Mirror-shades

by Owlor

Track 8.

Track 8.

I had forgotten just how friggin' LARGE the palace is. There must've been like a thousand ponies there. Possibly several. I was the one who was gonna kick off the dance party that finished the reception. It was gonna be the biggest party of the century, and the party queen herself, DJ Pon3, was going to be at the centre of it. I was hiding under the DJ table.

Then the changelings came, thank Celestia. I am never going to admit this to anyone, but for one dark moment, I was kinda praying for Chrysalis to win. A lifetime of wasting away in a cocoon at least meant I didn't have to worry about whether or not I could live up to ponies expectations. If Chrysalis won, at least we'd all have failed together...

I'm sorry for thinking like this.

---

“Hello” a voice said from above me.

“Please don't hurt me, I'll go willingly!” I exclaimed from my hiding place between the crates.

“Okay, but where are we going?” The voice sounded too kind-hearted to be a changeling. I dared to open my eyes and what looked back at me was a flurry of pink around a pair of kind pony eyes.

“D-d-did we win? What are you doing here?”

“Yup, and I'm here to fill in for a.... DJ Pon-three. Everypony is is looking for her. So, what are you doing here?” Of course, I was hiding in the last place anypony would look, that strategy never fails.

“Uhm... I AM DJ Pon3,” I told her.

“Yay, I found you!” The kind-eyed pony smiled. “So, why are you hiding?”

“This is gonna sound stupid,” I said. “But I'm scared of all my dreams coming true.”

The smile disappeared on the pink pony and she seemed to consider this thoroughly.

“You're right,” she concluded. “It DOES sound stupid. Why are you afraid of your dreams becoming true?” Damn this girl for asking all the right questions.

“All I really wanted was to play music ponies would like, but the crowd stated paying attention to me more than the music and I'm afraid of making them disappointed.”

“Oh, I know that feeling,” the pink pony said, and suddenly I had a long overdue realization.

“You're Pinkie Pie!” I exclaimed.

“Yup, nice to meet you!”

“B-b-b-but you're like the most famous party-pony in existence, everypony knows you! So... how do you manage it, the fame I mean?” Pinkie poked her chin and scratched her head at the same time.

“Well, my imaginary friends help me out sometimes, but mostly it's thanks to my real friends. If I can make them happy, it really doesn't matter to me what anypony else thinks.”

“I... don't think I have any friends.”

“You do now... ME!” Pinkie Pie said. “Let's get this part started, shall we?

---

Pinkie practically forced me up into limelight. All right, I had one moment, I could grasp it and let destiny guide me, or I could let it slip by. I made my choice, and my choice was...

I dropped the needle down, let happy dance-beats out into the atmosphere and made the crowd wild. This was exactly what they needed after having the wedding crashed by changeling, a proper old-school celebration. This was exactly what I needed.

The crowd screamed for more, and I was ready to give it to them. But the purple tint of the world was giving me problems. I couldn't see the knobs clearly behind my darkened sunglasses, funny how it never bothered me before...

For the first time in a very long time, I peeked over my mirror-shades and exposed my fiery eyes to the crowd.

THE END

Author's Note:

Honestly? As a amateur cartoonist, I can't imagine how anyone could ever think Vinyl's eyes where red. Character design 101: Keep a character's colour scheme consistent. That's why Clark Kent in Smallville are often dressed in red and blue, and why the Power Rangers wear their signature colours as civilian clothes. I think the red eyes where originally intended to give Vinyl revealing her eyes a little more oomph since it'd stand out, and then it just sorta turned into the de-facto standard. Fandom is weird like that.

Comments

[G-AB Acid]

Is whis a... whatchamacallit, that fanfic with a junkie DJ with identity disorders? Anyway, is this a fan ending to that?
Yes. Two Beats is the name. That one. Alright, this isn't a fan sequel, per se. But let see how this goes!

[Owlor]

2250421

Yup, it is. Less of a fan sequel and more of a "I needed a DJ to act opposite Vinyl, and they slotted in fairly well" I will never again use a gender-ambigious character in a third-person story. Not unless I somehow decide to write in a language that has a decent gender neutral third person pronoun.

[G-AB Acid]

When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed.

“Please hurt me, I'll go willingly!”

Kinky, Vinyl. Very kinky.

[...] eyes where red [...] eyes where originally

Were = I was; you were; he was | We were; you were; they were

Where = Where did I put that pen?

Strangely as it feels to read this chapter, the story is correctly tagged. Most of the fanfic is a sadfic, even if the sad parts are more subjective that one could find at first glance. Vinyl's fear, although only properly presented in the 7th Track, is constant throughout the whole story. You can feel it in-between the lines of text. And the best point of the fanfic on my opinion: her fear is also ours.

Subtle, but true nonetheless.

[Owlor]

2250649

I myself like the genre quite a bit, I admit; but I also admit that people nowadays are so trendy that they most likely are swallowing dubstep down just because it is something everyone else does. This isn't the point of your critique, though. It can mostly be expressed and infered in the sentence: "They lost their flavors" and that is exactly it!

It sems to me that dubstep started out as one thing and ended up as another. The early tracks were more atmospheric, and didn't have as much of the signature WUBWUBWUB-bass, rather they went forsome really sweet ultra-deep sine-waves, kinda like someone doing an electronic version of old-school Jamaican dub music, go figure.

Ultimately, I think the main theme of the story is less “Dubstep is good/bad” and more that the electronic dance music scene is quite neophilic, for better or for worse, and it can sometimes be hard to mentally keep up with the changes.

Kinky, Vinyl. Very kinky.

I'm almost tempted to leave that error in there, cus its pretty funny once discovered, but I'm changing it to its intended meaning...

Strangely as it feels to read this chapter, the story is correctly tagged. Most of the fanfic is a sadfic, even if the sad parts are more subjective that one could find at first glance. Vinyl's fear, although only properly presented in the 7th Track, is constant throughout the whole story.

Good, because I had a lot o trouble with how to tag the story. For once, it isn't really a slice of life, altough my tendency for that is still there, it's a bit too upbeat for a Tragedy, I love my bittersweet endings.

And Dark is is usually... well, I asked plenty of people how they'd define dark to get a sense of where peoples head is at. And the usual idea is that dark is about the characters doing bad things or else about things that make people uncomfortable. My own definition is that Dark is the type of story that rubs your face in just how insignificant we are in the long run, but neither definition really fits this story.

In the end I chose to go with sad, because it is the dominating emotion, and also because the story, at least in my mind, has more to do with a mental state than the actions. If you get right down to it, the story is about Vinyl becoming successful and having her dreams come true, and if success would automatically mean happiness, the world would be a somewhat easier place to live in...

If I can generalize to a MASSIVE degree I think it is that Americans prefer to have a clear dividing line between porn and regular art, while European art tend to treats sexuality as just another aspect of life, as it should be.

Oh, I definently agree. To me, a lot of the prudishness you'll see for “Moral Majority”-style groups seems to me like a kink in and of itself, like they have to treat sex as something forbidden and sinful, or else they don't get off on it.

What is it about my fanfics lately and getting very split ratings? Have people started to do it intentionally cus I mentioned I was amused whenever a fanfic got equal numbers of likes and dislikes?

I guess my approach might just be kinda “love it or hate it” by design, but I'd lie if I said I wasn't a little bitter about the fact that it prolly sabotages my chances at being read, and that from people who don't even have the decency to tell me what their problem with it is.

[G-AB Acid]

2254212 I guess that, since you think before you speak and your comments are somewhat acidic when you want them to be, you got yourself some lices. The kind of people that follow you around just to downvote everything you wrote. I think that we both know one of those people... Check your other fanfics to see if there are any downvotes in there.

Alas, that isn't clearly rule-breaking. For if they hate you (or started hating you), they'll most likely [blindly] hate what you write. And the downvote is clearly labeled "I disliked it."
This is another reason for me laughing at Sorren's face some other week. Basically, someone wrote a story she liked. Well I didn't. And the dislike button isn't meant for stories that are good. They are made for the subjective-me to place my call whereupon I wish.

[Owlor]

2313205
Then you should prolly not read any of my OTHER Vinyl fics...

Okay, S1lenc3 is sex and drug-free, but I've played around with her characterization a bit, cus I've had a hard time finding a character for her that I'm completely happy with.

Some interpetation have been darker than others, but for some reason, Vinyl keeps getting a raw deal in my stories.

I've often joked about writing a story called "Nothing bad happens to Vinyl Schratch" as karmic balance. One of these days...