The Q & A Style Blog Post For "The House That Built Me" · 8:49am Apr 11th, 2019
I'm doing this Q & A in the style of stories put in the Royal Canterlot Library, so if you want to skip to story specific questions, go past the page break!
Give us the standard biography.
A twenty three year old woman and mom who is basically a shut in and spends most of her days writing on her laptop to do fanfiction and Role-play online. I love writing, watching Netflix, Apple Products, and being a mom. And most days I can do all of it at once, so it's pretty great.
How did you come up with your handle/penname?
Gosh this was like five years ago so I don't remember too much, but I love the words fabulous and diva, and Rarity was my favorite pony at the time.
Who's your favorite pony?
Rainbow Dash. I enjoy seeing her unleash her secretly sensitive side, and showing that underneath a tough exterior we are all still able to feel and be hurt. I love her ambition and the fact that she doesn't give up. And her loyalty to her friends mirrors my life in a lot of ways.
What's your favorite episode?
This is tough. If I had to pick one, I think it would be Parental Glideance. I love episodes that elaborate on the backstories of characters, and since Rainbow Dash is my favorite, this one obviously holds a special place in my heart. But this was such an exceptional episode to me because it really hit home for me as a parent- trying to be endlessly supportive of your child, clinging to the past (as was detailed by the endless RD memorabilia Windy and Bow had), trying to build them into confident people. And how much we can be blinded to the feelings of our kids because we're trying to do that. Another honorable mention for this would be The Parent Map for many of those same reasons. But over all, it has to be Parental Glideance.
What do you get from the show?
Joy and most of the time, inspiration for stories. A lot of the show influenced my love story with my husband, so I guess I got him out of it too, even though he introduced me to it!
What do you want from life?
That's a question I can't really answer too well. The one I can answer would be, "What do you hope to have at the end of your life?" And that one is simple. All I want at the end of my days is a loving family, good friends, and to make an impact.
Why do you write?
Because once the inspiration strikes I can't not put it down. But in all seriousness I've been writing since I was twelve in the fanfiction circuit. It's always been an emotional release for me. It's also very therapeutic. But the biggest reason why I write is to give different perspectives. If I can make someone think of something in a new way, or show them something they didn't know and are now interested in, I feel like I've made a difference. If I can touch someone's heart with my words, I know I've done my job as an author.
What advice do you have for the authors out there?
Write what's in your heart and what you're passionate about, even if others don't like it. At the end of the day, you have to live with yourself, and not the reviewers who are commenting on stories. If you can say that you wrote something you are proud of, and that you wanted to make possible, that's what matters in the end. Who cares what other people think? If you're proud of it, that's what matters.
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What inspired you to write "The House That Built Me"?
Inspiration is a very odd thing for me. Sometimes it comes from an episode, others a song, and still yet a lot of the time it will just smack me in the face out of nowhere and be like "WRITE ME!". As it happens, this one was all three. I watched The Parent Map last night and when it finished the title came to my head, inspired by the song "The House That Built Me" by Miranda Lambert. But even though I had the title, I didn't have a plot until a few minutes later when it smacked me in the face when I was outside. The second I was inside, I was banging this out. But I also wanted to capture the unique bond single parents have with their kids because they have to be both mom and dad to them. I'm not one for writing a lot of daddy-daughter fics because I feel like I can capture the mother daughter bond better because I have experience with it, but with Firelight pulling double duty, I felt like I could do him justice.
Why do a story so focused on a single parent?
So like I said in the Author's Note for the story, I grew up in a two parent household, but I saw more of my mom. My Dad was unemployed for most of my childhood and my Mom was a teacher, and got to pick the school I attended. So driving with her to school in the mornings, hanging out with her after, and then coming home to her meant that I saw a lot more of her than my Dad. And because she was the breadwinner in the house, all of this pressure to take care of me, to work hard and keep her job, to provide, and still be supermom at home was intense for her. More than once I saw her hunched over a calculator trying to figure out a budget for food or clothes or bills. But even when we were struggling, she never showed it on her face. She was perpetually upbeat, putting on a good show for me so that I wouldn't worry. There was so much power in the sacrifices she made to keep our family going and to keep me happy and healthy, that I really wanted to take a moment to touch on that, and give her my thanks. This was sort of a thank you and a love letter to her for all she did for me growing up.
