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All The Way Down
“Front your half of the mortgage?” Octavia’s stare was flatter than the half-eaten toaster strudel leaking molten filling onto Vinyl’s plate. “Again?”
“I know, I know,” Vinyl said quickly. “But if you think about it more as an investment—”
“This would be the third time in a year, and the second because of a run-in with the law.” Octavia blew into her tea, raising a cloud of hot steam that may as well have been coming from her ears. Though her tone remained even, her words were thick with implication: “It’s enough to make a mare question her wisdom in choosing somepony to live with.”
Vinyl winced. Her mouth went even drier, and her heart thudded. She glanced at the faded wallpaper of their shared eat-in kitchen by way of taking a moment to think. “Tavi, please, I didn’t mean to get the cops called out. I just wanted to make it a bash to remember.”
She could tell by the tightening around Octavia’s eyes that it was a poor choice of words. “...Which, I mean, it was,” she said, running a hoof through her mussed morning mane in the vain hope that it might help warm up her brain. “And it’s not like I meant to leave you out of a totally lit house party, either. I just thought you’d rather I do them when you’re out playing a show.”
Octavia shook her head slowly. “What I ‘prefer’ is to not have law enforcement break our door down in the middle of the night, regardless of whether I’m present or not!”
“Alright, I get that—”
“Clearly you do not.” Octavia rose on three legs, lifting her teacup off its ornate saucer with the fourth. She managed to cut a stern figure despite the soft pink robe and hind-hoof slippers that she customarily wore in the early morning. “No, Vinyl; as much as it pains me to see you suffer, I fear I must leave you to deal with this mess on your own. I will expect your half of the mortgage payment on time, and I shall—” her voice hitched for a moment “—seek legal redress if you cannot produce it.”
Octavia turned and trotted from the room. Vinyl’s gaze followed her swaying tail down the hall, at least until Octavia passed the boarded-up space where their front door had recently been. Sighing, Vinyl glanced back at the table, and regarded the crisp, calligraphied piece of paper she’d been served by the police two nights previous. As hunger and uncertainty gnawed at her gut, her eyes drifted toward the uneaten plate of eggs and haybacon that Octavia had left behind.
Her mouth opened automatically amid the urge to ask if Octavia was going to eat it, but she stopped, fearing that she was already in hot enough water.
As if on cue, the shower kicked on. Vinyl groaned; she knew from experience that if Octavia was hard to talk with before getting ready to head out for her day, she’d be impossible to talk with afterward. The mare’s morning routine was ironclad, except when she was mad enough to speed things up and get out of the house faster.
“I am boned,” Vinyl said, blowing out a sigh. “Where am I supposed to come up with four hundred bits by next Tuesday?”
A throat cleared behind her, causing her to jump with surprise, turn, and knock the table several hoof-lengths back.
“Careful,” said the Draconequus inexplicably standing before her, leaning against one of the cabinets. “I wouldn’t want you to—” He flinched, and then Vinyl did as well, at the sound of a dish breaking. Vinyl turned back and gaped at the spot where Octavia’s saucer should be. Then she bent down and blanched at the site of its finely detailed shards strewn across the white-tiled floor.
“I’m dead,” she breathed. Then she remembered the fine. “I’m double dead.”
Discord’s head snaked down into her field of vision. The monocle and top hat adorning it barely registered. “I’ve seen death on the scale of galaxies, my dear; unless I miss my guess, you’re only just a quarter of the way to yours.”
Vinyl’s jaw worked open, but she couldn’t rub enough brain cells together to come up with a reply. Instead, she plopped her rump down on the floor, lit her horn, and started trying to gather up the little pieces of ceramic—even the dust, as best as she could find it.
Then it finally caught up with her that Discord had entered her home. She turned her eyes toward him, and blinked at the frilly black-and-white maid outfit he was wearing.
“Too much?” he asked.
“W… what?”
“Too much.” Discord snapped his claw, and in a flash, he was back to normal. Or what passed for normal with his mismatched menagerie of features. “Let me help with that, too.” He snapped his claw again, and Vinyl felt a sudden void in her magical grip. She turned her head to regard a miniature statuette of Discord fashioned from the saucer’s remains, and gawped at the tiny teacup raised to the statuette’s mouth with its paw, as well as its accompanying upraised pinkie-claw.
