The Music That Binds Us by Dreams of Ponies

Vinyl is invited to play at a new club in Canterlot, and invited Octavia along. An overwhelming bass, tons of rowdy ponies and the reek of sweat; definitely not the atmosphere Octavia typically found herself in. A few bad decisions later, the musical mare finds herself on the ground, head throbbing, all while Vinyl was looking down at her, apologizing profusely.

Oh man, I'm late as hell for this review. I finished reading this story over a week ago, or something like that, but I was swept up by other matters (all bout that college life, fam) and never found the time. Now I'm here to review a ship fic. A goddamned ship fic! Oh God oh man, I better make it known that I don't stand on any particularly savory ceremony with romance stories. Without getting into detail, because I don't want to, romance is my least favorite genre. But, as a fair reviewer and a bad time manager, I won't let any biases get in the way of the final score. I will be evaluating this fic based its legitimate merits, and any parts I personally don't like will take less necessity over any other points and concerns.

But come on, this is a romance fic. Give me a break here.

So, the plot is about Octavia and Vinyl Scratch's relationship. It's the popular fan ship, we're all familiar with it by now. It starts at a concert where Vinyl is the eye of the storm, Octavia gets drunk, she gets hurt, they end up in the hospital, that passes, they go home, Vinyl plans a party, they... whoa, wait, what the hell is going on here? Where's the plot?

You know, the plot? The part where there's conflict and character motivations and a beginning, middle, end? There's no narrative core to be found. What happens in this story? While I was reading I kept expecting some sort of relationship-altering conflict, but that never comes to pass. It's just a bundle of scenes involving this popular ship strapped together.

You can argue that Vinyl's intimacy with Octavia develops throughout the course of the story—but I don't agree with that at all. The status of their relationship is the exact same in the beginning as it is in the end; the only difference is the setting (first chapter is a concert, way later on it's a restaurant, et cetera). The Music That Binds Us feels more like a peek into the lives of these two ponies, their surrounding environments, and how they react to each other. The progress of this romance is readily established from start to finish.

Yeah, yeah, it's a slice of life fic, but that isn't much excuse for the plot to be about nothing—fundamentally, anyway. Things do indeed happen, they're just not very notable, I'd say.

With that being said, this story really doesn't suck. In fact, from a pure writing standpoint, it's actually kinda good. The characterization of Octavia and Vinyl is extremely consistent, everything they said felt appropriate given the context of their situation, it all flowed really well. Nothing stuck out sorely, like the author was trying too hard or anything. The first chapter shows you their distinct personalities, and the rest follows along from that. Internally speaking, they were never out-of-character. The actual dialogue is pretty good, too. It never got overly telly or pompous, whenever the ponies spoke it almost always added to their character, whether it be insights into their psyche, witty remarks, or just smoothly written banter. For what the romance tag is worth, the characters' relationship never became pretentious. I'm sure as hell not saying it was great or anything, but I believe it did what it wanted to do. Reading a conversation in fiction should feel like a water-slide, not a roller coaster during an earthquake. This fic definitely pulled off the former (albeit by playing it unremarkably safe).

The romance itself was decent, I guess. It wasn't anything new—and I really mean that—but I never got annoyed (which is usually my case when reading ship fics), so that's a plus.

The real problem is the amount of times characters blush. This got on my nerves. There were moments in the story—certain scenes, that is—where characters seemed to blush as a response every other line. Just... why? Why would Octavia or even Starlight blush at every little mention of romance? How old are they? Took me out of the experience, that's what. I lost count at the amount of times the characters acted all shy and hot in the face for practically no reason. Maybe my imagination is overexaggerating this occurrence and it isn't as bad as I'm making it out to be. But fuck it, I found it grating, and that's that.

Oh man, I just remembered that there actually was a tinge of development, although to what degree of importance is up to you. In the final chapter Vinyl combines her music with that of Octavia's, and they come to appreciate each other's work, in spite of their differences—I think. Or... did they? No, wait, I'm changing my opinion again. Pretty sure it's maintained throughout the whole story that, while they don't fully enjoy each other's music, they can still appreciate the beauty behind it.

Actually, yeah, I just checked again and I'm right. Vinyl once went to Octavia's concert out of love or something, and Octavia never truly disliked Vinyl's music (she even liked it with a bit of alcohol).

Well, that's a bust. There was hope at first, but I squandered it. Ha, ha, that's funny.

Not much else for me to say—that's to say, I would like to say more, but The Music That Binds Us gives me very little to work with due to the trivial nature of its plot. I'm gonna have to split up the scores. I said I was going to be fair, but I also like keeping to my own opinions. Dreams of Ponies (the author) is clearly talented; he knows how to write believable and character-revealing dialogue without slipping into cringe territory. His biggest strength is consistency. He pulls it off pretty damn well. It's a shame that this story isn't impressive enough to complement his talent.

To end it, let's discuss the mechanics. Grammar was great, word choice and syntax was good as well, although I would have preferred something a little more purple (not too purple, just a little). It's all done well here, and I assume that's thanks to the editors. There might have been some punctuation errors if I remember correctly, although they were infrequent. That being said, it's very polished writing.

6/10 for me personally. 7/10 if you like Octavia x Vinyl Scratch and/or ships in general.

Hell, am I even allowed to give two separate scores? I dunno. You have my overall opinion.

You... you don’t like romance?

Warm fuzzy fluffy plushy words about lovey-dovey-wovey-do? No? No? ... okay.

So, rather than being a traditional narrative, it's sounding more like a character study.

6126158
It's a fast paced story. As a character study it should've slowed down and spent more time with their inner struggles and motivations. Dostoevsky is a good source for inspiration in that department.

Thank you for the honest review, 6126224. It's nice to hear about my story from such a shrewd and critical perspective, and without being personally bashed too

I hope that I can legitimately improve from this, specifically in making sure the plot is more obvious/compelling. I was honestly more wrapped up in just writing their interactions that I didn't notice that the actual arc of the story was basically nonexistent.

Thank you once again for your blunt review, and I hope the next time I submit, I'll be able to earn a higher score

6126306
I'm glad to have helped. All things considering, the romance was surprisingly subtle, it never got in my face, which explains my beef with most love stories. Although maybe that's because your fic was short.

But listen, you did well. Do something nice for yourself. Just promise me you'll never become complacent; always aim for improvement, no matter how skilled you are.