This story is a sequel to SonTavia, A Chance Musical Encounter
Todayâs date was supposed to have just been Octavia taking Sonata to get some tacos from lunch, and go from there. From there...
Cover art and possibly proof reading provided by TheSleeplesBeholder.
Somewhat a sequel, but not required reading
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*Dramatic readings are allowed, but please (canât believe I have to say this, but youâd be surprised) please let me know at least when it is finished and where I can view it
Chapters (1)
I'll admit that this is overall somewhat difficult to assess. I think it's fair to say that not a lot happens here. What's different about any of these characters, by the end, compared to where they started? I don't see much of anything. Maybe Sonata's keen on switching up her diet, but the impression I got is that she's doing that more because the new diet involves doing stuff with Octavia, which is something Sonata clearly already does.
The point of that is that, to me, there's no particularly interesting journey or development happening here. Which isn't to say that there needs to be, but when you don't have something like that, the point of the story becomes more nebulous, because it isn't actually making much of a point.
So my guess is that the intended appeal of this story is the relationship between the characters. If this story were executed perfectly, it would be something to recommend to anyone who just wants to see two characters they like having a good time. Which is a fine enough thing to aim for.
Speaking subjectively, the characters don't do a whole lot for me. Sonata having a taco obsession, I think is tired and stale and was never all that funny to begin with, nor does it have any real basis in canon unless you consider her second and third appearances--which I found rather atrocious, so I prefer not to do that. So Sonata bringing them up, and that being a key impetus for the story's most important conversation, I found rather off-putting.
But, looking past that, I don't mind all of it. There was this exchange, for instance:
Putting aside the grammatical errors, I think this is a nice bit of banter. I wouldn't call it enormously original, but it's fine.
This line also stood to me.
I liked it. Felt like it had more personality than most of the rest of the story.
But then, curiously, the story skips over a lot of conversation. Here, for instance:
Again, my guess is that the biggest appeal to this story is the relationship and how Sonata and Octavia interact with each other. This moment comes across to me like this story wanted a particular conversation to start, but didn't know how to make it happen naturally, so it sort of handwaved all the buildup and just said that it happens. The strange part to me is that the conversation it wants to get to is about tacos and they were just talking about tacos a few paragraphs earlier.
And the basis for Octavia's question feels a little flimsy. This is subjective, I suppose; I do agree with her, that sometimes one particular instance of having a certain kind of food sticks with you for a while and makes you think of that food fondly. But, for me, I don't think of that as being the norm. Most of the food that I like is just... stuff that I like.
So Octavia wondering if there's a more sentimental reason for Sonata's liking of tacos felt like it came out of nowhere. And I can't help but feel like this story could have gotten a lot more out of the conversation it arrives at if it'd shown more care in getting there. As it is, we never even find out if Sonata does have anything like that; as soon as Octavia raises the question, we abruptly jump to Sonata turning the question around.
Then we have Octavia actually recalling some fond memories and it's... one paragraph of flat, bland dialogue.
And then we get Sonata's reaction to it, which is... strange?
This feels like a weird leap for Sonata to be making. Because Octavia's memory was about eating a salad; since the plan had been to go out for lunch somewhere, Sonata going straight to "let's make one at home" feels like it's missing a step to me. The justification of it being something they can do together makes sense, I suppose, but still rings a little hollow when they've done nothing but be together the whole story.
Then we get to another part where it just sort of skims over what sounds fairly fun.
I just find it sort of ironic that the story takes time to emphasize that the best part of the salad was making it together, and then it doesn't actually think that part's important enough to show in much detail.
So in conclusion, I just don't think there's a whole lot going on here. There's not much of a plot, so I think it'd be dependent on character, personality, atmosphere, things like that to make it interesting and memorable. And I just don't think there's much of it here. The dialogue and narration is quite bland, so there's comparatively little atmosphere or personality, and the characters make odd leaps that made their interactions come across as stilted and forced. On paper, I suppose the chain of events here is fairly endearing, but I think their depiction was fairly unremarkable.
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Ah thank you đ
And need to read through it all, but honestly, no. This isnât meant to be a big story, just more of a slice of life, meant to happen, super short story that maybe some YouTuber would take a shot at reading.
Which is why, even if it was longer than the 3k word thing, I also recommend Taking Criticism, which dose have a lot more going on. Although, in a way, this was more of a warm up to my other Sonatavia stories (funny enough also, wrote this more to play around and do more with the âsonata tacosâ trope which, I admit, as much as I plan to still use it, irks me too đ) And this bit of critique will definitely go a long way into making my future writings better, thank you very much for taking the time to go over this
If youâd like, Iâll give you an editors credit in the description âď¸ đ
This was some decent fluff for a follow-up. Hopefully, more stories with these two will pop up in the future.
Period is missing at the end.
Missing a " at the end.
Another " is missing at the end.
Lmao
I think 'if' should be removed in that last sentence. Doesn't make sense with it there.
" is missing once again.
Another " is missing.
'be' should be added after also.
Once again, a " is missing...
It does.
Mistakes aside, I enjoyed the story.