“So I was passing through dimensions and couldn’t help but overhear that the other night’s soirée caused a little trouble in paradise.” He eyed the cabinets and wallpaper, then made a nondescript grumble. “Or… whatever you’ve got going on here.”
Vinyl blushed. “Ah… yeah. You heard about the party getting shut down?”
“I was here when it happened!” He gave her a lopsided, fangy grin. “It was ‘dope AF,’ as the foals say. Don’t you remember the part where I sent miniature glowing pigs flying through the place?”
“Uhhh, I’ll be honest, I thought I was trippin’ for that.”
Discord tsked and waggled a claw-finger at her. “You young creative types, always looking for new ways to blow the roof off a party. Stick around a few centuries, and you’ll figure out that nothing blows the roof off like actually blowing the roof off.”
The words washed over Vinyl as she tried to recall if she’d seen him at the party. But eventually she shook her head and centered on the peculiarity of Discord being in her house at all. “Okay, so, like… what are you doing back here, then? I’m, ah… kinda not great here.”
“I know. But part of what Fluttershy’s shown me about friendship is the need to reach out to others who are going through hard times.” He coughed, and kicked at the tile. “Especially on the off-chance that we might have… accidentally… contributed to those hard times.”
Vinyl blinked, making the mental leap. “Are you saying you’re the reason I got the cops called on me?!”
“Whoa there, time out!” Discord made a T with his arms over the striped jersey that had manifested on his torso. “No, I’m sure I added a bit of pizazz to the place, but you already had it bumpin.’ Pity the neighbors weren’t into it…”
“Yeah, those guys aren’t cool. Always the same thing from ‘em: ‘Oh, we’ve got little kids, they need to sleep.’ Bleh!”
Discord nodded slowly. “Well, I suppose that’s worth working out with them for next time. But I suppose it’s not all bad… I mean, a four hundred bit fine isn’t nothing, but it isn’t the end of the world, right?”
“Uhh, well…” Vinyl flinched as she thought of her account that her gig money got deposited to, and tried to remember how long it had been since her last overdraft letter from Ponyville Bank. “I guess I don’t really think about that kind of stuff unless I have to?”
“No matter; you’re probably the kind of pony who hides some bits under her mattress, aren’t you?”
Vinyl considered the items stashed under her mattress. Cash was not among them.
“Or not,” Discord said, stroking his beard. “I’m surprised, though; hasn’t anything like this happened before?”
“The fine was smaller last time,” Vinyl said quietly. “Must’ve jacked it up for a repeat offense.”
“Hm.” Discord tapped the tile with his hoof. “I can’t believe I of all creatures am saying this, but it sounds like you might need… a budget.” He gagged on the final word, and his face turned a sickly shade of green.
“Dude, aren’t you supposed to be all about doing whatever you want, whenever you want?”
“I know, and I hate not doing that! But… I keep learning from Fluttershy that mortals are limited in ways that I’m not. It’s not just the length of your existence that’s tiny; it’s that you literally can’t just do everything.” He paused. “And as much as I hate to admit it, even though I can do just about anything, I usually still have to concentrate on doing one, or maybe a few, things at a time.”
“Limitations suck,” Vinyl said bitterly. “I just wanna do my thing. Just… rave it up every once in a while. It’s not like I do it all the time. Why can’t I just do it sometimes and have it be okay?”
“I know the feeling, and I wish I knew how to make it all fit.” Discord straightened himself up and shrugged. “Look at the saucer, though; I’m not great at fitting things together.”
“It’s not really your problem,” Vinyl muttered. “I just don’t know what I’m gonna do.” She swallowed as she considered painful option after painful option. “Am I gonna have to sell some of my DJ stuff to raise money?”
“Would that be the worst thing?” Discord met Vinyl’s glare with an open paw and claw. “Hear me out: money’s probably all around you, in your equipment. Maybe you could still throw ‘dope AF’ parties without a couple things? And… maybe once you get this dealt with, you could save up a little and rent a place out for your next big party so you don’t get the fuzz called on you?”
