LOVELY FAREWELL: If You Give a Little Love Postscript, Volume 2 · 4:59am Dec 6th, 2017
[WARNING: A lot of these are random facts about the series that you might not necessarily care about. This post also contains spoilers for the entire series, and I'll separate the facts into the acts they correspond in order to keep people from encountering spoilers.]
ACT I:
* As the past post mentioned, this is kinda where I started finding my path with this story, and If You Have a Little Hope will mainly be modeled after the slice-of-life stuff in this part. It was actually one of the harder acts to write because drama comes easier to me than SoL stuff.
* I never really had an exact design in mind for the diner Coco and Babs often visit, but I started watching Seinfeld around the time IYGALL began, so I never really stopped imagining it as similar to/resembling Monk's Diner.
* A lot of this act was written as a direct response to Babs' not-so-good portrayal in One Bad Apple and the EqG comic special. While she did get fleshed out some in canon, her only having two episodes doesn't necessarily help with the matter, so I prioritized upon improving her character as well as developing her relationship with Coco.
* Original outlines really pushed Suri's reformation, but this idea was scrapped because it interrupted the flow of the story and took too much responsibility/accountability off of her. Now she's more of an annoying coworker-type.
* Bambi was a last-second creation, the result of rewatching One Bad Apple and remembering Babs had a sister. As a result, her development got shafted a little, though I like to think it improved in later acts.
* My version of Babs was originally going to get her cutie mark in painting or a similar medium and become a "rebellious artist" type. However, Bloom and Gloom was released before this idea was implemented, and I retconned it to her canon cutie mark.
* I've debated changing Scene 2's name for a looooong time. It seems off compared to the others, but figured since so many people have good memories of it as Scene's debut, I'd keep it as is.
* The next IYGALL project is probably going to be editing Scene 1. As it is, it can be a little confusing to readers.
* I apologize for the Frozen reference in the act title, but closed doors are such a huge motif in this story that I couldn't resist.
ACT II:
* Probably the biggest regret I have about rereleasing the story into shorter parts is losing one of my best Mosely hate comments, in which someone actually said he was worse than Checker Monarch. (And I still need to read that fic!)
* This was the act where I really experimented with changing perspectives, and I'm still very proud of it. I'd like to do something else like it someday, especially the way it was in the art museum arc where everypony got a perspective.
* If I could change anything about this act, it would involve giving Babs more screentime. It was justified in this act, but it got me in a bad habit of taking Coco on adventures and not having her around. (I basically had to sit down and force myself to come up with ways to include her more in Act III. It didn't exactly end positively for her...)
* I also really enjoyed writing Coco's parents and wished I would've expanded on them a bit more.
* I still haven't seen My Fair Lady (although I'd really like to start watching more Audrey Hepburn movies), but from what I've heard about it, I feel like I was able to incorporate a darker version of it into the plotline with Coco becoming more of a high-society mare.
* Speaking of which, I had Coco work on two plays so I could make the story closer to canon, but now I realize how much work that'd be. So the "My Fair Filly" production was never mentioned again after this act, and it was probably just a weekend production by a small theatre company.
* I overworked myself a lot on this act, and by the time Coco had her work incident, I felt for her so much. I'd write for six or so hours straight without breaks, and while I got some of my best work done under those conditions, I don't think I'll ever try that again, thank you very much.
* Throughout the writing process for this act, I found myself getting more and more into the psychological implications of Coco's past. While in canon, she's just an antagonist's assistant and she's clearly on the side of good, her status as an ex-knockoff artist in my fic makes her morality a bit more muddled. Not that she still isn't a good person, but it made me realize that she could have her own struggle for reformation and for forgiving herself.
* While writing this act, I considered what would happen if Coco never found out about the things Mosely had done. I'm not sure if I'll ever write it, but I even came up with a whole oneshot idea about the two of them getting married and Coco finding out ten years too late. Let me just say that if I did write it, it would be my first darkfic, it'd have a crime novel feel to it, and would involve the only successful murder ever carried out in the IYGALL universe.
* Cameo was originally meant to be a ghost out for revenge, which I later changed into an actual madmare. I figured it'd be hard to sympathize with her as a stereotypical lunatic, so she became the vengeful-yet-dignified ex-trophy wife she is now.
* The Madmare in the Attic mini-arc is what I consider to be my best work on IYGALL, and possibly even on FiMFiction as a whole.
ACT III:
* Babs being related to Flim and Flam actually started out as a joke about how similar their mane shades were.
* Belladonna's morality is probably something I will never fully agree on. For the most part, though, I consider her a token good/morally ambiguous Orange.
* This is probably the act I was the most conflicted about, as I wasn't sure if the Oranges were believable enough and I felt it went all over the place. It was a major worry for me until I wrote the Midsweet arc.
