"I'm great fun at parties, I swear!"
This was a mistake.
Vinyl Scratch suppressed a massive yawn and discreetly glanced at the clock on the wall of the lecture theatre.
Oh hayseed, there’s still forty-five minutes left to go.
She ground her teeth, but only just hard enough that Octavia wouldn’t hear it from her adjacent seat. Up on the podium stood a unicorn mare, droning on something about the nature of politics and social change blah-blah something-something blah. Had it not been for the horn and shockingly bright green eyes, Vinyl would’ve mistaken her for Octavia’s twin sister or something; their coats and manes had the exact same shades of grey.
Long Wind was one of her cousins, and Octavia’s main reason for parking both their butts in the crowded lecture theatre was to give her moral support on delivering her first lecture to freshmares in Canterlot University. She vaguely remembered something or other about Long Wind having neurotic episodes if left completely alone whilst doing something new for the first time ever.
Vinyl huffed. Personally, if the poor mare needed her hoof held just for getting in front of a crowd, she probably should’ve picked a different profession. Her unsteady hoofing, nervous tics and overall squirelly behaviour on stage reminded her of Pinkie’s pegasus friend. The quiet one.
In any other universe, she would’ve declined the generous offer to attend, but since they all had dinner plans with Neon Lights later in Canterlot, the planets had aligned just perfectly for one of the raddest, maddest deejays to find herself smack in the middle of university, getting schooled. Without a disguise, even.
Okay, that part’s mostly my fault. Should’ve remembered to put some clothes on before leaving home in the first place.
For the hundredth time, Vinyl cast a stealthy glance around, scanning for anypony staring at her or nudging their friends and chatting frantically about the presence of a celebrity in their midst. So far, so good. It looked like most of the ponies crowded in with them weren’t into hers or Octavia’s type of gig. Either that, or leaving her trademark shades and magenta contacts at home had turned out an unexpectedly effective disguise.
Good thing, too, otherwise she might have to deal with fans spreading rumours about seeing her in an institution of higher education. Not that she had anything against smart types – Twilight Sparkle was a pretty rad girl herself once you got past her book obsession – but reputation amongst the fans often made or broke a career, and a large proportion of hers unfortunately had it out for anything remotely geeky or nerdy, for some reason.
Just as she finished her sweep and began settling back down into her seat, a stallion a couple of rows off waved at her.
Before she’d realised it, Vinyl had begun waving and grinning back out of pure muscle memory, and then froze in mid-wave as the stallion went into full fanboy-mode, complete with wide, sparkly eyes, giddy shivers and face-splitting grin. Yep – definitely somepony who recognised her.
Shoot!
No, keep it together, girl. You got this.
Vinyl forced her facial muscles to unclench and settled into a more relaxed smile before casually sitting back down as if she’d only waved hi to a regular buddy. Totally normal and not something that would draw attention from other ponies, right? She had to restrain herself and not look back, though, and it didn’t help that she’d started imagining excited whispers behind her back.
She tried focusing on Long Wind’s voice instead, but…
“—so ever since Equestria began opening up diplomatic blah blahs with other species and blah-blah relations came to blah of the blah-blah-blah…”
Despite her best efforts to focus, the charts and notes displayed on the projector had long since melted and swirled together into an unrecognisable mess that looked like one of those ink blot thingies that shrinks showed to mentally disturbed ponies. Or maybe a piece of modern art.
Sheesh, it’s almost as bad as that class on home economics.
Vinyl stole a glance back at the stallion and groaned quietly to herself when she saw a cluster of maybe five or six students gawking at her and trying to get her attention. One mare had even scribbled ‘We love you, DJ P0N3!’ on an open notebook that she kept waving over her head.
“Fans of yours, Vinyl?”
She blinked, then turned to find Octavia smirking at her. “Guess so. Didn’t expect any in here, though.”
“See? They still like you, as far as I can tell. I don’t know why you were so worried about being seen here in the first place.”
Vinyl snorted. “You haven’t met the rest of my fans. Anyway, not taking chances.”
“If you say so.”
I do say so.
Not out loud, though.
“—given the nature of blah-blah griffons something-something minotaurs in Equestria at that time, Princess Celestia had to blah her way through lots of blah blahs and—”
Vinyl tuned out the rest of it. Any more of that, and she would need steel braces to stop herself from yawning in front of Octavia, which would lead to at least thirty minutes or so of nagging about inappropriate conduct during their next jamming session, possibly with Lyra and Noteworthy adding commentary about her social skills along the way. After sneaking a glance at Octavia, she decided to just go ahead with playing some proper beats in her head – a relatively minor offence by her standards. So, having long since mastered the art of looking attentive whilst leaving her brain six miles deep in daydreams, Vinyl began bobbing her head to wubs that only she could hear.
