"A Puppet To Her Fame
" Is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Dark Fic written by Kaidan. The story follows Octavia as she deals with her Abusive Parents, and a strange unseen puppeteer who seems obsessed with making her play music. The only light in her life is Vinyl, a party girl who wants to save her from her terrible life.
A Puppet to Her Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Octavia's parents, and how. It's apparently hereditary, because when Octavia's father was a child, his father forced him to kill his pet dog. Celestia only knows how screwed up the rest of the family is...
- Arc Symbol: Bow ties and hooks.
- And I Must Scream: Octavia's life with her parents, as they treat her with such disdain and go as far as to treat her like an animal. Even when she tries to escape with Vinyl, her family's rich connections allow them to get her back, as seen in Act II. There's also her fate in the end...
- Anti-Villain: Despite its actions, "The Puppeteer" is an un-sentient being who is doing its job. It also looks a million times better when compared to Octavia's parents.
- Ax-Crazy: Octavia's mother is a deranged Sadist who loves to inflict pain upon her own daughter.
- "The Puppeteer". Despite its non-sentience, the creature doesn't hesitate to rip anyone who might hinder Octavia's music career to shreds.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Ultimately, "The Puppeteer" successfully completes its mission to make Octavia a famous musician, completely ruining her life in the process.
- Black-and-White Morality: "The Puppeteer" has this view of ponies who try to stop Octavia from performing. It started off as a good thing, as it hated Octavia's parents and wanted to help her. However, after butchering them, it shows that Vinyl is just another obstacle that needs to be slaughtered due to her desire to help Octavia drop the music career, and threatens to kill her too if Octavia doesn't start composing music. When the poor mare tries to fight it, it takes control over her for the rest of her life.
- Berserker Tears: Octy suffers these when opening up to Vinyl about the abuse she endures and when she finally murders her parents.
- Big Bad: Despite its initial benevolence, "The Puppeteer" is the true antagonist of this story.
- Big Bad Wannabe: As monsterous as they were, Octavia's parents are nothing compared to "The Puppeteer". They learn this the hard way, when the creature rips them to shreds.
- Broken Bird: Octavia, ever so much, to the point where in Act III she attempts to justify she is at fault for her parents not loving her.
- Chocolate Baby: Octavia is born an earth pony even though both of her parents are unicorns, despite the odds of such a thing happening being 1 in 10,000. They spend her whole life beating her into the mud for this.
- Deal with the Devil: What Octavia's parents presumably did with the "Puppeteer", in order to imprint her with a music-related cutie mark against her will, thus enslaving her to the constant compulsion to make great music, but at the cost of violating the Equestrian universe's law that cutie marks should be earned by self-discovery. But when they had enough of her insubordination and attempt to kill her with a shock collar, thus threatening her legacy as the world's greatest musician, the Puppeteer arrives and collects its due by ripping them apart with meat hooks Hellraiser-style.
- Downer Ending: Despite ending her suffering by her parents, Octavia is taken control by the Puppeteer, resulting in Vinyl leaving her due to her believing that she cares more about the music than their love.
- Eldritch Abomination: "The Puppeteer" as Octavia calls it. She can't see it but she always sees the puppet strings and hooks.
- Fantastic Racism: Octavia's unicorn parents have the mentality that earth ponies are nothing but farmers and dim witted, and constantly remind her that she is a "mud pony". Especially her mother.
- Foregone Conclusion: Considering the first lines of the story are of Octavia talking about how Vinyl left her and that her parents are dead, it's pretty known how this fic goes..
- Jerkass: Octavia's parents. They treat her like garbage and like an animal (literally in Act II and III) and don't care for her well being, all except that she just makes music. And even then, they still treat her horribly. Her father goes as far as to say he loved a dog he had to kill more than her and her mother has shown nothing but sociopathic levels of beating and harming her, both mentally and physically.
- Kick The Son Of A Bitch: A glorious part of both Act II and III where Octavia gets help from the Puppeteer to fight off her mother after she's again run off with Vinyl and especially in Act III where it rips apart her parents.
- In Medias Res: The story begins with Octavia already composing the last song while in her room. The same room where she killed her parents.
- Nice Girl:
- Despite some initial awkwardness due to poor socializing, Octavia is a very sweet mare.
- Vinyl is a bit of a trouble-maker, but her interactions with Octavia show nothing but a kind and compassionate pony.
- Offing the Offspring: Octavia's mother has begged her father countless times to kill her. The only reason he hasn't is because he doesn't want his own father to be right that he shouldn't have married his wife and had a child with her. Since they can't kill her, they settle for treating her like an animal instead.
- Riddle for the Ages: Who and what is the Puppeteer? Where did it come from? Why does it help Octavia? Why does it want her to perform and play music? The only possible clue is that it might have something to do with the unusual circumstances in which her cutie mark appeared; instead of getting it because she was doing something she loved and was good at, it appeared from her parents forcing her to learn music for hours a day, so much that it became her only skill.
- Sex for Solace: Act II has this where Vinyl has Octavia finally open up about the abuse she endures, and the two make love.
- There's No Kill like Overkill: The fate of Octavia's parents.
- Treated Worse than the Pet: Octavia's father tells her a story about how his own father forced him to kill his childhood dog, and makes a point of telling her that he loved that dog much more than he loves her.
