Post by Noteworthy on May 5, 2012 3:35:43 GMT -5
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Pony's name: Noteworthy aka Blues
Pony's age: 22
Type of pony or animal: Earth Pony
Pony's cutie mark and special talent: Noteworthy's cutie mark is two pairs of backwards-facing quavers (eighth notes). His special talent involves making music, either by song writing, or playing an instrument.
Employment: Unlike many ponies out there, Noteworthy has two jobs. He works as a clerk at a music store during the day, and during the night he works as a musician called "Blues"
Current city: Ponyville
Appearance:
Noteworthy is one blue pony, literally. His coat is a slate-blue while his mane and cuite mark are a darker shade of his coat. The only thing not blue about him are his honey colored eyes. The stallion can most commonly be seen with his mane and tail looking like he just rolled out of bed, and he likes it that way. For spending most of his time working in a shop, Noteworthy is still plenty strong enough to pull a plow and help with the plant team during winter wrap-up.
When performing as his alter-ego Blues, Noteworthy combs out his mane and tail, tucking for former under some clothes. As Blues he wears a white shirt, a black jacket, a tie, a hat, and a pair of sunglasses. He puts forth a decent amount of effort to disguise himself so that ponies shouldn't be able to recognize who he is.
Noteworthy takes advantage of having a human form and is known to use it often. He's not terribly tall, only 5'8" and looks rather average as far as his build is concerned. His blue hair is somewhat short, just barely touching the bottom of his neck at the lowest, and still looks like he hasn't touched it with a comb. His choice of clothing leans toward simple and comfortable. Jeans, plain shirt, and a light hoodie are very common for him. As Blues he wears a black suit with matching hat and shades, and a white shirt.
Personality
Noteworthy gives the impression of being a rather cheerful, friendly, and laid back kind of pony. He's always happy to talk to someone, or help somepony out when he can. Ever since his return to Ponyville nothing seems to get him down very much, or for very long. He bottles up all of his negative emotions, and vents them out in his music either in writing, or as Blues. Its obvious that Noteworthy is proud of his songwriting with rooms of his small home practically wallpapered with sheets of music tacked up, or notebooks filled with music notes and lyrics. A number of pieces will probably never be finished, but there's reasons for it. Sometimes there's writers block, other times he began writing while feeling a certain emotion and now its gone.
What happened to him while he was away from Ponyville is not a subject Noteworthy likes to discuss. It brings back a lot of bad memories for him, and he won't go into very much detail about it. Since his return to Ponyville, Noteworthy has practically made himself part of the town's background. When not working he can always be found doing something somewhere. He loves helping out his community, and tries to partake in as many of the town's events as possible. Its hard NOT to find him wherever there is a large gathering of ponies someplace.
Noteworthy still plays some instruments publicly just for fun. He claims he's not that great, just good enough to perform on street corners for a few bits. He knows he's better than he lets on, but he doesn't want to become known for his abilities to play music anymore. He's seen the darker side of fame, and its not something he wants to get close to again. He gets his satisfaction of being a musician when he goes out as his alter ego Blues and plays on stage for a small place that's open late. That's who he likes playing for, small, familiar crowds.
Inwardly he finds it amusing. As a colt he was turned into Blues because he was afraid of how bad he might down, and now he becomes Blues to make sure no one knows how good he is. He wants to be known for who he is, not what he can do. He's Noteworthy, the pony you can find in just about any crowd, and that's how he wants the residents of Ponyville to know him as.
Background
Noteworthy's childhood isn't one with anything odd or exciting happening in it. He is the only child of his parents Falsetto and Melody. Even though his immediate family was small, overall he came from a large family with relatives that span as far as Appleoosa today. Having family spread out so far would come in handy later on in his life, but more on that later. Noteworthy was born in Ponyville, and where he's spent most of his life. Music has been a big part of Note's life with his parents owning the music store he works in today. Growing up around music, it wasn't that surprising when the blue colt got his cutie mark during music class at school. He had decided to take some creative liberties with the boring sheet music they were practicing with and determined it needed a solo in it. Turns out that getting your cutie mark is one of the things that can get you out of trouble if you do it right.
The feeling of getting your cutie mark is a great feeling for anypony, and the same went for Noteworthy until he decided to pursue what it meant. Being musically inclined was a great thing for him... and having stage fright was the bane of his existence. The first time he was given his own part in a school performance he managed to play a grand total of five notes that were right. Music was something to express yourself with and have fun making, but with all those eyes in the audience watching him, starting at him, judging him... it was too much pressure for him. To try and get over the performance anxiety he practiced really hard for the next recital where he'd be partnered up with another student, Rockabilly. He practiced as long as he could up on the stage they'd eventually use in order to get used to standing there with the spotlight on him. It was practically a second home to him by the time the event was happening.
Too bad it didn't do anything to help with his anxiety. When it came time for him to finally make his way onto the stage he froze. Suddenly his body decided it wanted to be a statue now. With how bad things went before, there was no way he'd be able to go in front of a crowd again, and to make it worse a friend was depending on him. Just when he felt like he was going to explode, or break doing crying, he felt a hat being placed on his head. While part of him hoped that someone had mistaken him from a hat rack, he knew it wasn't true. One of the teachers, Miss Summer Night, had stuck a hat on him, and slipped a pair of sunglasses on him before holding out a coat. There wasn't much time to have a long heart ot heart about everything, so she kept it quick. She knew what stage fright looked like from her own experiences with it and other ponies who had it. She felt that if she gave Noteworthy something to hide behind he might be able to feel a bit more confident. She'd even have the pair introduced as something other than their names, then no one would be looking at 'Noteworthy', and if he did bad no one would know it had been him.