Aww yeah, that’s the stuff. Shake it!
The world dissolved into a hurricane of colours dancing to her beats, each and every pony in the audience roaring and stomping in sync with her masterful manipulation of sound waves. And there she stood, atop her mountain of bass cannons, the eye of the storm. DJ P0N3. The best poni.
Time itself had lost its grip on her, allowing minutes to slip away like cider down Berry Punch’s throat…
“—we met the Neighponese that year.”
Vinyl’s ears perked up immediately. Her imaginary turntables cracked, and her whole gig came to a screeching halt. She then opened her eyes and focused on Long Wind once more.
“Most of you have probably heard of the Yakuza. Despite their reputation as one of the most vicious and powerful crime syndicates in Neighpon, they have been credited with more than a few altruistic endeavours.”
The screen flashed as she switched to the next slide, featuring a couple of grim-faced, heavily-tattooed ponies dressed in business suits along with a griffon in a kimono and a grizzled kirin decked out in samurai armour, all standing in front of a traditional Neighponese restaurant or shop.
“They have a long history of funding schools, setting up hospitals and even taking part in emergency services in areas hit by natural disasters, often alongside Equestrian response teams. Not that this makes up for their criminal activities, but it just goes to show that the seeds of friendship are present even in some of the harshest individuals in the world.”
Vinyl frowned and sat up straighter, squinting as she inspected the Neighponese text hovering over the heads of the gang members on screen. A couple of short strokes were missing.
Well, that’s just not right. Gonna want to fix that before the next lecture.
“Anyway, on to the next part.”
Another flash, and a photo of Ponyville appeared.
“Princess Twilight Sparkle is not the first student of Princess Celestia, but she is definitely the first to succeed in blah-blah-blah—”
Aaand we’re back to the boring stuff. Vinyl sighed and slumped in her seat. Was interesting while it lasted…
She yelped when Octavia elbowed her in the ribs.
“Heh. Sorry,” she said sheepishly.
Seemingly satisfied, Octavia rolled her eyes and continued listening to her cousin. Vinyl pretended to follow suit, though this time she made sure not to make it too obvious. Luckily for her, time didn’t stand still for too long and eventually began flowing again as she shifted her thoughts elsewhere.
After what felt like ages, Long Wind reached the end of her lecture, and Vinyl instinctively perked up along with a hundred or so students; strength and vitality surged back into her body at the sound of everypony packing up their stationery and stuffing notebooks into saddlebags. She chuckled at its similarity to hearing the final bell at school, or the teacher saying, “That’s it for today, class!”
“And that’s all we have time for today,” Long Wind concluded. She then smiled up at her students and continued, “Before we go, does anypony have questions?”
Silence reigned in the lecture theatre. A quick glance around told Vinyl that the students clearly wanted to leave, just not without her express permission.
Twenty seconds passed. Thirty. Long Wind’s smile looked just a little strained. Octavia mumbled something that sounded like awkward sympathy.
Vinyl frowned.
Seriously, guys... Not cool.
Even if they didn’t have any questions, the very least they could’ve done was clap or something. Wasn’t that the standard procedure for college lectures? Heck, it wouldn’t hurt to throw her a bone and ask something simple so that she wouldn’t feel like a loser in front of everypony.
When some redness had worked its way onto Long Wind’s cheeks and she looked well into the initial stages of a panic attack, Vinyl growled to herself and began sifting through her memories to come up with a question. Unfortunately, she only found a whole lot of blah-blah-blah for lack of attention.
Drat.
“Come on, Wind, just dismiss them and save some face,” Octavia murmured, wincing.
Then, Vinyl remembered that she did have something to say. Her hoof went up, and Long Wind gasped like a drowning mare who’d just been thrown a lifeline.
“Oh! Yes, Miss Scra—I mean, my dear. What’s your question?”
“Four or five slides ago. The Neighponese part.” Vinyl paused for a moment to let Long Wind switch back to the photo of gangsters, then continued, “Technically not a question, but… the katakana for ‘Yakuza’ in the title is missing a dakuten. As it stands, it says ‘Yakusa’ instead.”
As soon as the words had left her mouth, Vinyl felt a pit open up in her stomach. She swore she’d heard a cricket chirping in the silence that followed. Students all around stared at her, and her little group of fans all had their jaws hanging. By her side, Octavia had one eyebrow raised like that time she’d found her potato-powered loudspeakers under the bed. Up front, Long Wind looked like somepony had hit the pause button on her halfway through opening her mouth to respond.
After a couple of false starts that sounded like croaks, Vinyl found her voice again.
“Yes… that’s the point I’m focusing on in this informative, inspiring and well-delivered lecture.” She gulped when a bead of sweat slid down her temple and a nervous chuckle escaped her throat. “I’m great fun at parties, I swear!”
