Paul Gets Talked At · 9:37pm February 29th
Apparently a certain individual going by the name of It Is All Hell fancies themselves an interviewer. Those of you paying attention might have seen their interview with Pascoite in the last couple of weeks, and methinks we can expect more to roll around before too long. Now I find myself in their crosshairs
I know this person, yes. I’ve actually reviewed some of their stories back when they were going by Made you look!. My ego means I enjoy talking about myself, so of course I wasn’t going to say no. Let us see if Hell can make me squirm any more than the Barcast did, shall we?
Should writers, in general, be less prolific, and why? Not necessarily writing less, but publishing less. Personally, I'd like Fimfiction writers to slow down to give a higher level of care to their projects in their totality (in other words, WILL Y'ALL PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO FIND SOME INTERESTING COVER ART, GOOD LORD - SPARE ME ALL THIS FORGETTABLE SHIT).
To quote one Émile: “Oh, I’m detecting nuttiness.”
I would say that authors should be as prolific as they can reasonably be. Some writers can only produce a story a year, be it because of a drive for perfection or an inability to produce more than 100 words a week. But then you get the other end of the spectrum, the people who can produce hundreds of thousands of words in a year and churn out stories like a machine. But just because a machine can do something a lot, that doesn’t mean it is doing it well. Simply put, if you’ve got the work ethic to publish three stories a month, it might beneficial to cut that down to one story a month and devote some of that work ethic to editing, proofing, and maybe letting some pre-readers/editors butcher your material (as all good ones do).
But then there’s the matter of the author’s desires. It comes down to what kind of writer they want to be: an author, or an Author. One churns out stories to get them out there and be consumed. They might get a lot of attention, but unless they’re just naturally that good (unlikely) odds are they won’t draw a lot of critical praise. The Author wants that critical praise and will go out of their way to develop their style and learn how to be good writers. Not everyone wants to be an Author, and while the not insubstantial critic within me longs to read quality work I don’t hold it against people if they just want to churn out material.
I will rate them accordingly.
One must also account for the difference between a writer and a storyteller. They are not mutually exclusive, but I find a lot of people out there are one or the other. In my experience, many of the people who produce a lot of material are more storytellers than writers. I crave the author who can be both.
That’s all sort of long winded and tangential in nature, so let me circle back around to the point: I think people who want to make the best story possible should indeed slow down and take more care with what they put out, but I don’t expect it from everyone, or even most people.
Cover art, on the other hand, is completely unrelated to the writing itself, and I would argue that trying to conflate the two is a mistake. Taking it as the separate entity it is, we must consider the author’s means. “Good” cover art is original and pertinent to the story (or at least gives a good sense of its tone). But original art requires either A) having the requisite artistic ability to produce said art or B) the requisite financial means to procure it from someone else. The former demands taking the time to learn a skill, which in turn demands you have time in the first place, and you’re already using up a lot of it by writing. Some of us have jobs, families, lives to live.
Regarding the latter, let’s face it: most people don’t have the money. Art, especially good art, is always in high demand, and that means it can be expensive.
And thus do we find people using screenshots from the show. Or stock images. Or something else slapped together as though Dr. Frankenstein got his hands on MS Paint. Or nothing at all. Authors just have to do the best they can with the limited resources at their disposal, and sometimes it isn’t much.
So when I judge someone by their cover art, I only really want a few things: 1) that it exists, and 2) that it is pertinent to the story in some way. Yes, I’ll be very happy to see someone with original, artistic covers that took time and effort to create, but I’m not going to judge people for not having the means to acquire that kind of thing.
Supposing they aren't the same, what's your personal definition and impersonal (dictionary) definition of "clop"?
I never really thought of that before. I suppose the “impersonal” definition would be: any material (regardless of medium) that provides a detailed description of direct sexual activity. This would not include things like nudity or teasing; it has to be actual, true sexual intercourse to count, and it would have to be vividly depicted.
As for my “personal” definition, any material that features sex in a manner such that the sex itself is the point would qualify. If someone wrote a story and there just so happened to be a sex scene, and that sex scene provided something to the story as a whole, then I would not call it clop. On the other hand, if said sex scene went on for a while, gratuitously depicting the sex acts long after said acts provided anything for the story, then we’re in clop territory.
What appeals to you about the pairing of MLP and horror in fan fiction?
I had to think on this for a bit, but ultimately have to conclude I don’t think that’s the point. For me, horror is reason enough. It’s not a matter of pairing it with MLP that appeals to me, I just happen to have the setting available to make use of.
