Chapter 13 is Live! Let's talk about Summers and Suede · 11:22am Nov 24th, 2021
Welcome to Chapter 13, everybody! These chapters have been getting noticeably longer since I started using text-to-speech when checking for mistakes, and I am not sure why. I wonder if I go back and start reviewing the previous chapters if they'd get longer as well after a few passes. Probably not 1-5 since those drafts were sitting in my folder for ages, back when I was gonna write the whole book and then release it one drip at a time. Who knew that releasing it weekly was a better practice to keep me motivated? I guess The affirmation from the audience of one is what keeps me going.
So, if you haven't figured it out by the Author Note selections, Suede Shoes and Sauna Summers are ponified versions of real life performers. No, these two weren't married. In fact, I don't know if they ever met since they're decades apart, but since the planning stages for this fic after my first botched start, I had both OCs figured out from top the bottom.
Suede Shoes is the Michael Bublé and Sauna Summers is Donna Summer.
- Why did I choose these two? I like their music.
- Why is Suede Shoes not a reference to Michael Bublé's name? Cause I came up with Suede Shoes to match Fancy Pants. His wife just needed to be a disco queen. So why not choose one of the Queens of Disco that had an easily ponified name?
- Why am I bothering with telling you all about them? Well, if you've been reading, you know Suede is very important already. What about Sauna? Her effect on the story will become clearer in due time. I have enough background on these two to make a spin-off fic just about them. Depending upon how the story goes, I might do another one-shot for them. Sauna Summers is definitely worth getting to know. Suede Shoes? I don't like him as much knowing the overarching story of his life, but he has his story to tell.
I really hope you enjoy the music selections I chose to sample for them. Donna was incredibly hard to choose music from since she could easily give people the wrong impression for a chapter. I already had one song picked out for her which will be used later, but this chapter went through about six different songs before I found a good one that matches it. Sometimes I have a track already in mind when writing or I need to retroactively find fitting music. Sometimes it's harder to find a good track than it is to write it. But I am very happy with this chapter's selection.
I actually had never heard "I Remember Yesterday before two days ago when I was looking over Donna's discography. I really liked her work around the late 1970's and early 1980's, so finding something like this was just what the doctor ordered. A song about a past event that has both Swing and Disco to reflect the nature of the archive? Yes please! What a happy coincidence. I find the track oddly ahead of its time. It's so nice too since it works better with how Sauna's and Suede's untold story unfolds. We'll just have to wait and see if I need to tell that in this fic or if I can save for the Gloria Celestia treatment.
Onto Chapter 14, at the time of writing this blog, I am about 700 rough words into the chapter still deciding if I want to really explore Fluffer Duster and Dapper Dandy as characters. My original plan was to have just a bunch of ponies around Fancy's place keeping it running, but since Fancy doesn't utilize all the spaces, it made much more sense to have a periodic cleaning service come through and straighten up the rooms not in use. Means I don't need to juggle more OCs for no reason. Speaking of, what is my OC scorecard at right now...
Steeplechase, Pennywhistle, Athena Cypriel, Tan Cappuccino, Lavender Breeze, Harvest Valley, Lofty Heights, Fluffer Duster, Dapper Dandy...
And those are just the ones that I remember actually speaking. I've also listed a bushel of names as well in passing. Don't want to clutter up the story unnecessarily, but at the same time, Fluffer and Dapper are live-in servants. It'd be odd not to have them at times. I'll have to get to know them better.
All that said, we're getting into the thick of things. We'll have to see what happens from here. I hope you enjoyed the Melodys making an appearance. Since things are settling back down into a new norm, we should be able to have some developments that aren't steeped in chaos. I've fired a lot of guns, and I need to reload before turning the heat back up.
Anyway, I'll keep doing my best to tell this story. Thanks for reading if you bothered with this whole blog post!
- Rego
Honestly, I thought Suede Shoes was a reference to Elvis Presley. Thinking back on it, maybe that was thinking a little bit too on the nose.
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I was originally going to name him Shiny Shoes to avoid that connection, but I ultimately liked how Suede rolls off the tongue. I'm not a fan of Presley. He's okay, but I wanted a crooner. Just so happens that I really like Bublé. Also, his discography is a bit closer to what I wanted than figures like Sinatra.
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I feel like that was the way to go, ultimately. It's a smaller step from rock n roll to disco, so while that would have been... fine? But not nearly as interesting.