“Umm, that’s… good to know,” Long Wind replied. She blinked a couple of times, then smiled sheepishly and added, “I’ll be sure to correct that as soon as possible. Thank you very much!”
Ponies continued to stare at Vinyl as she shrank back into her seat, very much wishing that it had a secret trapdoor underneath so she could bury herself. Her ears twitched with each whisper she overheard; she’d definitely heard something to do with DJ P0N3 and geek, which were two words never meant to go together in any sentence, any universe, ever. A second bead of sweat slid down her temple.
Luckily, another student raised a hoof to ask Long Wind a question, and that diverted some attention away from her.
* * * * *
“Honestly, Vinyl, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so stressed out before,” said Octavia as they trotted up the street to the Art District of Canterlot. “It surely can’t be that terrible for word to get out that a deejay like you fancies a foreign language?”
“A very specific foreign language typically obsessed over by geeks.” Vinyl chuckled weakly. “Goodbye, street cred. Was nice knowing ya.”
Octavia rolled her eyes.
Long Wind, who had been trotting along with them quietly for the past few minutes, suddenly patted her on the shoulder and spoke up. “Sorry for the guilt trip, Miss Scratch. But it was nice of you to get the ball rolling for me. I really don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t spoken up.”
She managed a feeble grin. “Eh, don’t sweat it. Just call me Scratch. Vinyl’s fine, too.”
Long Wind nodded. “Why’d you learn to read Kanji, though? It’s not exactly a common language in Equestria.”
“Probably because she loves those Neighponese comics so much, she wanted to read them in their native language,” Octavia pointed out. When she caught Vinyl staring, she smirked and added, “I found your ‘secret’ stash. Despite what other ponies tell you, underneath the couch is not a good hiding place for anything.”
Vinyl snorted. “Says the classy cellist who thinks nopony knows about her Maretallica album hidden inside the fake bottom of her cello case.”
Octavia’s pupils shrank to pinpricks. After a moment of staring, she tossed her mane, lifted her nose in the air with her eyes closed and said, “Hmph. Begging your pardon; I must’ve made a mistake. I certainly didn’t find anything noteworthy underneath the couch.”
Vinyl had her turn at smirking. “Huh. I could say the same about the cello case. Also, for completely unrelated reasons, I have to point out that they’re called manga, not comics.”
A grey whirlwind zipped into her path, and Vinyl just managed to brake in time to avoid bumping muzzles with Long Wind. All trace of social awkwardness had disappeared; she had her ears perked up with a full-on toothy grin and sparkly eyes as she clapped her hooves together and squealed. “Oh my gosh. You like manga, too? Which ones have you read? Future Journal? Date Zero? A Tack Untightened?”
Uh… Eh?
Her brain took a couple of seconds to kick back into gear, during which she might’ve drooled a little. When it finally got its act together, though, Vinyl grinned and said, “Yeah; read all of those. But Wholemetal Arcanist is where it’s at!”
“Oh, I agree! You have all the volumes?”
Vinyl nodded and raised a hoof. “Hay, yeah!”
“Woo hoo!”
Octavia raised an eyebrow as they bumped hooves. “I suddenly have the distinct feeling that she’s more your cousin than mine.” A smile crept onto her face. “Now, it’s not so bad outing that you’re a nerd, is it?”
“Geek, Tavi. Not nerd.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Only something geeks and nerds will understand,” Long Wind supplied.
Vinyl stared at her, then mock-sniffled and wiped an imaginary tear from her eye. “I… I think I’ve found my new best friend. Where have you been all my life? I mean, seriously, if I’d known you before today, I’d have personally given you a pep talk before your lecture!”
“Really?”
Octavia chuckled. “Let me guess: you’d have told her to just believe in herself?”
“Nah, that’s too cliché.” Vinyl waved a hoof dismissively and turned to Long Wind. “Girl, don’t believe in yourself; believe in me who believes in you!”
Long Wind tilted her head. Then, her eyes widened, and the corners of her mouth slowly pulled up into a wide grin. “Heeeyyy!”
“Aaayy!” Vinyl agreed, and they bumped hooves again before succumbing to a fit of giggles.
Octavia’s eyes flicked from Long Wind to Vinyl, back to Long Wind, then back to Vinyl again before she blinked and shook her head. “Right… I’m suddenly on another planet. I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
“Aww, c’mon, don’t sweat it,” said Vinyl as she put one foreleg over each of her friends’ backs and began steering them back on track to their destination. “You were right, Tavi; I think I can risk losing some street cred if it means finding a new buddy to go nuts over something other than sick beats.”
Author's Note
Inspired by an amusing comment on a website, similar context. Said commenter had a Vinyl Scratch avatar.
