Seeing as how my last thread was very negative, I decided to start up a new one that's more positive and will probably result in gushing. What are the reasons why you like these two background ponies so much? I've got a couple myself.

1: The character designs are awesome, especially Vinyl's with that cool shade of blue hair mixed with white fur.

2: The interactions between these two are hilarious and interesting. Character-based comedy is one of the best types of humor as evidenced by FIM itself, and a lot of fan content about Vinyl and Octavia shows this really well. Putting two characters who are completely different together and having them interact, the humor practically writes itself. Yet you really do get the sense that they are best friends/lovers {Depending on the fanfic}, so it doesn't feel forced. They both have flaws that add to them, though the flaws depend on the story depicting them.

3: The romantic chemistry between them is great. Too many fiction out there goes for the "I wuv you" and "I wuv you too" boring crap with no real conflict or interesting personality's. Not so much for these two. Whether you play it for comedy or drama, the stuff that happens between them is almost always interesting when handled well, and it's even sweeter when they eventually make up. Now mind you, this applies to the friendship stuff just as much as romance, but it's more worth mentioning with the romantic part due to how boring I usually find those types of stories to be. Though this can also apply to non-ScratchTavia ships too like RariJack, LyraBon or TwiDash, but still.

I like them for the same reasons.

4619071 I dunno, just a simple "I wuv you" and "I wuv you too" fic isn't all that bad depending how the writer writes it. Don't get me wrong, I love a long, well planned and written story, but short stuff with no conflict and no twists are lovely to me since they're perfect stories to sate my need to read before bed. Again, depending on how the writer wrote it, it leaves me happy and fuzzy after reading, and it won't make me stay up late. My curiosity tends to be strong, so long stories with complex plots and twists, while also fun, aren't the best thing for me at night.

Anyway, I guess I like it for almost the same reasons you gave. How they had been portrayed in the fandom is just nothing short of captivating. In the stories I've read, their interactions feel almost natural: it's funny, it's sweet, and it just seems to fit and compliment, despite the fact their personalities are seemingly rather polar.

Plus, it is interesting to me when you consider the fact, at the time of this ship's conception (literally in the downtime between season 1 and 2), there was only a sum total of 15-16 seconds of screen time on either one put together, yet it was a ship with top-tier stories and artwork, and was almost unchallenged by any other for quite some time.

4620141 Well I wasn't talking about pony fanfics when I mentioned that type of romance. More or less I was talking about any bad/mediocre romantic stuff. I don't mind a little pony fluff here and there. Those type of stories are okay if you want some cuteness. I just hate when it's done with non-fanfiction stuff {IE How utterly boring and flat of a character Flash Sentry is and how pointless and boring both he and his romance sub-plot in the Equestria Girls films are}.

4620180 What makes you say that? I don't recall anything about her fur being a "Extremely Pale Yellow".

4620882
The wiki gives a source from a layout artist giving her coat color as very pale yellow; but this text is that shade of yellow and bolded and it looks fairly white to me.

I like the ship because:
1. Its funny as heck (even more so to me once you read 3rd reason)
2. There cute as heck
3. They resemble me (female btw) and my girlfriend to a T. Once I learned of the lovely ship and started reading the stories I was like "Holy ####, thats us." Really now. Quick similarities between octy and gf: Both play cello (she was first chair in her schools orchestra), very evenly tempered and I along with a few other people thought she was part of the higher class section of our town/city, loves the classics, similar hair, bowties, reacts to vinyl the same way she reacts to me. Gah. >-< It was alittle weird at first but eh. And the only diffrences between me and Vinyl is that i don't have that glorious blue hair and look bad in sunglasses. Personality wise were the same and I am a lover of EDM (and tried my hand at it.)

So yea, comic stories are 100X funnier and sad stories are heart wrenching. Fair trade as long as the sad stories are tagged as sad.