On the heels of discovering her cutie mark, Vinyl Scratch finds herself alone in a snowy park with no music. Searching around for something to entertain herself, she finds a most unusual sight: a filly about her age, playing music far removed from her preferred tunes.
It doesn't take long for Vinyl to form an unflattering opinion of this snobby filly. Culture clashes will do that. Yet perhaps there's more to her music, and her, than meets the eye. All that's needed is some common ground.
Nopony said the ground had to be solid earth.
This story was written as a gift for Greatazuredragon as a part of Jinglemas 2021. Happy Hearth's Warming!
Thanks to hawthornbunny for prereading.
Featured on Equestria Daily, December 28th 2022.
Chapters (1)
This was truly adorable!
Absolutely loved how you developed this and the characterization for both Vinyl and Octavia.
Thanks for the amazing jinglemass gift.
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Aw, glad you liked it!
Well, characterisation is king, and I did have trepidation about how readers, and especially you, might find my early take on the two as fillies. What with their personalities resembling their adult selves, but not quite there. So chuffed that worked wonders for you!
And no, thank you! The best part of writing a Jinglemas story is when the recipient truly loves it.
Plaudits for how you were able to maintain Vinyl's muteness without it ever coming across as an obstacle -- both in regard to the characters and in regard to the storytelling. Even when Vinyl is the POV character, that's difficult to maintain.
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I'm so chuffed to hear that, because that was my biggest "how will readers take this?" concern. Less so the execution, and more the mere concept of her not speaking. Though nailing the execution is still most of the battle.
I used many techniques for that purpose – Vinyl spends nearly half the story alone, and the reader is ideally immersed by the time Vinyl first gestures, so it doesn't break the immersion. And the action therein was constructed to keep each of the 6-10 times Vinyl makes a gesture (the range accounts for moments where even a speaking person might have gestured too) so clear that neither Octavia nor the reader would be confused. Largely by Octavia's preceding questions/statements being simple and broad, and Vinyl asking something she'd already thought of, so the reader is clued in. And so forth.
It certainly is unusual that I left it vague whether she's mute or just not speaking, like the show, but it keeps the story stronger, by not making it "about" Vinyl not speaking. Maybe she's actually mute, maybe she's just deciding not to speak, maybe she is speaking but that isn't shown to the reader/viewer (kind of like how characters in musicals often aren't "actually" singing, it's just a storytelling device). All in the eye of the beholder – hopefully, I've done my job and executed it unobtrusively enough as a background detail.
Thank you for the plaudits! Obviously, I totally understand why Vinyl not speaking/being mute is a rarity in fanfiction, it's very hard to have that in a written form without it becoming a story/prose obstacle. So I would probably not attempt it for a longer fic. Achievement enough to have succeeded even in just over 5,000 words!
That was a good story.
Thank You! That was lovely!