The Writing of The Bonds of Love (Chapter Four: Optimism) · 1:34am Apr 2nd, 2023
Alternate titles: Pessimism, Paranoia — Didn’t choose either, preferring to name it, not after Silver’s problem, but rather the solution to it.
Before I begin discussing this chapter properly, I just wanna say I feel so bad for Silverstream. I put her through so much crap in this story, it’s not even funny. But that begs the question why Silver’s story-line became what it is. To answer that we must first discuss what this chapter could have been.
Initially, this chapter wasn’t going to be from Silver’s perspective; in fact, she wasn’t going to have any scenes/chapters following her perspective at all. Instead, Ch.4(Optimism) would still be from Gallus’ perspective as he and the Drama Club prepare for the play. However, I did want to start focusing on Silverstream more with this chapter.
We’d get to Canterlot and fluff about until immediately before the performance. Gallus would then see the crowd which would trigger a mix of stage fright, claustrophobia, and his other various issues, resulting in him having a massive panic attack. The ponies would naturally be confused—And in Vellum’s case: Outraged—by this, but Yona would quickly step in to calm him down, teach him a lesson about not fearing failure or being judged and all that jazz, and the performance would go swimmingly.
Where was Silver during all of this? Standing in the background, watching everything unfold and not doing anything due to not knowing how to help or whether she should and risk worsening his paniclike she accidentally did with the date question. Basically, I wanted this chapter to show Silver’s perspective on things without actually being told from her perspective.
That idea was dumb, but at the time, I wasn’t certain which would be better: Be consistent with A.D.F.F. and tell T.B.O.L. from only Gallus’ perspective, or grant Silver the full spotlight for a while.
The deciding factor was Jack of A Few Trades’ criticisms regarding Gallus. While I could have made stage fright work as a good flaw for him to overcome, it’s not a problem Gallus realistically would have, especially given he and the others starred in Celestia’s Ones-versery. So I chose to follow Silverstream’s perspective solely and got to work on establishing her character arc.
I may have backpedaled on the stage fright idea, but I opted to recycle what I had planned to do with Silverstream during it: Having her be conflicted on how to help Gallus, wanting so desperately to help him but being terrified of screwing up and making things worse.
Thus, the paranoia subplot.
But why though? Of all the character flaws to give Silverstream, why paranoia? After all, I had already been criticized for messing up Gallus’ character, and Silverstream is such an optimistic one, so why’d I risk screwing her character up too? What could I possibly write into the story to justify the change to Silver’s attitude?
I asked myself that a lot, and I was extremely nervous about how I ultimately wrote her. But the justification I settled on was what she told Starlight: She was terrified of seeing Gallus that bad off again.
The others were as worried about Gallus as they were from Silver simply telling them what happened, but Silverstream actually witnessed it all first-talon. I figured she’d be the most afraid of seeing Gallus like that again and the most desperate to help him. Couple this with the element of “What if I make things worse?” I slipped in early on and reinforced when she learned Gallus panicked over her date question, and you’ve got Silverstream trapped in a downward spiral of wanting so badly to help the griffon she loves be happy but afraid of failing and completely ruining his recovery.
And I gotta say? I love what I did with Silverstream and her arc. I did it all justice, and I’m glad people enjoyed how I handled it too, despite some being caught off-guard by it.
If I may quote Rininani:
I particularly liked the part where Silverstream talks about the villains/statues. I was surprised by her reaction at first, because she's such a generally upbeat character, but it didn't feel OOC at all. Considering her history with the storm king, it makes perfect sense for her to feel the way she does about them and forgiveness in general, it's just that not a lot of tackle that. I felt like I saw a side of her I don't get to normally, and not a lot of fics have done that specific thing for me.
This is exactly what I was going for with Silverstream, and I’m beyond happy to know I succeeded and wrote a version of her where she wasn’t just a stairs-obsessed, diet Pinkie Pie. Admittedly, there is a trade-off for this though: Silverstream is really mellow in this story.
The cheery, hyperactive energy she’s known for is there; it’s just being funneled into either her paranoia over Gallus’ well-being or her feelings regarding Smolder for most of the story. Her normally upbeat attitude only makes a true comeback in the Mount Aris arc, but even then it’s somewhat subdued. Although, I suppose you could argue this was due to Silver maturing and becoming a calmer, more well-rounded individual over the course of T.B.O.L. thanks to everything she went through. Or it’s just bad writing. I’ll leave you to decide.
With that out of the way, how about we get into Ch.4(Optimism) proper?
~ Pre-Performance Jitters With a Dash of Magic Jargon ~
Since we were following Silverstream’s perspective this chapter, I opted for the very first scene to ease us into that, while also establishing the key plot points of this chapter’s conflict.
