After learning an important lesson about generosity, Coco Pommel decides that there's somepony else in need of her own. As it turns out, Coco found a foalnapped filly named Babs Seed in a factory when she used to work for Suri, and the filly still has yet to be adopted. Despite her efforts to ensure Babs lives an ordinary life, drama pops up in the most unlikely of places—the Apples were never aware of her true condition, and the more the two try to escape it, the more they realize that the foalnapping is not truly in the past.
And, as it turns out, some ponies on Coco's Bridleway set know more about it than meets the eye...
If You Give a Little Love
is a Slice of Life/Drama My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic by Quillamore, which was first published March 30th, 2014 and completed December 2, 2017. It also has two side-stories: Light Pollution and the one-shot If You Give a Crusader a Cookie Cake..., and a sequel, If You Have a Little Hope.... A third side-story, If You Need A Little Faith..., is another one-shot set alongside this sequel.
Spoilers will be left untagged.
This Fan Fic contains examples of:
- Accidental Public Confession: After the intermission interruption, Mosely finally gets so tired of all the drama that he blurts out his secret. Even though he later claims he was pressured into a False Confession, even his fellow Oranges don't believe him, and his downfall begins in a matter of days.
- Becoming the Mask: One of the fic's major themes, especially among the high-society members of Manehattan. For instance, Cameo often reverts back to the more elegant persona she had as Mosely's wife, and Mosely himself, instead of seeing her as a simple pony to blackmail, ends up falling in love with Coco for real.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Coco evolves into a nice example of this throughout the story, especially when it comes to protecting Babs.
- Bad Boss: Mosely Orange somehow manages to become a worse one than Suri.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Oranges are this, in spades.
- Break the Cutie: Babs had been broken even before the story began, but getting involved in her family situation breaks Coco even more.
- Break Them by Talking: One of the Oranges' favored tactics, with Coco being on the other end of both a heroic and villainous example. To be precise, Midsweet does it by exploiting the other pony's flaws, while Bambi mistakenly uses Brutal Honesty to get Coco away from Mosely.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Scene Stealer may be a strange unicorn with an affinity for ukuleles, but once Cerebus Syndrome kicks in, he proves himself to be a pretty good director.
- Casting Couch: A particularly tragic version with Coco. While the relationship never goes beyond a certain point, Coco is constantly afraid of how long she'll have to defy her family and stay with somepony she hates for the sake of her job. Unfortunately, her relief at Mosely being gone lasts only lasts until the Apple Family Reunion.
- Cannot Spit It Out: It takes a good chunk of the story for Scene to finally confess his love to Coco, though it's hardly his own fault.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Act II is what officially shifts the story from Slice of Life to full-out adoption drama.
- The Chessmaster: Spellshock ends up being the battleground between two formerly married Chessmasters.
- Dangerous Workplace: The factory Babs worked in when Coco found her, aside from employing foals, also forced extremely ill ponies to continue working. Thankfully, the crime ring that ran it was dismantled years before the story's beginning.
- Defiant Captive: Babs has no intention of going through with the Oranges' scheme, though Midsweet only seems to find her struggles extremely cute.
- Distaff Counterpart:
Word of God states that the Scene/Mosely relationship was meant to mirror Coco's issues with Suri. Sure enough, Scene and Coco end up as the story's Official Couple. - Enemy Mine: On several occasions, Suri joins the main heroes if it involves knocking Mosely off a few pegs.
- Evil Matriarch: Midsweet Orange.
- Executive Meddling: In-universe, Scene's original play proposal was rejected, as Mosely didn't think it could compete with Hinny of the Hills.
- Freudian Excuse: As Coco gets strung into the Oranges' plans, she begins to wonder if this trope was true of Mosely. As it turns out, he was largely a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk all along.
- Gilded Cage: Babs ends up in one for a little while when she's forced into being an Orange, though she happily returns to Coco as soon as the chance arises.
- Happily Adopted: Babs Seed, as of chapter one. In spite of the crazy events that pile up throughout the story, she still largely keeps this attitude.
- The Kindnapper: Midsweet believes herself to be this, even though she's really just shoving Babs into an unsustainable role because she reminds her of her past self. She even makes it clear that she could throw the filly away at any moment alongside the other Oranges she's disowned.
- Knight of Cerebus: Mosely Orange, although other Oranges serve a similar role.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: The end of Act II reveals that Babs' birth mother is very much alive and out for revenge.
- Mama Bear: Coco, Bambi, and Cameo can all be this at varying times. Heaven help whoever crosses all three of them at a bad time.
- Madwoman in the Attic: Cameo adopts and references this trope as part of her Pink Lady persona. However, as much as she plays it up, her removal from society was very much consensual, and her "madness" is more indignation and grief than anything else.
- Nepotism: Suri was originally a case of this, as later chapters reveal that Mosely deliberately planted her into the cast to create trouble. However, once the two break up, the crew eventually and hesistantly comes to see her as one of their own.
- Not in Front of the Kid: An especially heartbreaking version—whenever Coco and her allies talk about the truth behind Babs' past, they always have to make sure the foal isn't present, as she thinks the villain is innocent. Basically blown into smithereens with the intermission arc, which results in a Break the Cutie moment for her.
- Papa Wolf: Scene acts as a surrogate one to Babs even before his Relationship Upgrade with Coco.
- Pigeonholed Director: The Bridleway collab system creates this by its very existence. Directors tend to be associated with an exclusive producer, which creates trouble when Scene is no longer able to get along with his.
- Platonic Co-Parenting: Once Cameo is revealed as Babs' biological mother, she and Coco share the role.
- Poor Communication Kills: The entire reason for the events of Act II is that Coco and Scene are no longer able to speak with one another, though Mosely very much engineered it to happen with this trope in mind.
- Promotion to Parent: Bambi becomes this after Flynn's death, when Cameo is too incapacitated to take care of her. Even this wasn't enough to keep her from seeking Mosely out, which Bambi considers to be her greatest failure.
- Relationship Upgrade: Coco and Scene finally get together in Act III.
- Tabloid Melodrama: To Coco's dismay, the numerous complications that came with adopting Babs lead to this once she gets famous enough. She draws the line at Babs being heckled just days after being foalnapped again.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Scene and Suri often bicker at work, with the former only admitting to keeping the latter around so she won't hurt any more foals. They get better in Act IV, but only by a little.
- Troubled Production: Spellshock is an in-universe one by the time Act II finishes up.
- Uptown Girl: Cameo's love for Flynn, whose two brothers happen to be infamous con stallions, is what sparks the story's main conflict and what causes Mosely's downfall.
- Wham Episode: Act II, Scene 2 (AKA the "Mosely reveal") is the most infamous. Quillamore has stated on numerous occasions that she particularly enjoys seeing people rage over this chapter.
- Act II, Scene 6: Coco is forced to date the pony who sold her daughter to the factory in the first place.
- The Madmare in the Attic arc and the end of Act II reveals Babs' parentage and exposes Mosely's secret to all of Equestria.
- The Apple Family Reunion arc not only has Mosely attempt to murder what he sees as the hypotenuse, but it marks a Disney Death for both Coco and Babs and a full-out Heroic Sacrifice for Coco.
- Finally, Act III, Scene 12 reveals that not only would Babs have been accepted into the Orange family, a few are even willing to kidnap her to get her back.
