After a thousand years of exile, Princess Luna has returned!

As part of events to mark the occasion, for one night the palace has turned Canterlot into an open-air festival of art, music, performances and vendors, with the city's various galleries, studios, and museums offering free admittance to all who would join in the celebration of Equestria's beautiful night.

Octavia isn't normally a pony for such events, and at first would rather just stay home and practice her cello. Thankfully she has a friend who knows better, who drags her out in spite of herself, allowing Octavia to experience the many marvels the night may hold.

Groovy.

I contemplated ending the review right there. I can't really think of a better way to summarize and describe this story.

It's chill. It's low key, with a bit more going on under the surface than is explicitly stated. I dig that. The story is essentially a first-date fic with Octavia and Vinyl Scratch, and it's a very mature take on the subject. Mature referencing the characters' attitudes rather than the actual content, of course. They act like genuine adults that had a chance meeting and want to see where the evening leads them. No crass come-ons, awkward blushing, or anything of that sort. Just two ponies that know what they like and spend some time feeling each other out against one hell of a background.

Even if romance isn't your thing, this story's setting offers an experience all on its own. I understand the author was inspired by visiting a similar event to the one depicted here in real life, and the ponified version has imagination enough to reflect that. The festival is a treat to picture in your head. I found myself getting lost while trying to see the sights, hear the sounds, or feel the touch of the clouds the ponies walk on.

Something else the story did well was sprinkling in the cameos and references. Both canon and original characters appear throughout--some with dialogue, some without--as Vinyl and Octavia take a break to ponywatch the crowds. Some are even the artists everyone is there to celebrate. The result is that the festival actually feels populated, like any major event should, instead of endless nodding-and-winking to the audience. Everyone is just there to experience what the night has to offer without all the appearances being overwhelming or the story slapping the reader across the face with memes.

The story opens with Octavia getting dragged out of her apartment by her school friend, Jazzie. Jazzie is a flighty character with some amusing moments, but she exists solely to get the ball rolling in this scene before exiting stage left (twice, actually). I wouldn't go so far as to call her a hindrance to the story, but when I step back and look at everything, she doesn't add very much either.

Moving on, Octavia and Vinyl have a good chemistry together. As you might guess, music plays a big role in their evening together. The atmosphere provides ample opportunity for them to speak about how much influence music has had on their lives. How they started learning, the ponies that influenced them, their limitations, and even discussing the themes behind some pieces like true geeks do when they discover another member of their ilk.

Two scenes in particular stand out to me: Head in the Clouds and the art gallery. The former sounded like quite the feast for the senses, a cloud maze with strobe lights synced to a techno track whose vibrations pulsed through the clouds under the ponies' hooves. The latter was straight up psychedelic with trying to imagine the two of them playing pool under a blacklight. More than the setting, these two scenes were the ones I think Octavia and Vinyl really bonded in. The cloud scene in particular. That seemed to be the moment where Octavia realized there was more to the unicorn next to her than she first thought.

The story returns to that theme several times, appreciating something you never thought about before. The festival was organized to welcome back Princess Luna and show appreciation for her night, after all. It was a fine idea to set the story against that backdrop. Two ponies, artists in their own right, put together in the middle of as much art as possible--the very thing that challenges someone to experience a thought, sight, or sound and leaves them free to interpret those feelings however they'd like.

As far as problems the story has, there aren't very many. The only technical issues I saw were some fixable miscues:

“This is great, I was hoping to catch you at home.”

“I do have to agree with my friend here, I did enjoy it quite a bit.”

Comma splices

“Gonna drive the nobles crazy all the noise tonight.”

The unicorn standing up on her hind legs and holding her cue in front of her

“Well, I for one certainly couldn’t do my job it wasn’t for night,”

Missing words, or at least a missing comma in the first.

playing games together that night”

Missing period

Where they always this wonderful,

Typo

Concerning the content, I noted my thoughts on Jazzie earlier. Nitpicky, perhaps, but so are my thoughts on some of the descriptions of the actual art in the festival. Like this one:

One particular one that Octavia was drawn to featured a very beautiful earth pony mare in the middle of a dense forest. The mare and her features, along with her body, were lineart, but the forest and the vines and flowers in the rest of the picture, including those that were creeping up the mare’s legs, were all stippled. Her appearance and how the forest seemed to be part of her and yet not suggested a fantasy connection as though she were a druid or possibly dryad.

That does a good job of telling us what the picture is, but it's a rather flat way of doing it. The outright conclusion of "She's a druid or a dryad" spoils the fun of wondering about it with a preconceived notion. I also wouldn't have minded seeing a serene look on her face to match the tranquility of the forest, or even a wild glow in her eyes, instead of "It was lineart." Maybe even a pose of the mare lifting a leg, and it wasn't clear if the vines were pulling her down, or if she was pulling free to show that bit of the forest maybe or maybe not being part of her.

Too nitpicky for something never seen in the story again? Maybe. I just wouldn't have objected to getting my mind absolutely blown by something in this inspired setting. Dancing lights are fun, especially when they're attached to harnessed pegasi flying through the sky, but when all they are on the page is dancing lights that strobe every now and then, you are left wanting a bit more flair.

On the other hand, that same setting is what really hooked me into this story, and the nuanced interaction between Vinyl and Octavia led to a fun and flirtatious ending. Falling short of blowing my mind is hardly an automatic failure. This story is definitely worth checking out.

5901375

Nice review. I may have to read this one myself.