* Other than Power Play and Blackened Hearts, Love Unhinged is probably one of my favorite titles in the series. My roommate got me on a Criminal Minds phase as I wrote this, and I think it shows a bit. (I like it for that, though.)
* I also read a ton of Southern Gothic works around this time, so the Oranges were somewhat based off the families from that genre (except they're technically Northern Gothic). Most of the rest of the inspiration for them came from the canon occurrence of cutie mark stencils in The Cutie Map and from various "Apples disown members for not having the right cutie mark/for otherwise ridiculous reasons” fics. Particularly, I didn't like that fanon for the Apples, but wanted to explore how a family who operated like that really would work.
* About halfway through, I realized that the Oranges actually line up quite a bit with Scientologists.
* There are a few things I can't mention in IYGALL proper due to its Everyone rating, and one of them is that the Oranges have an extremely high male infertility rate. This was done, yet again, to contrast them with the Apples, and is waved off in canon by the main characters not wanting to have that whole awkward conversation with Babs.
* I got a ton more grateful for that Everyone ranking once the Romance tag came on, considering I had an irrational fear of people looking at the title, seeing the cover, and thinking really messed-up thoughts. (For all those worried, emphasis on irrational.)
* I always meant for Midsweet to be the creepiest Orange, but her arc was something that came to me only a few parts before it happened. I'm very glad it did, though, as it allowed me to explore some of the Oranges' darkest sides.
* Another trend I tried to buck in this act was the adoptive and biological mothers not getting along. This lead to Cameo becoming my favorite character other than Coco and Babs. Consequently, this also led to me kinda shipping them on the side, or at least Coco having a one-sided crush on her.
* Not actually story-related, but I can definitely see Cameo as that one suburban mom who claims to hate country music, but scream-sings at the top of her lungs when "Before He Cheats" comes on. (Bonus: she retreats into her old Apple accent while doing it.)
ACTS IV-V:
* If I were to write side stories for these arcs, they would center around Cameo and Mosely, respectively. Both were scrapped because I had too much of a story to tell with these.
* Tangerine was an OC that appeared out of nowhere, but I'd like to expand on him in the spinoff.
* The Harvey Weinstein investigations occurred as I wrote the trial arc, and it was the weirdest experience imaginable. Next time current events coincide with my work, I hope it's for something happier.
* For a while, I wondered if Coco was reverting to her Act II self in these parts, seeing as she still dwells on Mosely so much. Then again, IRL people can have phases where they go back to thinking about their abusers. I'd almost say that Coco's baggage is probably the main reason (other than the play taking up so much of their lives) Scene/Coco hasn't gone farther as a ship. But that's okay, because this was always meant to be an adoption story at its core.
* These are the arcs that make me proudest of Coco, I think. Even though she's got a lot to fix about herself, she's making friends and fighting back. These are also the arcs that made me wonder if this was turning into a "badass moms" fic. (Which was unintentional, but not unappreciated.)
* In fact, that's the main reason I don't have much to say about these arcs. They were the culminating developments that made my characters who they are.
* [I'm saving this fact for the final one because this is probably the ultimate IYGALL dealbreaker. Putting it in-story would blow the Everyone ranking to bits and probably accumulate a good amount of dislikes in the process. At least one writer friend convinced me not to put it in canon. I'm honestly not sure how people are going to feel about it, but I'm putting it in spoiler tags anyway. Read at your own risk.]
The pony Torte names as Valencia's first love, who he's sworn never to reveal to anypony, is Mosely. Once I figured out the way the Oranges ran things, I figured that the whole "don't talk to anypony who isn't an Orange" thing was bound to bite them in the butt eventually, royal family-style. It's a result of Valencia's sequestration that never really came to pass beyond the infatuation phase, but one that messed her up massively. Nopony other than Torte ever knew about it (that includes Mosely himself), and even he's not sure if it's true or just a rumor. Either way, it caused her to become dependent on her brother even after those feelings left, and so the revelation of his crimes hit her a ton harder than it should have.
You seem to have put a lot of thought and care into this story, which is very respectable. I might check it out some time.
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I sincerely hope you do. :)
Also, considering something I saw on your profile: the romance is extremely light. It leans towards the adoption aspect, and by the time someone confesses to Coco, she’s got too much baggage to get too far into it.
I still have a few chapters until I finish this story, and I am extremely glad I picked it up. I found that even though I didn’t like certain ponies (*cough* Suri *cough*) I was begging for more story and even reformation for them.
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I’m glad you’re enjoying it! Maybe I can explore Suri a bit more in If You Have a Little Hope.
*reminds self I still haven’t used the “Sugar Belle becomes Spellshock’s caterer” idea*