I’ve always been a horror fan, even back before I understood this about myself. There were hints to it going as far back as I can remember. I didn’t get to explore it much until I was on my own as an adult, mainly because almost nobody else in my family (immediate or extended) likes horror as a genre. It felt like it was something ‘taboo’ to them, and so I regularly prevented myself from exploring the genre for fear of judgment. Of course, now I’m an adult and I realize that while nobody in my family particularly likes horror, the real reason they didn’t encourage such things was purely because, le gasp: I was a preteen with responsible parents! There are certain things you shouldn’t let your kids watch.
But that never stopped me from being fascinated with the genre. I devoured the Goosebumps series as a kid. Very few in my family “appreciate” horror, and none to the degree I do, but at least today I know they have nothing against my love of the genre.
Point is, me applying horror to MLP is not about some unique, ironic, or deep context. I’m just a guy who likes horror as a genre and also likes ponies. Why shouldn’t I combine them?
"My mind is constantly churning out new ideas and concepts, and I can only write so much in my lifetime" (your Royal Canterlot Library interview). What filters do your ideas and concepts have to pass through before you commit to writing them? This question was also prompted by your index of concepts and creations.
I’m not nearly as prolific today as I was at the time I said that. Right now I’d say I’m about half as productive, although I’m getting better lately.
Anyway, there are a number of factors. The first is whether the story interests me enough. In the past I’d get an idea and immediately want to start writing it, only to find out after a few days that the idea isn’t as interesting after the initial discovery as I’d thought. So now when I get that first burst of inspiration, I’ll leave it be. Let it stew. If I’m still thinking about it in a few days’ time, I know it’s something I might legitimately want to do.
Honestly, my personal interest is the number one limiter. As you quoted me above, I’ve only got so much time in my life and in my day. There are things I want to do outside of writing (like appease my addiction to video games). I can’t write every idea, it’s just not possible.
There are other factors too. There are some genres I consider myself inferior in. Science fiction is one of them. I haven’t written many, and I don’t think I’ve ever written one that I was wholly satisfied with. Other stories that get culled are the ones that would require too much effort to get ‘right’ because of some complicating factor that makes the story difficult to plan.
The single worst factor, at least in my estimation: ambition. I suffer from a bad case of too much ambition, and that can kill a story just as easily as a lack of it. Sometimes an idea is just too big, and I am put in a position where the only way to tell it at its full scope is to abandon everything and focus on just that material for years. As much as I still stand behind my “go big or go home” motto, I have too many good ideas to sacrifice all of them in the name of that one fifty-book behemoth.
"Technical writer"? You consider yourself a writer, based only on a technicality? "Hey, I'm Paul, and I'm technically a writer." I don't know, Mr. Tired Luna... I just don't know about that.
Oh, no, no. “Technical Writer” is a job title. It is my real-world, not-a-hobby job, the one I’m salaried for.
My favorite way to describe it is thus: You know how you buy a new microwave and it comes with a book that you open just long enough to read how to set the clock, then you toss the book in a drawer and never look at it again? A technical writer wrote the book. Someone has to.
Except I’m not writing booklets about microwaves. I’m writing technical guidelines on how to use (and not use) oil rig equipment. Essentially, engineers pay me to translate their eldritch technobabble into something even an idiot can read.
On a related note: as a technical writer, my single least favorite word in the English dictionary is “please”. Because what do you want to hear when working around ten metric tons of potentially explosive and/or radioactive equipment thirty feet overhead? “Oh, please, Mr. Worker, you shouldn’t do that because you or someone else might get hurt or something, but you know, if you really want to I guess it’s okay, I don’t want to be mean or anything and it is your life to—”
“STOP DOING THAT, YOU FUCKING MORON, OR YOU ARE GOING TO FUCKING DIE.”
In the world of technical writing, “please” turns a command into a choice. We don’t want to give rig workers the room to make stupid choices. That's how you get another Deepwater Horizon.
I got a Fluttershy tattoo in 2019 (although it's so abstract you'd never tell that that's what it is). Have you paid tribute to your favourite pony or the show in any way that isn't a Fimfiction story?
I have merch, mostly in the form of pictures framed on the walls of my house (plus a framed shirt of Littlepip). But the prize of my merch is a 16-inch Rarity plushie. She sits atop a dresser in my room in a custom display case, lording over all others. She’s the only plushie I own, and I got her at Bronycon 2019 (the only pony convention I’ve ever attended). That vacation consisted of a two week-long cross-country drive visiting all sorts of landmarks both ways and staying at around a dozen different hotels. If you include the display case, that plushie accounts for more than half of the entire vacations’ cost.
I don’t regret a single penny. I need marshmelodrama in my life. It’s like heroin.
Avatar question. Why Luna tired? She had scary dreams?
