Pegasus Vocal Chords [FINAL]

[Nuclear]

Roleplay Type: Mane RP

Name: Vocal "Whisperwing" Chords

Sex: Male

Age: Stallion

Species: Pegasus

Eye Color: Clear

Coat Color: 8A4832

Mane/Tail/Markings Color & Style: 6BB4BE, FFC300

Physique: He may not be the strongest, but he's got a fair bit of strength in him.

Cutie Mark: His cutie mark is a microphone.

Origin/Residence: Traveller, settled on the edge of Everfree Forest in his little cosy caravan

Occupation: Professional Singer/Narrator/Storyteller

Motivation: To bring joy he never had into the lives of others with his vocal talents, whether through song or storytelling.

Likes: Anything that smells nice, flying high, using his vocal talents, kindness, energetic ponies

Dislikes: Nasty smells, bullies

Character Summary:

Vocal Chords, son of the pegasus mare opera singer Shatterglass and an earth pony coal miner Crumblesteps. His life could have been called a curse from the moment of his birth - lacking a pupil, Vocal Chords was born completely blind. His entire existence was from that moment doomed to be in eternal darkness. His parents, however, didn't mind in the slightest. They were happy that he wasn't born dead like his to-be older brother. Celestia have mercy on his soul.

Like most young ponies, Vocal was taught at home (that would be the family caravan) before going to school. His learning, however, was different than other young foals. Unable to see, he knew nothing about anything. Literally. It took a lot of hard work to get him to understand objects which he couldn't see. For him, the word 'sun' meant only an object above his head when he stood. No need to know the shape, or the fact that it was bright - he'd never see it's shape or light, though given something of the same shape to touch he could probably put two and two together. Most of the time was spent teaching him to speak, and training - his mom taught him how to use his voice to the fullest, his father trained his body in case of any strong physical work in the future. Still, he needed interactions with other foals, so he had to go to school.

On the very first day of the very first schoolyear, the moment the teacher introduced Vocal to the class, he already had bullies to worry about. Hearing that he was blind, they quickly seized the opportunity of verbal and physical abuse without consequences. Because how could he tell on them? He didn't know what they looked like, right?

Wrong. Thanks to his blindness, Vocal was blessed with other senses heightened - he could taste more than other ponies, hear more than other ponies, he could feel more than other ponies, but his most improved sense was his smell. He identified ponies by their scents. His bullies, from whom he felt the smells of dirt into which they threw others, instantly put him off. The only pony he really liked in his class was a young filly which seemed to have an interest in him. She smelt of very soft, sweet roses - a smell that no matter how much you smelt you'd never get bored of. Back then, however, Vocal would have been too shy to approach her or to tell on the bullies, fearing what they'd do. Still, the tables were soon to be turned, on the day that Vocal was the first colt in his class to earn his cutie mark.

It was a warm summer day. After another day of being tossed into the ground, Vocal was quietly getting back onto his hooves, waiting for his mother to show up. Before that happened, he smelt something. The scent of bullies nearby was easy to smell, but they usually left him alone after another humiliation. What was worrying was that he could smell the young filly he liked, just beside them.

He opened his wings and, quieter than a whisper (Whisperwing) he flew up to them. He could hear them talking - the bullies wanted her to do something which she clearly didn't want. Something about a kiss... then he could hear a smash, the scent of the filly now tainted with fear. This, he could no longer stand.

He jumped out of his cover and, with his far above average vocal skills, roared with a volume comparable to dragons. Without even thinking, the bullies quickly dashed off. He walked up to where he could smell the filly, and asked if she was okay. He felt her fear slowly disappearing as she answered that she was okay and thanked him. Then a squeal of excitement as she said that he got a cutie mark. He learnt that those were markings which represented a pony's special talent, but there was no point in looking there. She relayed to him what it was - a microphone, a device to enhance a pony's voice. His talent must have been his voice. He rejoiced, she rejoiced with him, and from that day, the bullies never even approached him ever again.

