Epilogue
Viola took a deep breath. The train was about to stop at its terminal station. A case was strapped to her back, although it wasn't the viola she usually played in the orchestra.
Her face was hard and stoic. Most would call her calm or unemotional, but the closest among her might be able to notice a bit of nervousness in her eyes. She felt a hoof on her shoulder.
It was Octavia. She was coming with her for emotional support. Patting Viola's shoulder again, she smiled comfortingly. Viola attempted a smile back, but her mouth only twitched upwards. Abandoning that attempt, she nodded instead. Octavia wouldn't be there the whole time with her, but she had been talking with her the entire train ride, and she would be discussing how it went on the way back.
The train lurched and slowed to a stop. With a heave, the train doors creaked open, admitting the hot midday sun. With another deep breath, Viola stepped outside into the Fillydelphia train station.
Setting the rift,
While cool as the rain,
Spurning her love,
And feeling no pain.
But forging a path,
With help from a friend,
To finding emotion,
And feeling again.
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Hm, Taialin, why does that sound familiar...
<Checks Other Stories>
OH.
Right, well, let's give this a read then, shall we?
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I'm working on the Flarity, don't you worry! I just wanted to try my hand at something a little different.
I know, it's been a long time.
6310054
This story needs more vieeeeews.
It disturbs and depresses me that you continually go overlooked, my friend.
I enjoyed reading this; it's the kind of content I like to see on this site, though being terribly underrated. I'll see if I can recommend it to a few people.
Clearly, you wrote a story that definitely captured what you wanted to tell. There's a decent introduction to our main characters in here, followed by the backstory their relationship revolves around, and the emotions coming along with it. Some more time to explore the difficulties between them might have been helpful, but I couldn't say for sure. While the story initially did feel like it could have been longer, it did also show a good deal of pacing throughout the plot. So there's probably not much to worry about, here.
Ultimately, I don't see any reason against giving this story a like and favorite. Thank you for sharing it with us, and good luck with your future projects.
I agree with those above me that this is an underrated story and needs more views.
Good work on this story man. Continue with the awesome stories.
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Thanks for reading!
Honestly, this story was not written for the views or attention. It was more an exercise to test out a bunch of new writing techniques I hadn't tried before. That, and my second attempt to characterize an OC (Poniverse's, actually). My first attempt was . . . not good. So "not good" that it's not published here.
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One technique I was testing out was "mincing words," including no more than is necessary to tell a story, yet keeping the action engaging. That's why I didn't include much more on the troubles between Octavia and Viola; I thought the beginning was enough to convey their not-normal relationship.
That being said, I might not have entirely succeeded, given the story is still 8,000+ words.
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)
Glad you enjoyed it near the end! Could you, if you would, elaborate on why you didn't "feel it" at the beginning? (I mean, I know Viola doesn't, but that's besides the point.
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I bet it's good and you're just being modest.
I gotta say this was a great story and I'm glad I got a chance to read it
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Thanks for reading!
6326032
Aww, I'm glad I touched you so with my story. Does somebody need a hug?
6320847
Oh, no. The editor I sent that story to actually couldn't finish reading it. It was that bad.
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Rubbish editor, then.
This was a nice read. I hope it does well in the mascot contest.
Fellow entrant here for the Poniverse comment trade! Since you put so much thought and analysis into your review, I’ll try to do the same.
First of all, the writing itself is spot-on. You strike a good balance between showing and telling, the exposition Octavia spouts at the beginning is nicely handled and actually pertinent to Viola’s character development, and you did very well in regards to modifying your syntax for the differing POVs (though I suppose it’s less of a point-of-view and more of a character-in-focus). The second chapter is a great example of this: its simpler sentence structure works in harmony with Viola’s innocent observations to convey a general tone of youthful eagerness that is an absolute delight to read.
