I guess I should have figured that it would only be a matter of time before one of my friends let it slip that I'd helped proofread their stories. I should preface my comments by saying that I'm really not a fan of the subject matter. I'll try to not let it affect my advice too much, but I can't promise anything.

You are a unicorn mare.

Well, I am a unicorn mare, but what if an earth pony or pegasus reads this story? Or a stallion? The second person storytelling could be problematic if the character described doesn't match up with the reader. It's really hard for say, a male earth pony to identify with a character, even if they are being identified as "you". Granted, such a pony might just not be within your target audience, but you should be aware that you might be dramatically narrowing the scope of your readers.

Your appearance is quite generic. You aren't particularly attractive, but you're hardly ugly either. Most ponies consider you to be a bit odd. The more charitable ponies would identify you as being rather eccentric and having some odd interests. The less charitable (and more blunt) ponies would just call you weird. This is likely because you have Interests. Or more specifically, one particular interest, one that most ponies would find rather odd.

Humans!

...I should have known.

Truly, the human is the most intriguing of the mythological creatures which fill the annals of history. Bipeds, their sense of balance so highly attuned that they can stride to and fro, skip and jump, upright and tall! They need no coats, displaying the smoothness of their skin too all. The fingers! As dexterous as any unicorn's telekinesis, alleviating any need for magic! How could anypony not find themselves curious about such creatures? Naturally, you have dedicated a not-inconsiderable portion of your time to the study of humans.

At first this interest was merely academic. You found the idea interesting, even as a filly. Before you even had your cutie mark, you had made several trips to the local library to look up books about the legendary creatures. Ever since you first glimpsed an illustration of the wondrous beasts, they have captivated you. You would have expected that you would have perhaps gotten a cutie mark somehow related to humans, but nope. You got something else. What it is doesn't matter, because despite it normally being a life-defining epiphany, in your case it didn't have anything to do with humans. Which is weird, because humans are definitely your main interest.

Most ponies are a bit weirded out by your interest in humans, because it transcends what might be considered a normal interest. While most ponies consider humans a simple mythological creature, you know better. There are humans in Equestria. Unfortunately, ponies who actually accept this fact are few and far between. The majority ignores the ever-mounting evidence. They reject the numerous records of human existence; the footprints, the photos, the underground complexes, far too complicated for mere animals to construct. Foals, all of them! The evidence is overwhelming, at least for those who acknowledge it.

Granted, nopony is sure where the humans dwell now. Some believe that they simply moved from their underground layers into deeper caves. Personally, you believe that they vacated the caves altogether, preferring to move to otherwise uninhabited areas that ponies wouldn't dwell in. For example, the Everfree forest. Few ponies would dare set hoof within it, and those that do try to get out as quickly as possible. Only the bravest would dare remain there long enough to search in earnest for the elusive human.

You've been intending to make an expedition into the Everfree, but you've had trouble finding companions. There are only two other human believers in Ponyville, and they're both inextricably tied to the foolish notion that humans remained in their underground lairs despite tons of evidence that this is not the case. But that's not important.

If that's not important, why did you spend so much time talking about it? None of this stuff has anything to do with the actual story. It's filler, and what's more it's filler that probably won't appeal to anyone who isn't a cryptozoologist. I guess some explanation is necessary, but you should really trim it down. Thought it is quite well-written, which is much better than I can say for most things.

It's a pretty much regular day. You wake up, eat breakfast, and go outside. It's a nice day. It's not too hot or cold, and it doesn't look like rain. In fact, there isn't a cloud in the sky. Which makes it even weirder that you see something falling from the sky. You can't really see it very clearly. It's so far away that it's really just a speck. At first you think maybe it's a bird or something, but it's falling rather than flying. Birds usually don't do that. Whatever the thing is that's falling lands in a bush that's in the middle of nowhere. You decide to go check it out. It might be the only evidence of the elusive Flying Dodo!

That's my (your? her? I'm not sure how to address this) first thought? That it's a mythological bird? There dozens of more likely explanations. A pegasus that collided with something, some sort of implement that fell off of a pegasus moving wagon, the Cutie Mark Crusaders building a trebuchet... a Flying Dodo is pretty low on the list of possibilities.

You approach the bush with caution. Flying Dodos are renowned for their beak strength and you don't want to be pecked. But to your surprise, what you find sticking out of the bush tells you that it's definitely not a Flying Dodo.

