The Life and Advantages of Being Famous

by capekall

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Octavia
Length: 3983

A story about the Life of a Musician.

Octavia becomes a well known cellist.
But how does she become so famous, and how is it in the beginning when no one really knows her? This story shows all sides of being famous right from the start.

It is more like a diary or biography, but in form of a novel.

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Cover by Mel-Rosey

Published 2013-03-26 16:00:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-04-09 06:27:35 UTC

Prologue: Preparation

She sat on an olive old sagging sofa, which must’ve stood there for ages. The smell was quite intense, but not really disturbing. It was kind of old, but not rotten or unpleasant. It was more like the old but enjoyable smell of grandma’s furniture. She didn’t know why, but somehow this sofa was comfortable for her in this situation, although it had squeaky springs, which pierced through the top fabric of the sofa.

The room was quite chaotic. On its rear side was a rack, which bristled under the bulk of useless items like pans with two grasps, or a flashing christmas tree stand. In the center was a black table with six chairs around it. The front right corner showed a small fridge, which contained nothing but cider and the walls were made of concrete. Some posters were up, to hide the grey bleak wall.

Everything looked worse than she had expected. In every movie, those rooms are bright and appealing, with large windows on one side. But all that casted light was the humming and flickering neon tube in the center of the ceiling. Sun was never seen inside these walls.

Although there were other ponies in the room, she felt quite lonely. Maybe it was because they didn’t care for each other. Everyone was minding his or her own business without noticing the others. Anyway, she felt like she was the only one who saw them.

The brown pony to her right, which sat on a small plastic chair - that fell out of the rack before - looked as dirty as the chair itself. The last time his mane had been washed must've been three years ago, or even longer.

Normally she would have started a conversation with anyone inside the room, but they all looked so scruffy that she didn’t even want to talk to them. Just one pony seemed to be neat and smart enough to be an appropriate conversation partner.

“It’s your turn, Amalia“ she heard a voice shouting from the next room.

The silver-coated mare with a blue and violet mane left the room.
'Okay! Fine. I won't talk to anyone then.' she thought.

The ash-grey pony thought about taking a cider to loosen up, but thought better of it quite fast. She was afraid she would make mistakes if the cider influenced her. She simply couldn’t disappoint the crowd. Not again! Just as she did when she was just a nine year old filly. Her thoughts went back to that day.

She was trying to be the narrator in an elementary school play. The whole show was just perfect. Everything went as expected, and everypony played their role great. Well… at least as great, as you can be as a nine year old filly. She sat in her armchair holding a gigantic book.

"Then he knelt down and began to dig"

Those were the last words she had to say. They were written in the book, so she could read them out. She repeated it multiple times in her head:
'Then he knelt down and began to dig. Then he knelt down and began to dig…'

She knew how important it was to pronounce these words right. It was the punchline of the play, which was about a little pony, which dreamed of reaching earth’s core, because it wants to know how it looks like. The story was sweet, though it had some serious undercurrent. And those last words showed that all your dreams could come true, if you just believe in yourself and try your best.

She knew the importance of her role, and she liked it in the first place, through the entire play as well. But now the pressure began to rise. What if she didn’t catch the right tone so everypony missed the punchline?

'Then he knelt down and began to dig'

The spotlight pointed at her and it was time to say the final words. The tone was just fine, but how could it be otherwise, her mouth twisted because of her nervousness and she said:
“Then he fell down and began to die”.

That sounded so rude, but in context of the play it actually was a little funny. Nopony knew why, but it was.
As the audience began to giggle she realized what she just said. And to make it worse, she fell down from her chair and the laughter began to grow.

She had just turned a serious play into a comedy show. While she realized this, the laughter was provided by clapping.

The enthusiastic crowd brought her mind back to the small room she just sat in.
No, it definitely wasn’t a good idea to take a cider right now. Instead she just wandered around the room, inspecting the posters on the wall. They showed some big artists, which had been here before. Not some small musicians like herself. Real prominent artists, like Nightshade.

She wondered whether Nightshade had had the same thoughts when she had been here. Was she drinking a cider, or straying through the room like she did? Or did she have better whereabouts, because she was famous? While she was wondering about all these questions, she stared at Nightshade’s poster. Her thoughts took control and sent her in a dream of being as famous as she was.