That does a good job of telling us what the picture is, but it's a rather flat way of doing it. The outright conclusion of "She's a druid or a dryad" spoils the fun of wondering about it with a preconceived notion. I also wouldn't have minded seeing a serene look on her face to match the tranquility of the forest, or even a wild glow in her eyes, instead of "It was lineart." Maybe even a pose of the mare lifting a leg, and it wasn't clear if the vines were pulling her down, or if she was pulling free to show that bit of the forest maybe or maybe not being part of her.

If it makes you feel any better, I read it as being fairly flat and off-putting before you mentioned it here. I'd say the problem is that the description is too technical and not descriptive enough. The tell of what she's supposed to be probably wouldn't be as big a deal if we had a full description of what she looked like and how the painting made Octavia feel. The recognition of the technical choices could be incorporated as well, but the average reader isn't going to know what lineart and stipple are and how they'd look against one another without more context.

Mostly just adding my thoughts for when the author pops in :)

Hey, a review of my story! Excellent to see, and glad that this ranked as high as it did.

Groovy.

I contemplated ending the review right there. I can't really think of a better way to summarize and describe this story.

Which seems to be the general consensus among those who've read it, because no one says anything about it! I made a blog post stating as much. That's a good part as to why it's here; I was seeking some assurance that I wasn't taking a wrong-headed approach to things. Nice to see I wasn't.

I'm glad the cameos and pony-watching were appreciated. Really, it started with Rarity and then I just ended up getting the rest of the mane six slotted around here and there for completeness. Ponies that were highlighted I tried to give some personality to, even if it was just a light archetype.

The gradual development of Octavia and Vinyl is something I really wanted to have for this story. Too many times stories here have them come together without any sort of real foundation. The showing of their pasts in bits and pieces, their finding and bonding over common points of interest, is something that would happen on a real date. The idea of both Vinyl and Octavia having some background, or at least interest, in music outside their stereotypical fandom-defined genres was an idea that I've seen used in other Scratchtavia stories and loved as it not only shows depth to the characters, but how they could come together in the first place and stay together. And I love the idea of Octavia having a cool, hippy-ish aunt. As one of my pre-readers said, she really loved the friendshipping aspects of how Octavia and Vinyl are for so much of this story.

Criticism wise, I can see what you mean. Jazzie honestly was a means to an end, that end getting Octavia out of the house. I wanted to show Octavia as the expected stick-in-the-mud the fandom often writes her as, a pony focused on very much on her music to the determent of her own enjoyment sometimes. She is aware of this and says as much, and is perfectly capable of enjoying a situation once she's in it, but it's getting there that's her problem. She gets in her routine and is rather content to stay there. An outside force like Jazzie is required to get her out again. Jazzie was really the easiest mechanism I could think of to accomplish my goal of showing her as a bit of an introvert while still getting her into the action for the story.

As yours and 5901508's comments to my depiction the picture in the donut shop, that I most certainly can agree with. It was one of the last things written for the story and actually a replacement to a different picture. Like with the Silfoe picture at the end, I had originally intended to describe a real piece and after a few hours of looking finally found a gorgeous piece featuring Luna in a similar art style to what the RL artist had done (line art & stippling), only to find that the artist's ponysona really wouldn't work for what I needed and so was forced to scrap it. Based on what you two said here, I think I'll probably go back in the next few days and revise that section. As to the use of artistic jargon to describe it, I'll see what I can do about that, but will probably leave it in and elaborate on what it means. I learned about them in high school art.

If you do read the whole thing, Asilin, please let me know what you thought.

Technicals cleaned up, thanx for that.

In the end, I'm glad that this story was enjoyed so! Hopefully it gets in front of a few more eyes this way. Still a nice bit of validation.

5901826

If you do read the whole thing, Asilin, please let me know what you thought.

I think Mind's Eye was pretty spot on. Jazzie, particularly her second appearance, stood out for being really not part of the story. While the first was forgivable and understandable (catalyst, etc.), the second encounter just felt forced, like you wanted to be sure that everything got wrapped up appropriately. In a party situation like this, it's just as likely Jazzie would never find Octavia and they'd have to catch up in the morning. And given how she entered the apartment in the first chapter, I could totally see another barging in to check up on her friend and then there's a ruckus and Octavia is just all "what am I getting myself into?" But, you know, that's me.

It was a very enjoyable piece, though, and you have a good eye for atmosphere. If there were any particular element I would suggest working on, it would be the flirting between Vinyl and Octavia since, for me, it felt a bit diluted, particularly for implying sex later on. Basically, I'd want to see more of what you had in the second-to-last chapter earlier on. Romance (capital R genre) relies a lot on physicality and reaction to build the tension. Course, I'm non-brony, so this is just suggestions to basically broaden audience. For folks who like Octavia and Vinyl, I'm sure this is fine.

With your atmosphere, though, the piece paragraph we were talking about does stand out because you seem to break your style at that point, probably because it was a last minute change. But, if you don't mind, this is kinda what I would suggest for a way to fix it, plus keep in all the technical details:

The pictures were primarily pointillist: the dotted canvases often coalescing into surrealist landscapes and images. One, though, drew Octavia in more than the others. Featuring an earth pony mare in the middle of a dense forest, the mare stood stark against the stippled background, her strong lines bold and defined among the chaotic points that surrounded her. Vines wrapped around her legs as the forest reflected through the mare, a unifying of artistic styles, of pony and nature, as if the mare was a dryad to point the way to a greater whole.

You want to use the terms but still use other descriptors to imply what's going on in the painting (lines, dots) but also use descriptors to convey the emotions you may want us to understand (chaotic, strong, bold). You can probably do it better since you have a direct image you're describing while I'm describing off of your description :)

5901826
Happy to help. Hope you get those readers.

5901375 Thanks for the in-depth review man! I was the spellchecker for this story and it was nice to see that I only missed a few things here and there.