Present Perfect vs. My Roommate Is a Vampire · 3:30pm May 15th, 2014
Dennis the Menace's My Roommate Is a Vampire was suggested to me for review by Midnight_Quill, who was my 400th follower, and who happened to be sitting next to me at the time. Any anger I feel towards him should actually be directed at myself instead, because I sort of bullied him into picking it. That'll learn me.
I want to comment on the reading, first. It was done by a guy named MrWriterMan, and it was bad. He talks too fast, he goes off on tangents, the volume was loud one chapter and soft the next, and he had a lot of trouble with a lot of words. Honestly, he reminded me of MultiFanficADay's early reviews, but without the advantage of having others do readings on his channel later. Honestly, if he could focus, he might be able to do a decent reading, because his voices were good. Suffice to say, any comments on the writing of this story are going to have to be taken with a grain of salt, as my understanding of it is influenced by that poor reading. (Here's another one by Ender.)
The reader is encouraged to substitute their own lyrics.
Roommate slipped my mind when I read University Days, but it's still one of the "big" ScratchTavia stories out there in the fandom. I was surprised to find that it had, as far as I can tell, influenced at least one thing I like, namely Epic Wub Time, specifically the lines "A roommate who actually does the dishes" and "How is this my life?" calling back to this piece. I can say I was slightly dismayed by this, as I did not particularly care for the story. Note that I'll be spoiling large portions of the plot in this review, because I don't recommend reading it.
The story is told from Octavia's perspective, and goes through a number of "movements". First, there's the it's-barely-a-mystery-look-at-the-title plot about her suspicions of Vinyl being a vampire, followed quickly by "I love you" and then a protracted war between secret societies after Octavia becomes a werewolf. Yes, that happens.
This story actually possesses a level of earnest ridiculousness that lends it a certain amount of charm: we find out Vinyl's parents are Photo Finish and Hoity Toity, who are also vampires, Octavia becomes a werewolf, Luna is a vampire, the list goes on. These things sound completely laughable outside of context and are generally equally so within it, but I have to hand it to an author to come up with ideas like this and then follow through with them. Well, inasmuch as this story follows through on anything.
I have to admit, I took some of this a little personally. I've got a long history with vampires and werewolves, having been a World of Darkness LARPer in my formative years. Suffice to say, a lot of Octavia's dog-like behavior, played entirely for humor, just didn't work for me. Wolves are not dogs, and debasing someone by first afflicting them with a transformation and then making them act like an imbecile because of it is simply not kosher. Added to that, the vampires were just your average, ordinary vampire -- albeit without immortality -- and they, like the secret societies to which they belong and against which they struggle, simply don't fit into a showlike Equestria. I honestly find it hard to believe that a cadre of supernatural creatures would want to hide themselves from normal ponies when those ponies deal with parasprites and manticores and what-have-you all the time. It makes sense on earth, but not so much for a society of magic-users.
Deviation from tone was a big issue in this story. Along with the aforementioned secret societies -- this story was only able to sidestep supernatural romance cliches like, say, the neophyte having to decide which side of the conflict they're on, by completely missing the very reasons why those cliches crop up in the first place -- this story features lots of hoof-to-hoof combat, explosives, and guns, ham-fistedly lampshaded toward the end. Luna being in on everything, with a modicum of Celestia's blessing, didn't help matters of believability, to say nothing of the fact that she's a very handy deus ex machina for when shit gets too real.
Another big issue was the characters. I've already touched on Luna, but she's one of the few canon ponies who show up. Well, those with more than a single episode's worth of character, anyway. As for our main characters, Vinyl starts out in her standard fanon persona: brash, carefree, a little messy, and prone to wearing shades and hoodies constantly. (That's part of the "is she a vampire?" plot, which I'm fairly certain was also tied up in the "Vinyl Scratch's eyes are red" drama that, for whatever reason, gripped a large portion of the fandom at some time in the past.) However, as the story progresses, she becomes wild and unpredictable, as plot devices sometimes are. She's set up as a "cleaner" for the secret society, running damage control after bad things happen to, or because of, supernatural ponies. Given the tactics we actually see her use in the story, however -- namely blowing up the offices of the Equestria Daily newspaper (and yes, I was rather miffed by the symbolism) as retaliation for one of the 'bad guys' revealing that she knew about Octavia's transformation -- it's a wonder she was ever kept on that job. Honestly, when it comes to keeping your identity hush-hush, Vinyl Scratch in this story is about the worst person you could turn to.
