1 - Guided by Music
Vinyl nodded her head to the music only she could hear. She wove through the thick crowds of Manehatten, narrowly fitting between a large mare and a skinny stallion as she just beat the light. Her anxious steps carried her forward, head bobbing. With every beat of the music vibrating through her headphones, it felt like the ponies around her were pressing closer to her.
She took another confident step, her eyes wandering behind her concealing glasses. They couldn't hear her music, and that was fine. She saw a little filly with clear glasses and braces on. She was sucking on some kind of big lollipop, a big smile on her face.
Vinyl left her behind. The music continued, reaching a gentle portion of the music as a flock of birds flew past overhead. Some kind of gulls? She didn't know birds that well, but they flew in a v formation, wings flapping to the beat of the music they couldn't hear, but she could. She nodded her head with each pulse, each beat. It was a good day.
There it was. A tall building made of stone and glass. It had windows going across in small portals until the last floor, the top being wholly glass that she could see from the bottom flow. Two beats past before Vinyl stepped up into the building, every hoof flashing with colors; colors only she imagined flaring with the music that beat between her ears.
A large male pony nodded to her, allowing her past. He said something, but it was lost to the music. Vinyl didn't care much. He was a bouncer, but she didn't need to sweat that. She strode past him without a word. She belonged. The secretary at the front desk smiled and said something else. Vinyl nodded towards her in sync with the thumping music.
The elevator doors closed, sealing off the view of the gaudy pictures that had hung all around the lobby. Vinyl pressed the penthouse button and the elevator began to move. She could feel the elevator thumping with the music, moving with it. She smiled, her hoof tapping along with the music.
The elevator stopped just as the music paused and some mare came in with a dopey smile. She began talking to Vinyl, perhaps excitedly. Vinyl didn't hear her. She just bobbed her head patiently, and the elevator began to move. The mare looked like she might have just gotten off work and hadn't bothered to change. She was dressed like an officeworker. She had that little pudge that reinforced the idea. She kept talking. She didn't notice, or care, that she wasn't being listened to.
The elevator came to a smooth halt at the penthouse. The mare said something and waved as she trotted of. Vinyl moved with the pace of her music, her entire body in tune with the music that formed a protective cocoon around her. She wasn't alone, not there. She could feel the true faithful, moving in tune to the songs in their hearts. She could also feel the deep thumping that came from the music that was playing outside of her. She couldn't hear that very well, but she could feel it.
She could feel when it beat in time with her own music. She could feel when it didn't. Her heart jumped unevenly, trying to match the two in a dizzying sensation. Vinyl only smiled more, making her way through the dark but strobing dance hall towards where the DJ, a slender stallion, was applying his skill to the two discs before him.
A mare tapped Vinyl on the shoulder as her head slammed in time to the external music, sweat flying free in wide streaks from her dreads with each movement. She made an upward motion before pumping her hoof.
Vinyl nodded to the motion and returned it before moving past, their communication done. She ascended the short stairs leading to the DJ's station. She could hear the outside music fading away. She knew they were introducing her. She could hear the roar, the cheer. The ponies were eager for her, hungry for her, starving for her music.
She was their chef, and she was ready to cook for them. Her smile brightening to its widest, she shared a hoofbump with the DJ she was replacing, passing him by. With her music being the only music, she could feel her senses coming into focus. Her music would be their music.
With a wave of a hoof and a sparkle of a horn, she hooked her headphones into the equipment and twirled two records, one on either hoof. She shouted at the crowd. They shouted back. She slammed down the vinyl discs that formed her stagename. Some stallion was screaming at her, only to be tackled by what appeared to be a friend, the two lost to the crowd.
Vinyl began to pull at the record on her left, making it play forward, then back. She reached with her magic, moving the one on the right. With a flick, she got a background beat going. The music began to play and she was as lost as any of the other ponies there. It was time for music. It was time for noise. The primal beat had them, thumping and controlling them, demanding that nothing else take precedence before it. She was its master. She was its slave.
The music stilled a moment. The crowd stilled. The expectation was electric, running through the stifling room. The shared breath of countless ponies made it stuffy, crowded, and cramped. Vinyl would have had it no other way. She pulled sharply, dropping the beat with a rapid step that brought about a cheer. She unleashed the animal, the beast, to roar and scream across the room.
No other noise mattered. Vinyl threw her head back, sending sweat flying just as she had seen with the mare earlier. It was a sensation she knew so well. She screamed, but the words meant little. They knew what she meant, and she knew them. She knew the music.
Time was a construct made by slow-moving ponies to organize their listless lives. She saw a rowdy pony, a goth-punk mare, get roughly ejected. She saw a stallion slump over at the bar, drinking too much. It was another day of dancing; of music. Vinyl saw many things, but she didn't see the tap coming.
She jumped and turned to the right. A mare with slicked hair was smiling at her. She said something. Vinyl didn't hear the words, but she knew what it meant. Her turn was over. She was done. Vinyl slowed the music to a stop. She reclaimed her discs and slipped them away. The music would be tended by another.
Vinyl stepped down from the stage, breathing heavily but regularly. She could still feel her music flowing through her. She felt a soft tapping. Was it the mare? No, a stallion, one she knew. That one owned the place. He reached for her headphones. She ducked back. She was not ready to leave the music.
The stallion looked annoyed, his moustached snout wrinkling a moment before he pulled out a pen and wrote something down before shoving the paper at Vinyl. She took it, nodded, to the beat of her music, and moved past him.
Perhaps she had won the contest.
She barely cared.
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And it never comes up till the end that there even *was* a contest... well played.
8717709
Priorities! Music first.
Can you just add 3 more words?
8717733
Just for you.
I think it went pretty darn good!
This was a fun read. I would love to see a longer sort of story written out in a similar manner but I do understand that is a difficult undertaking and would require a bit more practice making small stories like this one first. Keep up the good work.
This was a music-filled adventure from the very start. Without using dialog, you managed to get so much detail across in the story. It's just so amazing and I love it a lot. Really is a good story you've got here, sir and I look forward to seeing more from you.
Vinyl lives for her music I see. Now I wonder how her music and Octavia’s interact with each other when they are fully in sync on more then a wedding piece?
8717861
Hello and thank you! I haven't seen you on my stories before, but glad this one poked you in the right spot. I had fun writing this and will try to incorporate its lessons into other stories.
Not entirely sure what you're saying here. It's early here though and I might just be dumb.
This was definitely interesting to read.
...That's really all I can say about it. I'm no critic, I just point out obvious errors. Good job on this, though.
8718495
Rephrased for hopeful clarity, thanks for reading!
Incredible job in capturing the world Vinyl creates for herself, both the ecstatic highs and the sacrifices she makes in terms of connecting to the world most ponies inhabit. Great work!
I think you did a good job overall, though I also think that there's still room for improvement.
As a character, Vinyl lends herself to stream of consciousness-style writing, where you can have long sequences of her simply observing the world around her. In that regard, you did a good job of creating a narrative sequence that flows smoothly (though I felt that the word "music" was slightly overused; you could have switched it up with related terms like "rhythm," "melody," "bass," etc. more). Reading this felt very true to what we've seen of her in the "Music to My Ears" video.
However, this felt like only a small step forward in terms of your writing getting inside a character's head, rather than simply focusing on their actions. You do make sure to give Vinyl's inner feelings a voice, and do so very well in terms of having her feelings color the description of what's going on around her. Again, that makes for great narrative flow. But in terms of understanding why she does what she does, there's very little here. The sequence of "character witnesses/partakes in event; examination of how they feel about it; (optionally) examining why they feel that way/contextualization with their personality and circumstances; character reacts to it," isn't being fully explored in this story. We know what Vinyl is doing, and how she feels about what she's doing, but we don't know why she feels that way beyond the vague implication that she's getting a rush from it.
Again, I want to stress that this story, specifically, doesn't suffer from this particular omission. You've very cleverly crafted a narrative that's deliberately limited in scope and presentation, and so the absence of deeper characterization becomes a feature, rather than a bug (particularly given that Vinyl, as a character, has no past and very little personality within the context of the show anyway). The result is a story that very much has its own "voice" in terms of stylistic delivery, and it's stronger for that. But if your goal was to go further with presenting characterization in your writing, there's still more that (I think) needs to be done.
8718799
Curious phrasing on your part, since the idea was less character, more description. More scenery. More things happening around the people who may be communicating. More details on what's actually being done, where it's being done, and what being there is like.
8718740
Thank you kindly! I tried to use some of it in today's update.
8718978 I thought the idea was more description of the character(ization).
8719000
My stories tend to have a lot of--
He said a thing
She said a thing
He said a thing and crossed his arms.
She pouts and says a thing and maybe turns away.
Nothing happens around them, and they could be in a perfectly black room so far as it matters.
8719007
(Since you are looking for a critique, here goes . . .)
I have definitely read stories where I wished the main character would look around, but I don’t specifically remember feeling that in any of your stories. The last story I remember being that way had the main character going a bit loopy and they kept interacting with things in the environment out of nowhere.
This feels like a story about somebody looking around. Unfortunately, it’s as exciting as that sounds. The plot of the story isn’t particularly exciting, so we’re left with character development. Oops, not much there either, so, er, an exciting environment? Well, Vinyl isn’t really interested in her surroundings, and that indifference is conveyed to the reader. Some sort of bird, something said, I dunno. There is some excitement when she is playing, though the outside world seems to flicker by still as she focuses on her internal world. And then she loses interest again - import pony? meh.
If you are going to have the environment carry story, then the environment must be exciting. I think an example of what this could have been is the old Apple commercial where the main character travels around taking pictures and videos with an iPhone, and then goes back to their desktop and sets the whole thing to exciting music. In that case, the main character is excited about their environment, and uses music to accentuate that excitement.
Give it another try. Once more, with feeling!
8790413
Thanks for the detailed analysis! I appreciate it.
Great story. Fitting that a story involving Vinyl grooving to the beat like in the EQG short would lean heavily on descriptions of the surrounding more. Nicely done.