Chapter Two; Getting To Know You
The morning came, Saturday. Scootaloo wondering why three new students joined on a Friday, but the orange pegasus just shrugged and asked no question about it. The orange pegasus saw a tired Emerald, her white claw covering her mouth while she yawned. Scootaloo open her mouth to ask why the young dragoness was tired. Emerald blocked Scootaloo's mouth, pointing her thumb towards the female griffon that just exit out of the bathroom with a white towel on her back.
Scootaloo just nodded, leaving Emerald to crash on the couch. The orange pegasus heard the white dragoness let out a few snores while she hugged the pillow. Scootaloo enter the dining room, pulling out her favourite breakfast cereal just to be met by a empty box. The filly turn to see Yarrow munching the remaining bits of cereal left.
"You ate the rest of my cereal!" Scootaloo spoke, holding down her rage, Yarrow just shrugged.
"You snooze, you lose Pegasus Girl." Yarrow said, taking another bite.
“The name’s Scootaloo!” She said, through her teeth.
Scootaloo was grinding her teeth together. Her stomach began to roar out in hunger, Scootaloo crash on the couch, waking Emerald up, she rubbed her tired eyes. Scootaloo gave Emerald a smile, the young dragoness stretched out her small arms upset that she was woken up. Scootaloo went to grab her Bit Bag, running into her Aunt Holiday, next thing Scootaloo knew she was walking down the street with a Changeling, dragon and griffon by her side.
The orange could feel the stares the ponies of Ponyville was giving her. The orange pegasus kept her head down, kicking the ground, upset that she wasn't able to ride her scooter because of Aunt Lofty.
"You should show the girls around, Scoots. You all the same age, plus you can make more friends." Aunt Lofty's words echo through her head.
Scootaloo stood outside Sugar Cube Corner, pulling Yarrow and Emerald close to her, Gabby was flapping her wings to stay in the air, that made Scootaloo and Emerald look at the female griffon with a bit of jealousy.
"Welcome to the best place in Ponyville!" Scootaloo said, with her hoof out.
"The library?" Emerald said, her eyes wide in surprise.
"No" Scootaloo said, causing the young dragoness to lose the sparkle in her eyes.
Yarrow whisper into Scootaloo's ear, the orange pegasus turn to her, her purple eyes couldn't believe what the female Changeling just said into her ear. Disgust fill Scootaloo’s head, with her mouth hanging open in surprise, Yarrow gave a shrug.
"Changelings feed off love." Yarrow stated
"What? No! It's Sugar Cube Corner!" Scootaloo stated, the dragoness and Changeling both looked at each other, both wondering what so special about this place.
The four enter, the girls smelt freshly baked cakes and pies. Yarrow didn't pay attention to the delicious smell in the air, or the pies on the windowsill, or the cupcakes and gingerbread ponies. The Changeling was focus on the love flowing in the air, from a parent love to their children or it being the first date for the fillies and colts who all thought it was love.
Scootaloo, Gabby, Emerald, and Yarrow sat down at an empty table, this was the first time the four of them wasn't in the spotlight. Scootaloo hated how ponies would stop and start staring at them like there was nothing else in Equestria. Pinkie Pie bounced towards the young ones, beaming her smile.
"Oh, you girls are new. That's mean we can have a party!" Pinkie Pie bounced up and down
"Umm... Well Dragons don't..." Emerald started, her mouth blocked by Scootaloo's orange hoof.
"That'll be great Pinkie! Can we get a Sapphire Cupcake, a Chocolate milkshake, a chocolate cupcake and I think Yarrow fine." Scootaloo spoke, Pinkie smiled at the four before she hopped away.
Scootaloo let out a sigh of relief that Pinkie was busy getting their order ready. The orange filly bought Emerald and Yarrow close to her.
"Rule one; never say no to a Pinkie Pie Party. She's goes a bit crazy when a friend says no." Scootaloo stated, the Changeling and dragoness looked at each other.
"How crazy?"
"Like start talking to flour bags and buckets of rocks, level of crazy." Scootaloo explain
"I'm just surprise, why does a pony town have cupcakes made out of sapphires?" Emerald asked, her claw tapping against her chin.
"Oh, that’s because of Spike." Scootaloo said, Emerald's eyes widen in surprise a red blush forming on her face.
The dragoness lowed herself to hid under the table, her cheeks turning bright red. Ponies looked over at them, Yarrow with rage flaring in her black coloured eyes.
"Next pony who looks at me, I'll slam your head into the table until your eyes stop working!" Yarrow said, venom spat from her mouth, Scootaloo looked over at her.