As for Octavia, she also starts out in her fanon persona: uptight, with overbearing parents, hangs around Vinyl for reasons unknown (well, the reason given is that Vinyl saved her life at some point in the past, and honestly it would have to be something that dramatic for this to work out), smarting from the fiasco that was the last Gala, and which left her career in shambles. As the story progresses, however, she slowly bleeds off personality, until she's just a camera being dragged through the events going on around her. She hardly affects anything, hardly reacts to anything, and generally comes off as part fanon-Octavia and part blank slate. Her dynamic with Scratch in the beginning is actually good; it's what I like about these characters the way they're portrayed. But somewhere around the revelation that there's a secret society of vampires, that all goes out the window and the story instead becomes about Vinyl, vampires, and werewolves.
As for their romance, well, Octavia tells Vinyl she loves her mostly to save her own life, and acts on feelings that she's only been tossing around in her head for a chapter or so. They come from nowhere whatsoever, making for a very shaky foundation for this pairing. I was actually somewhat impressed that the relationship is put on hold toward the end of the story, but the fact that that never seems to bother Vinyl, and that they both seem to continue on as if they never came to that agreement in the first place, undercuts anything positive about the decision to end a romance in the middle of a shipfic. The ending of the penultimate chapter actually suggests that they go their separate ways after the climactic fight, but of course they have to get together by the end, because how else would you satisfy the fans?
One major thing that could have improved this story would have been to switch the first two major reveals (not counting that of Vinyl's identity because it was really never in question). Had Octavia turned into a werewolf early on, it would have allowed more buildup for the romance, not to mention more time for her to get used to the change and likely more time to set up the entire second half of the story. Octavia goes from "woe is me, I have changed" to kicking butt in a very short span. It was hard to accept either thing.
Furthermore, there's a setup with filly-fooling being untoward in Equestria, another thing that makes the setting more earth-analogue and "why do you even need ponies for this story?" What's worse, the author really missed out on the bog-standard "hiding, misunderstood monsters equals analogy for LGBT issues" comparison. It could have added something to the story. Instead, Vinyl and Octavia's relationship is mostly played for laughs -- often by them -- of the "lesbians are hot, amirite?" variety.
So, did anything in this story work? Not really. Hoity Toity and Photo Finish steal all the scenes they're in (their introduction caused me to have a small crisis and a ton of laughter, the first time I have ever felt that I was laughing at a story and not mocking it by doing so), but that is a grand total of maybe three. There were one, perhaps two, jokes that I laughed at non-derisively. Also, this story includes a bonus chapter that is essentially a trolly summation of the entire thing. It was the one part I genuinely enjoyed, but the fact that it's basically the author taking the hammer to his own story and pointing out its flaws suggests that this really isn't a very good piece. I mean, when the author damns himself with faint praise, that's pretty bad. It would have been better had someone else written it as a parody.
Ultimately, this piece is fast-paced, jumping from one idea to another with almost no logical flow. The dialogue is often flat, and the characters are too. The plot shifts without a clutch from "funny idea" to "whirlwind romance" to "everything written in YA fiction post-Twilight". That it could be a standard supernatural romance that doesn't even hit all the notes of that subgenre makes me question both the author's ability and this fandom's standards.
1/5
I haven't had so many angry things to shout at a reading since Fallout: Equestria, and that at least had a lot to enjoy. This is just not a good story, any way you look at it.
(Side note about Vinyl's parents.
