I'm here.
And...
There is nothing to "see."
And I think I'm starting to understand the shameful colors in Lyra's voice.
I gaze silently into the empty spaces of Octavia's bedroom as the unicorn shuffles to a stop behind me.
"It happened yesterday afternoon, Vine," Lyra says, her voice blue and bluer. "Bon Bon needed to catch up on some Z's. Meanwhile, Tavi suddenly... g-got super concerned over Scribbler. She asked me to go and fetch some more cat food for the little rascal. Even gave me some bits to do it. And... and I-I didn't want to disappoint Tavi. Especially after... after..."
I take a deep breath, gazing into the shadows.
Lyra gulps. "Anyway. I went to the convenience store. It was a super short trip. I-I promise! Still... when I came back... Tavi was nowhere to be seen. Like... everything was just as you see it now, only... a bunch of clothes were gone... along with a suitcase... and... and... well..." She points in the corner.
I don't even need to see. I alreay know. I've figured it out.
Her cello is missing. Just like her.
"So... I-I panicked. First thing I did was go and wake up Bon Bon. Then we went scampering all over Ponyville in search of her. We found Pinkie Pie, and as soon as we brought her in on the search, we started hearing these... little stories." A gulp. "And testimonials. Cloud Kicker said she saw Octavia entering the Ponyville Bank. Cheerilee faintly recalled seeing Tavi leave there. And then... th-then Matilda mentioned something about spotting an 'elegant mare' with a 'smokey black mane' at the train depot. Well, sure enough, Twilight Sparkle did a little investigating. A pony passenger boarded the Northbound Train at four o'clock yesterday. She gave psuedonym, but she was packing a cello... and she matched the description of Octavia. Only... that train was headed towards Fillydelphia, and the station there junctions with three other tracks and... and..."
She shudders. She collapses on her haunches behind me. Her voice is a fractured thing now, rising and falling with pitiable pitch.
"She's... she's gone, Vinyl. Octavia just... j-just up and left. And... and Twilight's already conducting an investigation, but... but the outcome doesn't look good. There's... j-just no telling where she may have gone. Torontrot? Winniepeg? Manetreal? The Crystal Kingdom? She could be anywhere by now. And... and..." A soft whimper. "It's all m-my fault, Vine. I... I shouldn't have left her side! I should have k-kept my eye on her at all times and... and now she's gone. And... and in her emotional state, th-there's no telling where she's gone or what she's up to! Only that she has her cello and... and her entire life's savings. I mean... I mean... Oh Celestia..."
I close my eyes.
I breathe calmly.
"Vinyl... Vinyl please..." She sniffles, sobs. "Is there any way you could ever... ever forgive me?"
I turn around. I shuffle past her.
She gasps slightly.
I pause at Lyra's side... then reach out to gently pat her shoulder.
She blinks, lips quivering... even as I move on past her... beyond the foyer... the music sheets... the memories... the darkness all around. I enter my room, crawl into my bed, and lay down in the scent of two days' misery.
Lyra calls my name. Maybe once. Maybe a few more times.
I don't move.
At some point, the front door opens and closes. The blue cloud limps along with her, then dissipates into the distance. I can't taste the green anymore. All is tan and turquoise.
At least... until Scribbler pads her way into my room.
Wasting no time, the kitten hops up into my bed, finds a delicious crook in my limbs, and curls up against me.
I hold her gently—an orange life preserver. Together we float into the evening, and greet the stars with dead silence—a poor substitute for diginity.
Wow.
Octavia is a monster.
...Damnit.
as long as tavi doesn't go back to here father . . .
You know, it's just stopped having any pull for me. I think the shark has been jumped, and ponies acting like idiots just doesn't have any emotional pull anymore. Either Tavi will get over it, or she won't, and Vine will cope either way.
Sympathy levels for Tavi: Zero fucking percent.
Damnit Tavi, why are you being so impulsively self-destructive?
6709944 That avatar doesn't look like Bacon mane to me. squinty eyes
Damnit Tavi, you're not holding her back. You ARE worthy of being loved by her. Just come back and stop hating yourself so much and you might see what she sees.
6709999
Your regularly-scheduled baconmane will return after Endofponiesmas concludes.
I'm going to say, this is better than what I expected after last chapter which is that Tavi was going to have killed herself.
I don't even know how to feel.
I'm seriously mad at Octavia.
And feeling so depressed for Vinyl.
6710020 Mentioning the fic-that-must-not-be-named, I just realised the best April fools Skirts could pull next year: post a fake chapter update for it, then sit back and watch as fimfiction explodes.