Scary dreams? Bah-humbug! She’s Luna, her dreams are only scary if she wants them to be!
She’s tired because she just woke up and ain’t had her evening cup o’ cocoa!
…
Okay, I have no idea what the artist’s original intent was. But Luna is my favorite pony (tied with Rarity, but don’t tell Madame Marshmallow), and I enjoy the image’s calm, sleepy aesthetic. I choose to believe she’s drinking cocoa because I love the stuff and it makes the picture that much more relatable to me.
Fun fact: the original image was actually an animated gif, with the steam flowing and Luna blinking sleepily. I used a tool to extract all the individual images of the animation and selected the one I liked the most for my avatar. I haven’t seen the original gif online in over a decade, can’t remember where I originally found it. I might still have it lying around in my image collection somewhere though.
Because of Vylon's charming Barcast interview questions (I'd like to interview that person...), I'll ask which kink you'd rather have, Mr. Tired Luna, and why: (a) drinking, directly off the face, MLP pony nosebleeds that you induce through not unpleasant means, or (b) drinking, directly off the face, MLP pony tears that you induce through somewhat unpleasant means. Both are consensual, and neither cause any serious physical harm. For me, it's no competition - BE VAMPIRE - and Vylon, your avatar is the shit and obviously inspired the content of this question.
The moment you say “unpleasant means”, you’ve lost me. Control is a turn on for me. Sadomasochism, however, is not. Even if it is consensual.
I don’t like pain. Giving or receiving. It is the opposite of a turn-on. I know, I know, “I thought you were a horror fan!” Yeah, and I’ve both read and written some fucked up shit. But that’s all fantasy. Real pain is a whole different animal, and I do not wish it upon myself or others.
So with all that out of the way: with the specific stipulation made in the query that the blood is brought forth through “not unpleasant means”, I am forced to go with the blood. Although I question how it is possible to produce blood in a manner that is pleasant, if the person doing the bleeding likes it, I guess it’s the better option for everyone.
I don’t think I’d enjoy it though.
That's it for this interview! You can head to Hell's interview archive to check for other interviews as they occur! Come by next week for the lore-building travels of Princess Luna, the worldbuilding travels of Twilight Sparkle, and the universe-building travels of Rarity.
Need some editing done? Working on a story and not sure how it’s shaping up? I’m now doing editing and critique commissions! Check here for more information and PM me if interested.
Not what I expected for this non-review week! But it makes for a nice counterpoint to the interview with Pascoite (you have different opinions on what constitutes clop, for one). I certainly could have done without the questions about "unpleasant means", but I found the rest most illuminating in a good way to read.
As usual, most of this was just slight expansions on what I already knew about you, though the bit about your profile pic was new! Not your adoration for Luna and Rarity, but extracting it from an animated gif long since lost to the bowels of the internet? That's awesome, as Rainbow Dash might say. Hope it turns up someday, I'd love to see the full animation.
Also liked seeing a bit more about the specifics of what you technically write for, your one pony plush you had to have (don't we all have one, sure), and that bit more about your specifics for when you decide to commit to writing an idea that strikes you. I always find the specifics of that discipline from person to person fascinating.
As it happens, I did know the artist currently known as It Is All Helll wasn't entirely new to Fimfiction (because they say as much in a comment somewhere) but I don't know who they were before and I'm neither going to ask nor try to find out myself. I don't especially care. In their current incarnation, though, they certainly have a non-standard interview style! (Not a complaint, really.) They also seem to be unusually exercised by the matter of cover art, if both the question to you here and their own blog on the subject is anything to go by. Speaking with my own reader's/reviewer's hat on, my views are more aligned with yours than with theirs.
Genius.
Thanks for an entertaining read!
Heh, I kind of independently developed a like of horror as well, in that nobody in my family likes it, but I'm definitely not the connoisseur you are, and there are only specific kinds I like.
I remember that vacation of yours! You got to stay here during Bronycon! Was nice having a guest, and I enjoyed hosting Dubs Rewatcher the two years before that.
Interesting you brought up the electronics manual, since that's the kind of thing I assumed you were a writer for. Jake the Army Guy worked (and maybe still works?) on oil rigs, so he may have perused your product.
Any question involving Vylon can't end well...
Honestly, I'd take any of these over an old school pony generator image or no art at all.
Screenshots can be perfect if it fits the story, and it's already in the artstyle that we fell in love with anyway. Stock images are incredibly varied, but it shouldn't be too hard to find one that fits the mood or theme of the story. And hey, sometimes a crackfic deserves nothing less than an author's modern art masterpiece in MS Paint.