Silver’s worry over Gallus urging her to seek Starlight’s help, yet still feeling hesitant about doing so, hinting at her fear of making everything worse. And of course we end the scene on a semi-cliffhanger just for that added touch of “What’s Silver talking about!? What happened to our precious bluebird!?” drama. 
And as a neat bonus: I got include a batpony—a Lunar Guard at that, and one one who actually helped Silverstream out instead of cheaply going “Uhhh, who are you and why are you wandering the Palace unsupervised?”
But now it was time for the flashback portion of the chapter, and I want to start by lamenting how little I did with Gallus joining Chess Club.
I wanted to do more with that plot point, and we’d even see more of November as a result, but Chess Club was yet another thing related to the personality issue, so you can guess what happened there.
This scene would have originally started with a Gallus vs. Ocellus chess match that Silverstream had interrupt to retrieve Gallus for Drama Club, but since I had to de-prioritize the Chess Club’s existence, we instead open with them discussing their teleportation project and Silver watching on with Shimmy being the one sent to get them.
All things considered, I prefer this opening; it adds more to their project by showing how difficult it is to create the spell, gives Gallus time to flaunt his intellect, grants extra foreshadowing to Ocellus’ emotion-reading spell, and begins laying the groundwork for the “Gallus’ Future” subplot.
Oh, and we also get hit point-blank with how bad Silver’s paranoia is.
Shimmy then arrives to beckon them to the theater hall and celebrates Gallus-Stream finally being a thing with Gallus being uncharacteristically open about it.
That was something I wanted to eliminate immediately—Gallus being shy/embarrassed about dating Silverstream. That’s a common Romance trope I despise, and while Canon Gallus probably would be a tad embarrassed about dating somecreature, I did not want T.B.O.L.’s Gallus doing that.
“He loves her; she loves him; don’t bother making them pretend otherwise, have them be proud of being together, in fact!” –I said to myself once more. Hence both Cadence’s letter about the issue, and Gallus quickly following the advice.
With the Gallus criticisms in mind, however, I had others acknowledge how surprising it was he’d be so comfortable with his and Silver’s relationship as well as sharing Cadence’s letters.
Two of my personal favorite details I put in are here too:
#1) Gallus keeping most of Cadence’s letters on talon so he can make sure he’s doing the relationship right—a nod to the perfectionism problem he has later on—and re-reading the previous ones once he reached the 179th and got too intimidated by it to continue on.
What was the 179th letter on, you might ask? Well… I don’t really remember. 
I think it was an arbitrary number I threw out there for Gallus to stop at. If I did genuinely intend that letter to discuss something specific, it was likely the subject of having children which would be a natural explanation for why Gallus stopped at it.
And #2) Silverstream’s paranoia effecting her so badly she’s beginning to grow a temper, as evidenced by how aggressively defensive she gets when she fears Ocellus and Scoop upset Gallus, suspects the Canterlot nobles might be racist toward him, and feels Smolder is angry at him for no good reason.
It hammers in how terrible pessimism is for Silverstream because the mindset’s both constantly wearing her down into raw emotional exhaustion, while also negatively influencing how she views the world and treats the creatures around her, even her friends, even Gallus himself!
Next, we see Scoop, Patty, and Shimmy begin their descent into crazed, Gallus-Stream shipper-dom, and we establish the Student Six having movie nights—Another thing I wish I had done more with. Also, for those wondering, the bad movie Cadence referenced was The Notebook, specifically the Ferris Wheel scene. I’ve never watched that movie, nor plan to, but I did watch this video from Pop Culture Detective:
And that scene in particular stuck out to me for how horrifyingly awful it was. But hey, at least it gave me a chance to give the first proper hint to what Smolder’s true fears were. On that note, before Shimmy was interrupted, she was going to reveal that, after watching the scene in question, Smolder ran to the bathroom and threw up.
Rarity and Yona then appear, foreshadow Silver’s dress, and drop the bombshell of performing in Canterlot.
Why exactly did I have them perform in Canterlot instead of the School? As usual, two reasons:
#1)If I had them perform at the School, I would have felt compelled to include a scene where the others wish Gallus, Silver, and Yona good luck, but since I still wanted to avoid having Gallus and Smolder interact at this point, I deflected away from that.
#2) The other reason is the true reason for this decision, but we’ll discuss it later.
Before I forget, The Epoch of Majesty Serendipity Daydream was given such a ridiculously convoluted name purely for the joke of it having a ridiculously convoluted name. And also to low-key reference Majesty from G1, but that’s neither here nor there. I am disappointed I didn’t write out the Club practicing scenes from it, but I’m not a playwright by any means, so I swiftly decided against it.
