Scratch in the Record

by tencentpartycannon

Part 3: Transposition

Scratch in the Record Part 3: Transposition

Of course... Octavia thought as she looked into the computer room to see her marefriend slaving over the computer. Octavia had developed a nasty habit of waking up in the darkest hours of the morning for the sole purpose of having the house to herself. Even if it was only for a couple of hours every day, the longer she could go without hearing Vinyl's "music," the more bearable the morning was when it did gain momentum.

It only seemed fitting that Vinyl had woken up this early to write; with this "no restrictions" on her next LP, Vinyl must be spending ungodly amounts of time on it. Even now, her head hypnotically bobbling to the odd rhythm of her music, Octavia could see the determination and concentration in her marefriend's demeanor; her eyes were glazed over, fully engrossed in the software screen, editing parameter... after parameter... after parameter....

It almost inspired Octavia. But her calling was the symphony, and the rich sound it caused. It's rich history and amazing composers were far more interesting than the main producers in electronic music, who probably made most of their music for the sole purpose of the money. Even though Octavia knew this was not Vinyl's intent at all, she did wish Vinyl picked up a real instrument and learned it, instead of the computer's programmed sound.

"Hey... Vinyl..." Octavia said, realizing how fruitless trying to get Vinyl's attention would be as soon as the words left her mouth. Vinyl had her noise-cancelling headphones in, and was blasting her breakbeats so loud Octavia could hear them. Seeing no use in staying up when Vinyl was within twenty feet of her, Octavia decided to simply go back upstairs and get more rest.

What she neglected to notice, unsurprisingly so in the pitch dark, was the 10 digits on her table and the phone off the dock.

---

"Wow, 'Gio, you... you don't look too hot."

"It's just sleepiness, Vinyl," Arpeggio responded assuringly. "I'll be fine."

Arpeggio had decided to join Vinyl on the walk to work again, although this time it was much less interesting; "Monday morning" interesting in Canterlot was far different than "Sunday evening" interesting. It was far harder to have a casual conversation with someone when you're surrounded by frantic ponies on their daily commute to work.

Vinyl knew Arpeggio was bullshitting her; she had woken up many times not fully "woken up," and they were nothing like this. But she held her tongue; she didn't want to get into an argument with the person that gave her a paycheck every month.

"So what are you gonna do today?" Arpeggio inquired. Vinyl considered this question thoroughly; usually, Arpeggio gave her interns to show the ropes to, but with the recent news, there was no use in hiring interns, and therefore no job for Vinyl.

"That's a great question, 'Gio." Vinyl chuckled. "What do you want me to do?"

Arpeggio over at Vinyl, sipping from his coffee and rubbing his eyes. "How about you work on your album? I don't care how you do it, but your last LP is going to be the last BIG thing this company produces, and I want to go out with a bang. So that's what you can do during your day now."

Vinyl was pleasantly surprised by this; work was usually pretty monotonous and dull, with the only variation between one lesson and the next being the rookies' questions. But to have complete control over her day, and do whatever she wanted... well, it was a pleasant position, to say the least.

---

"Oh dear sweet Celestia, those fucking violinists..." Octavia said that afternoon, on her lunch break with her fellow cellists, Vas and Eli. "I hear enough sour notes with Vinyl's electronica, I don't need to hear it at rehearsal, you know?"

Eli sighed. "Listen, Octavia... not to invade your personal business, but you've been talking about Vinyl these days in a... continually less flattering light. What's going on with you two?"

Octavia was taken aback. "What do you mean 'what's going on?'" All couples have their quarrels occasionally, right?"

"Yeah, they do." Eli said, finding it increasingly harder to maintain eye contact with Octavia. "Amati and I still butt heads about certain things. But-"

"What he's trying to say is that you trash her to pieces whenever you talk about her!" Vas suddenly stated in a hushed yet forceful tone. "I've never seen a couple with this much animosity between them! So I guess the question stands; what's up?"

Octavia was cornered; her friends were going to find out about it, so they might as well hear it from the most reliable source.

"It's just... the sense of intimacy is gone. It's like, we're not a couple anymore in the traditional sense, we just live together and share responsibilities. Those little pet names are gone; She's not 'DJ-PON3' anymore and I'm not her 'Tavi' anymore. Things like that, the simple things that reinforced a sense of wellness in our relationship, are absent now, and I don't know who to blame."

Eli and Vas looked at each other, and they immediately knew they were thinking the same thing. Eli spoke up. "Do you think that the reason Vinyl isn't paying much attention to you now is because she has... well... someone else?"

"Oh Celestia, no!" Octavia said unconvicingly. "I mean, who else would take her?"

"His point does hold ground, though, Octavia." Vas said, recieving the check from the waiter and pulling out her share of bits to pay. "That would explain the lack of intimacy recently."

Octavia sighed. "Do you really think that notion hasn't gone through my head a million times by now, Vas? I've tried justifying it with other means, but it really all boils down to that when I use logical deduction."

The three stood up from the table, wiping off the crumbs from their bodies. In the Sunday afternoon sun-glow, though, the urge to talk was not there anymore. The cellists' minds were on the practice material for their upcoming concert, and not the relationship problems of one dysfunctional mare.

---

"You sure you want to stay late tonight, Vinyl?" Arpeggio said as he locked his office door that evening. It was around eight o'clock, and Vinyl had been writing dilligently; she had used up the first fourth of her notebook for one song that, according to Vinyl, was not even good enough to put on the album.

"Yeah, 'Gio, I just need to wrap up this one... part..." Vinyl muttered, her concentration obviously in a completely different place.

"Vinyl, remember how Octavia reacts to your late nights?" Arpeggio said, only thinking of what was best for his coworker. Vinyl didn't seem to hear him, having reapplied the soundproof headphones and gone back to toying with the software and scrolling through plugins.

---

It was nine o'clock when Octavia entered her dark, empty residence. She could tell Vinyl wasn't home when the computer was idle and the house was not filled with glitchy sounds. Octavia reached for the light, illuminating the living room and all its contents. She laid her cello bow down on the TV and simply laid down on the couch. It's warm softness was all Octavia needed at that moment as she took in the conversation she had over lunch. Was it really possible that Vinyl was... that type of mare? Did Vinyl really care so little about Octavia that she would just shack up with the next pony she saw?

The possibility was always so foreign to her, no matter how many times it presented itself as a possibility. Vinyl had always said she detested the club scene that she fed her music to, but was it really possible that she was just another one of those raving idiots, putting Celestia-knows-what into her drinks and living in a fantasy world on that nightclub floor?

Octavia decided to run from that possibility by flooding her mind with her cello's warm tones, not allowing herself time to think through the thick resonant sound. She reached for her bow, but her hand met something different, something foreign that Octavia didn't notice there.

She brought it up to her face. It was a small piece of paper, with ten digits and the name "Zimmer" imprinted on it in sloppy, rushed hoofwriting.

Comments

[EquesTRON]

This looks interesting, and I shall be watching to see where it goes.

However, if I might make a couple of suggestions?

* You might want to spend some time thinking up some proper "pony"-style names for your characters. Names like Eli, Vas, Gio, Zimmer, etc. really don't "fit" the My Little Pony universe, IMO; ponies always have names that are descriptive of them in some fashion ("Pinkie", "Rainbow Dash", "Luna"), or at least derived from something about them (i.e. "Cheerilee" is a cheerful cherry-colored mare; "Octavia" is derived from the musical term octave, and so on). The only pony I can think of off the top of my head that breaks this pattern is Cadance -- although even then, that works its way back to something descriptive of her if you translate her full name, Mi Amore Cadenza, from the Italian (although it does take a few steps to get from here to there.) It's a small detail, admittedly, but it's one that just makes things seem a bit off-kilter. A thesaurus can help here; find a word which describes the character in some way (their color, personality, special talent, etc.), find a synonym for it, then play with adding or changing a vowel or syllable at the end until you get something that sounds good. I'm pretty sure that's what the show's writers do.

* We really don't get a very good description of any of the characters. After three chapters, for example, I still don't have any real idea of what Gio looks like, or even what kind of pony he is. This isn't so much a big deal for bit characters like the two fellow symphonists Octavia's talking to at the beginning of this chapter (assuming they won't become continuing characters important to the storyline in future chapters), but a main character like Gio, who's been a constant presence through three chapters now, really deserves some decent description. Even Zimmer isn't very well described, other than "a young mare who couldn't have been more than about twenty", despite the fact that she's clearly going to become a major player through the story as it progresses. What kind of mare? Earth pony? Unicorn? What color was she? What was she wearing? What kind of cutie mark did she have? Filling out these details makes the world and characters seem more "real."

Even just adding a couple of details to the bit characters, like adding a mention of Vas fluttering her wings in agitation when she speaks (which would let the reader picture her as a pegasus, and give them a clue to her personality and mannerisms), gives them a bit more presence and makes them seem like real people (er, ponies) whom Octavia actually knows and is having a real conversation with, instead of just cardboard cutouts.

* You might want to find a good proofreader; I've spotted numerous typos where you used one word where you meant a different word, as well as occasional confusion between "it's" and "its." Remember, just because it passes spellcheck doesn't mean anything. The computer has no idea of context, so it only knows whether the word it's looking at is a word; it has no idea whether or not it's the right word! For example:

What she regretted to notice, unsurprisingly so in the pitch dark

I'm pretty sure you meant "neglected", since you're saying Octavia didn't see the note. "Regret" is an emotion; she can't feel regret over something she didn't see!

"What he's trying to say is that you trash her to pieces whenever you talk about her!" Vas suddenly said, silently yet forcefully.

You can't say things "silently" to another person, forcefully or otherwise. You can only "say silently" ("chuckle silently", "groan silently", etc.) to yourself, mentally, as part of your own thoughts; if anyone else around you can hear it, then it isn't silent by definition. I'm not really sure what you meant here, but I'm quite sure "silently yet forcefully" isn't it.

On the other hand, you do seem to have a good handle on not using 's to pluralize words, and mostly remember to hyphenate your compound adjectives, which are two of the biggest teeth-grinding errors I see in fanfic, so kudos to you for that.

[tencentpartycannon]

2714951 thanks a lot, man! I really do appreciate you voicing your concerns, and I will make sure to address them later on in the story!
I will admit, sometimes being tired will impact my diction and grammar negatively
However, I would like to justify some of the name choices, as they are all music related (although many are subliminally so).
I'm not saying that this makes them automatically more pony related, but it may provide clarity for some of them, that don't immediately click:

Gio =Arpeggio
Zimmer = Joel Zimmerman (AKA deadmau5, who I strongly admire as a musician)
Eli = plural for cello (Celli)
(I did Eli because "Elli" didn't sound right, pony or non-pony).
And... no justification for Vas but I hope you understand a bit better now. And I will take your suggestions into strong consideration when I write next . Thanks a lot, my friend!

[EquesTRON]

2715245
Gio =Arpeggio
You could always just call him "Arpeggio" to start with; it's as good a pony name as any. ("'Gio" could be a shortened nickname, the same way Vinyl Scratch is just called "Vinyl", or Rainbow Dash is often just called "Rainbow" or "Dash". If you decide to use that idea, be sure to put in the leading apostriophe, i.e. 'Gio, to indicate that it's a nickname, and only use the shortened form in dialogue; text descriptions should always use the full name.)

Zimmer = Joel Zimmerman (AKA deadmau5, who I strongly admire as a musician)
No idea who that is, I'm afraid. Techno-electronica really isn't my thing. A glance at his discography on Wikipedia shows a couple of tracks of his that would make good pony names, though. "Strobe"? "Dark Beat"?

Eli = plural for cello (Celli)
(I did Eli because "Elli" didn't sound right, pony or non-pony).
Pizzicato? Spiccato? Flautando? All of which are playing styles for cello. For a female, "Glissandia." (Or "Symphonia", too.)

Believe me, the (non-pony) stories I've written and had published elsewhere have had in-jokes and homages salted through them all the time. It's just a matter of being creative and stepping one or two degrees of separation away from the obvious ones!

(Oh, and I see that you dropped by my page and favorited "About Last Night: A Deleted Scene." Glad you enjoyed it! Actually, come to think of it, the first few paragraphs illustrate nicely what I meant about fleshing out the bit characters. Moonwatcher and Colonel Butterscotch have no significance to the plot as such, but by giving them names, mannerisms, a bit of description, and a couple of "character bits" as they interact with Twilight and Applejack (such as the Colonel playfully teleporting candy into their mouths, like he used to do when Twilight was a young filly), they become more than just "the two guards outside Celestia's door"; they become "real ponies" with personalities and history, giving the reader a sense that they continue to "exist" even when the camera isn't on them, as it were.)

[tencentpartycannon]

2715573 I thank you for the insights into my character and plot "flaws": it means you truly care about where the story goes, and that's really reassuring
.

[EquesTRON]

2716589

That's true! I sometimes get downvoted for that sort of thing by other people who just drive by the comments pages, see what looks like a huge long list of criticisms, and think "geez, this guy's a picky SOB, doesn't he ever shut up?" But yeah, I generally only go into "hardcore proofreader" mode if the story itself hooks my interest enough to want to get involved, so thanks for taking it in the spirit it was intended.

(Nah, you ain't picky, sugarcube. You're pedantic.)
(That's your new favorite word, isn't it.)
(Hey, you taught it to me. Deal with it.)

(Dang ponies always getting into my keyboard...) Anyway, there really aren't any flaws in the plot; the idea of Vinyl and Octavia having some rough sledding in their relationship is a good one, and Vinyl being tempted by another mare who seems so much more compatible with her interests and lifestyle while, at the same time, dealing with the imminent collapse of the record label, looks like it has plenty of room for drama. And to a certain extent, I'll admit that my criticisms are partly a result of my own preferred writing style; I like to "world-build" and flesh out scenes with details, get into the characters' heads, and so on. And giving even the "bit characters" a little distinctive individuality can sometimes spark ideas of their own -- I mean, look what it did for Derpy Hooves!

(I thought they said my name had to be "Ditzy Doo" now?)
(Hey, you'll always be "Derpy Hooves" to us, no matter what some nervous Hasbro bean-counter says.)
(...I like beans! I didn't know you had to count them, though!)
(*sigh* Say goodnight, Derpy.)
(Goodnight, Derpy!)

[tencentpartycannon]

2716669

"the idea of Vinyl and Octavia having some rough sledding in their relationship..."

I'm writing some things into the story that will make it a bit more than rough sledding. Things will get so bad for them. I won't tell exactly to what extent, but things get VERY bad.