Author Notes: Parties, Preening, and PTSD · 6:45pm May 5th, 2015
Here are some random author notes about my latest story, Parties, Preening & PTSD. If you haven't read the story yet, then this will contain spoilers, so go read it first.
Firstly, yes the preening does seem like a bit of a random thing to throw into the story. Why the hell have preening in an OctaScratch story? But the preening was actually where this story all began — the rest of it grew from there — I never had the heart to rip the original kernel out of the story. And I think it does actually work, especially the phoenix comparison, and the alicorn bit at the end. I couldn't have had those lines without the wings.
This story actually started out as an idea for the Preening group contest, but I realized it would take a bit longer to write than the contest deadline would allow, and wrote Preening Scoots for the contest instead. As it turned out this story would have been way over the contest's word limit anyway, and might not have included enough preening.
No, I don't have post-traumatic stress disorder, but I did quite a bit of reading on PTSD and depression for this story. Some of the effects of PTSD include:
♥ flashbacks and nightmares
♥ avoidance and numbing
♥ paranoia and excessive anxiety
♥ headaches and muscular aches
♥ depression
♥ alcoholism and drug dependency (i.e. self-medication)
Also diarrhoea, but I decided not to go there.
I tried to stay realistic with the depression. Vinyl isn't not constantly sad — she has happy moments, bright patches amidst the gloom. But she suffers from low self-worth, both with regard to her career and her relationship with Octavia.
One key aspect to PTSD treatment is making the patient confront the trauma in detail, possibly revisiting the site where it occurred. This is what happens when Vinyl goes to Canterlot. She is able to look down on the gardens where it happened and recall everything in vivid detail. This is what helps her begin to start dealing with the trauma.
Gobos are a real thing. I did quite a bit of research on lighting for this too.
I mentioned Vinyl wearing a dress when she attended Sunshower Raindrops' wedding.
Generally speaking I hadn't originally planned on writing so much about their outfits. I can't find many pictures that match up with how I imagine them looking, but Octavia's Gala dress should be kind of like this (but without the plunging neckline) and her afterparty dress a bit like this though both of those pictures are anthro, and this story is very much a pony story, not anthro. There aren't really many pictures of Vinyl wearing fancy dresses — this one is cute though not really how I imagine her dress in the story. Here's one of her in a hoodie.
Crossover alert: I used the same characterizations of Amethyst Star, Banana Fluff, Dinky Doo, and Noi, that I had used in sbloom85's Ponies Masturbate With an X collab (see the Lyra and Amethyst Star chapters).
Did you pay attention to when Vinyl puts her shades on and when she takes them off? What can I say… I'm a massive fan of Disney's Frozen and love what they did with gloves in that film — there are two main characters in that film that are shown to wear them; the symbolism of the gloves and when they choose to remove them is very powerful.
I know I'm a big tease for tagging this story with Twilight Sparkle. You all expected her to get preened, right? Sorry. She is in it though.
There are zero pony OCs in this story. Every single pony either named or described is a canon character.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with how this story ended up. It's been enjoyable to work on, but it turned out to be a pretty big project, that took up a lot of time, and I am glad it's over. There's no sequel planned, but I do have an idea for a bonus (clop) chapter — it won't happen any time soon though. If you add the story to your "Tracking" bookshelf, then you'll be notified about any new chapters in your Fimfiction feed.
A big, big thanks to Miss Spectrum, The Sexy Assistant, and TheWraithWriter for pre-reading parts of the story. (Though I refused to let anybody pre-read any parts of the story after the Grand Galloping Gala afterparty, because spoilers.)
Lastly, happy birthday again ScratchnTavi!
heh thanks.
Awesome birthday that far