Choosing to simplify your writing for the second chapter is also a smart decision from a plot standpoint. You’re delivering an emotional punch disguised as a slap on the wrist; relaying tragedies from the perspective of a child can drastically increase the dramatic effect of the piece, which is definitely the case, here. I can see you’re aiming for a hard-hitting emotional piece, and you do execute it well. I can definitely see the appeal in this story, and I have no doubt that it will resonate strongly with some of your readers. (From the looks of it, it already has
)
Unfortunately, I am not one of those readers. Don’t get me wrong—I can tell you’re plucking at the heartstrings with this plot, but I’ve never had a taste for characters with a Nobly Tragic Backstory© in this fandom (I find stories that align with the show’s precedent of virtue-run pony society more appealing). As a result, the emotional payoff in this story fell a bit flat for me, as you relied heavily upon “telling” after delivering the Life-Changing Traumatic Event, trusting that said event would be enough to emotionally tie the reader to Viola’s plight. Given that we never see Viola’s father, I wasn’t as sold on the emotional trauma as I could have been, had we been gifted with a glimpse of their daddy/daughter dynamic. Again, this is simply a matter of personal taste, and while I may not care for a story’s premise, I can definitely appreciate and enjoy quality storytelling when I see it.
One minor thing to keep in mind is that throwing in historical names like Stradivari and Amati can be rather disconcerting. I understand the names belong to near-legendary violin makers, and the idea of Viola being a member of an MLP-counterpart of such a family is an amazing idea that I absolutely love, but most names that cross over into MLP tend to be converted into some sort of horse pun. This is partly for amusement, but also to maintain the integrity of Equestrian culture (ponies very rarely have names like “Karen”). I’m not a violin enthusiast, nor am I Italian, so seeing “Amati,” temporarily broke immersion while I sorted through the context to figure out that it was supposed to be a surname. Throwing in a pun (Amareti, maybe?) might have helped in this regard, as it’s how human-made-pony names are typically handled. However, that does fall under the realm of authorial choice, so it's your call. Just something to think about.
Oh, is Viola’s training violin the same instrument as the practice violin?
While this story didn’t quite resonate with me, I do sincerely hope it wasn’t inspired by personal experience. Having to watch one’s family dynamic fracture and decay is a terrible, terrible thing. Again, good job with coordinating your narration and POV character, as well as your characterization. This was a very enjoyable read, and I wish you the best of luck in the competition!
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And thank you for your review! I hope you found my comments as useful as I'm finding yours!
Here's a fun fact: after my final editing pass, I ran the second chapter through the upgoer6 analysis tool to ensure it had a reduced lexicon of about ten thousand words!
Actually, the reason I told most of the third chapter is because I couldn't figure out how to show it. That, and I was already late enough in my submission.
I guess it's a matter of personal taste, as you said. For me, if punnified name hasn't already been canon/fanonized (Fillydelphia), I prefer to quote them straight because I find the punnified versions even more immersion breaking. In those cases, I have to figure out what the pun is parodying first, then look up what it means.
cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/315483/file-567176249-jpg/objection.jpg?t=1439620397190
Contradiction found. Thank you for spotting it, and thanks for reading!
Hello, hello, hello!
First of all, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to write and submit this story for our mascot contest; I know that all of us on the Poniverse staff greatly appreciate it! 
Second of all, thank you for putting together such a lovely fic; it wasn't flawless, but quite nearly so.
First of all, I thought the first two chapters were phenomenal! The pacing was perfect, the grammar and spelling was flawless, and the way you perfectly captured how a child at Viola's age would behave was superb! Then we get to the third chapter, where I have some more mixed feelings...
The pacing was a bit quick, but I understand that you were more rushed towards the end of writing the fic, and it worked for the most part given the size of the scene, so that's not my main issue. My main issue relates to Viola's falling out with her mother. Full disclosure, most of my feelings about the third chapter may extend from personal bias. Being totally honest here, I come from a family with a younger sister that has experienced the pain of divorce... twice. The first time was hardest cause that's when we were young and it arose out of far nastier circumstances akin to what happened in this fic, but the second time was hard in its own way too, especially for my mother. I'm also not going to pretend like every divorce is similar; sometimes people in the worst circumstances in life, downright dirt poor and in a terribly stressful situation, manage to rise above something like wonderfully, while other times people in really sound socioeconomic situations can be totally destroyed by something like that. My own circumstances were somewhere in the middle; we were on fairly stable ground financially after the divorce, lower-middle class I would say, but my mom through all these years still worked her butt off tirelessly to support my sister and I in any way she could, and still managed to rise above something as painful and hurtful as her first divorce despite how hard it was (something I largely attribute to both her own personal strength and her strong Christian faith). She could certainly get quite stressed at times, and there were plenty of times where she'd break down, but never to the point where she did anything that my sister or I would consider an unforgivable betrayal. She also, although eventually managing to forgive my father, remained for far longer bitter and distrustful towards him, but that never got in the way of her giving my sister and I the love we needed from her. This is where my problems with the third chapter come in.