"I think that's impossible." Scootaloo stated, Yarrow gave off a shrug.
"It might be best if we head somewhere else." Gabby spoke, looking around the all the frighten ponies.
Scootaloo let out a sigh, paying off the meal she didn't even get to have. Sure Emerald and Gabby got their cupcakes to go, the orange filly thought the two of them look kinda cute in a way. Most ponies didn't try and bother them, mostly afraid of Yarrow and her massive anger issues. Gabby was the only chatterbox out of the four of them, Emerald, would look around with her ocean blue eyes seeing pegasi flying in the open blue sky.
Her head would lower in embarrassment, watching her feet kicking the dirt, while flapping her tiny white wings. Scootaloo looked over at the dragoness, Scootaloo rolled her eyes. Putting her hoof in front of the young white dragoness, causing Emerald to look over at Scootaloo in surprise. The orange pegasus just pointed toward the crystal castle, that Emerald licked her scaly lips at the site.
"It's the library." Scootaloo stated,
Scootaloo couldn't be more bored, her purple eyes looked over at the excited Emerald, it made the orange pegasus filly smile in a way, finding how the young white scale dragoness is having fun looking for a book that interesting to her, the way her blue eyes sparkling. Emerald open one of the books she picked out with her claw, her head tilted, scratching the side of her head.
"I can't read." Emerald said, Scootaloo looked over at the young dragoness.
"Huh? What do you mean?" The orange pegasus filly question
"Pony writing. I can't read it. It's far too different to dragon writing, I guess I just won't learn about pony culture." The white scale dragoness said, her head lower, Scootaloo rolled her eyes.
Scootaloo stood up, looking through the thousand of different books, pulling out a large and heavy blue book. The titled, readied 'Fairy Tales' Emerald looked at Scootaloo in confusion, the orange pegasus open the book that Emerald wanted to read, the filly had no idea what half of the words in the book meant.
"What are you doing?" Emerald asked, Scootaloo gave the white dragoness a smile.
"Well, I'm going to teach you how to read. It will take awhile and it will be slow, but well we're friends that's what friends do." Scootaloo said, with a smile.
"We... we are friends?" Emerald asked, Scootaloo shrug.
"We all are, even you Yarrow. I see you back here rolling your eyes!" Scootaloo yelled, getting attacked by a hug from the white dragoness.
The four friends walked back before it got too late in the day and Scootaloo's aunts got upset that they wasn't home. After dinner, the dragoness, Changeling, griffon and pegasus all sat on Scootaloo's bed, Gabby much closer to her than Emerald or Yarrow. The Changeling was only there to learn more about how Pony Writing, since Changeling's are somewhat the same, but the anger filled female Changeling had a bit of trouble with the placement of words.
"Why did you girls sign up for the Exchange Program?" Scootaloo asked, the three different creatures looked at the orange filly.
"Well, I wanted to leave the Dragon Lands behind. I wanted to meet Spike, I saw him enter the Dragon Lord Trials, but he'll wouldn't like me. No one does, it's because I can't fly, everyone else bullies me because of it and of my name, former Dragon Lord names ain't popular. Expressly not the one who fell in love with a pony, that why I wanted to move to learn how ponies treated each other, learn more about other cultures." Emerald spoke, flapping her tiny wings.
"Hey, it's fine. I don't have strong wings. I can't even get off the ground for more than ten seconds. But my friends help me, trust me, you'll be the third greatest flyer out there when you get off the ground." Emerald raised her eyebrow, "Second will be me, once I get in the air. While first is always Rainbow Dash."
“I have no idea who that is.” Emerald muttered out
“What about you Yarrow?” Scootaloo asked, ignoring Emerald’s comment
"I just wanted to get away. Try and find a place where I can be myself, having be forced to change with the rest of The Changeling kind. I wanted to be a normal Changeling, but there was nothing wrong with that and with the power of love I changed, that why I still have black colours over my body, I still like feeding off the love. Giving love doesn't taste as good, it doesn't make me more hungry. That why I moved, to get away from the hive." Yarrow spoke, looking away from them.
"Yeah, ponies have Cutie Marks and for the longest time I didn’t have one. Once I got my I felt like I changed into a pony that I no longer knew anymore. I know how it feels when you stick out.” Scootaloo said, Yarrow gave Scootaloo a smile.
“Why am I last?” Gabby asked, Scootaloo scratched the back of her neck.
“I was saving the best for last.” The orange pegasus spoke, letting out a nervous chuckle.