A lot of the commenters are mad at Tavi. Maybe she deserves it. But I can't bring myself to do the same. I've been reading this story under the assumption that Vinyl was the one with issues (which is certainly true) and that Tavi was mostly stable. Needless to say, that isn't the case. Maybe that doesn't excuse her. I dunno. I just want the two of them to stop suffering, whatever that entails (well, with one exception).
As far as I can tell, ether Tavi will come back on her own, or Vinyl will have to look for her. If the latter, I wonder if there's some way Vinyl could put her synesthetic talents to some use.
If you love them, let them go.
If they come back to you... they were always yours.
Let her run, Vinyl. She needs time. So do you.
6710189
I have sympathy, but at this point it's reading much more like skirts has the issues, and is contorting his characters to fit them than a narrative.
6710023 i thought the same...
It's easy to get mad at Tavi for this, but I can't. When we are lost in despair, through having your world shattered, it's not the jealously that consumes you, it's the shame at the sentiment. Right now, Octavia is feeling profound and toxic shame, and those feelings prevent one from seeing a bigger picture, or even what you have. Hopefully she'll come around; or lock herself away.
I don't think Tavi's horrible. She's just been trough so much she's afaird and doesn't know what to do. She feels gulity and thinks she is dragging Vinyl down. When she went missing for two days, she felt even more guilty and left. I think she's afraid of dragging down or hurting any pony else.
6710224 that's understandable. I do the same thing sometimes with my stories.
DANGIT ALL
6709941Indeed. Can you believe somepony criticized me for wanting somepony to physically hand some sense to her?
VINYL DEPENDS ON HER!
Also...
SING VINYL! BRING HER BACK!
Also this reminds me of...
This isn't my first time reading a shortskirts fic. Of his larger works, Background Pony bruns bright as the second most recent of his I've read. So I won't be surprised no matter which way this goes.
That being said.
Were this to end on a bad note, I'd still consider it a most fantastic of reads. I am enthralled. I am possessed. I am anchored and chained to these tales of wonder that, mercifully, are being delivered on a bi-daily basis. I can't get enough. I'm sorry but it doesn't matter the outcome: to me, the emotional attachment of your readers marks the caliber and quality of your writing. And I see nothing but souls as chained as I in the comments.
Luckily for me, I'm so busy that I'll wait until a dozen or so chapters are written before a read them all in one big shot, so I'm spared the agony of short chapters. And yet, I'm STILL unsatiated. This is too enticing to ever be fullfilling.
Shortskirts, I truly hope I have the pleasure of meeting you next BronyCon, for I hope to convey naught but my respect of you and your work to you face to face.
This story strikes me very deeply as true in many regards to life. It seems to be the story of two ponies with mental/emotional issues that neither wants to face directly, each dependant on the other, but fearful that the dependancy will destroy the other.
I know what that is like. I've been the other half in such a relationship, and unless both face the issues they have without holding back, admitting the truth and being brave about it, nothing between them will last very long.
Curse you, Skirts, and bless you too, for writing this marvelous masterpiece of fiction. Yeah I know you'll be secretly flattered but try to brush this compliment off, but seriously, your fics ring true to me in many ways and open my eyes to things I need to face in my life. I guess that's why I've always been a fan since I read chapter one of EoP. Not because your stories are simply captivating, but because on a rather meta level, they are true stories.
So, take my compliment and accept it, you overly verbose, purple prose spittin', pseudophilosophical, freaky lemur. You totally deserve it. ;)
Love you tons, bro.
Now, give me more story. I wanna see this thing conclude. And on a happy note if at all possible. Pretty please, with a best pone on top?
And it keeps spiraling downwards.
That's what happens when you spontaneously act. It hardly ever ends well.
And then they all died.
The end.
I suspect she did go back to Trottingham. It would explain the makeover.
I would have thought that the first pony to ask is Opulence. I wouldn't expect him to co-operate willingly but, if Twilight chooses to make an issue of that, willingness or not wouldn't be much of an issue.
6710195 What this guy said!
*cries everywhere*
Good chapter Skirts! Good job...
6710964
Don't give Skirts any ideaas, besides, I'm sure that he has much worse planned.
6710224 I figured that one out long ago. SS&E clearly has more issues than the entire British library periodicals section and has decided to spray them all over everyone else by torturing ponies by making them just as messed up. I honestly wonder how he/she functions at all if this is a taste of his mental state.
6711320 Honestly this is the darkest thing I've read from Skirts in a long time (which is saying a lot, because this isn't all that dark). The last few months have been nothing but, like, tons and tons of adoracute shipping and other random shit. People like to totalize Skirts, but they forget that BP and EoP are almost three years old at this point, and that he's written dozens of stories since then.
