Spook does not take himself or his fanfiction seriously. You shouldn't either.
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Vinyl Scratch was the best musician Octavia Melody knew, a brilliant performer and blazing fast composer. When Vinyl unexpectedly passes away, Octavia takes the loss of her roommate hard. As Octavia prepares for a career-making performance with the Manehattan Philharmonic, she is haunted by her memories of Vinyl and the music they made together.
Reviewed by TCC56 on February 21, 2024.
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Ok you know what!? This was sad. Sad. Poignant. Grief-filled. But mostly, it was good. I am now invested.
omg
Grief is hard.
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What you said.
Omg this is so sad
This is a really beautiful story, and it's a pity it's getting so little attention. Maybe the lack of a period at the end of the shortform summary is contributing to that? I don't know for sure, but it's just a thought. But the writing within the story is polished and lacks any sort of grammatical issues, combined with an emotional storyline, so I hope it gets more views than what it has.
Absolutely beautiful. Well done.
Bravo! Bravo!
(No, I won't call for an encore. It's wonderful as is.)
Beautiful. Simply beautiful.
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Thank you! I'm glad you liked it.
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And special thanks to you for catching that missing period. I spent so much time looking for mistakes in the story itself that that one was invisible to me. It's fixed now!
Marvelous, absolutely marvelous. On every single level, there's not a sentence that is bereft of passion and, most importantly, honesty. Two aspects in particular stood out to me as worthy of praise, in a work that is deserving of so much of it. The narrator, and the narration. For starters, the voice you have provided for Octavia is simply perfect. I never doubted for a second that someone else was speaking as I read, I even forgot that this story had been written by someone else. You blended in perfectly with her character, shown in what she knows and what she speaks. And that is what makes the story so convincing.
I have very little understanding of the technical aspects of music, I'm absolutely plebian when it comes to it in every way. However, I could sense the devotion of the character to her area of expertise. You showed how seriously she takes it, how much she loves it, but you weren't above making her crack jokes about it too, to show how her understanding transcends into humor. I can't help but feel that you do have a background in the artistry, or at least, that you know enough to fool an ignorant such as me into believing you do. In anyway, that speaks extremely well of you.
Stories about the death of a beloved character are always tricky for a number of reasons. They tend to fall on the traps melodrama sets up, the most common one being that the idea of a death suffices to present a tragedy. Especially when dealing with background ponies, whose personalities are fickle and hard to define. However, that was not a fault you could find here. I adore the way you portrayed both mares, with the added difficulty of characterizing Vinyl after having her die in the first few paragraphs. It was a daring bet, but it paid off extraordinarily well.
The story's structure is worth praising too, and it is all tied down to the psychological profile of its lead. Octavia as a main character and narrator is explored in a way that I believe I've only seen handled correctly at the hands of professional authors. The narration is characterization, and the character dictates what she narrates. You start of big with the inciting incident, the tragedy, the death. Other stories would have build up to it, perhaps having it at the end of the first chapter, even later. Having a character die and then working on their personality is bold, it's been done before but that does not take away from its difficulty. It also conditions severely Octavia's views, her presentation and everything that she says and does. We are inside her brain, and like a person who is recently affected by tragedy, her mind is scrambled. We are constantly being thrown from the past to the present, memories assault her ever single waking moment, but it is all connected so smoothly, so convincingly, that I do not see the puppeteer's strings behind the curtain, I see the actual psychological development of a person.
Octavia feels so real in this, I always end up questioning what she's expressing. You have a real knack for writing subtext. The way she constantly questions herself, derides her work despite what other ponies tell is is superb. I especially liked how you delved into the idea by having another character pointing out this dissonance. How she sees her relationship with Vinyl also leads to some extraordinary potential for interpretation. For example, why did Vinyl keep her music a secret from her best friend? Before we know that, if we are to listen to Octavia, it would be because she didn't see her as someone close enough for it. And we start suspecting that had Octavia tried harder to get close to her, she might have been worthy of it. But upon knowing how Vinyl felt about her, it becomes less clear, but still believable. It characterizes her as someone who had a deep passion for music that she could only keep to herself. It's a common theme of the secrets that we keep that might only be released after we die. I love it because it gives Vinyl more agency as a character and grants her independence from Octavia. One issue I have with a lot of death fics is that they tend to make either the deceased or the mourner into a satellite , but you avoided that pitrap.
A quick mention to the role of the Mane Six; their roles are small, but I appreciated their inclusion. I liked how they each collaborated in some way that felt fitting to them, and while some are given more attention than others, it feels like a natural development that pays off well. Octavia is leading her own life and the M6 are just background ponies, but significant enough for it.
Another minor note, I get the feeling that this story would be suitable for an E rating. There's no strong language, the imagery is pretty tame, and the only "adult" aspects to it are how realistic it is.
