What Could Have Been... · 2:44am Mar 13th, 2019
Any writer will tell you that stories can and often do change as they're being worked on. In many cases, this can be for the better, and I like to think that such is the case with the Quiververse. And I bring this up now because I feel that, with the end swiftly in sight for Many Happy Reunions, it might be a good time to elaborate on what led to it and its preceding two stories taking on their current, final form.
In the early days of planning the Quiververse, I had very different plans for that school reunion, as well as everything related to Scars of the Quill. Diamond Tiara would still have gotten herself and Silver Spoon in trouble in the Everfree Forest, and Quiver and the CMCs would still have gotten them to safety, but in those early days, we hadn't yet been introduced to Spoiled Rich, neé Spoiled Milk, or just how damaged Quiver had been at that point between the bullying he faced at school and the neglect and abuse he dealt with at home. I don't regret changing things around, and I certainly don't regret having Quiver punch Spoiled in the face. Still, I wouldn't have gone in-depth on Quiver's past.
In a separate story, Quiver would have been encouraged to attend the reunion by Rarity, and she would have escorted him to the event in the hopes that doing so would have led to him reuniting with Sunrunner. Quiver would have ultimately gone, only to become the victim of a cruel prank courtesy of Primrose Thorn...though he would have still reunited with Sunrunner. Sunrunner wouldn't have known a thing about the prank, but she would have offered comfort to Quiver afterwards, and struck up a rapport with Rarity in the bargain. Sunrunner's reunion with Sunset Shimmer would have still happened, but it would've been much later in my storyline then where it ended up being.
The more I thought about and considered this, however, the more I wondered, why would Quiver want to go to a reunion for a school that treated him like dirt? He had no successes that he could rub in their faces, and even if they did, none of them would care. The only potential reason he'd have to go back would be to see Sunrunner again, and as much as he missed her, a reunion with her wouldn't be worth dealing with everything else that night.
Thing is that I still wanted the two to reunite, and I'd already written myself into a corner thanks to A Light in the Dark. Plus, I wanted to write a story to establish Sunrunner's character a little better, and if I had her help with the reunion and totally miss out on Primrose's plans, then not only would I undermine Sunrunner's character, but there'd be no sensible reason for Quiver to even want to have anything to do with her. Thus the plot of Scars of the Sun, and the decisions that led to Sunrunner coming to Ponyville. And it wouldn't make sense for her presence to go unnoticed after Twilight had spent months looking for her, so...there we go. Things got condensed, and we got the Reunion Trilogy as it exists now. And I'm not complaining in the slightest.
There's a few other things that were originally intended for another story that will end up finding their way into Many Happy Reunions, but I'll elaborate on those at a much later time. For now, I've still got a story to finish.
Ah, I see. Definitely interesting to read about. But I definitely understand why you changed things, and I do feel that it worked out for the best with the Quiververse.
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Me too.