After a moment of chewing on the uncomfortable suggestions, Vinyl cracked a grin at an intrusive thought. “Dude. Shy must have you whipped if you’re talkin’ this much sense.”
Discord threw his head back with a groan, and his eyes rolled up, up… and out of his head. He caught one in his paw, but fumbled for the other in his claw, and had to bend down and pick it up off the floor before stuffing them back where they belonged. “Sometimes we have to choose between doing things because we want to, and doing things because we want to do right by the ones we care about—and sometimes you have to pick one over the other. Sucky or not, it’s limitations all the way down, my dear.”
Vinyl nodded sullenly. But then her ears perked at the sound of the shower turning off.
“Go on,” Discord said, pushing a small hoofful of daisies toward her. “Start with these. Tell her you’re going to fix this. You can do it.”
The flowers’ fresh scent filled Vinyl’s senses, and sparked a bit of confidence. She lit her horn and fumbled around in her mane with her magic, trying to smooth the unruly mop down into something presentable.
“How do I look?” she asked, striking a kickass pose and giving him a grin full of teeth.
Discord’s lips pursed outward by several hoof-lengths. “On second thought, how about you give me those back? Go work on fixing things before you try turning on the charm!”
“I know, I know,” Vinyl said quickly. “But if you think about it more as an investment—”
“This would be the third time in a year, and the second because of a run-in with the law.” Octavia blew into her tea, raising a cloud of hot steam that may as well have been coming from her ears. Though her tone remained even, her words were thick with implication: “It’s enough to make a mare question her wisdom in choosing somepony to live with.”
Vinyl winced. Her mouth went even drier, and her heart thudded. She glanced at the faded wallpaper of their shared eat-in kitchen by way of taking a moment to think. “Tavi, please, I didn’t mean to get the cops called out. I just wanted to make it a bash to remember.”
She could tell by the tightening around Octavia’s eyes that it was a poor choice of words. “...Which, I mean, it was,” she said, running a hoof through her mussed morning mane in the vain hope that it might help warm up her brain. “And it’s not like I meant to leave you out of a totally lit house party, either. I just thought you’d rather I do them when you’re out playing a show.”
Octavia shook her head slowly. “What I ‘prefer’ is to not have law enforcement break our door down in the middle of the night, regardless of whether I’m present or not!”
“Alright, I get that—”
“Clearly you do not.” Octavia rose on three legs, lifting her teacup off its ornate saucer with the fourth. She managed to cut a stern figure despite the soft pink robe and hind-hoof slippers that she customarily wore in the early morning. “No, Vinyl; as much as it pains me to see you suffer, I fear I must leave you to deal with this mess on your own. I will expect your half of the mortgage payment on time, and I shall—” her voice hitched for a moment “—seek legal redress if you cannot produce it.”
Octavia turned and trotted from the room. Vinyl’s gaze followed her swaying tail down the hall, at least until Octavia passed the boarded-up space where their front door had recently been. Sighing, Vinyl glanced back at the table, and regarded the crisp, calligraphied piece of paper she’d been served by the police two nights previous. As hunger and uncertainty gnawed at her gut, her eyes drifted toward the uneaten plate of eggs and haybacon that Octavia had left behind.
Her mouth opened automatically amid the urge to ask if Octavia was going to eat it, but she stopped, fearing that she was already in hot enough water.
As if on cue, the shower kicked on. Vinyl groaned; she knew from experience that if Octavia was hard to talk with before getting ready to head out for her day, she’d be impossible to talk with afterward. The mare’s morning routine was ironclad, except when she was mad enough to speed things up and get out of the house faster.
“I am boned,” Vinyl said, blowing out a sigh. “Where am I supposed to come up with four hundred bits by next Tuesday?”
A throat cleared behind her, causing her to jump with surprise, turn, and knock the table several hoof-lengths back.