It didn't do much to make him feel confident in himself, but it got him to join his partner Rockabilly on stage before the curtain rose. The pair were introduced as Rhythm and Blues, and the rest was history. Noteworthy and Rockabilly were the best of friends since that night, and practically grew up together after that. Eventually, when they were older, the two of them left Ponyville to try and find a big music career for themselves with their act. They traveled around wherever they could, Manehattan, Las Pegasus, Fillydelphia, Baltimare, even Canterlot. Shockingly they weren't doing as bad as they expected going from place to place to get their name out there.
Some say success can change a pony, and it something Noteworthy agrees with today. As their act Rhythm and Blues got more popular, they became more successful, and things started to feel wrong for Noteworthy. Some where along the way it wasn't just about playing music and having a good time while doing it for Rockabilly. Noteworthy could see where things were going, and tried to bring things back to their roots, but Rockabilly was too caught up in his growing fame. Things got to a point where Noteworthy wasn't happy with what they were doing, and left. It wasn't as simple as that, but that's what happened. The large family of his that helped support him by giving him their couch for a few nights while he traveled around, now had to do the same as he made his way back to Ponyville.
Noteworthy was glad his home hadn't changed in the few years he had been away. All the land marks were still the same, all the ponies were the same but older. He'd traveled across Equestria trying to find something he didn't want, and what he really wanted was at the beginning after all. There wasn't time for him to feel bad about coming home after all that happened, everypony that remembered him and welcomed him back was something for him to be happy about. He wasn't Blues to people here, he wasn't some musician, he was Noteworthy. He was the kid whose parents owned that music store, he was the colt who failed miserably the first time there was a spotlight on him, he was the guy who would sit someplace with his friend Rockabilly and play music no matter who passed by. To everyone of Ponyville, he was simply Noteworthy, and they were glad he was back.
To this day he hasn't told anypony the entire story of what happened while he was away, not wanting to go into detail. For a while he was content to work in his family's shop, but eventually the music called to him once more. Now by day he works for his family, and at night the mysterious Blues plays where he can.
Anything else you'd like to add:
Noteworthy is talented with many musical instruments, but seems to have a bit of a preference for the guitar, saxophone, and harmonica.
• • •
Your name: Blues, its simple and shorter than Notewrothy
Your age: 25
Roleplaying experience: Over a decade
How you found us: An ad somewhere
Other characters: This is my first one!
Roleplaying sample:Noteworthy sat on a stool in the music store he worked in. The sign said closed, but he hadn't locked up yet. Normally he would have left by now, but he had something he wanted to do before locking up and clearing out. A weathered, but sturdy, guitar case was on the counter in front of him alongside a well used guitar sporting new strings. The case held a lot of little tokens from his travels outside of Ponyville, and all those tokens held memories that he'd been trying to ignore since coming back. He thought he could avoid them if he just grabbed the guitar he wanted and shut the case right after, but luck wasn't on his side. While restringing the instrument, he noticed a photograph has fallen into the acoustic guitar, a photograph that was now in his hand.
The picture was from when he first left Ponyville with his best friend Rockabilly. They had decided to go straight to Canterlot first to try and make it big. They ended up spending months in Canterlot trying to find their place, and also working odd jobs to try and afford living there and to be able to travel away. It had never occurred to them that they shouldn't have chosen the most expensive place to start out in. The photo was of him sitting in a booth at the diner he worked at, and next to him was the only thing that could have made him stay in Canterlot, a girl. It was taken late at night after one of their shows, and they had all went out for late night breakfast afterwards. It wasn't much, but he and Rockabilly felt like stars that night.
The memory was bitter sweet. The unicorn next to him was named Sweet Heart, and his marefriend at the time of the picture. She brought out the best in him, and he would have stayed in Canterlot for her if it wasn't for her friends. They did everything they could to break them up, and ultimately succeeded. It wasn't a sudden change, but they won when it counted the most. It was getting close to the day he and Rockabilly were going to leave Canterlot, but there was still time to change their plans if they wanted, and he asked her a simple question, should he stay. The silence that followed had been deafening. It was the last time he saw her.
"Do you know I waited by the train for you?" he spoke the the picture in his hand, his voice soft and sad. "You knew when and where I was leaving from. Rockabilly had to pull me onto the train so I wouldn't get left behind. I hoped you'd show up... we never even said goodbye. Wherever you are Sweet Heart, I hope you're happy, and you're idiot friends aren't." With that Noteworthy placed the picture on his guitar case, and picked up his instrument. The guitar felt all too familiar to him. Even though the strings were all new, the notes he began to play were all too familiar.
"We couldn't say them
So now we just pray them
Words that we couldn't say
Funny ain't it
Games people play
Scratch it paint it
One in the same
We couldn't find them
So we tried to hide them
Words that we couldn't say"
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