong stuff, but he knew Dash likely worked hard on the story. To have a close friend tear it down wouldn’t be fun.

“Rainbow,” Anon said, seeing her flinch. “I’ll be upfront about this. I don’t think this works for me.”

A despondent look appeared as if he had crushed her dreams, tears starting to edge around her eyes. “You m-mean it can’t work b, between－” She hiccuped, unable to finish.

‘Her story must really mean a lot to her,’ Anon thought, feeling guilty. “I’m not saying you can’t work on it! Your story just has some weird pacing issues, and the characters aren’t exactly fleshed out.”

“M-My story? So y-you’re not saying…”

“What did you think I meant?”

Wiping her eyes, she shook her head, a dry laugh coming out. “I guess I was expecting a different reaction from you.”

“I’d never want to lie to you and don’t want to start, even over this.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, I didn’t think this meant that much to you. We can do this another time or just pretend it didn’t happen?”

“No it’s fine, I did ask for your… advice on this.”

Anon tapped his leg, looking at the papers. “I’ll just give you the quick and dirty on my thoughts then. Your story has all the basic things needed, it’s fine as a rough, but the characters are plain as bread and if I’m being honest, it has a touch of the Mary Sue.

“There’s barely any conflict going on in the story or between the two main characters. I’ve learned that when writing you want the reader to connect to the characters in the story, and I was so not feeling that Nameless fella. How dull and boring of a person. He may as well have been a blank face.”

“He’s not boring! He’s great and fantastic and…” She looked up at him, blinking before turning her head away, sputtering something out.

He waited for her to calm down. “And you need to have the reader feel that greatness you do. You have to realize characters aren’t just all rainbows, uh, pun not intended as you clearly are all rainbows.

“Your characters should have complexity, a combination of strong suits and flaws that make out who they are.”

“I don’t know,” Dash said with a frown. “Whenever I think, or write, about the character I can’t see any flaws.”

“Everyone’s got flaws, even me. For example, I have a habit of overlooking things at times.”

She puckered her lips in thought. “Yeah, that’s definitely something I can see.”

“That’s just something you’ve got to learn on your own time. Not including any grammar problems, of which I can’t really solve at the moment, you should try to give readers something really descriptive to snatch on to and sink their teeth in. For example, this part here.”

Nameless held on to Daring Do staring at her as he reached down for a kiss.

Anon grabbed a piece of paper off to the side. “Give it some flair, add descriptors to make this scene pop. Here, like this for instance.”

The hands holding Daring Do caressed her shoulders, squeezing them with an affectionate touch that yearned for more. She looked up at Nameless, gazing into his passionate eyes that desired her, watching as his face slowly came down, to embrace their lips in a fervent greet.

“There, see how this really shows the mood in the scene I wrote?”

Rainbow’s face was glowing red, her eyes glued to the page. “Y-Y-Yeah,” she stuttered out. “That’s,” she gulped in some air, “that’s a lot better.”

It’s been some time since Anon’s written anything. He forgot how much he enjoyed writing just for the sake of having fun, to surprise himself with what he could come up with. That small spark of creative freedom certainly held a thirst for an outlet.

Taking the papers he stacked them up, placing them on the table neatly. “I think your biggest problem is trying to make your characters feel real to the story. It’s easy on Daring Do, the readers you’re having likely already know her. Now this Nameless guy, you need to really have them do things with one another to have the audience slowly understand this person.”

“Have them do things,” she mumbled out.

“Maybe have Daring Do hang out with him at the park and talk about themselves while enjoying their day. And find conflict so you can introduce scenes that they can interact in. Build it up over time and bam! You’ve got yourself a spicy romance.”

“Spicy… romance…” Dash squeaked out, staring off into space at his words.

“Right,” Anon said with a nod. “You just need to work on it and you’ll have something people will enjoy, including yourself. As for what you have here, I’ll look at your story more thoroughly, giving some corrections where I can and give them back when I’m done.”

Rainbow Dash snapped out of her daze, looked at the papers, and snatched them from the table, quickly flying to her bag before stuffing them in. “I uh, I think I’m going to try some other stuff that you mentioned before you do that. Thanks though, for the help, and all.”

Anon let out a laugh. “No problem bro! Once you fix it up come back over and I can give it another read.”

Walking toward the door, Rainbow Dash stopped, turning toward her friend. “Hey, Anon? I was thinking maybe tomorrow we could, I dunno, hang out at the park? Maybe find something to do there?”

“I’m down with that, maybe we can throw a frisbee or practice on your flying skills.”

“Or maybe just walk around, talk about things and enjoy the day?”

He tilted his head in thought. “That sounds fine too, I suppose. It’s never a boring moment with you around.”

“And thanks again, for the help. I think I can do better now with Daring Do in my story.” Smiling, she jumped into the air, quickly ascending into the sky. Watching her fly off, Anon closed the door, turning around to his couch for an early nap.

“Hope her story works out.”

~End~

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