“Careful,” said the Draconequus inexplicably standing before her, leaning against one of the cabinets. “I wouldn’t want you to—” He flinched, and then Vinyl did as well, at the sound of a dish breaking. Vinyl turned back and gaped at the spot where Octavia’s saucer should be. Then she bent down and blanched at the site of its finely detailed shards strewn across the white-tiled floor.
“I’m dead,” she breathed. Then she remembered the fine. “I’m double dead.”
Discord’s head snaked down into her field of vision. The monocle and top hat adorning it barely registered. “I’ve seen death on the scale of galaxies, my dear; unless I miss my guess, you’re only just a quarter of the way to yours.”
Vinyl’s jaw worked open, but she couldn’t rub enough brain cells together to come up with a reply. Instead, she plopped her rump down on the floor, lit her horn, and started trying to gather up the little pieces of ceramic—even the dust, as best as she could find it.
Then it finally caught up with her that Discord had entered her home. She turned her eyes toward him, and blinked at the frilly black-and-white maid outfit he was wearing.
“Too much?” he asked.
“W… what?”
“Too much.” Discord snapped his claw, and in a flash, he was back to normal. Or what passed for normal with his mismatched menagerie of features. “Let me help with that, too.” He snapped his claw again, and Vinyl felt a sudden void in her magical grip. She turned her head to regard a miniature statuette of Discord fashioned from the saucer’s remains, and gawped at the tiny teacup raised to the statuette’s mouth with its paw, as well as its accompanying upraised pinkie-claw.
“So I was passing through dimensions and couldn’t help but overhear that the other night’s soirée caused a little trouble in paradise.” He eyed the cabinets and wallpaper, then made a nondescript grumble. “Or… whatever you’ve got going on here.”
Vinyl blushed. “Ah… yeah. You heard about the party getting shut down?”
“I was here when it happened!” He gave her a lopsided, fangy grin. “It was ‘dope AF,’ as the foals say. Don’t you remember the part where I sent miniature glowing pigs flying through the place?”
“Uhhh, I’ll be honest, I thought I was trippin’ for that.”
Discord tsked and waggled a claw-finger at her. “You young creative types, always looking for new ways to blow the roof off a party. Stick around a few centuries, and you’ll figure out that nothing blows the roof off like actually blowing the roof off.”
The words washed over Vinyl as she tried to recall if she’d seen him at the party. But eventually she shook her head and centered on the peculiarity of Discord being in her house at all. “Okay, so, like… what are you doing back here, then? I’m, ah… kinda not great here.”
“I know. But part of what Fluttershy’s shown me about friendship is the need to reach out to others who are going through hard times.” He coughed, and kicked at the tile. “Especially on the off-chance that we might have… accidentally… contributed to those hard times.”
Vinyl blinked, making the mental leap. “Are you saying you’re the reason I got the cops called on me?!”
“Whoa there, time out!” Discord made a T with his arms over the striped jersey that had manifested on his torso. “No, I’m sure I added a bit of pizazz to the place, but you already had it bumpin.’ Pity the neighbors weren’t into it…”
“Yeah, those guys aren’t cool. Always the same thing from ‘em: ‘Oh, we’ve got little kids, they need to sleep.’ Bleh!”
Discord nodded slowly. “Well, I suppose that’s worth working out with them for next time. But I suppose it’s not all bad… I mean, a four hundred bit fine isn’t nothing, but it isn’t the end of the world, right?”
“Uhh, well…” Vinyl flinched as she thought of her account that her gig money got deposited to, and tried to remember how long it had been since her last overdraft letter from Ponyville Bank. “I guess I don’t really think about that kind of stuff unless I have to?”
“No matter; you’re probably the kind of pony who hides some bits under her mattress, aren’t you?”
Vinyl considered the items stashed under her mattress. Cash was not among them.
“Or not,” Discord said, stroking his beard. “I’m surprised, though; hasn’t anything like this happened before?”
“The fine was smaller last time,” Vinyl said quietly. “Must’ve jacked it up for a repeat offense.”
“Hm.” Discord tapped the tile with his hoof. “I can’t believe I of all creatures am saying this, but it sounds like you might need… a budget.” He gagged on the final word, and his face turned a sickly shade of green.
