"I'm going to be famous!", "I'm going to be the next big thing!", "I'm going to be a superstar!" Octavia couldn't even count how many times she'd heard her roommate claim that she was headed for fame and fortune.
But the worst part is, Vinyl might not be wrong. At least, not entirely.
This fic is inspired by the Dream Theater album Octavarium, which is awesome, and you should go listen to it. It is not, however, required to understand the story.
And for the record, this is not a Vinyltavia shipfic.
Chapters (13)
There's really only a taste so far, and question marks all over Chapter 1#: (nature), but I like this. Nice work.
And Octavarium is a stellar album, one of their best, in my opinion. I'm very interested to see how you handle the themes of each song throughout this story (assuming that's your plan).
-we came in?
Sweet, at least, though it's not yet clear how it fits into the whole. (Hey, when you're extrapolating from one sound effect you do what you can.
)
6566796 That's the idea, yes. Hopefully the album won't be too much of a spoiler as a result.
Wow. This looks really good! Can't wait to read the rest!
I can't wait for the next chapter!!!!
Well, same well-characterized interaction but with Octy starting to appreciate Vinyl.
And there goes Vinyl. Always needs to keep her ears open for inspiration....
Ha!
For anyone who doesn't get the joke: the closest equivalent in rock music would be going on tour with The Beatles and then quipping, "Next you'll be telling me you've never heard of Stereolab!"
6909443 In the original draft I had the names switched, but I thought it would be funnier this way. Also thanks for helping come up with the ponified band names.
I have been waiting a while for this story to update. It was worth the wait!
I'm really glad to see that you're keeping up the writing on this! Honestly, excellent work.
I can feel for Octavia's ears. My first Dream Theater concert was Six Degrees at the Warfield in San Francisco, and my ears hurt and were ringing for the entire next day because they were SO loud. Clearly you've had some similar experience, because your concert description was spot-on.
Another sweet little character moment.
Seriously, Vinyl, how drunk were you when you wrote that letter?
IT BEGINS
7096071 I'll readily admit that I really like the "excessive number of post scripts" gag, and I have to fight the urge to use it every time someone writes a letter. It felt like the kind of thing that Vinyl would do, though, so I figured I could use it here.
D'awww.
This really is the Most Frustrating Thing.
Very nice. Now I'm curious about how the next chapter will go, based on the song title...
Sadly, this seems to be completely true to life.
7437166 No kidding. Some choice bits from the quoted music review were based directly off some of my "favorite" bits of writing from Pitchfork.
Well first, I think it's hilarious that the actual song starts off with a frenetic bass line. Very fitting.
I like how you handled an artist's dilemma with Vinyl. It ended up reminding me of a Porcupine Tree song called Piano Lessons, which is a personal take on the music industry, and very fitting to this chapter, especially this verse:
The album "reviews" were pretty well spot-on, as well. Reviews like that can tell you something important about the music, but often they seem to just tell you more about the person writing the review than anything else.
Anyway, nice work, again. I'm looking forward to the next few chapters.
7437762 "Piano Lessons" is a great song. Porcupine Tree in general is a very good band. I was actually just listening to Signify yesterday. Anyway, yeah, the whole concept of an artist's dilemma was definitely in the back of my mind while writing this chapter (and the fic as a whole, really, but this is probably the part where it's most obvious), so I'm glad that the idea came through.
You can thank Meta Four for the album review bits. I gave him a general idea of what ground it needed to cover, and let him spruce it up so it sounds more like an actual review than anything I could write.
Indeed, good one Tavia!
Perhaps Vinyl should ask Octavia that- it helps to know you're not the only one going through something.
Short & sweet.
I do wish that this story had more exposure. Hopefully I'm also speaking for others than just myself, but I'd like you to know that I appreciate your keeping up with this. It's a story with a lot of heart.
Old chapter, but still:
(I actually listened to this while reading It's A Dangerous Business etc. Oddly fitting.)
7666619 Thanks. I'm hoping to get to work on the next chapter soon. I would've gotten on it sooner, but I just started a new job, so I'm super tired and time is kinda tight.
7714587 Congrats on your new job!
Well, with any luck (and some rest) Vinyl can only go up from here.
And life goes on....
Isn't this where-
Nicely done.
And now, on to your adaptation of The Wall.
And I really enjoyed reading it. Excellent work. :)
looks like a c snuck in there.
This was very good.
Love these two.
7873956 Thanks.
Also of course there's a typo I missed.
A touching tale of friendship in trying times. Thank you for it.
7875608 You're welcome.
than recording
here I thought
A very lovely little story.
7946655 Of course there are typos. Thanks for pointing those out.
What do you call this chapter? One pound? One sharp? O.o
Boom, there it is. :)
A nice way to show a character changing. :D
7972218 It's a sharp. The explanation for exactly why it's there is a bit involved:
Thematically and structurally, this story is based on the Dream Theater album Octavarium, like it says on the description. That album is itself something of a concept album. It has each track, each of which is in a different key, going through the eight notes of a musical octave (hence the name of the album, and by extension, this story). However, those are only the whole notes of the scale; in an eight note octave, there are five half steps (e.g. the notes on a piano; eight white keys to five black). So on the album, at the places where those half steps (sharps or flats) would go, they had little musical segues between songs [If I remember right, the album starts out with F]. So those chapters are meant to mirror those; little transitional moments that are somewhat distinct from the main chapters. It also gave me a chance to get just a little of Vinyl's perspective in there.
Also, I'm glad the parallelism between the first and last chapters worked. I wanted to keep the album's "full circle" theme while still showing that the characters had made progress.
This story has a ton of heart, and it was a ton of fun to see the vulnerability of Vinyl's bragado against the stalwart octavia. Someone who is quick to fall in love with an idea means they will be more easily discouraged.
Friendshipping without melodrama, just two ponies getting comfortable with each other. The conversations that were hard to have earlier now come interspersed with talk of the groceries.
7974300 I have no idea what any of that meant...not even a little. But I love that Album so I'll have to give this fic a shot.
7994660 In that case, you might find this interesting.
I missed the last two chapters of this story when they were posted, so I just decided to re-read the whole thing; and I have to say, I really think this is one of the best stories for Vinyl Scratch and Octavia.
It's so simple and ordinary, no melodrama about a tragic upbringing, or falling in love, or changing their lifestyle, or some such; just a story with some slice of life views into their college/early career days and it works so well! You have some of those things but only minimally so they don't suffocate the story, I really like the pacing/storytelling in this, and overall it has really good writing.
8044444 I'm happy to hear you enjoyed it.