The Things Tavi Says

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Pretentious Things

Author's Note:

My least favorite thing about music is when the tracks end and switch. There's this immersive breaking gap in sound, a veritable sonic abyss, a savage break in color. It jars me awake, rattling my otherwise relaxed mind to the ever pulsing present.

Like right now, as the train clears the tunnel. My eardrums pop and settle, and I blink to see the intestines of a city unravel before me. The track lifts—as it only ever does in the dense urban zones of Equestria—and we're lifted over the eastern stretches of Sacramentoats. Suddenly, I see the arteries and veins of this place displayed before me beyond the translucent glass veil. It is not a concrete carcass—as many environmentalist ponies are desperate to prove. A city like this is very much alive, and as the next track beats its way into a tempestuous tempo, the beast regains its pulse, and its muscles ripple all around me.

I see streets like vessels, throbbing with traffic. Bustling hooftraffic blankets the sidewalks, bathes the courtyards. The Equestrian flag ripples atop every apartment and rooftop, and the green hum becomes more and more vibrant, laced with golds and browns and reds like a fireworks display—all in time to the music crackling through my headphones.

But I can't drown in this. Not quite yet. The gasp of the last switch is still tugging at me, pulling the air out of my lungs, filling my cabin with magenta hues, clouding denser and denser.

Why do I do this? Why do I take these long exhausting sojourns to cities that I know only by name, that only know me by a fake name?

DJ-P0N3: it's a name that means much to me, but just as much as a glove means to protect my hooves from blisters when I do lawnwork. I can never be Vinyl Scratch before my audiences. I can never be the mare who lives in Ponyville, who delights in violet mirth, who pines for orange contentment and simplicity.

Why do I remove myself from all of that? Why do I dive out of the bubble, seeking money and majesty from the wasteland on all sides of me? Why do I dip myself so dastardly into the tan surf, bobbing for harmony in the brackish malaise of space and emptiness, when all that I need, all that I care for, all that makes me feel joy and comfort is back at home?

Accomplishment is a very nebulous thing, and it's only real for as long as you can hold it. I try to think about the ecstatic faces on my raving fans. I try to think about how their eyes light up when they hear my latest mixes. And they will explode tonight... and the two nights after this. I know that.

I also know that I will be on top of the world—of the universe—when that moment hits, and I drop, and we all plummet, only to rise again on the sparkling crest of my talent. For a few blissful hours, I will be a siren. I will be the siren, singing a city's underground into delicious delirium.

And yet, even immersed in so much bliss, all I will ever do is forget... forget that I am alone out here... and somepony else is alone in another place. And she too will be pondering, longing, striving to make sense out of the strange islands we artists carve for ourselves, when all along the turquoise tsunami waits in repose, its pale eyelids about to flutter open, waiting to wake up and and drop the final curtain.

To truly appreciate life, you have to die several times, inside and out, with ghostly gasps of silence as the punctuation to your woeful inquisitions before the dull green haze of the world. The absurdity of it all isn't lost to me. I feel it like thorns in my side with each shake and rattle of the train.

But then, I look out, and I see this city, and I see it animated with color and with coats and with a hundred thousand choral voices just waiting to burst, all gold and glorious. And for a brief moment I remember—if only to pretend to know—that something remains dancing to the tunes that I've etched into this ever expansive canvas, and long after I've shuffled off into the turquoise sea, it will be shuffling to the same sequence I've set, and it will do so without me. And even if that's nothing more than a lonesome limp, it will have some semblance of purpose to it, and that's something worth smiling about... if even for a little while.

The track reaches a crescendo, and the music dies again. I gasp once more, but my body has the strength to withstand the magenta breath this time. And before I've given it a second thought, my headphones roll on to the next mix, and it's almost as if there was never cause to blink in the first place.

Could life be even simpler if it tried?

Comments

[GoG ToXiC]

You know, this whole story really gives me the vibes of the Factory of Dreams album Some Kind of Poetic Destruction.

Also, your writing style is inspirational. I swear that I'm going to keep writing, practicing, and experimenting until I can make my characters feel at least half as real as yours.

[RoboRed]

Wow...be a while since I've heard this song...and never before as a technomix.

I think I understand the purpose of the music video, though...machine and movement and process, like the ongoing city that Vinyl is currently headed towards. All the while, she (the "silent woman") thinks of another place and time.

In fact, it seems to be a recurring theme. Every time she heads to another place, one running to the same beat (sometimes briefly hers), she's thinking about her "love that found her".

Very appropriate. This was great chapter, prose, music, and all.

[Dustchu]

6336805 Hehehe, my brain sure does love to clock out all the time, piece of crap.

6336950 Eh, maybe, I still approve of it.

[Dustchu]

Man, I just can't get over how amazing this is told, how Vinyl thinks and acts, and her actions with how she sees life.
Its really fucking awesome.

Awesome job dude!

[Sam the Anti-Ninja]

Skirts, how do you do it? From what I can tell, your writing style involves drowning the audience in prose and then resuscitating them with a burst of action. It shouldn't work, but it does. What sorcery is this? To whom have you sold your soul for this talent?

[twilightfan28]

How do u do it man, i really like this fanfic series, im always here to find out bout the newest chaapter right en it releases, im addicted to this series, but how do u do it?

[TwilightUCrazy]

6338511

I have two theories. 1) Skirts is actually a bunch of gnomes in a human bodysuit who each write on a different story and get each other unstuck when the Block hits.

Or, 2) Ecstasy.

[AyanamiRei]

6351175 It all makes so much sense now!! Of COURSE this would have to be written by gnomes!! Only they with their tiny magical bodies, could write such wondrous literature!!

[BenRG]

I do think that Vinyl is suffering something of a existential/artistic crisis her. She's wondering if her career is going the right way and whether the downs are outweighed by the ups and worth the money.

[Ravemastaj]

6338511
It's called visuals. He drowns you in colors and shapes, warping them into a beautiful motion that careens into the abyss, taking you along for the ride.

Just like every hypnotic PMV you've ever watched, no?

[Charlemane]

6436781 it reads like poetry, in a sense.