“Dude, aren’t you supposed to be all about doing whatever you want, whenever you want?”
“I know, and I hate not doing that! But… I keep learning from Fluttershy that mortals are limited in ways that I’m not. It’s not just the length of your existence that’s tiny; it’s that you literally can’t just do everything.” He paused. “And as much as I hate to admit it, even though I can do just about anything, I usually still have to concentrate on doing one, or maybe a few, things at a time.”
“Limitations suck,” Vinyl said bitterly. “I just wanna do my thing. Just… rave it up every once in a while. It’s not like I do it all the time. Why can’t I just do it sometimes and have it be okay?”
“I know the feeling, and I wish I knew how to make it all fit.” Discord straightened himself up and shrugged. “Look at the saucer, though; I’m not great at fitting things together.”
“It’s not really your problem,” Vinyl muttered. “I just don’t know what I’m gonna do.” She swallowed as she considered painful option after painful option. “Am I gonna have to sell some of my DJ stuff to raise money?”
“Would that be the worst thing?” Discord met Vinyl’s glare with an open paw and claw. “Hear me out: money’s probably all around you, in your equipment. Maybe you could still throw ‘dope AF’ parties without a couple things? And… maybe once you get this dealt with, you could save up a little and rent a place out for your next big party so you don’t get the fuzz called on you?”
After a moment of chewing on the uncomfortable suggestions, Vinyl cracked a grin at an intrusive thought. “Dude. Shy must have you whipped if you’re talkin’ this much sense.”
Discord threw his head back with a groan, and his eyes rolled up, up… and out of his head. He caught one in his paw, but fumbled for the other in his claw, and had to bend down and pick it up off the floor before stuffing them back where they belonged. “Sometimes we have to choose between doing things because we want to, and doing things because we want to do right by the ones we care about—and sometimes you have to pick one over the other. Sucky or not, it’s limitations all the way down, my dear.”
Vinyl nodded sullenly. But then her ears perked at the sound of the shower turning off.
“Go on,” Discord said, pushing a small hoofful of daisies toward her. “Start with these. Tell her you’re going to fix this. You can do it.”
The flowers’ fresh scent filled Vinyl’s senses, and sparked a bit of confidence. She lit her horn and fumbled around in her mane with her magic, trying to smooth the unruly mop down into something presentable.
“How do I look?” she asked, striking a kickass pose and giving him a grin full of teeth.
Discord’s lips pursed outward by several hoof-lengths. “On second thought, how about you give me those back? Go work on fixing things before you try turning on the charm!”
So despite being the longer of our two entries this round, this one actually felt shorter to read to me. Which speaks a lot to the ease of the reading experience and the overall flow. There's good forward momentum throughout, which took me from beginning to end pretty effortlessly.
I will have to mention, though, that when I did get to the end, it felt a tad abrupt to me. This might be a matter of personal taste, but I did feel like the fic wrapped up its arc a little too quickly. We spend a lot of time introducing the conflict and characters (the bulk of the story, really), and in comparison we get about four or five paragraphs of dialogue dedicated to bring Vinyl's epiphany across the finish line. I'm a little torn about whether it would be better to trim the beginning or pad the end, but I did feel that there's some lopsidedness overall.
My second, more minor, concern is that while I really love how well Vinyl fits her part here, I'm having more trouble squishing Discord into the role of a even-headed source of down-to-earth life advice. I know that we do get the lines about him becoming a more mature person vis-a-vis Fluttershy, but I'm still kind of left feeling that this piece never really played to his strengths. What makes Discord interesting (at least to me) is his unconventional way of perceiving the world. So the fact that he's giving Vinyl a straight talking-to without any kind of twist or joke to it kind of feels like a missed opportunity to me.
Overall, I still like the guts of this one, and like I mentioned earlier, I really enjoyed how it read. The payoff is already here, but I think that just a little bit of touching up could make it come across much more clearly.
Thank you for submitting!
