Trivia / Smoke 'Em Out Struggle

• Cross-Dressing Voices: Rageminer, who is non-binary, provided voice samples for the male Garcello.
• Parody Assistance: Rageminer has lent Garcello's actual voice to memes that alter his "tight bars, little man" line to say "tight ass" and "nice cock" instead. The former is even used in the official "Release" remix for Friday Night Funkin': Neo.
• Referenced by...:
  • Garcello appears in an episode of Friday Night Funkin' Logic as one of the many mod characters Player encounters. He returns in "Girlfriend Breaks Boyfriend's Heart" alongside Hex and Monika, where he gives Player advice on emotions.
  • One episode of Friday Night Funkin' WITH LYRICS adapts Smoke 'Em Out Struggle, complete with Annie showing up, voiced by Atsuover herself.
  • In VS Nonsense, beating "Common Sense" with 75% accuracy or higher will make Nonsense compliment Boyfriend in the upcoming cutscene by telling him he's got "pretty tight bars".
• What Could Have Been: According to the stream about how Smoke 'Em Out Struggle was created...
  • Originally the mod was supposed to be a frivolous Black Comedy mod where Garcello was meant to be a less sympathetic stranger Boyfriend rap battles, and after a few songs he would simply die and lay on the ground, with Boyfriend continuing to sing normally, with the camera panning to Garcello's motionless and silent corpse during his turn. This idea was scrapped in favor of having him become a ghost and continuing to sing off with BF, with the mod in turn taking on a more somber tone.
  • Garcello's name initially started out as a joke; Atsuover and Rageminer considered giving him Punny Names based on fire or smoking, such as "Milo", "Carbon", and "Ash" or "Ashes". The latter two names were mentioned in two Couch Gags for Hazy River ("his name—could've been carbon" and "his name—could've been ashes").
  • There were multiple iterations of "Release" that were made before the final version. Examples include this one which sounded like a mafia boss theme, and this one which was based on a song Atsuover never released, but sounded like a "first song" instead of the the third song that it was supposed to be. Release's finalized melody came from Atsuover basing it on a habit she had at the time where she would say a melodic "I'm a bit of a legend" while playing a game.
  • "Release" was also originally going to not have a challenging part, but was added to avoid making the mod too easy.
  • Before "Fading" was created, "Release" was going to end with a screen with text saying that Garcello had died before taking you to the main menu a few seconds later. However, the screen would only show for half a second before going to the menu instead of a few seconds, so "Fading" was created as a replacement. Fading was also meant to be called "Dip", but was changed before the final release.
  • In the cutscene where Garcello dies, Girlfriend would have not been rendered with eyes due to not being in focus during the shot with Boyfriend. The eyes were added on anyway due to Rageminer's request.
• Word of Gay: According to this tweet from Rageminer, Garcello is pansexual. Rageminer voices Garcello himself, and is pansexual too.
• Working Title: Various titles for the mod were considered before the final name was decided. These included "Streetlight Haze", "Backstreet Haze", "Brittle Smoke", and simply "Vs. Garcello". It was also called "Smoke 'Em Out Skirmish" for a little bit before the final name was decided upon.
• Write Who You Know: Atsuover and Rageminer have stated that Garcello is based on someone they knew in real life.

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