The curtain opened and the excited cheering crowd was expecting her, though nopony could see her yet. She jumped on the stage as the music started playing. Not a real song, just some background music to create some tension. Out of the blue, a beat pumping like a heartbeat came up and the lights flashed, so that the stage is flooded in lights. The crowd now seemed to be unstoppable. They screamed and shouted, as if there would be no tomorrow. As quick as the beat started, it stopped and the lights turned off again. The tensional music stayed. A few seconds later, the beat started and the lights flashed up again just to vanish like a bursted bubble. But this time, the music slowly faded into one of her songs. The crowd joined her singing and the whole stadium was filled with loud great music and satisfaction.

“Octavia, you’re on next”
The voice of the assistant woke Octavia from her trance.

"Break a leg," said a gentle voice from behind her. As she turned around, she saw the silvern mare coming back into the backstage room.

"Uh.. Thanks." Feeling a little guilty about not having wished the same to her, she started making her way to the stage. But it vanished quickly as the excitement and nervousness entered her body once again.

It was time for her soundcheck!

Author's Note

Okay, this is the prologue of my first story.
I hope it isn't so bad, but please be critical. Say anything you want to say. Show me all my faults, and tell me what to do better next time :)
But: have fun reading it.

Chapter 1: The Soundcheck

Octavia grabbed her cello and made her way to the stage. The room was way bigger then she had expected.
‘About thousand ponies will be out there to look at the show’ she thought.

Her mind produced an image of her playing the cello in this room. The room's lights were off, but a few spotlights pointed at her. The crowd was eager for her play and excitement came up in every face, as she started to play. Everypony was stunned for the whole song, but started to clap as loud as possible as soon as it is over.

“Play something and tell me, when you need more volume on your monitor” it shouted from the other side of the room. This had no concert atmosphere like that. Every light shone at its maximum power and the room was lit comepletely. The walls were made out of concrete, just like the backstage room, although no posters were hung up. The floor had some hoof prints on it and it was obviously dirty. Some cleaning ponies were doing their job and rushed through the great hall to clean the stains of the last party.

The pony which shouted at her was the mixing engineer. He had his desk at the backside of the hall. Just in the middle to get the full bandwidth of sound in the stage room. He was a little corpulent and looked as if he hadn’t slept in 3 day, or even longer.

“Ya wanna play something, or are you just looking ‘round the room?”

“Oh… I.. I just need to tune my cello.” Octavia replied.

“Darnit, couldn’t you do this before you get here?” the colt bugged.

“Sorry!”

She took out her cello and began to tune, while the engineer whistled something to show his impatientness.

“Alright, we can start” She shouted a few minutes later.

“Finally! Okay, take that mic and play something.”

An assistant came from behind and placed a dynamic microphone in front of her cello. It looked like a black stick with a net at one end. It had no ball as the microphones for singers. It was just a flat stick. The assistant placed it slightly right and pointed it at the space where the bow touches the strings.

She began to play a sweet melody she had written yesterday. No pony had ever heard it before. She didn’t know why, but she felt like she had to play it. Maybe it was because she thought that the other ponies in the room would say something afterwards. It sounded like small butterflies flew down an astonishing nature. If the music was an image, you could see meadows with flowers in every color and a stream dividing one side from another.

But the cleaning ponies didn’t care. They just did their job without really listening. The mixing engineer started to turn some wheels, move some faders and pushed a button here and there. His hooves rushed from left to right, from one side to another, stopping every now and then to hear the differences and think about, what to do next. Octavia heard that the sound changed, but she couldn’t identify how it changed. She didn’t really hear anything. The music filled the entire hall, but you couldn’t hear anything on stage except some quiet reverb coming from the other side of the room.
Before even two minutes had passed he was already done.

Ocatavia was impressed by his skills and in combination with her playing, she seemed a little absent.

“Okay, do you hear yourself loud enough?” He shouted to interrupt Octavia’s melody. She woke from her trance.

“Ehhhm.. well… to be honest: I don’t hear anything except the sound coming out of my cello.”

“Errgh” he sighed irritated. “You wanna tell me the monitors do not work?”

“I don’t know whether they do not work or there is just a cable missing, but I can’t hear anything.”

The engineer trotted through the hall towards the stage to identify the problem. It was pretty simple – the monitors were turned off.

“Next time ya turn dem on before asking for help” he told in a grumpy manner, while making his way back to the mixing console.

“Ohh, sorry… I didn’t know I needed to. I thought they were online the whole time.”

“Okay, then play something again and tell me when it is loud enough on stage.”

She continued her song and the volume slowly started to increase.

“I think it is fine like that” She said a little irritated, trying to get help from the engineer. She didn’t know if everything was set up like this in the real gig. But the mixing engineer didn’t get her allusion.

“Fine that’s all, you can go back to the backstage room.”