Finally, I really love the way you structured the story in regards to its climax. It would have been so easy to have Octavia have her catharsis at the concert, but you didn't go that route. The final note being in the cemetery is also a little clichéd, but it is well earned, thematically fitting and a great conclusion. Again, Octavia's psychological journey is entirely focused on her relationship with Vinyl, yes, through music, but it's still about them. I love the way you tied those two aspects together, and the reveal of their first and last public performance, and how that tied to the last song, it's just... amazing. Gotta be honest, you tugged at my heartstrings at the phrase your best friend. I had been holding on, but that one actually got me emotional. It was such an excellent payoff to Octavia's stubbornness. I also love how you avoided unnecessary drama. You relied on what the story offered and didn't try to squeeze more out if it than was needed, such as senseless fights at the funeral or even conflict between characters. It's all within Octavia, and that is just perfect, it keeps us focused and avoids detracting us from what is truly important.
All in all, I loved this fic. On both a technical and emotional level, it is outstanding. I didn't even mention how professional your narration was; precise, to the point, efficient, but sincere. It carried the essence of the story as well as it possibly could, and you really got the bottom of its well of potential, in my eyes. Same goes for the dialogue, it wasn't brilliant but it was believable and natural, which is so hard to get right that it's hard to understate. Either way, this was an amazing experience. I hope it gets more traction because your work here has been fantastic. You thought this was your best work, and without reading the rest of your writings I will agree because this seems hard to top. I won't discourage you from trying, by all means, keep aiming higher because your skill is way above average. Fantastic work, thank you so much for bringing it to my attention.
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I have to admit that when I asked you to review my fic, I was hoping for praise. But wow, that review was more effusive than I expected.
I do in fact know a few things about music, especially classical music. I'm not (and never have been) a professional musician; but I've learned a little music theory, and as a performer I'm a little better than average—though I'm not especially good, and I'd say I'm not even at the level of the fic's Fluttershy. Octavia and Vinyl are much better than me, of course, so getting all the musical terminology right did take some effort.
I realized pretty much from when I started writing that the story needed to be told out of order. The story is structured around Octavia's experience with the note. While Vinyl's death seems to set the fic in motion, the story actually starts with Octavia describing the note, and the very first action is her working on the concerto. The action concludes in the cemetery when she feels she has finally played the note right. In a way, the story is told chronologically: Octavia simply recounts to us her thoughts, moment by moment, from the morning of Vinyl's death until the afternoon in the cemetery. Of course, we as readers don't experience the story chronologically since her thoughts jump around in time.
I think an E rating for this fic would be defensible. I was conflicted. Two things made up my mind. One, you can't tag an E-rated fic with Death, and if you're not in the mood to read about death then you're not in the mood for this fic. Two, I asked myself, "Would I be comfortable reading this to a child?" And my answer was no. Putting aside the fact that the language is too sophisticated (fun fact: it contains only the fourth use of the word "ineluctable" on the whole site; this comment will be the fifth), I feel like it's too emotionally intense. There are great works of children's literature that talk about death, like Charlotte's Web, but this story dwells on grief and sadness in a way they don't. If some terrible parent reads MLP fanfic to their children before bed (and I really hope nobody does), then I hope they don't pick this story.
I am glad that the phrase "best friend" worked for you. One of my earliest ideas for the fic was for Octavia to not refer to Vinyl as her friend; when she finally does at the end I wanted it to be a big emotional moment. Early in the writing, I wasn't sure if I was going to pull it off. I'm no Shakespeare, or Dickens, or Tolstoy, or Hemingway, etc. But I think this story turned out okay.
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Good to get a bit more insight into your story's development. I get your reasoning and agree with it. And yeah, you might not be Tolstoy, but at the very least you're above plenty of published contemporary authors. So there's that.
There is so much I could commend about your ability to capture an experience of grief that is both ineffable and grounded. However, I feel it would be a disservice to the story to dissect what it already presents so honestly.
Rather, I want to express my appreciation for how you wrote Octavia and Vinyl, both as individuals and their relationship to one another. It’s very easy to tell a story about how they are connected by music — but you show it, and I loved that so dearly. Music is an abiding, textural element of both their lives in this story, and the way it is disturbed so fundamentally by Vinyl’s passing is devastating. Because while it is indeed true that Vinyl was Octavia’s best friend, she was also her equal when it came to their mutual identity as musicians. Not merely in technical skill, but also because the art they created together could only exist as a meeting of their unique identities.
This line from Chapter 3 was especially affecting:
Beyond Octavia’s exemplary skill on display here, I feel this is a really elegant way of expressing how integral music as a communicative art from is for her. This is much more obvious for Vinyl through her endearing mannerisms of singing her thoughts and moving through the world rhythmically, but doesn’t become as evident for Octavia until the end of the story is reached.
The throughline of Beethoofen’s concerto, and its final note, was beautifully woven throughout, from the lovely opening description to the closing line. I so appreciate how its presence echoes the experience of listening to a song, sustaining tension until it’s released alongside Octavia’s withheld emotions. Of course it never sounds sad enough until Octavia allows herself to acknowledge the presence Vinyl held in her life.
Beautifully written.