I really shouldn't be surprised by that.

Sticking out of the bush was a hand! With fingers! You resist the urge to run over and grab it. You want to, sure, but you don't know if it's real. It wouldn't be the first time that somepony planted a fake human body part in a bush to mess with you. If you aren't careful you might not realize that you're getting worked up over a Nightmare Night prop. You aren't going to let that happen again.

Speaking from experience? I vaguely remember the CMC attempting to build a human out of random garbage and then bring it to life with a lightning bolt. They might have used a rubber hand as one of the components. Matter of fact, I think you inspired them to make the attempt.

You sniff at the hand. It doesn't smell like rubber. In fact it smells rather good. Just like a human ought to smell. It sure doesn't look like any fake human hand you've ever seen before. Granted, those are usually shriveled and old and mummified, but still, this one doesn't look fake at all. It looks alive. Which is good. Dissecting a human would certainly give you some interesting information, but you'd rather have a live one. Then you could talk to it, and not have to dissect it. You don't do well with blood and guts and stuff.

Ew. Would you really dissect a human if you found one? On second thought, don't answer that.

You use your telekinesis to gently push aside a few of the branches. Your heart almost jumps out of your chest. You can't believe it. Lying in the bush is a 100% real, bonafide human!

Of course it is.

You quickly throw the human over your shoulders and drag him back to your abode.

Um, you might want to actually describe the human a bit. You know, for those of us who aren't familiar with human lore? Also, how do you know it's a male human? And is he alive, dead, what?

You need to get him inside before he regains consciousness. You have to examine him before he escapes, or before anypony else sees him. It's common knowledge among those who study humans that the Government is ever vigilant, waiting to swoop in and confiscate any evidence of human presence. It's theorized that somewhere in the Canterlot archives is a secret door. That secret door is a decoy that simply leads to a sealed room with a stink bomb. However, there is another secret door, and this one leads to a hidden archive where all of the evidence of humans is stored. No one is quite sure exactly why Celestia insists on hoarding it. It was briefly believed that perhaps Luna would be more forthcoming, but so far nopony has heard anything from her either.

I've been to the Canterlot archives before, and there isn't any secret wing. And no, it's not "just what they want me to think." I looked for secret passages (there was a rumor that there was a hidden "adult spell" wing, okay?) and I never found squat. If I couldn't find it there's no way that any of your "Human Biologist" buddies would have found it. I know that library better than the librarians do.

You get him back to your house, and lock all the doors and close all the windows. You also tie the human to a chair, for safety reasons. Theories abound concerning human behavior, but no observation has lasted long enough to confirm that humans are not dangerous. Satisfied that the human isn't going anywhere, you pull out your notebook and begin to record your findings. You also take pictures, because nopony has ever gotten such a chance to examine a real, live human! The ponies at the meetings will never believe this! you think. But you have evidence. Nopony will laugh at you now!

Just going to comment, knowing your... reputation, this is going to sound like blatant wish fulfillment. The concept of the story is solid, but you'll need to be careful with the execution.

You record the human's clothing. Humans typically wear clothes all the time, even when they don't need to. It's quite odd. Human culture sure is weird. Anyway, this particular specimen is wearing a shirt, which is pretty normal. Also shoes. They're a bit odd shaped; designed to fit the rather odd shape of the human foot. The... thing on the bottom half of his body is something else. It's like a shirt, but for the bottom half, with weird sleeve tubey things that go around each leg. Sure, humans don't have tails, but still, that can't be comfortable. You decide that you should try to make him a little more comfortable. You start to ease the weird butt-shirt thing off of the human's body.

Oh Celestia please tell me this isn't going where I think that it's going.

You get the butt-shirt off and find another smaller set of them on underneath. Weird. You start to get them off, but then the human begins to move! He's waking up! He blinks a few times, yawns, and starts to talk. And you can understand him somehow! He says, "Ow, my head. What's going on? Where am I?" He looked down and sees that his butt-shirt is mostly off. "What are you doing?"

I can't wait to see how he reacts to getting stripped by the protagonist. This ought to be good. Taking someone else's clothes off without them wanting you to is sort of weird.

"Just getting these off!" you say, and hold up the butt-shirt. "They didn't look very comfortable."

"Oh, okay," he says.