“NEXT PONY” he shouted towards one of his assistants.

Octavia felt a little left alone, because she had no idea if she did everything right. Was it really loud enough? She put her cello back in its case and wondered why the mixer was so grumpy. She came to the conclusion that it was because he mixed too many ponies in a row without getting a break.

She took her case and made her way back to the backstage room. The anticipation she had felt before was completely gone and she couldn’t remember why she had felt it.

She took a seat next to the silvern mare and tried to start a conversation.

"You're Amelia, right?"

"Amalia, actually. You must be Octavia if I'm not mistaken" the mare said in a very elegant and enjoyable way. Her voice sounded very warm and Octavia felt amused for the first time. Everything else here was so depressive and frantic, she wished to let this conversation never stop.

“Yeah.”

“Nice to meet you.” Amalia raised her hoof, ready to perform a brohhoof. Octavia got the sign but answered with a hoofshake.

“You’re new to music buis, aren’t you?” Amalia asked.

“Yeah, how do you know?”

“Well, it isn’t that difficult. I haven’t seen you here before and you look a little distracted. Furthermore, musicians do mostly greet in an amicable way with a brohoof or somthing like that.” She said with a smile.

“Oh yeah, that’s just because everything is so new for me. And so different. I thought the backstage room is more comfortable, the ponies are more groomed and the hall was full of people. Like you see in movies.” she responded with a disappointed look on her face.

Amalia laughed. “Ohh yeah, the classical image of music. I assure you: it isn’t like you see it in movies. Most of the backstage rooms are just as simple as this one. Maybe even more spartan. Sometimes you don’t have a fridge and just some chairs to sit.”

“Okay. But why is everypony so harsh? And where is the audience?”

“Look, they aren’t harsh. They are just stressed. For example the mixing engineer. He has a very tough job. He needs to hear about 20 different artists in such a short amount of time. And everytime he needs to hear everything right. One mistake and the sound will be awful at the gig. That’s exhausting for him and his ears. And when you are done, the next artist is coming in and your ears need to be fresh to do the same procedure again. I think you would be just the same if you had the job.” She smiled again. “The mixers you see in movies are mostly private sound engineers who are hired to mix one band. That is way more comfortable. You just need to hear one artist and once your job is done, it’s home time. That’s why they look a lot more relaxed. And why should here be an audience? By now it is just the soundcheck. They will come later, for the main gig.”

“Ohhh, I see. I didn’t know all this. That’s my first big show. I just played in my small living room before. Sometimes at small parties, but there were not more than 10 ponies.” This time she smiled at the silver pony.

“Sorry if I destroy your imagination, but this show isn’t really big. Normally 20 to 50 ponies would come here. Although the room provides enough space for more. But those classic concerts aren’t well patronized. By the way which instrument do you play?”

“I play cello.”

“Oh cool, I'm a pianist.”

Both sat there talking about music. Octavia asked some questions she wanted to know and Amalia replied, to show her the real side of music business and not the sight showed in the media. Minute after minute passed by and they lost themselves in each others words.

It looked like Octavia found a friend in this new and odd environment.

Chapter 2: Plans For The Weekend?

The bell rang and everypony made their way back to the classrooms. But as long as the teacher wasn't in sight, you could barely understand anything. Some colts were playing Timberwolves, a trading card game with creatures from everfree forest. The filly's were mostly talking about each others beauty while giggling at nearly everything. But everypony was full of cheerfulness. You can feel that it was the last day of the week and just one hour left until the weekend started. The last lesson was music, which wasn't really challenging so it felt like it already was weekend.

It took more time than usual until the teacher came to the classroom. Normally he was 5 minutes late, but those 5 minutes were accurate. Today he wasn't there, although 10 minutes had passed. The foals started to hope that they could leave school earlier, because their teacher was ill or something.

"Heeeeyyyy alllll!! Watch the clock. It's 2:10 PM and Mr. clockworth isn't here right nooowww!" An extroverted colt shouted through the class, while jumping around like a bouncy ball. Some of his friends jumped off their seats, grabbed their things and started to leave. Some joyful shouts were made and many foals began to get even happier.

"Wait!" One of the geekie and nerdy fillys shouted.
"We need to wait at least 15 minutes and go to the principal afterwards. Thats what we all accepted by signing the school rul..."

She was interrupted by loads of moaning and booing.

"I don't care what the school rules say!" One colt shouted.

"Yeah, I didn't even sign them" Another one replied.

Now a very silent but responsible colt stood up and got to the front of the classroom.
"Sorry ya'll, but Camilla is right."