The scene then drags a tad to have Vellum experience a conniption, make Scoop imitate Squidward, further set up the “Gallus’ Future” subplot, reinforce Silverstream’s paranoia, and acknowledge Chancellor Neighsay gathered everycreature together for the battle against the Legion of Doom. Seriously, that’s one of my favorite details from that episode, and I’ve never seen anyone talk about it!
Moving on…!
~ To Canterlot We Go! ~
With the Club heading for Canterlot, there was only one place they’d logically stay, and since I still wanted to include a therapy scene every chapter, Starlight tagged along for the ride. I also didn’t waste the chance to finally acknowledge why Trixie wasn’t counseling Gallus despite technically being the new Guidance Counselor.
The original explanation was Starlight wanted to personally counsel Gallus due to his issues’ severity, but I figured that explanation was underwhelming, so I instead established Starlight was still doing counseling work while Trixie trained to become the Guidance Counselor. It’s a minor thing, but it’s nonetheless something I’m glad I accounted for.
Another minor thing I made sure to acknowledge was the Palace staff still lining the halls with lavender. No real plot-important reason why—I simply wanted to show that, despite Twilight being in charge now, Celestia and Luna’s time running the palace wasn’t without impact on the staff.
In fact, that’s another reason I had Raven Inkwell be slightly snarky with Twilight after opening the throne room door directly into her face. Though the main one was to subtly show a difference in how the staff—Raven included—interact with Twilight versus how they did with Celestia. Where the latter was treated with absolute reverence, the former is considered more personable, more of an equal.
It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it detail that doesn’t have anything to do with the main plot and doesn’t reappear after this scene, but it’s worth mentioning.
As for why I had Twilight get hit in the face with a door? To both show how excited she was to see her friends and students again and to give her a taste of what Spike went through throughout the show.
And yes, FanficReader920, Spike shouting “That’s how it feels!” was totally a Thor: Ragnarok reference. What can I say? I like reference humor. 
Humor was also why Twilight, Rarity, and Starlight had a quick squabble over the “surprise,” but I think this joke was pretty decent. It’s sold by Spike being so unbothered since he’s known them long enough to know—as proven in the next three seconds—they’ll immediately make up. Doesn’t mean the students are unbothered though considering what Rainbow and Rarity went through in “The End in Friend,” which is why I had them be concerned.
I won’t apologize for the “Friendship is Magic” reference Gallus sneaked in, much to Vellum’s exasperation; it may have been low-hanging fruit, but I still chuckle at that one.
Could have done without the extra set up for that nonexistent O&O subplot. I only included it here because, at the time, I thought I would still do it after the Griffonstone arc, but well…? Yeah.
Some jokes about Spike, Starlight, and Rarity all missing each other and some light Twilight teasing later, we see the former Headmare speak to her students again.
Something I felt important was to have Twilight to address each student personally and comment on something unique to them. This is why she compliments Scoop’s mane and Patty’s bow as well as Shimmy’s and Zone’s physiques while also inquiring Vellum about his problems with stress and recommending a certain favorite book of hers to help, and she even remembers November was once in the Club. I wanted to show how, despite not being Headmare for long, she remembers her every student and established a personal relationship with them all. Adds more to Twilight’s character, ya know?
And of course, this ends with her checking in briefly with Gallus, glad to see he’s doing better, and finally acknowledging Silverstream’s uncharacteristic quietness—Something I showed through her not having any dialogue until this point and had other characters notice too. And while Silver tries deflecting away from her issues, she’s not particularly good at it.
Ultimately though, this isn’t when I wanted Silver’s problems to be addressed, so Twilight buys it anyway and gives the classic “You just got here two minutes ago, so go to bed” spiel Celestia gave her way back in the first EQG movie while she catches up with her other friends.
We sneak in a swift foreshadow to Scoop’s painting-touching shenanigans, and then have Gallus confront Silver about her quietness as well, but he too relents after another false reassurance of everything being fine. At least he relents after giving her a small, comforting nuzzle—The first nuzzle they share in the story, actually, but certainly not the last.
And then we’re off to Canterlot itself.
But wait! Originally, we weren’t; rather, we’d time-skip to the night before the play, and the Club would be watching the news where the hosts would be demeaning them, claiming they could never hope to do The Epoch of Majesty Serendipity Daydream justice, and putting down Gallus and Vellum in particular. Vellum would naturally be furious and try to drag the Club back to the Theater for another rehearsal, but while Scoop and Zone would be calming him down, Silverstream would head off to Yona’s room and basically have the same conversation they had at the Cloud Stadium. Afterward, the Club would have an even greater desire to perform their hearts out.
