Behind the Story: Something About a Violet

Now that this story has finished its run and has officially received slightly more views than Soul Vernacular gets in a year, it’s time to talk about it.

Something About a Violet has been in the conceptual stage for a couple of months, that being the stage where I have an idea and a way to execute it, but haven’t written it down. I was scared to write it down because of what happened on Not Who I Thought I’d Be, but upon hearing someone say (B on a stream maybe) that the best way to kick the haters is to show them they have no power over what you write, I decided that I was going to write and publish the story.

Then, I just didn’t get a push to do so.

It was supposed to be an autobiographical story about my transition using my ponysona, but I didn’t want to write Identity (parts one and two, you can find them on the Author’s Academy wiki, I’m SociallyAwkwardDashite (Dashie) on there) again, so I shelved the idea until I could think of a way to utilize Reinn in a unique way.

Much like most of the books in my room, the concept for Something About s Violet sat quietly on the shelves because I didn’t care about it enough to put an effort into it.

So, Vylet Pony is an Electronic music artist in the MLP fandom, who is probably most well-known for Antonymph. She released an album recently entitled Cutiemarks (And The Things That Bind Us), which gained a lot of traction both in and out of the MLP fandom and even ended up hitting number 1 on Ratemymusic.com. The album had the (frankly beautiful) tagline/arc words, “Sing a song about life”.

So... why am I bringing up Vylet Pony?

Well, on Quills and Sofas, those words became a prompt and we had to vote on what the complete prompt would be. The result was “Sing a song about life: transitions.”

After struggling to come up with ideas for a while, I decided that then would be as good as a time as any to use the Something About a Violet concept.

The only problem was that I didn’t know how to write the story.

So, I flung around a couple of ideas with myself , and I eventually decided that the story was just going to be The Drumming Pegasus but covering a different concept. So, Reinn would talk to the audience, engage in plenty of side commentary, and display full on AD/HD.

So, that’s how it was originally written, and that was the story I submitted.

The story was autobiographical, but, and I’m going to sound like Chuck Berry describing Johnny B. Goode (his life story except he couldn’t play guitar instantly, didn’t grow up in a log cabin near New Orleans, and wasn’t a country boy which is basically the entire song), I didn’t figure out I was trans from an album, I didn’t have intense depression because of dysphoria, and I was a lot older than 11 when I found out I was trans.

The album mentioned in the story is actually a reference to Transgender Dysphoria Blues, a primarily Hardcore Punk album by Anarchist Punk band Against Me!, which delves into lead singer Laura Grace’s lifestory and is a really good album, if you can get past some of the song titles (I swear FUCKMYLIFE666 is a positive song with a very positive video). The song mentioned by Reinn is a reference to Drinking With the Jocks from said album, which is probably the craziest song on drums I’ve actively played to.

The nondescript Nu-Metal album is not a reference to any album in particular, but just a bit of a ribbing towards Nu-Metal having a reputation for being depressing and angry all the time. It originally said Emo, but I decided against it.

The story was originally called A Wilted Flower, though I decided that that name didn’t fit the slightly comedic and friendly tones of most of the story. So, I changed it to the non-sequitorial Something About a Violet to better fit Reinn’s personality before sending it in. However, the story title also has another meaning, Reinn is a member of Burnt Violets (not a random band name choice, by the way), and thus this story is something about a [member of Burnt] Violet(s).

After the completed original story was voted on, I decided it was strong enough to upload, so I fleshed out a few details and decided that I was going to use some of the feedback I got on the story to modify it a little bit. After all, if every interviewer asks this question, then Reinn should easily answer the question in an interview, right?

So, I started working on framing the story as an interview in The Rolling Stone, but then I decided that because the rest of the band wasn’t there, and I couldn’t think of a pony name for The Rolling Stone, it would be weird to do that. So, I took inspiration from a different magazine I actually have in my room, Drumhead, to make it more plausible why Reinn was being interviewed alone. For the record, Reinn was interviewed on style and being in a band before the interviewer asked about the transition.

After cheekily adding in an intro and copyright information for Drums and Drummers, I decided to upload the story. I then proceeded to edit it five times afterwards because I needed to make it easier to read.

That’s really everything about Something About a Violet.

And, until next time; be awesome!
-Dashie