You tell us that an unbridgeable rift is formed between Viola and her mother. Her father is easy enough to accept because it sounds like he never tried to be a part of her life ever again, that's scuzzy and easy to believe that it would devastate her. All we are shown, however, of Viola and her mother's rift is her mother at a particularly bad point in her life, right as all of this is happening and still very, very, very raw for her. Not saying that her getting plastered and then hitting Viola was right, but it didn't seem like something that was about to become a regular habit for her, just based on what we were shown. I know that regretting abuse doesn't mean that someone couldn't stay abusive, but she seemed to realize immediately that she had crossed a line and regretted it. We weren't even told if she kept this up, much less shown, we were just told by Viola that she couldn't trust her again (I'm even going to go back and reread this to see if I missed something). My point is, while Viola completely losing trust in her mother as well as her father isn't totally unbelievable here, I just didn't feel (and again, some of my own personal bias may be clouding my judgment here) like I was shown enough to believe that such a rift like this could come about from what were shown between her and her mother. We were shown one episode at a time when something like that happening should not have been very surprising, but I was not shown or told anything that could lead me to believe a systematic pattern of abuse would arise out of this, and I had a hard time believing that a smart pony like Viola would never forgive her mother for one incident like that.
Now, despite my lengthy comments about that, make no mistake, I immensely enjoyed this story. There was a lot here I could still relate to, it was excellently written, filly Viola and Octavia were adorable (the fact that you were able to distinguish their mannerisms so well given their age difference was quite impressive too), and I can forgive the third chapter's flaws somewhat given that you seemed to imply at the end that Viola was on her way to reconnect with most likely her mother. This is most definitely in the running for being a contest winner, and it was kind of nice that there was nothing directly relating to Poniverse itself aside from Viola being the main character. Wonderful work overall, and thank you again so much for taking the time to write this! Let me know if you have any more questions for me.
6347835
Thank you for that dissertation on my story!
You are correct that I was rushed in the finishing of this story, and I suppose the fact that the third chapter seems unconvincing can (partially) be attributed to that fact. One of the balances I was juggling in the process of writing this story was maintaining consistency of character versus story flow. I couldn't write Viola's mother as completely turning to a cycle of abuse a few days after such an event; given how I'd written Viola's mother up to that point, such a turnaround would have been jarring and inconsistent. So I kept her compassionate nature intact at the expense of the issue you brought up. In a perfect world, I would have added more development to the tail of chapter 2/head of chapter 3 to better explain Viola's reaction to her mother's betrayal and what happened after that event. But I as I said before, I was pressed for time to complete this story.
So in the end, I kind of resorted to not showing or telling what happened at all, instead relying on implication. It has come to my attention now that I actually didn't imply anything.
Oops.
Huh. I actually thought that would have worked against me, given that (1) I only mentioned one mascot in my story, (2) I took minor liberties with the synopsis given for her, and (3) she's not even the protagonist of this story!
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It's no problem at all! Honestly, I think it could easily be fixed in chapter three if you just added 1 or 2 sentences more after Viola tells Octavia how her mother remained bitter towards her father, just a little more expansion on that. It's up to you, if you want to keep it the way it is that's totally fine, but like I said, it doesn't demand a total rewrite to fix, just a small addition is all, at least I think so. And oh yeah, this is definitely in the running for sure.
Damn. This had me tearing up a little.
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Dawww. Need a tissue?
Glad to have finally gotten around to this one. Nothing really to add, largely just to echo what's been said; characters are captured well, writing functions well to show what you wanted in regards to who was experiencing it, and the emotions worked well throughout. Like too many of your works, still criminally underrated.
Still, it was a good read that I'm glad to have finally gotten to. Look forward to seeing your next work.
Reading this story makes me wish I had found the time to read the winning entries for the mascot contest sooner. Then again, I can't say I'm at all surprised. Familiar as I am with your work, I would expect nothing less from you
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Glad to know you hold my writings to such a high standard, and I can only hope that you're similarly "not at all surprised" with my other stuff. I'd hate to disappoint you.
D'aww.