Speaking of Octavia Melody... Well, it’s a long story, how I discovered her. There had been pretty much an overture, before I saw Octavia and, if you’re asking, even before I learned her real nick.
Octavia and Derpy Hooves, who is definitely me, made (of course by today’s standards) a startup for a music periodical. It was called “Stuff”. Yeah, it’s kind of a lame, but not for that reason! As I remember, we were peacefully sitting with my other friend: Vinyl Scratch, drinking summer cider, and all at once decided to create our own magazine ‘bout obscure EDM artists. Mags that we had in Ponyville, were written by unexperienced and unfamiliar with things ponies. They were painful to read.
Bless the princess, Vinyl was an underground DJ and could agitate for buying “Stuff”. My role was to fill it with substance. First issue was a complete bootleg mess, and how could we print pages without device, you’re asking? One night I got into Ponyville’s typography, I had worked once, and did all the job. A sweet revenge and a greater shame.
Fortunately, our misery was shortly over. The day, when Vinyl played her usual sets, I had a nice talk with one music guru, originated from Fillydelphia. He shared his thoughts ‘bout publishing a musical digest, dedicated to modern underdogs. He was in urge to break an urban lust for synthwave, in his opinion too “hedonistic” and “dystopical”. Needle Drop was his name. I didn’t have a dictionary to understand all stuff and ideas, he shared, but then Vinyl heard him and positively nodded. We agreed to work with Needle. Which devious plan was in his mind, involving our small insignificant town and two local bums? Admitting he hadn’t seen a line from our magazine.
I kept this negative attitude by myself, because he aided greatly to our business. Up his tail Needle had ties with different ponies around Equestria. For a new inside, he wrote tons of letters to his counterparts. All info Needle gathered was enough to give more publications. We also distributed “Stuff” by mail, so I had to run every 30 minutes to a post-office, which reminded me of a job, I had dropped two months before.
Our “office” began to receive feedback and requests from the audience. The audience was mostly consisted of Needle's colleagues. Vinyl, as her part, was in response for making columns. It was too boring for her without regular DJ activity. She felt tired even before 11 pm, though previously her drive could uphold for the entire night session. At these moments Vinyl stupidly reeled on the chair, vibing on the wave of exhaustion.
This couldn’t last much longer. An incognito, signed himself as “Rave Vet”, sent us a review on the Florida Skyline’s album. We didn’t realise the non-ironical purpose of it and put the letter into trash. Bad-written and biased review was about a synthwave musician, so Needle was quiet nervous.
The incognito was only in his infancy. He continuously sent more and more scribbles, signed with different nicknames. “Squarepusher”, “Dead Mouse”, “Crystal Method”, “Ultravox”. Obviously that was HIM, writing again.
BUT situation changed, once I saw Vinyl Scratch, copying “Prodigy” text in her column. I said, this was really sick, and we decided to contact our hero. And did not tell anything to Needle. He was not really into paperwork, as he’d become more of a boss.
Mysterious critic was uncovered. Yeah, in such a way reviewer was Octavia Melody. Eventually, she replaced the sign with her forever nick. There were some doubts, but we tried to believe that “Octavia” was real.
Only matter is what do you want to mean, getting use to everything else. Do you believe in our names?
She improved her journalist skills, which were fastly grown into main attraction: “ecstatic agent” of “Stuff”.
Besides, Octavia began to write us (remote editors!) casual letters about her living. That was the time, when she didn't attend a conservatory and work on the book 'bout music theory. Tavi was a shy kid from a famous artistic family, which was touring between Trottingham and Manehattan.
They were all born to be ballet-dancers, if you don’t count Octavia herself. Theatrical scene was not for her. Despite she had decent appreciation of classical music and studied to play cello, Tavi was the dissonant electronic fan. It’s a well-known fact ‘bout baby’s adoration of a primitive club beat, but she was a different story.
I could not imagine, how had Octavia learned about “Stuff” and where did she acquire fresh issues of our magazine. Was it plundering? Or she just wrote on our address without actual checking? Every way seemed impossible.
So on, her curiosity was infectious and leaded to the finale. Needle disliked an article in the 35th installment of "Stuff", caused him to outrage on Vinyl. There was a quotation about electro swing, but he emphasized on Octavia’s words “...though the upscales would not accept bold sampling, this genre is just right for saving and reintroducing composers, which are mostly disappeared from public attention”. Surely, Needle was scared to question his taste. I just realized, why he anxiously despised retrowave.
I said, "Needle, I always and I mean always do the least favorable work. I was a loader, a fake applauder, even here I was a postmare, but now I want my hooves to be clean. Go away. It’s no longer!"
I feel that was a phrase, Octavia would say in my situation. You know, my language was not so articulate.
Needle was rather disappointed than furious. He was again on the road. Maybe he found another misfits to pitch his ideology or tried to cure his hypocrisy and make his opinion distinct from trends.
After all, “Stuff” was closed. It was only our decision and a greater loss, but we kept Octavia as a pen pal.
For the first time ever, we met each other three years ago. Vinyl was going to participate in a big music festival in Manehattan. I would also visit it, so we arranged a meet-up with Octavia.
It happened nearby library’s building. I recognized Tavi first, but she seemed to be a little worried.
Octavia didn’t see me. Maybe I looked silly. Maybe she didn’t want to look like that.
"Hey! It’s you, Octavia Melody! Is it true?"
Octavia Melody, in my honest opinion, is a real remarkable.
