Harem
By Chelis

Reviewed by Rinnaul

I normally have some funny stuff here, but this one was rough to get through even what I did. Got nothing this time.

Right off the bat, I see some pretty cringe-worthy grammar issues, mostly in the tenses. “No longer could I had” is used twice, and then there’s one “I couldn’t enjoyed.” There are numerous others here, too, but those are the most distracting.

And the protagonist's name is Anon. I never like this, as it always strikes me as lazy writing—an author who can't be bothered to further develop their main character in third-person, or who isn't creative enough to write around the problem of names in second-person.

Okay, "solids" are normal ponies, and "stripes" are zebras. That would be okay, except we're using those words to mean "whites" and "blacks". They play into all the standard racial stereotypes we expect from real-life. Honestly, this feels kind of racist, and is pretty uncomfortable to read. It only gets worse when the "stripes" are referred to as "ziggers". Then it really feels racist.

We're also falling prey to one of the most common mistakes with OC-centris stories: launching directly into the OC's backstory before anyone has reason to care about him.

It should be noted that said OC backstory is just the Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire song. Like he lived in West Fillydelphia, was playing basketball, got into a fight, and his mom decided he shouldn't live there anymore. Except it serves the story up with a big added helping of "Gawd, my mom is such a bitch!" angst.

On the one hand, I commend you on the inclusion of the IM window feeling like a natural part of the story's flow. On the other, it further distances the story from the Equestria we know. It's already barely pony-related, and "Alternate Universe" and "EQG Fic" only carry you so far.

So, he tell his girlfriend—named Summer Song, the most pony thing about this so far—that he's moving with his auntie and uncle in Bel-Aire to Equestria, and she immediately flips out and declares that this means it has to be over between them, because long-distance relationships never work.

I'd like to chalk this up to satirization of the emotional and melodramatic nature of teenagers (see: Romeo & Juliet), but honestly, the story doesn't feel self-aware enough to be doing that.

And on an unrelated note, I’m noticing a lot of grammar errors again. Mostly in the form of missing punctuation, but improper capitalization is an issue as well, as are just plain typos.

Anyway, they wind up having break-up sex, which I suppose is a thing now. I’ve read worse sex, but what we have is pretty bland and mechanical. It also uses some terribly unsexy language, like “I felt her babymaker on my member and she could feel it too.” That’s just juvenile and silly.

Going into the second chapter, the grammar issues are still prevalent, and the narration is developing a tendency towards telling, as well.

Something about the entire thing with his grandmother really rubs me the wrong way. I mean, is this really the first time he’s interacted with her since the stroke they mention? Would he really be totally unaware of her capabilities and behavior? His later interactions with her are made awkward by the earlier scenes, and the later scenes essentially totally negate the earlier ones.

The meta-humor is really forced and awkward, too. I physically cringed at the “make her sound like a Mary Sue” line. To once again quote Soren Bowie:

"A wink and a nod to all of your flaws may be charming to some people, but it doesn't make your goddamn problems go away. It just means that now both of us have to be embarassed about them."—Soren Bowie, Cracked.com

The phone call from Summer didn’t really contribute anything to the story beyond some hard-to-parse sentences.

And we open chapter three with Vice-Principal Luna practically salivating at the sight of him. I had some hope this wouldn’t be a story starring “My OC The Pussy Magnet”, but it seems like I’m out of luck on that one.

Grammar problems persist into this chapter, and there are a few places where I had to re-read a section two or three times before I could understand what was being said. Beyond that, the majority of the chapter has been introducing the Mane Six in pretty heavy-handed fashion, and then more transplanting real-world racial issues into Equestria.

I really have to question naming a zebra with a pile of random syllables like that. It seems like it was a lazy attempt at producing something vaguely “African”-sounding. On the show, Zecora’s name at least means something—granted, it’s just an obsolete word for “zebra”, but that’s better than a string of random letters.

And chapter three’s final scene just makes our main character look like an asshole.

From the comments, it seems the zebra’s name is a reference to African-esque chanting in a Michael Jackson song. That really is no improvement over my assumptions.

So apparently Luna’s got this cougar thing going on, since chapter four opens with Anon bending her over her desk and fucking her, after she kinda forces him into it. The scene itself is very brief, with little in the way of description. In fact, I think the “how I got into this position” flashback that interrupts the scene is actually longer than the sex scene itself.

And I really don’t know what to make of this sex scene. It’s a definite step down from the one in Chapter One, and that one was nothing special, itself.

Homophobia isn’t really going to endear me to your characters, either. And what does smelling like fruit have to do with a same-sex preferences?

So, apparently Flash Sentry keeps the Mane Six as his personal eye candy harem thing, because he’s The Popular Guy, even though no one actually seems to like him. Because why should the heroes of Equestria in the original universe have agency of their own? A guy has claimed them, so there they go.

I might have to go read Fall Of Equestria after this. It might feel less misogynistic.

And everyone knows about Anon fucking Luna, because she tells everyone about how huge his dick is. So apparently there are no consequences for that, too.

And Sunset has him eat her out in another brief, poorly-described sex scene that I find questionable in places. Here we learn that Equestria is totally sex-fueled, and sexual favors have replaced currency.

So… is he blackmailing Luna for information? Didn’t she tell everyone they had sex herself? How did she not know he was a minor? She’s the vice-principal. It’s kind of part of her job. Why is she even getting involved in the way she is? Is Flash’s popularity supposed to put him beyond even the administration’s reach?

It seems as though the sex scenes are getting even shorter and less detailed as things go on. The one in Chapter Seven is under 200 words.