"My story simple, I wanted to see my friends again, mostly you Scootaloo, try and help more ponies, and spend more time with you, Scootaloo. Try and help all different creatures, but just to be with Scootaloo again." Gabby said, Scootaloo blinked.
"That's great, I'm glad we such good friends!" Scootaloo said, closing her eyes, while she was beaming a smile.
'How dense is this girl. I sure even a brick wall could pick up on Gabby's less than subtle hints.' Yarrow thought to herself.
Scootaloo open the book, the first tale, waited to be readied, Yarrow, Emerald and Gabby cuddle close to the orange filly, Gabby being the one wrapping her large wings over Scootaloo, trying to cuddle the griffon hidden crush. Emerald's head lay on Scootaloo's chest, it felt right to next to the hot headed pegasus filly, even if she was a bit full of herself.
Yarrow; could feel blooming love in the air, her black eyes searched to see Emerald, a pink energy surrounded her, just like it did Gabby. One good thing with being a Changeling, she could see love. Yarrow listen to Scootaloo slowly reading out the words to her three new friends. Scootaloo going need all the help if was this dense to other feeling towards her.
Yes, two chapters posted at once! When I finished the first chapter, I thought it would be best to get the two filler chapters out of the way, seeing that the Harem starts in the next chapter with Diamond Tiara, being the first girl for Scootaloo. Next chapter is A Dazzling Date With Diamond Tiara.
For the voting you can post on any chapter until Chapter Five, where Scootaloo learns about Harems. Plus I love the OmniWriter (FIMFiction) he made a picture of Emerald, and he makes most of my cover art. He did the Sweetie Belle's Mansion and he made the art for this story and just check out the art for the Spike x The Main Seven (Seven Angels For The Dragon)
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I haven’t read this yet but why is this rating for everyone if Harem is in the title
obviously there isn't gonna be any talk of sex.....maybe a lotta romance, but no mention of sex, and the rating can be changed later if the author decides to add it
8673255
Presumably cos there's no sex or otherwise lewd content in it. They're likely just using harem as a way to say a poly relationship.
8673266
Ohhhhh ok then
I'm torn. On the one hand, it's an adorable little concept with plenty of opportunity for drama and amusing happenings; there's plenty of potential here. On the other, the execution needs a lot of work. I came into this wanting to like the story, but as it currently is I can't in good conscience owing to grammar, word-choice, and too much tell to too little show.
Please understand, this is not an attack; I think you've got something nifty here, and I'd like to see it be as good as it can be. I'm offering a critique; suggestions for how it can be better than it is. With that established, there let me clarify the three major things. As a warning, this is going to get long; grab yourself a snack.
First, you've got a lot of grammar problems; misused punctuation, incorrect homophones (their/there/they're), odd capitalization, and incorrect verb tenses. It's really obvious; there are sections where every sentence had something wrong with it. This is an issue because it trips up the reader; while they will probably still be able to figure out what you meant, grammar mistakes are jarring and distracting; they break the immersion and flow of the story, and more than that they can be taken by the reader as a sign of a lack of care or effort; it's sloppy. A little extra work and time spend checking your work for mistakes can make it shine so much more than it is. (It also wouldn't hurt to enlist an editor or proofreader; just having a second set of eyes on it can help pick out the issues.)
Second, the word-choice and sentence structure. You tend to use run-on sentences, essentially strapping on a number of extra endings onto a single sentence in an effort to pack in the information. This gets awkward to read. In many cases, it would be better to break up a long, stuttering sentence into a couple of shorter or more flavorful ones. You also tend to forget linking and descriptive words that would bring a sentence together. This means the patches where you get a little more flowery or descriptive become jarring. It robs the story of consistent tone.
Third, and directly related to the second, is too much tell to too little show. There is a common phrase used in writing: "show, don't tell". In visual works, this means letting the audience see things for themselves rather than simply having the characters state things. In the words of Mark Twain, "Don't say 'the old lady screamed', bring her on [stage] and let her scream!" When we're talking about written works this rule still applies; rather than having the narration describe something, try instead to have the characters do things or say things that show the reader what's going on. Some exposition is good, even necessary, but the less the narration has to say and the more that can be inferred from the characters, their actions, and the dialogue the better it will read. Now this isn't immutable; many authors use overnarration as a source of humor; having the narrator describe something excessively or oddly can be funny or draw attention in useful ways, but when this is done it's done as a subversion; it breaks expectation and that's where the humor comes from. An author must understand "show, don't tell" before they can play with it.
