Adapted Out · 5:28am Jan 9th, 2019
Ok, so by now, I think I've gone through enough stories to talk about things from the source material that aren't going to be a factor. Most of the reasons why they're omitted should be kind of obvious, but I want to run through them anyway. Note: I love all the things I'm about to talk about, and it hurts me to not include them, but they're not best for this story. I'm just explaining my reasoning why.
1.) Martha/Betty: Poor Betty, she got rolled into Martha's character for the musical, and now I'm cutting her out of existence entirely. The reason's pretty simple. Starlight =/= Veronica. Starlight has her own wonderful, tragic backstory in MLP, and I'd feel remiss if I didn't lean on that a lot. In this universe, I imagine she joined the Flowers solely because she looked pretty decent, had some money, and was a whiz at forging documents, a skill the Flowers valued.
2.) A lot of scenes with the Flowers: The Flowers are Starlight's 'friends,' the story takes place entirely from Sunset's PoV, so I'm afraid they get the short end of the stick. However, the next chapter's called "Lifeboat," so those of you who know your musical stuff should be able to figure out which Flower might be getting some plot relevance.
3.) Rose's ghost: Heather Chandler's a great character and I admit Rose doesn't do her much justice. While it would be nice to have Rose's ghost around to represent Sunset's growing guilt, we have a few problems. First, Rose isn't dead. She's in a photo and can be released at any time. Two, Sunset doesn't feel that bad about anything she's done. Up until now, she's been the prime instigator for the disappearances, so why would she see Rose?
Early on, I toyed with the idea of people holding a photo could kind of talk with the person trapped inside from time to time, but that idea didn't add much in your humble author's estimation so it got jettisoned in favor of keeping the plot simpler, and focusing on the emotional core: Starlight and Sunset's totally healthy relationship that's very good for them and those around them and won't end with them at the epicenter of a massive crater.