Why do Firelight instead of Stellar Flare?
Much as I can relate to Stellar Flare because she is a mother herself, I found myself drawn to Firelight. I think a big part of that was because he was so stuck in the past while Stellar Flare is more future oriented. Firelight's blindness to his daughter's feelings really captured a lot of how parents feel when they are afraid their children will grow up, and that was a really huge problem I had with my own daughter. I really related to how he tried to keep her little and safe because I have done that far too often myself, and sometimes it takes someone else pointing it out to make you realize it.
Where did Firelight's backstory in this come from?
A couple of things influenced my deciding Starlight's mother left and didn't die. The first was the venom in which Firelight said in the show, "I won't let you turn our historical heritage into Las Pegasus!". I thought there might be some history there. The second reason being there was no formal note of this in the show, and unless it's canonically done, I really dislike killing off parents. I think having his wife leave him because he was so overbearing was also good symmetry to where his future relationship with Starlight would go, but unlike his wife, she came back.
Why did Firelight repeat his earlier mistake with Starlight by treating her the way he did before she left?
I've always been one of those people who doesn't get things or do things the first time people tell me. I can be told something a hundred times by someone and it never breaks through my thick skull. But if someone who really matters to me tells it like it is, that's when I listen. I imagined it was much the same for Firelight. Especially because Starlight never directly told him how much she disliked his treatment before she left. I think he was caught up in his whirlpool of self blame and doubt that he never actually realized what he'd done.
Guilt is a big theme in the story, coming up about as much as love. Why?
You know how they say there's no power on earth like a Mother's love? Well the counterpart to that is there's no force like a Mother's guilt. If you're a parent then you know, you can't have one without the other. They're both needed, because they both inspire change and growth. Firelight's intense guilt over not being able to help his daughter just made the love more intense, and were it not for both of those things, he would not have gotten the chance to mend his relationship with her.
You talk about overdrive a lot in the story. Explain that.
That was a very personal aspect of this story to me. I have pretty severe anxiety, and so my mind is constantly churning out negative possibilities to any event. But combining that with parental instincts is the worst. The protective instincts you have for your child combining with the anxiety and tendencies to produce negative outcomes makes for one lethal cocktail. You're so focused on what could happen and trying to prepare for all that that you can't see what's happening now. The best way to explain that is going into overdrive.
Will there be a sequel?
Maybe... But it would be from Starlight's point of view to get both sides of the story. We'll have to see what happens!
Interesting. Feels like an actual interview even though its not
Very interesting. A deep Background for a Single Story
5042668
Thank you XD The first set of questions were just general ones the RLC always asks, so I wanted to include those. The rest of the questions were aspects of the story that I wanted to address, because I figured people might have questions about some of the ways I did this. It was pretty fun, actually. I had a blast doing it!
5042669
Thank you!
5042671
You're Welcome. Your Story was Very enjoyable!
5042673
You're too kind! Thank you!
5042674
Just being polite, i like kids, thus i write my Stories
Good choices. It hit close to home, like I said before. I appreciate you taking the time to show single dads some love, they never get any credit.
5042682
Those dads deserve all the credit, man. It can be hard for moms to do that job, but for dads it can be even harder. They don’t get the recognition single mom’s do, and they usually have a harder time in custody battles because the courts usually side with moms. Single dads rock and they deserve love too.
5042684
Exactly. Mothers win custody 68-88% of the time, according to this old HuffPost article.
Ancient Article
Fellas get no love.
Thanks for writing such an awesome story for us!
Would you ever consider doing a story with Stellar Flare and Sunburst?