I changed this because:
#1) I wanted to explore Canterlot.
#2) I didn’t want to fall into the “Canterlot ponies are all prejudiced jerks” trope trap.
#3) I preferred the Club do their best because they wanted to, not to prove the critics wrong.
And #4) I didn’t want to lend credence to a certain issue Gallus had I’ll discuss later.
So we instead go on a small detour through various locales I discovered while browsing Canterlot’s Wikipage before stopping at the Cloud Stadium to have that Yona/Silver scene.
And like with Silver, I feel terrible for Yona; I barely did anything with her in T.B.O.L. This chapter was supposed to give her a greater focus, but since I made this chapter be from Silver’s perspective, Yona’s role subsequently changed and she became her confidant. While this is all well and good, I regret how this was effectively the only part Yona played throughout the story, minus her conversation with Gallus in Ch.6(Stagnation) and her outburst in Ch.9(Fear).
You know who else I feel bad for? Edith. That cockatrice was going to get far more than her cameo in Ch.9(Fear) and was even going to come with the Club to Canterlot and help Silverstream with everything going on.
Why didn’t she? Since she’s a cockatrice, I was going to have her communicate through clucks and caws with only Silver understanding her, but I thought it’d be cool if I translated it all and posted the dialogue in the Author’s Note. Needless to say, I went back on that real quick once I realized it was taking way too long to do. Unfortunately, this resulted in me cutting Edith entirely and giving her role to Yona. Fine for Yona, not so fine for Edith.
But while I dislike how Edith got axed and Yona got such a reduced role, I suppose both were for the best. Edith honestly would have been somewhat superfluous. And everything I did with Yona, like her yak wisdom and seamstress passion, I did well. Except her broken Equestrian speech pattern—that I’m certain I mucked up. But other than that, I handled Yona well enough.
The conversation she has with Silver could have gone better; as usual, I couldn’t stop myself from sledgehammering the chapter’s main message upside the characters’ heads with no subtlety whatsoever. Ah, whatever. It’s one of T.B.O.L.’s many “quirks,” and I’ll get better as I keep writing.
~ The Monsters In the Photo ~
After a quick visit to the Tasty Treat—no way was I going to not reference that place—we head off to Silver Frames’ Art Gallery.
There’s not much to say here other than I hope I captured the general vibe of an art gallery despite never having been to one IRL. The date aspect was handled exactly how I wanted it to be: Silverstream having a break from her paranoia onslaught and Gallus being one smooth charmer with that mirror move of his.
However! Here’s where we also get the Legion of Doom’s cameo and Silver and Gallus’ conversation about them.
So, Matthais Unidostres had made a comment suggesting Gallus should free Cozy Glow and reform her via the lessons he learns in T.B.O.L. That was never going to happen; this was a story about Gallus, Silver, and the others, not that punk. But that didn’t mean the idea was without merit.
This was the real reason I had the Club travel to Canterlot: I wanted to have a scene with the characters discussing the Legion of Doom.
Originally, the Drama Club would be touring the Royal Palace’s statue garden before stumbling onto theirs, and the Club would talk about them and whether they could be reformed or even deserved it. Unfortunately, I wanted this scene to happen last, but I didn’t think it realistic the Club would explore the city without first exploring the Palace and its gardens since they were staying there.
I still wanted to have the scene though, so I combined it with this one and used it as a means to:
#1) Show Gallus had adopted the “Everyone deserves someone” ideology from Starlight—It was only natural he would; he deserves someone too after all—and was improving mentally by showing his confidence the LoD both deserved redemption and that he and his friends could accomplish it—another nod to Matthais Unidostres’ comment.
And #2) Kick Silver’s paranoia back into high gear and show once more how terribly it’s affecting her through her pessimistic confidence they were neither deserving nor capable of redemption.
Silver’s argument was initially 2-3 paragraphs longer, but the word count curse struck again. I’m glad it did though; I much prefer Silver simply drawing the Storm King parallel rather than launching into full compare-and-contrast mode.
Also, the altered positions of the LoD evidencing Twilight had previously tried reforming them only for them to refuse? Completely stolen from “Inspired” by a random comment thread I found and can’t remember where from.
Gallus then comforts Silver again, but since she can’t catch a break in T.B.O.L., Scoop gets the group kicked out so we can move onto the next scene. And while they’re rightfully peeved at her, Shimmy channels her inner cheerleader and gets the Club’s focus on the play and boosts their morale.