Pony generator art tends to communicate mediocrity to me, unfortunately. And no cover art at all gives me the impression of either laziness, or that the author is so supremely skilled that they don't even need art - statistically, the former is far more likely, so I tend not to bother with those stories. I'm still on the fence about what AI art implies about a story's quality, though...
I read those in Fluttershy's and Sunset Shimmer's voices, respectively.
Good technical writers are so important. Can't tell you how many times I've been frustrated by an official document which implies very different outcomes or procedures depending on how you interpret the ambiguous language used.
It's always sad when art disappears.
Thanks, Mr. Tired Luna! Or should I say, now that we're both outed as vampires... COUNT TIRED DRACULUNA. And seeing as we're talking about MLP, "not unpleasant means" could mean magic, for example.
media2.giphy.com/media/mCClSS6xbi8us/200w.gif?cid=6c09b952ck6kfmxd0dfvi8hl0servymau5z0oxwugpvpwbht&ep=v1_gifs_search&rid=200w.gif&ct=g
I don't have such a grand prize, but I met you for the first time at this brony con, and I think I remember talking about this over lunch. Personally, I brought my 4DE AJ plushie with me to Japan, and she has been with me everywhere I've gone since I got her. It's strange to think that it's been five years since that convention I remember so vividly.
5770370
I haven't actually looked for it in ages. Maybe I should try that again. It's bound to be hidden somewhere in the dark crevices of my computer's innards.
I must sadly confess that it is not my idea; I got it from the tag on Derpibooru. Check it out someday if you'd like to see Rarity at her most entertaining.
5770382
I haven't been exploring the genre as much in the last few years. I look at trailers and such and usually am like "I dunno, I think I've seen this done before..." That and I often feel like the trailer is making the movie look scarier than it actually will be, based on numerous disappointments. Maybe I'm just desensitized, but a lot of things that I see described as frightening by others just... aren't.
And I appreciate the opportunity to do so! I really want to go on another vacation of that sort again. Was thinking about it this year, but then my parents popped an offer to join them on a trip to Canada for their 45th anniversary. I simply can't afford to do both.
Only if he worked for my specific company or one of its clients, but yeah, maybe. My company doesn't own the rigs themselves, we just rent/operate the drills and drilling accessories.
Pony generator art just looks bad, in my (humbly correct southern) opinion. It also indicates an OC MC, which is only worthwhile if the author is good enough a writer, which itself would require a certain work ethic. If your solution to the cover art is a quickly made Pony Generator OC, you're not really showcasing that work ethic, are you? So yeah, it does imply a certain risk.
I'm willing to give stories with no cover art a go, but only if the cover page blurb does a good job catching my interest. I've read enough art-less stories to know it's possible. Not having any cover art at all does also suggest that previously mentioned lack of work ethic, though.
I always read it in Fluttershy's and Applejack's (this is not the first time I've used that example, and I usually omit the cursing), but yeah, I can totally see Sunset being the second person.
Oh, I get this. I'd just about have to, it being my profession. I don't know how many times I've looked at an instruction booklet for some product only for it to make no sense. It makes me want to scribble corrections in the booklet and mail it off to the company along with some scathing words. But if there's anything I've learned over the years, it's that most engineers can't English good, and many companies out there are perfectly fine with not hiring professionals to translate their mad scribblings because "hey, as long as the customer gets the idea and we don't have to spend the extra money, right?"
5770390
As much as the concept of draining blood freaks me out on some uncontrollable, instinctual level, I must admit that the idea of being a vampire has it's appeal. Mostly in the "live forever so I can keep producing stories" angle, but I can't deny it interests the gothic-loving side of me as well.
5770391
I remember that! We were pretty much the only people in the restaurant at the time. My strongest memory of the convention is the bookstore – specifically, working it for about 6 (I think?) nonstop hours and only quitting because the others there insisted I take a break and get something to eat. Which was funny to me; I was enjoying myself too much to be hungry!
Speaking of AJ, I have often considered getting an AJ plushie or something similar to join Rarity so that A) she's not so lonely at the top and B) my ceaseless need for more RariJack is appeased.
5770434
I do have the proper accompaniment rarity 4DE myself, but space was limited so she didn't make it to sunrise land. Perhaps when I go home for the holidays this year she will.
That restaurant was super empty, and kinda dark now that I think about it, but I still remember the crisp pickle spears from my lunch. I met a bunch of people at that convention, but you're the only one I still talk to. Well, here's to another five years. 🍻
Okay, here's the situation: Plan A is for me to marry you and be your wife, or Plan B is for me to marry PresentPerfect and be their husband. Will you accept me as Mrs. Tired Luna? 🙂
5775948
5776036
OH, YOU GONE AND DONE IT NOW, BOI...