As an example of all three things, let us take a look at a single paragraph from this chapter of the story:
First thing's first, we need to fix the grammar. This is fairly quick and painless. "Enter" is changed to "entered" because the narration is in the past-tense. "Smelt" is something one does regarding their own scent; "he smelt of beer", for example - "smelled" is proper here. "From a parent love to their children" is improper; "love from a parent" is better. "Changeling" is not a proper noun, so don't capitalize the c. Also, there were five spots where a double-space was used between words. And so, the result is:
Next, the word choices and sentence structure. Much of what's missing or could use changes here are words that would improve the structure of the sentences going on. What I'm going to show you is merely one way this could be improved; there are many alternatives to the following suggestions that are just as good, but I'll explain why I make each in the next paragraph.
The words "as" and "instead" were added to the front of two sentences, in the first to set the scene and in the second to help the transition to the new sentence. Since "the four" were already mentioned in the first sentence it's appropriate to use "they" instead of "the girls", and in this case it flows just a little better, and saves "the girls" for later use. One of the tricks in writing is to avoid reusing the same words too often, else it becomes boring to the reader. "Immedeatly" was added to bring the reader into the experience; it makes the depiction clearer. The second sentence was added to bridge the gap of thought between the idea that there is a smell and the idea that Yarrow wasn't taken with it; this too improves the flow. In it, I used "tantalizing aroma" because "smell" was already used a few times; by having one more to break up the two other uses, they're not as repetitive. "on the windowsill" was changed to "on the counter", because bakeries do not commonly use windowsills to cool pies; that would allow theft far too easily. "on the shelves" was added so that each of the things Yarrow was not noticing had a prepositional phrase; it forms a pattern in the reader's mind, a set of three: "the A that Z, the B that Y, and the C that X". "in the air" was changed to "through the shop" to avoid repetition. Lastly, the last sentence was changed so that we can refer to the two different kinds of love both differently (using the term infatuation for the latter) while not excluding other forms (which is the reason for the "whether"). The final clause was sealed in a parenthetical, because it feels like an additional note; you could also have made a new sentence to explain it instead.
Lastly, we get to 'show, don't tell'. In this case, the original paragraph isn't a particularly bad example of telling rather than showing on it own, so that's good. However, it is used together with the dialogue a few paragraphs up to demonstrate Yarrow feeding off love. In that regard, it does show her attracted to the love but it doesn't show any reaction beyond that. If the earlier bit where she pulls Scootaloo aside to tell her about what she eats was meant to be skeptical, Yarrow should be surprised or change her mind or be sullenly satisfied when she took note. There's also no further reaction from Scootaloo on the topic, when her initial disgust would seem to warrant it, or it could highlight her lack of perception. It could also be flipped around; have them enter, all sniff at things they like, and then after Scoots notices Yarrow's attention going to odd places (or after she doesn't order), then the explanation is given. As an aside, you had Yarrow eat cereal earlier; that runs counter to the 'eats love' thing without more explanation.
So, to demonstrate the first of those options, and assuming the reason Yarrow mentioned love-eating was out of a sort of skepticism or to say that she didn't need food, we'll expand up a few paragraphs. Following what I said above, I'd restructure it like this:
If there's one last thing to mention, it's a fanfiction matter: consistent characterization. Generally, you want ponies to act like they do in the show; when you divert from that, you generally want a reason. Two things in your story to watch out for there: First, a sudden and unexplained love of the other Crusaders for Scootaloo is a little odd; try instead to provide the basis. You can say "X had a crush", but it's better if you say "X had recently developed a crush" or "X had been hiding a crush for years" - and better still if you can make the audience curious and then answer the question "why does X have a crush?" Second, Pinkie Pie can be very hard to do well without making her seem crazy or overly annoying; tread carefully.
Alright, critique over; that should do it. If you have any questions, I'll answer questions; if you want a little help, I'd be happy to advise.
Good luck; I still think this has a lot of potential but it needs a lot of work. You've got something special; polish it up and others will see it too.
Scootaloo's aunts are pretty careless, making her share a bed with a changeling.
I'd like to see Kettle Corn as the last girl.
isnt the pony version of a harem just herding?
8673755
Yes, but it means the same thing. So, same dog, different leg.
8673803
makes sense oh ponies could call it herding when all the other speacies could call it a harem
Wait... Who's Yarrow?
8676192
She's a Changeling that I made up since I needed three diferent creatures for the story. The same goes for Emerald. I thought I stated that those two are O.C's.
I suggest getting a proofreader, love the concept but I can't get past the grammer.