I Know You Well Because I Am You
By Alkonium

Reviewed by Rinnaul

What’s this? A clopfic suffering from a dire lack of bees criticism?! My review full of bees oughta put a stop to that!

Sorry, my sense of humor is stupid.

As of December 13, 2014, this is somehow my most popular fic, despite it being the shortest.

Welcome to clop writing. We’re a bunch of perverts, ‘round here.

Anyway, the “Shining Armor” and “Sex” tags are both here, so you’ve got my interest for now.

So, Shining Armor wakes up in bed with a duplicate of himself, and despite a traumatic personal history involving the subject, doesn’t assume it to be a changeling.

Has anyone ever done a story where a changeling just has a fetish for or fixation on having sex with the pony it’s disguised as? That could make for a pretty hilarious sex comedy.

Anyway, he for some reason starts feeling okay about this, because it’s a changeling and he’s falling under its mind control, like that’s never happened before, Shiny.

So, he’s mind controlled into liking it, and suddenly they’re both mares, and I’m disappointed. And the changeling calls him Gleaming Shield and tries to make him like that, too, but changing his identity is too much and it breaks the control.

Remember, kids—make your target do something against their nature and they get a new Will save.

Anyway, then Chrysalis (because that’s who the changeling was) explains that she’s using their former bond as a psychic link to cast spells on him solely for the sake of screwing with him, and this has all been a dream. And then he wakes up to discover he’s still a mare.

Well, fuck.

So, Cadance finds out, and… they have an emotional moment and then agree to find a way to make this work. Why is it that so many stories with Cadance and Shining, when they reach a point where the story could just go totally off the rails, instead opt for a quiet, drama-free resolution. I’ve reviewed two other fics that pull the same thing. I swear it’s just a thing with these two.

Anyway, then she suggests she’ll just have to learn to enjoy his new body for now and we cut out before anything actually happens.

The first thing you may notice is that very little actually happens. The story does very little with its concept, potential routes for the story to take aren’t explored, it cuts off abruptly, and, frankly, it only barely earns its Mature tag. There’s some heavy makeout and a couple brief instances of implied cunnilingus, and a few explicit mentions of penises and vaginas. Not much happens in the way of actual sex.

Next, the pacing is very rushed, and the writing rather bland. You might have picked that up from the rather detail-light commentary. Even if this wasn’t actually intended to be erotica, per se, nothing is really done to set the mood. There were a lot of points where the story could have lingered on an event for a bit and it would have really helped sell the emotion.

Want to focus on the sexuality? Spend some more time on Chrysalis kissing and going down on him, and show us what Cadance does with him her. Want to emphasize the transformation fetish angle? Get into a lot more detail describing the sensations of his body changing. Want to emphasize the mind control fetish or the Dark tag? Put that focus on the ever-more-surreal sensation of his will being subverted, until it becomes too much and he snaps out of it, and then go into his shock and horror at what was done to him.

Personally, I’d do all three. Judging from all the clop I’ve reviewed, transformation is a woefully under-represented fetish around here, considering all the spells, potions, cursed objects, and changelings available.

Another jarring issue was the abundance of saidisms. Saidisms are words you use in place of “said” to spice up your dialogue, and they’re 90% unnecessary. Unless using a different word conveys new information that would be difficult or awkward to express in narrative, just use “said” or “asked”. In your case, despite having a fairly dialogue-heavy short, you use “said” only once.

Here’s all of your dialogue attributions:

commented, inquired, answered, demanded, explained, retorted, added, countered, offered, stated, commanded, pointed out, insisted, suggested, asked, asked, screamed, asked, demanded, explained, inquired, thought out loud, started to say (okay, that one’s basically still “said”), explained, asked, started, stated, said, suggested, answered

It might look good to include those non-bolded words once in a while, but too much and the reader starts noticing what you’re doing and it distracts from the story.

There’s a second problem with your attributions, as well. You consistently make the same basic mistake: when ending dialogue with an attribution, you use a comma and don’t capitalize the next word unless it’s a proper noun.

You also drift around in your POV a bit. Third-person is either limited, following one character at a time; objective, viewing the scenes as an outside observer without comment or insight; or omniscient, viewing the scenes and following all characters with a strong narrative voice. You get into the inner thoughts of multiple characters, but lack a strong narrative voice. This is commonly referred to as “head-hopping”.

First, drop that saidisms. If using a word other than “said” doesn’t add anything to the narrative, just use “said”.

Second, dialogue attributions. If you’re actually using an attribution, you’ll end with a comma (or a question mark for a question), and the next word, if it’s not a proper noun, will be lower-case. If you’re continuing into narrative, you end with a period (exclamation point, question mark, etc) and capitalize the next word. You’ll almost never have reason to capitalize “said” or its equivalents. Some examples:

”It’s written in ancient draconian,” Twilight said, lifting the stone tablet in her magic. (A comma leads into an attribution before we get more narrative. It’s a proper noun, so it’s capitalized.)

“It could use more rocks,” said Maud as she studied the tablet. (Again, a comma leads into an attribution. But “said” isn’t a proper noun, so it isn’t capitalized.)

“It’s claw marks pressed into clay and baked with dragonflame.” The alicorn gingerly placed the artifact back on the table. “It literally is a rock.” (A period ends the thought, and the next sentence is narration. Forgive my LUS; I needed to show that the first word of the new sentence is always capitalized.)

Third, point of view. You seem to be aiming for Third Person Limited following Shiny, but you slip out of his POV and tell us things he can’t know. For example, “Believing the mare to be an intruder” is an explicit statement of Cadance’s inner thoughts. Despite sharing an apparent mental link with the Changeling Queen, Shiny’s no mind-reader. In fact, each paragraph which focuses on Cadance also shifts the story into her POV. You might rework those sections with an eye towards keeping it only to things Shining could know.

Here are examples from my own writing of the three third-person POVs I mentioned earlier (all are Everyone-rated):
Third-Person Limited (following Celestia): A Visitor - Celestia’s inner thoughts are shown, and her experiences color the narrative, but nopony else gets that level of detail.
Third-Person Omniscient: Passing the Time - Celestia and Twilight get equal focus, and the narrative provides commentary external to either character.
Third-Person Objective: REC [O] - No inner thoughts or commentary, just observation of events.

Finally, the majority of the problems here really lie with the writing, not the grammar. Take your time. Go into detail. Let the reader really get into something before moving on to the next thing. There are very few genres that can get away with not setting the mood or trying to draw the reader in, and yours doesn’t fall into those.

A good concept, and the potential for decent darkfic or good mind control/tf clop, or even both. But grammar troubles and weak writing drag it down.

Needs Work.

It really makes me wonder why so many people take the time to write these clop fics if they focus all their energy on the buildup and next to nothing on the sex. furthermore, it seems that the clop and romance audience is really focused on just the premise of the story and nothing about its content, because even if the execution is shit (ignoring any other problems) these stories are still largely positive in their ratings.

3956740 First, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to review my fic. I will be the first to admit detail has always been my biggest weakness and this is my first actual clopfic plus my first fic of any kind in a very long time.