Interview with Paperhearts

Interview with Paperhearts

by Nailah

“Alright, now tell me, my dear friend, what inspired your username?”

Response: At the risk of making a simple answer sound needlessly complicated (this will become a theme, I'm sure), it was a combination of factors really.  This isn't my first rodeo here on the site, and my username way back then was a very personal one, and thus one that made me easily identifiable. When I first decided to come back the username I went with had a similar theme, and in hindsight I realised it was easy for people to associate the two accounts.  Because I wanted to avoid that I tried to come up with a name that was quite different thematically, and so along came paperhearts.  It's the name of one of my favourite episodes from a favourite TV show, and with the spacing and capitalisation removed because sometimes I like to be pretentious, haha.

“What drew you into Mlp?” 

Response: My children.  My son was really into the show for a few years, and it was through watching it with him that I started to enjoy it myself.  I don't think I ever fell into the fandom as much as a lot of other folk did; It hasn't changed my life, and it isn't even my favourite show of its type (I grew up in the 80s, and so was pretty spoilt when it came to awesome cartoons), but it did have a friendly and talented fandom, and the characters were fun to write about.

I actually lost interest around season six, and only really came back into the fold during season eight, when my daughter noticed the toys and wanted to watch a few episodes. She ended up hating the show, but I was quite taken by the new student characters, particularly best dragon and best bug.  I still haven't watched many of the episodes that don't feature the student six, mind, so in truth I guess I’m actually only really skirting around the fold.

“Who is your favorite pony and why?”

Response: At the risk of making a simple answer sound needlessly complicated (told you!), my favourite characters from the show have never been the ponies.  I've always liked the characters who provided good strong contrasts to the main six; Gilda is bullish and jaded and awesome, and deserved way more show time than she got, and I thought Ember picked up the standard and ran well with it too.  The student six are great—Yona is yak perfection, and Ocellus is angsty fun. But I'm going to be completely reckless (and scandalous to some, no doubt) and say Smolder is my favourite character in the show. Her design is fab, and while I think the show could have retained and emphasised some of her rougher dragon edges, her personality is still a great inclusion to the series.  Dragon snark is the best kind of snark, after all.

Oh, but ponies, right.  Um… Pinkie Pie then, by a sizeable distance.  I think she suffered more than most in terms of the influx of new writers on the show, most of whom appeared to struggle with what to actually do with her.  She's a far more layered and complex character than she gets credit for. Plus I think unguarded characters (and real life people) are just fascinating. I'm not sure I'm envious exactly, but I think there's definitely something in that outlook that's to be admired.

“Favorite episode and why?”

With the show running at nine seasons that's quite the toughie.  I happen to think the season four opening was the strongest the show has been in terms of real character-driven conflict, but as that is technically two episodes I'll go with… Uprooted, because it gives the student six real space to grow, and does so (in my opinion) more earnestly than series eight's What Lies Beneath (a close second).  Plus, as I'm only really watching the student-focused episodes at the moment, that limits the selection somewhat.  Sweet and Smoky is pretty neat too, despite the copious amounts of Spike, and the somewhat forced relationship between Smolder and Garble.  Redemption is rarely magic.

“What inspires you to write?”

To begin with it was because nobody was writing the stories I wanted to read (or, more likely, I just hadn't found them).  I think that's still true to an extent, but these days I get a lot more satisfaction in making people happy. I love romance as a genre, it makes my heart sing.  So if I can make the hearts of my readers sing even a little then I'm achieving a pretty significant life goal. There's a lot of darkness in the world, and I'd rather be trying to counter that than exploring it.

“Give us the background of the author! Tell us all about you. Well in a short summary.

Response: My least favourite subject! Aha… Er, well I'm a Welsh guy living in the countryside of England and I spend my working days helping to safeguard vulnerable children.  Which is probably the reason why I cling to writing and reading stories of whimsy. Outside of that and my family life, I climb and run when time permits, I lose myself in board games when time permits, and I play a lot of retro/indie video games when time permits.

I also drink too much when time permits.

Because all of these things compete, time doesn't often permit.

“With Mlp coming to an end, tell us one thing you have learned from your experiences, and how it has helped you to grow?

 Response: Honestly? The main thing I've learned from my experiences with the show is that fandoms are weird.

But yeah, the show itself hasn't taught me much; I think I did all the growing I was going to do by the time I stumbled across it, but the time I’ve spent on this site writing has reinforced my thinking that romance is the genre for me, and having that focus is helpful.

“Is there anything else you'd like to say?

Response: Nothing profound; I’m not big on passing on advice or wisdom, mainly because I feel like writing is such a personal experience that what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for others.  So maybe just a heartfelt thank you to anyone who has ever taken the time to read my work and/or offered feedback. It really does mean a lot. And, obviously, a special thank you to you for offering the interview in the first place!

Thank you for allowing me the pleasure of interviewing you, you have truly been a pleasure to talk too. I hope you continue being awesome.

-Nailah.

Link to Paperheart's fimfiction page:
Fimfiction page: https://www.fimfiction.net/user/355563/paperhearts