Reaching the horizon. · 4:37am Jun 26th, 2016
At long last, "New Horizon" is up and posted! You all have no idea how long I've been wanting to post this journal.
First off, I have a confession to make - Quiver Quill is, in part, inspired by me and my own life experiences. His parents, Bitterhoof and Constant Heart, are inspired by my own parents (with the latter named after my mother to boot). A couple side characters whom Quiver's had the misfortune to interact with, Loudmouth and Leading Rose, were inspired by a couple people I worked with for years at my real-life job at Amazon.com.
Amusingly enough, between my starting work on this story and my finishing it, both had their employment terminated. But that's neither here nor there.
Anyway, after I finished working on "An Act of Random Kindness", I got it into my head to continue Quiver's story. That, combined with some rough plans I had for Sunset, ended up becoming the foundation for the Quiververse. But I figured the logical way to go for him to continue interacting with Twilight and the rest of the Mane Six would be for him to somehow move to Ponyville. The job gave me an opening; Amazon often sends people from one facility to another, either to learn a thing or two or teach something, and sometimes there's permanent transfers. Having Quiver do likewise wouldn't be too much of a stretch.
But of course it couldn't be easy for him, so I came up with an antagonist in Ponyville. Luster Drain is inspired by a number of things; suffice it to say, I was a very naive and easily manipulated kid growing up, and it stuck with me. Add in a tiny bit of inspiration from someone I knew in high school, and there she was. Granted, the person from high school was much less of a jerk, but still, we are not meant to be sympathetic to Luster Drain.
Also, I'd like to point something out; I'm not a fan of welfare systems. I accept that they exist, and I accept that there's little I personally can do about it, but if folks are going to use them, then I'd rather they not abuse them. I don't particularly like my job, but I'm doing it and I'm earning an honest buck in the bargain. Having Luster be the sort who'd abuse a pre-existing government system (which I like to think has at least a few safeguards in place to prevent most from doing the same) helped to cement her in my mind. Plus it gave me a chance to do a 'take that' against a rather infamous figure on the Internet. I think we all know whom I'm talking about.
As for other details? I figured from the get-go that it'd be somewhere between the events of "Rarity Takes Manehatten" and "Rainbow Falls". Didn't plan at first on the events of "Pinkie Apple Pie" getting pulled out from there and moved into an earlier place in my timeline - I started this before I started work on "Six Nights (and a Day) With Sunset" - but that's not a bad thing. I'm not going to insert Quiver into the events of each 'key' episode, mind, though I like to think he was somewhere in the background for "Pinkie Pride" and "It's Not Easy Being Breezies". Still, his presence is going to cause some changes, both big and small, from what happened in canon.
Oh, and Gilded Lily? She came about mostly because I thought up the name one day - possibly inspired by another story - and thought, "Hey, this is a really catchy pony name!" Initially, I planned on having her eventually revealed to be Diamond Tiara's mother, but since I started on this story, "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" came along and gave us Spoiled Rich. Thankfully, there are two other reasonably prominent fillies in Ponyville currently lacking mothers, and unless Season Six throws us for a loop on one of them, then I'll probably follow up on that plot thread.
Speaking of, the scenes with Lyra? Don't forget those. I'm following up on that, too.
Anyway, what's next for Quiver? Hopefully, "Family" will be out and finished before the end of the year. Beyond that, time will tell.
I have no idea what to say to this, other than this; I really hope you never had quite as low of a low point as Quiver did before Derpy found him.
4049392 No. I'll admit to having bad days, but there are certain circumstances yet to be revealed that Quiver has gone through that I've never had to deal with, thankfully.
Plus I've had therapy, and that's helped.
4049400
Well, that's good to hear, or read as the case may be.