One swift, off-hand acknowledgment of Gruff later, we have Gallus try one last time to comfort Silver, only for her to deflect again, and in response he gives her the best advice he could give in that situation:
When you have a problem, tell someone. Doesn’t matter who, talking always helps. I’ve already confessed to not being a therapist, but I know for a fact talking always helps…
And while Gallus may have routinely ignored this advice through A.D.F.F., Silverstream thankfully takes it and talks to Starlight.
Aside from Edith no longer being present to further urge Silver to go through with talking to her, the Silver/Starlight scene was relatively unchanged. It is what it is: Me using Starlight to bludgeon the chapter’s main lesson—Don’t allow your fear to twist into pessimistic paranoia and blind you to the joys of life—upside Silver’s head. I only have three other things to mention here:
#1) Silverstream referring to herself as “The optimistic one” was an acknowledgment she was behaving radically contradictory to her canon, bubbly personality.
#2) Silver noting how Gallus’ breakdown and belief the LoD could be redeemed wasn’t in-character for him was—you guessed it—an acknowledgment of Jack of A Few Trades’ criticisms. What better way to handle your writing mistakes than by turning them into plot points? 
Lastly, #3) I hate how stupidly Silver brings up the raided Psychology section issue. I needed her to bring it up here to both hint toward Smolder’s fears and to provide another reason why she was so terrified she’d make things worse with Gallus, but there are dozens of better, more subtle ways I could have written that part.
And of course, Starlight manages to get through to Silverstream and yada, yada, yada; you read the story, you know what happens, and I’m sure you all recalled this particular chapter when a certain griffon confronted Silver about her paranoia. Also, Starlight’s last line:
“I swear…! I really hope I’m doing this right.”
Was as much Starlight praying she was counseling Gallus and Silver correctly as it was me praying I wasn’t screwing up the therapy aspect of the story.
Beyond that, I’ve nothing more to talk about with this scene.
Hoo boy, Ch.4(Optimism)! I really love this chapter. It’s not the best, but the steam I had picked up from the last chapter remained, and I was finally getting everything right. Still a few leftover mistakes here and there, but I digress. I may have gone a tad overboard with how much crap I put Silverstream through, but I ultimately sold her dilemma well, and I’m proud of that.
NEXT TIME: We take a gander at one of the only few chapters to not be drastically overhauled at some point or another! Join me for that, next Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.
And now for the obligatory: "For those want to read the entire "Writing of..." without waiting a week, here's the full Google Doc."
~ Additional Tidbits ~
— 1) Patty questioning if Cadence was the “Princess of Love” or the “Princess of Family” was a reference to what I think was a deleted scene from the MLP movie(2017) I found on Youtube where Cadence is referred to by the latter despite the former being more commonly used as far as I know.
— 2) Vellum’s line: “Was it because I got hit in the head again?” was originally: “Was it because a sandbag fell on my head again?” I honestly can’t remember why I changed it, but it was probably because I didn’t want to go through the hassle of explaining the backstory behind why Vellum got hit in the head with a sandbag once. Despite the line being cut, however, I’ll go ahead and say it is canon Vellum once got knocked out by a falling sandbag.
— 3) The central factor behind Yona’s sage-ness throughout the story was, of course, “Uprooted” and how Yaks understand and accept impermanence. It’d make sense they’d have other little nuggets of wisdom like that one and Yona would know and share them.
— 4) There was going to be a Them’s Fightin’ Herds reference in the alternate script, and I’ll spare you the details of what it was. Just know it would have been terrible.
— 5) When planning Ch.4(Optimism), I considered having Discord show up and talk to Silver about her paranoia, fulfilling Starlight’s role in his own Discord-y way. But after the stunt he pulled last chapter, I didn’t think she’d be willing to listen to him, so I nixed the idea.
— 6) Another thing Matthais Unidostres suggested was one of the characters providing Gallus medication for everything he had going on. Unfortunately, since I know as much about antidepressants as I did proper therapy—which is to say: Nothing—I didn’t feel comfortable going that route. That said? Whether or not Starlightdidoffer medication to Gallus off-screen and whether or not he took that offer, I’ll leave for you to decide.
— 7) Kevin Lee noted how Starlight’s “You were asking me how to describe a shower to someone in a world where rain exists” line felt like it should have been written as “You were asking me how to describe a shower to someone in a world where rain doesn’t exist” instead on account of rain not being a thing underwater for obvious reasons.
To clarify, I wrote the line the way I did to acknowledge how if the seaponies wanted to know what a shower was like, all they had to do was come to the water’s surface when it was raining and bam! Instant understanding of the concept. But yeah, that line could have used a rewrite.