Wait wait wait. Shouldn't he be a bit more... I don't know, bewildered by his predicament? If humans are so absurdly elusive that no confirmed record of one even exists, shouldn't he be a bit more concerned that he's been captured? It contradicts pretty much everything you've said about humans so far.

"You want me to take these off, too?" you say, gesturing at the small butt-shirt that's under his regular butt-shirt.

"Sure," he says with a shrug.

"So what's this little hole in the front for?" you ask. There's a small flap in the front of them for some reason. It looks kinda weird. Then again, the butt-shirt itself is pretty weird, but at least they kinda make sense in regard to human biology. In fact, the large butt-shirt has the same hole, but those have a zipper on them. Weird.

"Oh, that's so I can pee without taking them off," the human says. "It's pretty convenient."

"Okay, that makes sense, I guess," you say. You don't quite see how that would help all that much, so you shrug and start pulling off the mini-butt-shirt. They pop off, and you get your first glimpse of the ever-elusive human penis.

You do not know how tempted I am to close this right now and demand that you pay me for having to read this. If I find just one illustration, I am dumping this right into the fireplace.

Your first reaction is surprise. Unlike a horse penis, the human penis just sort of hangs out there, sort of like a really dangly mushroom. Same for the testicles; they're just sort of dangling in the breeze. Which there isn't, because you closed up all the windows. Basically, the human penis is kinda weird looking.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or be sick.

Although despite that, you find it strangely intriguing.

Sick. Definitely sick.

"So that's what a human dick looks like!" you say. There have been all sorts of theories about what human dongs are like, with the two leading theories being that their dicks are basically pony-like in nature (which is foolish; as humans would belong to an entirely different taxonomic class) or monkey-like (which is far more logical). Turns out it's the latter, for obvious reasons. Although it lacks the spines that some monkey dicks have.

Well, I'll admit that I didn't know that monkey penises have spines on them. I don't know why anypony would ever want that knowledge, but I'll give you credit for actually teaching me something, even though I kinda wish you hadn't.

"Yeah, that's what a human dick looks like," says the human. He winks at you. "Want to try it out?"

Lyra, seriously, what the fuck? In what universe is this an even remotely plausible sequence of events? It makes no sense! Why on earth would this human, who you've basically captured, inexplicably offer to let you sexually molest him!? Seriously, explain this to me. I thought humans were supposed to be secretive and obscure and wary of ponies! It doesn't exactly gel with the "hey, wanna blow me?" attitude this guy has.

I mean, if part of your theories about human culture were that they were like super-open about sex or whatever, it would kinda be something that you could work with. Like maybe do an analysis of the cultural dissonance or something. But even that would require that you actually characterize the human a bit, which is apparently at cross-purposes with this blatant wish fulfillment. I really can't think of any other reason for events to play out this way, aside from the fact that you're into that kind of thing. I mean, if that's what floats your boat, okay, but the fact that you wanted me to proofread it implies that you actually have some desire to actually make this into a good story. If you do want something half decent you can't let your fetishes utterly overtake any semblance of plot or characterization! Unless you want to make it a comedy. In that case, you can do whatever the hay you want as long as it's funny.

"You mean, like..." You nod towards your nether regions, which are already tingling a bit at the prospect of being the first pony to not only find a real life human, but the first pony to bang a real live human! "Like, put it in me?"

He nods and grins at you.

You grin back. "Okay!"

Sure! Fine! Go ahead and ignore the possibility of biological incompatibility or disease! Never mind the fact that this may very well be illegal. Don't even think about how any sort of social relationship between ponies and humans might be completely screwed up due to you starting it off with sex! No way that could ever lead to diplomatic issues down the road if humans ever make themselves known! Yeah, this totally isn't going to backfire. Oh well, at least you won't have to worry about getting pregnant.

You clamor on top of him, rather awkwardly of course, because you're rather flustered and you're all hooves right now. You hope it doesn't bother him, but he doesn't seem to unhappy. He's quite patient, apparently. You wonder if that's a human thing or just this guy in particular. You'd have to get more humans to test that theory.

That's what you're thinking about now? And does "this guy" ever get a name?

You gasp as his human penis slips inside you. It's a bit smaller than a pony penis, and it's a bit smoother, but it still feels really good, because hey, it's a penis.

Do you really need to specify that it's a human penis? I mean, what other kind would it be? We know he's a human, after all.