I was trying to read as far as I could, but I think I need to be done here with Rarity. I skimmed the next few chapters to see if anything else of interest came up, but it’s really just more of the same.

…Well, there’s honestly a lot for me to dislike here. It’s actually kind of hard to organize my thoughts because there are just so many problems I have with this story.

First, it’s only barely pony-related.

Sure, it’s an EQG fic.
And sure, it’s an AU.
And sure, it follows an OC.
And sure, it features mature themes.
And sure, the characters’ personalities are downplayed because it’s a male-dominance clopfic.

But after all of those exceptions, what do you have left? They’re not ponies. They’re not in a setting we recognize. The main character isn’t from the show. The ideals the show puts forth are totally absent. And the characters only vaguely resemble the ones we know.

Once you take all of those things out, the only things keeping this from being original real-world fiction are names and skin colors.

Drop the pony names in favor of more normal human ones and this qualifies as erotic Doug fanfiction as much as it does My Little Pony.

Second, the constant use of stereotypically “black” speech makes the story sound juvenile, and makes it uncomfortable to read because we’re seeing a fantasy race serve as straightforward stand-ins for a real-life minority, something that seriously smacks of the worst kind of stereotyping.

Third, the editing, or lack thereof. Grammar and spelling errors are constant, typos or misused words show up at minimum once per page, and on the whole, the work just feels unpolished.

Fourth, the protagonist. Simply put, he’s an asshole. He’s a short-tempered, misogynistic bully, and even this negative characterization isn’t consistent. Sometimes he’s an utter ass. Other times he’s much nicer. It seems to just depend on which one better served the author’s purposes at the time.

Speaking of misogyny: Fifth, the female cast. I get that this is porn, and porn, being about satisfying the basest masculine desires, is rarely kind to its women. But these aren’t the full, well-rounded characters we know from the show. Indeed, the fullest and most well-rounded parts of them seem to be their frequently-referenced breasts and asses. Instead, these are cardboard cutouts, painted up to look like the mares we know, but serving solely to be a dick-receptacle for the protagonist.

The key point here is that not a single female character in the entire cast is shown to have any personal agency. All of them are just pretty things for the male characters to have conflict over. The ones who come closest to being able to act of their own accord are Sunset and Luna, and each of them, despite hating Flash Sentry and wanting something done about him, waits for our OC protagonist to show up to help them. And again, Luna is the school’s vice-principal. She’s an authority figure. What does she need this jerk for, aside from getting off?

That each female in the cast sees fit to reward our protagonist with sex only serves to solidify their objectification.

I will grant that the use of images in the text is done in a clever way which does add to the narrative, but beyond that, there’s nothing of value here.

Okay, let’s just go down the previous list. I’ll skip the first because it would be a fundamental change to the story.

Tone down the language. Seriously. It just makes everything here look bad. Sprinkle it in here and there for flavor, sure, but what you have is just too much. And please drop “zigger” entirely.

This needs some major editing. Just having a quick skim through the first chapter, you improperly attribute thoughts and dialogue, have problems with tenses, sentences missing subjects or verbs, and some that are just very poorly-constructed and difficult to read.

You might heavily downplay how aggressive and confrontational the protagonist is. He’s thoroughly unlikable at the moment.

And please do more with your women than having your guy bang them. They could be replaced with blow-up dolls for all they really contribute to the story. Frankly, “My OC tries to steal Flash Sentry’s sex dolls” would make for a funnier story, too.

You need a lot more description in your sex scenes. 200 words isn’t going to cut it.

Finally, name your OC. “Anon” is just lazy.

Even with a major grammar and spelling cleanup and more descriptive sex, this would barely clear an “Enjoyable.” As it stands, those combined with the unlikable protagonist, un-pony setting, weak women, and uncomfortable language drop this into

Needs Work.

You might find something worth reading here if you just want straight-up porn and don’t mind characterization or language, but even then there are better stories for that.

How dare you reference that tripe Disney tried to pass off as the Doug we know and love!

3969608

You suck for using the Disney version instead of the Nickelodeon one.

Happy?

Anyway, I have to wonder, have you reviewed anything that wasn't a clop story?

3969647
I've done 1 Adventure, 19 Clop, 2 Comedy, 2 Crossover, 19 Dark, 1 Human, 1 Romance, 2 Sad, and my next one up is another Crossover.

It's not that I only review clop, it's that I'm the only one who will review clop. None of the other commentators are willing to pick it up, so it all falls to me.

Plus there's my review blogs, and those cover every genre, too.

3969683 it seems to me that if nobody else is willing to do clop then We shouldn't even do it. But, then again that's just me, i don't think clop is worth the effort, but luckily I am not in a position of authority.

3969694
That very subject actually came up in the admin chat recently. I still favor keeping it because we're one of the only review/feature groups that will take mature content.

3969700 I suppose that is special, but it all revolves around when you want or don't want to that out mature characteristic ends.

I was reading this story but sort of stopped when I was caught up at the time,(he already banged Rarity and was moving on to Rainbow Dash.)the grammar and the whole Zigga thing really makes me cringe(is Anon a Zebra? Can't really remember.) I guess this story would be like the stereotypical porno that only thing missing is the porn music.

Can't remember how much of an asshole he was, but I do remember how full of himself he is thinking he's such a badass. I'll continue reading when there are more chapters available since they're so short. While people comment on how much my grammar sucks, at least it's not as bad as this guys.

Ouch. Honesty can be brutal.

3969608

Wow, sounds really bad. Good job for maintaining professionalism as well as you did. I would have been riffing or ripping this story into oblivion by the time I got two thirds into the first chapter.