6710844 Daily, actually. Also, he never attends cons that are a plane ride or more away :(
I don't blame Tavi for leaving. From her point of view, it makes sense.
Here's a few points from my understanding of it:
–She values success heavily, maybe even above everything else.
Why? It validates her decision not to follow her father's chosen career path for her. Highest point of success for her is achieving her dream by getting first cellist chair on the Canterlot Symphony Orchestra, which she's been striving to do throughout her whole career.
–Feels guilty over her mother's sacrifice*
Ambiguous on my behalf because I don't know the circumstances behind the sacrifice, but Tavi believes that she died for her, and feels it was a waste. The angle I'm banking on is that she died so Tavi could pursue her dream. Achieving her dream may or not absolve her of that guilt.
Also, the gradual decline in her field has could have fed the guilt she feels towards her mother. Sacrifice is in vain and self worth starts taking a toll. Explains why she's been feeding Vinyl's obsession, whether that be self indulgence or a distraction from her difficulties in her profession.
–The crux of her mental wellbeing is riding on succeeding and/or achieving her dream.
She needs these to prove her father wrong, and for the sake of her mother.
For Vinyl choosing to not pursue success to the absolute best of her ability is a slap to the face in Tavi's eyes. The fact that it's because of her is even worse. Vinyl not telling her how well she was doing probably didn't help either.
Sure, they both have issues they need to deal with. But watching how they try to deal with them and whether they'll crumble under the weight or come to terms with them is one of the things that can make a story enjoyable to read.
It's gonna be interesting to see how things pan out. Things look pretty grim.
Nope.
I'm having a strong, emotional reaction to this. Therefore, nope. Just nope.
6711412
What, like the Starlight is stuck in a permanent time loop while Equestria gets destroyed around her bit they just published? Nah. Not my thing.
6711842 That one's new, by, like, a week. Cherry picking is bad.
To put it in perspective, Background Pony is Skirts' fourth story ever. He now has a hundred and two. That's ninety-eight stories in between, and they've ranged wildly between fluffy shipping, silly slice-of-life, experimental thingies, anti-cynicism, intentionally non-dark stuff based on stereotypically-dark concepts, and other assorted adoracute.
And I'm not even counting the crap you find on his alts, one of which appears dedicated almost entirely to super-sappy shipping.
Has he written dark, bittersweet, heart-wrenching, occasionally self-inserty stuff? Sure, every once in a while. But the amount of dark that he's written as of late has been so incredibly low compared to three years ago that some of his fans, including myself, have actually been encouraging him to revisit it again.
If anything, I think he's just comfortable doing whatever the hell he wants at this point. If it's dark, it's dark. If it's fluffy, it's fluffy. But he's clearly versatile enough not to be typecast, and you kinda have to be blind to the last two years to try.
At least make a freshman attempt to consider his entire body of work, rather than judging him based on one or two examples.
No More Things Tavi Will Say
6711985
I'm not concerned with his body of work. I'm concerned with this story, and not particularly liking where it's gone. That's all. Nothing wrong with it per se, just not my bucket of Dr. Pony. Kind of a shame, though, because I liked the take on Vinyl before the plot got into a woobie-kicking fest.
6712076 I'm optimistic. The story hasn't been particularly dark thus far. I think the next several chapters will probably be the darkest it gets.
6712076 Agreed. I loved the description of how Vinyl sees the world, and the explanation. To be honest, the story could have stopped there, and still been a perfectly good 'slice of life' episode.
6712076 I can respect that but that is not what you have said.
Your words indicate that You've been judging skirts as both a writer and a person based on the content of this single fic.
If you don't like where it has gone, that's fine, you dont have to read it, but you were talking about things like him "torturing characters" like you thought it was some perverse pleasure for him.
He's a writer and this is the story he is telling, yeah it's taken a turn for the sad and dark, but there's a reason for it.
I'm a newb to skirts writing and even I know enough to know that he never "tortures" a character without giving them a reprieve in the end.
Even background pony had a beautiful ending for lyra. Though torturously sad, she found the peace she so desperately sought.
And austraeoh, every pain dash suffers is a point of growth and character development, something far that leads to a brighter end.
I guess I'm saying give him a chance. But if you can't get over where the story is now then I wont judge you for reading something else either.
AAAAAARRRRRRRGH FFS SKIRTS!!! THIS COULD HAVE BEEN NICE!!!
Just finished this chapter, and now I know things will be getting truly interesting. It's been interesting, but now, oh yes, now..
Okay, well, it's not as bad as I expected...but still no.