Since he's still tied to the chair, he can't really hump very well, so you have to make up for it by doing the humping yourself. Which is fine with you. You always liked to get your hips into it. You bounce up and down on his lap, his dick going in and out of you. You gasp with each movement. The human is smiling. He's obviously enjoying this a great deal. Of course he is. You know how to use your crotch. Then you feel it. He grunts, and you suddenly realize that when humans cum they do pretty much the same thing that stallions do.

That's it!? You wrote this entire thing just so you could have a scene where a pony bangs a human and this is the climax? And I use that term loosely because there is no climax here! This is one of the most underwhelming sex scenes I've ever read! And I've read some real winners. But seriously, at least they were entertaining in their badness! But this... this is just... I...ARRRGH!

(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

Okay, okay, calming down. This whole thing is just... I don't know. It's pretty obviously written solely for you to get off to the idea of having sex with a human, but even in that regard the story is a bit lackluster. The sex basically appears out of nowhere, and the human's only purpose is to give you an opportunity to talk about humans and then have sex with him. He has no personality to speak of, and we don't even get a physical description! He's more of a plot device than a character. It's not very interesting, so unless the reader is into the whole xenophilia thing the story isn't going to do much for anypony.

As much as it pains me to say this, you should really describe the sex in more detail. More sensations, more feeling, and more emotion for both characters involved. The way things are now, they're just sort of banging for no real reason. It's so absurdly casual that it barely makes any sense. No one has any motivation. At the beginning there's a bit of tension when the protagonist finds the human, but after that it kinda all falls apart and things just sort of happen for no reason.

Also, the 2nd person thing is kinda distracting because every time the story goes "you (do thing)" my first reaction is "but I wouldn't do that!" Identifying the reader as "you" doesn't help much when most readers wouldn't take that course of action. It jolts the reader out of the story in a way that wouldn't happen if you were writing in third person. Long story short, the story just isn't very engaging. The characterization is nonexistent, and the plot is basically just an excuse for you to ramble about humans and have a sex scene involving one. Given that the sex scene is underwhelming due to a lack of detail, you might want to give it some more spice. I'll admit, I might be a bit biased here due to the subject matter and I might have been a bit harsh, but seriously, it does need an editing pass.

That said, it's not all bad. You certainly have a better grasp of grammar and how to write than most authors I've proofread for. The technical aspects are mostly solid, it's just that the story you're using them to convey is a bit lackluster. And even that could be solved just by fleshing out the existing scenes a bit. What little description you do have is interesting, and I'd like to see more of it. Your enthusiasm for the subject matter (however much it weirds me out) also shows, which is nice; it shows that you can convey the feelings you want. Most authors struggle a lot with that. You just need to worry about getting a few other emotions into the mix besides that enthusiasm.

Okay, let's get on to the last few bits.

A Few Weeks Later

The human has been secretly living with you for a few weeks, answering your questions and generally filling in the gaps in your knowledge. As well as certain other gaps. Soon he'll be leaving to go back home. It's so sad that he'll be leaving, but he gave you more than enough information to confirm the existence of humans. It might even be the start of genuine human/pony relations! But you aren't thinking about that now. Something else has been on your mind. You checked it last night. And again this morning just to be sure.

You clear your throat, and speak. "I have something I need to tell you," you say.

He looks at you, waiting for you to speak.

Your voice cracks as you force the words out. "I- I'm pregnant."

...

......

...........What?

Are you..... are you serious?

But..the biology.... it doesn't..... that can't possibly be.....THAT CAN'T HAPPEN!! IT'S BIOLOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE!!!!

Oh forget it, I'm not even going to think about it any more. Let me know when you address my critiques and I'll see if I can help any more.

I'm going to go take a nap now and hope I don't dream about humans.

Author's Note

Okay, I normally don't like to harp too much on Lyra's human obsession because it usually makes for a rather flat and gimmicky character, but that sort of exaggerated and goofy version of Lyra was basically perfect for mocking both 2nd-person clop stories and xenophilia stories and the inherent issues with such things. I may be a bit biased (I'm really not a fan of either 2nd-person stories or human/pony stuff), but I'm really targeting the cliches of the genre more than anything else.

And yes, some monkeys do have spines on their dicks. You can thank Cracked.com for that knowledge.

Also, let's put that table back.

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