However, a sad information was waiting at his house. Due to a cave-in, the mine was buried in rubble and the expenses to re-open it were too great. His father lost his job and his mother tried to bring in as much money as she could from the opera business, but slowly ponies lost interest and Vocal knew it was time to take the matter of money into his own hooves. Not in an opera hall, but on the streets.

Since then, his life settled to a clear, concise pattern - school, work, home. He worked on the street as a blind singer, and although you couldn't really call it a job, he got a decent amount of money. He wanted to do something which paid more money in return for a bit of risk but his parents forbid him from doing that, as they didn't want to lose him. They made him promise not to get involved in dangerous jobs. After many years have passed and Vocal was finally entering adulthood, he knew it was time to live on his own. His parents wished for him to stay, but he knew he couldn't rely on them forever. Wishing them good luck and promising to stay in touch and send some money whenever he could, Vocal left the safety of his home. With this, his story ends. He kept travelling, and finally decided to settle near the Everfree Forest and Ponyville. When he arrived there, he decided that with his singing he could make the lives of others happier and contribute to society without taking up a dangerous job.

[SunsetSombra]

Okay, having taken a lookover this particular application...I see a few issues that may need a little reworking.

" there was a cave-in, killing all workers of the coal mine. "

Whilst there's no explicit grimdark here as such, this could probably be reworded to not necessarily take away the impact itself from the event, but to just not make the description quite as blunt. it feels like there's a lot of tragic events that have been piled on, and I feel that this particular description is probably one of those that just needs to be lightly glossed over a little. For example 'due to a tragic event in the coal mines' is vague but clear enough for what you want.

" he'd never see it, he wouldn't understand the meaning of 'shape' or 'light'."

A pony could still FEEL shape - a visual reception just makes it easier, but feeling an objects shape is still a valid method for the blind.

Perhaps more of a phrasing nitpick, but I feel it's something worth pointing out for consideration!.

" on the day that Vocal earned his cutie mark as the first colt in class."

the sentence above looks a little awkward - I think you meant 'Was the first colt in the class to earn his cutiemark'

" Many years have passed and Vocal was finally entering adulthood. His mother was behaving oddly lately, so he saved up money and took her to a clinic. She was diagnosed with dementia - her memory was extremely faulty. Sometimes she'd forget who she was, where she was and who he was. He saw her pain every time she couldn't believe she forgot about her son, so he picked the path which would hurt her the least - he left her in the hospital, so she wouldn't have to keep remembering that she forgot her family, to save her pain. Better be peacefully oblivious than painfully knowledgeable. "

Hmm - Considering the amount of tragedy and misfortune in this application already, I'm not entirely sure what this really adds to the character - you don't have to play or mention the parents again overall, so nothing really needs to be done to remove them from existance. I'm mostly more concerned about the application going to cliche levels of tragic background for no good reason, and I'm honestly not sure that something like his mother suddenly becoming unable to function mentally lends anything else...you have a fair amount of rather bleak information going on, and at that point anything else loses general effect and becomes near-meaningless on an emotional level, because you've already piled on a good amount of grim history.

My suggestion is that he simply chose to try and make a name for himself away from his mother, keeping in contact or whatever...it keeps the mother as a nonfactor whilst not overloading the application with more traumatic background - after all, realistically something like this doesn't really happen to anyone all that often and thus with everything else on top, it nearly feels like a game of 'Pin the emotional baggage on the pony' after a certain point.

Anyhow, this pretty much sums up my initial thoughts about the application...just take some time to revise your ideas and maybe think over just which events should be kept and which don't really contribute to the character on any real level other than superficially - if you can ground some of the trauma to a slightly more level amount and balance it out a little, I think you could otherwise have a decent application as a whole!

Edited May 23, 2012 by Robikku Pegasus

[Nuclear]

Sorry, I am the guy who makes the lives of his characters extremely tragic. But I did revise his history and decided that killing/disabling his parents could be avoided.

Pardon my choice of wording as I am not as great in the field of written English language as I'd hope to be, and please tell me where I went wrong now, if I have.

[brianblackberry]

Looks good to me.

For Great Justice!

[Dio]