I will have to mention, though, that when I did get to the end, it felt a tad abrupt to me. This might be a matter of personal taste, but I did feel like the fic wrapped up its arc a little too quickly. We spend a lot of time introducing the conflict and characters (the bulk of the story, really), and in comparison we get about four or five paragraphs of dialogue dedicated to bring Vinyl's epiphany across the finish line. I'm a little torn about whether it would be better to trim the beginning or pad the end, but I did feel that there's some lopsidedness overall.
My second, more minor, concern is that while I really love how well Vinyl fits her part here, I'm having more trouble squishing Discord into the role of a even-headed source of down-to-earth life advice. I know that we do get the lines about him becoming a more mature person vis-a-vis Fluttershy, but I'm still kind of left feeling that this piece never really played to his strengths. What makes Discord interesting (at least to me) is his unconventional way of perceiving the world. So the fact that he's giving Vinyl a straight talking-to without any kind of twist or joke to it kind of feels like a missed opportunity to me.
Overall, I still like the guts of this one, and like I mentioned earlier, I really enjoyed how it read. The payoff is already here, but I think that just a little bit of touching up could make it come across much more clearly.
Thank you for submitting!
One thing that always:
Bothers me in stories is coincidence. Sure, it happens all the time in real life, but I hold fiction to a more rigorous standard than non-fiction, and for Discord here to say, "I was passing through dimensions and couldn’t help but overhear..." makes my neck hair get all bristly. Especially when it's Discord. I mean, if he doesn't have a scheme going on, who does?
Now, granted, it could be that his new "do one good deed every day" policy has him on the lookout for ponies in need or something, but I'd like it to be more than random happenstance that brings Discord and Vinyl together. I'd also agree with >>Bachiavellian that more needs to be going on in the rest of the story. Discord trying to help but just making things worse would be kind of a cliche, but it'd be more of a story...
Mike
Bothers me in stories is coincidence. Sure, it happens all the time in real life, but I hold fiction to a more rigorous standard than non-fiction, and for Discord here to say, "I was passing through dimensions and couldn’t help but overhear..." makes my neck hair get all bristly. Especially when it's Discord. I mean, if he doesn't have a scheme going on, who does?
Now, granted, it could be that his new "do one good deed every day" policy has him on the lookout for ponies in need or something, but I'd like it to be more than random happenstance that brings Discord and Vinyl together. I'd also agree with >>Bachiavellian that more needs to be going on in the rest of the story. Discord trying to help but just making things worse would be kind of a cliche, but it'd be more of a story...
Mike
I’ll keep my thoughts brief due to the late hour. I’m definitely glad to see competition in our fic round this time, but I fear that this currently feels rather distractingly random. It’s well-enough constructed for the most part, but it hangs on a lot of coincidence and convenience that limit the satisfaction of its delivery.
I’m sure that’s fixable, though!
I’m sure that’s fixable, though!
All The Retro Down
Hey all. Thank you for the gold here! I can safely say that I didn't expect this story to get that.
Some of my core thoughts about this story ended up over here. I'll reproduce a few and expand them. Basically, this story was born rather late at night and at the tail-end of a busy weekend; hardly ideal writing time. I tried to take a run at a story idea that's been percolating for a long time... and failed. If you want to see a story that is a much closer fit for what I was trying to write, look here.
IMO, this story's saving grace came from me choosing to write Vinyl and Discord. I love writing those guys, and (evidently) I can do it even when I'm tired and a bit dragged-out. But having Discord randomly insert himself was dumb and I knew it, yet I found myself low enough on time that I decided to proceed and hope for the best.
Sometimes that works!
>>Bachiavellian
Discord-as-straight-man is something I like to do when I can get away with it. It can be cheesy, but it can also work when he of all people can highlight the absurdity of a situation by no-selling it.
I don't think it quite worked here, though. First, he just breaks in too randomly. And second, I think I overdid it. Your comment answered my question of whether I was able to get away with that by just leaning into it regardless. Sometimes you try something and it doesn't work out!
>>Baal Bunny
Yeah, the coincidence factor here is off the charts. I think it's salvageable, especially if I tie it back to Fluttershy having Discord go check in on Vinyl because he shares some blame. But something definitely needs to happen with it.