What I found most ridiculous was honestly the idea that Photo and Hoity were married. Yes, this is specifically because I'm pretty sure he's gay. Yes, I put him in a relationship with Rarity in my own story but I lampshaded that assumption. There's just no way I can describe the feeling of listening to that scene and finding out in short order that A) this is Photo Finish and Hoity Toity, B) they're Vinyl's parents, which means C) they're married and D) they're both vampires. It was an amazing feeling, akin to throwing oneself off a cliff.
However, I find the idea of Photo Finish being Vinyl's mom compelling, if for a very skewed reason. I don't know who her dad would be, but if Vinyl had Photo's accent, she would totally be DJ Hans from SFUR in GTA: San Andreas. Only a small portion of the readership for this blog will likely know what I'm talking about, but the fact is I care because I really like house music. :B)
Oh man, I was really wondering how this review was going to go.
My tl;dr review of it would be: Mildly entertaining story, but not a particularly good one.
Watching you slowly stumble through this story on skype, voicing your incredulity all along the way, was nothing if not entertaining, and the review even more so. I've never been a fan of ScratchTavia, hell, I don't even really like Octavia or Vinyl in their own right, but it is a little disappointing to see a story with an admittedly interesting (sort of) premise, fall so by the wayside.
2114008
That I have to agree with.
It was good, but not the best by a long shot.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Ahh, I remember my Child of Gaia Ragabash alpha with extremely fond memories. I join you in your offence.
After reading that review, I have to wonder what bumped this up from one star to two.
Not much we disagree about, it seems. I remember kind of liking the troll-summary, but the ultimate example of author self-bashing is still Hardon Lewdad.
That best not be an insult to the Smashing Pumpkins.
Other than that, I agree with most of your review. I quit reading after the Equestria Daily thing since it was clearly meant to be a "take that" at the site due to this very story getting repeatedly rejected for reasons "unknown." It was, overall, a story a lot like a snack; good for a moment, but completely unsatisfying.
Although, with the Hoity Toity thing, remember it is considered rather rude to assume someone is homosexual based on their attitudes alone, or that a certain set of attitudes can show whether a person is homosexual at all.
So it's basically Stephanie Meyer's Twilight.
But really, I'm glad I didn't waste my time on that! Time to drop it from my Read Later list.
2114948
I must have missed the abusive undertones, abstinence moralizing, and borderline pedophilia in this fic when I read it, then.
But yeah, it's still pretty stupid.
2115313
werewolves with their shirts off
HOW DID I MISS THE PART ABOUT YOU LOVING HOUSE MUSIC
DOOOOOOOOOD
2114080
It goes a little deeper than that for me. :B My friends and I started living the game for a while. I still can't watch Fight Club for this reason.
2114787
I use the old EQD (Blogspot) rating system. I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it, so 2 it is. Also, did you ever read White Box: True Colors? Because that was pretty amazing along the same lines.
2114833
"My roommate's a vampire" fits neatly into the first line of that song.
2114948
There are far too many references to Twilight in this story. :| And to lots of other things. I forgot to mention that.
2114981
That is quickly going to become a favorite video clip.
Also yay, my reviews finally worked! :D
2115505
I am equal parts electronic, rock and folk when it comes to musical tastes. :B
2115929
Gross hahaha
It's a series of references glued together.
Also that seems pretty close to my musical tastes, but replace folk with eastern.
I remember this fic! I gave it its first EqD rejection. Good times.
Oh, oh! Do me next!
(this is how you into reverse psychology, right?)
At any rate, I recall reading this story. I liked it initially because it was one of the few stories I've read on here that had such a strong narrative voice that wasn't terrible. The plot itself, inane references, and dry spiral that made it very obvious the author didn't know where they were going with it made me drop it part way. I saw the typical warning signs and got out in what looks like just before everything went south, judging by your descriptions.
2116440
Yet it was ultimately for naught. D:
2116790
Yeah, it was very obvious in reading this that nothing beyond maybe the "is Vinyl a vampire?" arc was planned.
2115929
Nope! But there's no time like the present...