Everypony sat down and out of the blue everypony was quiet. It was quite interesting how much authority that colt had. Maybe it was because he was the oldest.

"The year is almost over and the grades are almost here. As y'all know, my father is a teacher and before I got into school, he told me that some teachers try to trick you. But you don't have to expect anything if you do everything right. So maybe this is some kind of test, to know who behaves right and who doesn't."

While he was getting back to his seat, the whole class thought about his assumption.

"Okay, maybe you are right, but another 5 minutes have passed. So now Mr. Clockworth is 15 minutes late."

"Alright, Aurora and I go out to ask Mrs. Cheerilee what to do next." Camilla answered and bumped the moony Aurora.

"Huhh?" She asked still dreaming.

"Let's go to Mrs. Cheerilee."

Both left their seats and got to the door. But as they opened it, it felt so easy to open - too easy. The teacher stood on the other side and opend the door as well.

"Ohh, where do you want to go?" The teacher asked.

"Sorry. It is 2:17 PM and you were not here, so we decided to ask Mrs. Cheerilee whether you are ill or something."

"Oh, thats nice. But I am fine. Just a little late"

Camilla and Aurora got back to their seats while Mr. Clockworth was preparing his teachers desk.
He placed a bunch of papers on it and took a piece of chalk out.

'Oh no, the tests!' Some ponys thought.

"Hello everypony, sorry for being late. I just corrected the last of your tests." He pointed at the pile of papers.

Now everypony realised that it was the right decision to stay and it is time for the marks.

"I am really proud of you." He continued.
"Everypony did a great job. But one thing! You aren't really familiar with classical music, aren't you?"

"Not really." It came from the right.

"Okay. Thats what i thought"

He started to draw the overview of grades on the board.

A, B, C, D, E
continued by some vertical dividers.

Now the teacher had everypony's attention. The foals watched the chalk slowly drawing some numbers. He really likes his job and he wants to keep the stress. He enjoyed the silence which causes him to write even slower. He usually starts with the A's so everpony is a little relieved that it isn't that bad. This plan wouldn't work this time, but he still started with the A's because this tactic fited into his plans for today.

A - 0
B -
C -
D -
E -

Everypony's breath stucked for a moment.
'I thought he said it wasn't that bad.'

Mr. Clockworth felt like he could cut the air. 'Okay, thats to hard' He thought. 'I need to lower the tension'

A - 0
B -
C -
D -
E - 0

Small sighs came out of the children. He slowly continued the overview of grades still feeling satisfied as hell because of his job. 'Those are the best moments' he thought. After a few more sighs, shouts of happiness and minutes, the tension was gone and the class started to talk quietly. The final result read:

A - 0
B - 9
C - 12
D - 2
E - 0

"Okay, as I said: You did a great job. But no pony got the answeres to the questions about classical music instruments. You all knew the Phrygian Scale, which is way more difficult than classical instruments i think. Okay, we did scales for a long time, so you had enough time to learn them. Maybe thats why you got those questions right. But I have an idea. As you can see, no pony got an A. And I want to change it. But I can't do it just because I want to."
He made a short pause.

The foals wondered what his plans were and wanted to know them. But instead of asking, they listened in eager. The teacher continued his speak.

"Tonight, there's a classical concert down in the civic center. And I want you to go there with me."

Rustling, booing and sighing came out of the classroom.
"But we have..." A filly shouted, but was interrupted by her teacher.

"I know, some of you may have different plans, but I want you to have good marks. This overview is okay, but it could be better. And my plan is: You come tonight to the civic centre, I'll buy the tickets so you don't need to bring money. I'll hand you papers and you write down every instrument you see during the show. And if you got at least 50 percent right, I will improve your mark one step. So if you had an B before, you'll get an A. And because it is an activity, which is for school, but out of school time, you can stay at home next friday. I can't coerce you, but this is a very great way to improve your mark. The show starts at 7:00 PM and ends at 10 PM. And I know, you wouldn't go to bed then." He smiled
"So it is still time to do something else afterwards. So if you are interested, meet me in front of the civic centre at half past six. I'll wait there."

Those were his last words and he felt, that everypony was thinking if they would come. But he knew that the students can't resist. Even if it was just because of the better marks and a day off. The class was deep in thoughts and really silent. He handed out the papers enjoying the silence.

The bell rang.

It was time for the weekend.

Author's Note

Alright, this chapter is a little different. I know I said that it will be something like an autobiography in form of a novel, but I think it is quite nice to have some different point of views.
I hope you still like the story :pinkiecrazy: