Only in the dead of night can I feel this.
This...
This poetic prison.
There is no night... no stars...
No floor... no walls...
No inside or outside or the dust in between.
There is only me, these glowing instrument panels, and a ribboning matrix of music samples.
I fumble between them, spinning in my chair, jotting down notes, hitting time stamps...
...and slowly, agonizingly threading together the pieces of a work of art from the inside out.
Not just any work of art... but one that I've delayed—that I've put off for nearly a decade.
This is the missing part of me. The bridge in between the blue and magenta. A platform so expansive and frightening that my only recourse was to leap from it when I was only halfway across.
Only now, while spanning it, one note and recording at a time, do I realize just how treacherous is the abyss that looms beneath. The mind-numbing horror of failure... of ennui... of disinterest and apathy and all the other detritus of an artist burnt to a crisp by her own passionate pursuits.
I'm most horrified when I linger... when I pause... when I stop to ponder on what I'm doing and why I've decided to do it so late.
So the only solution is to not stop. Ever. Instead, I keep going. I keep sampling. I keep mixing. Rolling myself through each disc. Dipping into the sonic archives of the past. Shaking hooves with Cyan... nuzzling her close... then dissecting her so that the entrails spell something magical across a desert floor.
And somewhere... at some point...
...a melody forms.
Bit by bit...
Ballad by ballad... ...
I am constructing a chorus of captured sounds.
Mutated and massacred as they may be, they make symphony through new sonic serenades. A half-note here... a stretched harmony there... a mix of auditory clutter in between... then bathed over with a vocal vaseline to make everything smooth, glossy to the ear canal.
And the colors...
Goddess Celestia...
The blue stretches, curves, rises and dips. I find myself painting a canvas against the black borders of DJ Capricorn's studio. I don't need a canvas. Cyan Sings voice is the canvas, constantly morphing, changing. I throw myself naked into this experiment, keeping everything natural, primal, simple. I constantly feel the urge to throw in electronic samples from outside the source material and each time I refuse.
All I implement is the sound of Cyan's voice—sometimes layered on top of itself—and the instrumental bits I've stolen from the various ballads. For a backbeat, I utilize samples of piano plonks and drum snares directly from the original album. But, for the most part, it's Cyan's voice dominating through and through, utilizing her high peaks and her bass exhales at key moments.
So far, the evolving tracks resemble an out-of-this-world acapella project, only with trippy electroswing elements thrown in between. But that's just me giving an elementary description. Each ensemble blends together like new age trance, rising and falling, morphing from one movement to another. I wonder if maybe I'm going a bit too far, but then I tell myself that there's plenty of opportunity for changes. If nothing else, I should be pursuing each impulse I have to experiment.
So I do just that, plunging deep into the sonic mirth, causing bigger splashes across the walls of liquid vibration around me. I find the colors blending, the noises turning more complex, the heartbeat spiking with each reoccurring playthrough. I must be doing something right... or something wrong. Perhaps that's just me being natural. When was the last time I was natural?
Cyan Sings...
... maybe it's funny... maybe it's sad...
... ...that when I mix your voice with my magenta mind... ...
... ... ...it almost comes out violet in the end?
And that's when I feel something that I haven't felt in weeks.
I feel like I'm home.
It nauseates me as much as it liberates me. I feel like I'm going to die doing this.
So I do it more.
Wow. The prose is strong with this chapter. And it's purple, too.
Love. Love love love love love.
THIS STORY!
This just gets better and better.
6777042 My name was not at the end of this comment. I am disappoint.
6777062 Aw, is Swanny jealous?
6777067
derpicdn.net/img/view/2012/7/15/44531.png
6777072 It's okay to be jealous, Swan. This story is almost as perfect as your eyes, after all.
6777082
i.imgur.com/j7P3gYq.png
6777092 Now, you might be wondering how I can say that when I've never had the unparalleled pleasure of looking into your eyes before.
Oh wow. Never thought I'd get hit this hard.
Octavia is Vinyl's completion.
6777082
6777092
I ship it.
6777100
i.imgur.com/Pns59Mo.png
6777121 Perish the thought! I'd never do anything so crass as to cross your threshold while you were asleep!
No, I know your eyes are beautiful because of the old adage that eyes are windows to the soul.
6777128
i.imgur.com/MR0StD6.png
6777140 Dammit, I try to be romantic, and end up being so sappy that the metaphor is totally lost. I tried to say that you have such a lovely personality that shines through what you say, but I tangle it up in dumb metaphors and...
I am worst romancer.
6777147
i.imgur.com/qe7XRhs.png
6777159 You don't have to pretend. I'm sorry that I suck so badly at flirting. I just...
It's my first time actually flirting with someone, and I only really know how to do it from dumb movies, and I always try to sound so smart because you're so smart and I don't want you to think I'm stupid.
6777166
6777159
you two are so cute,
remember king it is the thought that counts
6777191 Thank you,
Huh.
6777110 I think we all do. Lol.
6777166
i.imgur.com/ZvZxQGPh.jpg
6777219 Well, at least I got a smile out of you.
6777191 Swan King 5ever
This comment thread is adorable.
i really hope that music vinyl is making is actually being made. irl. i NEED to hear this music if youre going into so much deteail...
i never thought that i would ship two people from comments together...but yeah i do
6777072
6777062
ssssssssssoooooooooooooo whens the wedding?
You see what's happening here Skirts? We've been teased by your dailies for so long that spontaneous shipping is starting to break out in the comments.
Just a matter of the mix...
6777308 It was inevitable. The buildup of shipping tension across all of Skirts' stories has reached a singularity. The Shipping Singularity.
i love the plot to the story, but the thing that really keeps me coming back is the prose. I don't know how you do it Skirts, but your prose just enraptures me like none other.
You sure know how to captivate your audience and keep them on the edges of their seats, don't you? This was another wonderful chapter
6777110 Join the club and get in line, buddy.
:p took you two awhile but it makes me grin anyway ^-^
And at the moment the last song is finished, she dies. The end.
"It's art! Y'gotta suffer for yer art!" -- Craig Charles
Seriously, this is rapidly turning into a terminal purge/creative tsunami, isn't it? If I were Capricorn, I would want to make sure that Vinyl eats, sleeps, evacuates wastes and exercises enough not to suffer from muscle wastage!
6777671
I hope not but it would have a certain artistic completeness to it as a narrative. However, IMO, the ending will only come when the good doctor's efforts enable her to utter a few words to Octy.
6777128
6777072 fillys and gentlecolts, the most ADORABLE comment then ever, I SHIP IT LIKE FED EX
And I thank you
For bringing me here
For showing me home
For singing these tears
Finally I've found
That I belong here
*Moves in with Capricorn*
End...
6777147
6777159
I've actually gone over this ship's manifest and... All I'm seeing are crates loaded with Saccharin.
imgur.com/1Fdf9Anl.png
That sentence took a bit of a turn there.
If this is going where it looks like it's going, I hope that she clears up things with Capricorn before spending seven years as her roommate.
SwanKing 4eber, ScratchCorn 4eber.
Hahahah!
NIce work.