Hi everypony,

Welcome to our quarterly Author Spotlight! This month we have an interview lined up for you with the author everyone's talking about: Rethewa!

As a warning, this discussion might include spoilers for their stories.

So, Rethewa, how is it that you've stumbled upon a truth that's eluded so many, that Adagio Dazzle's chest is so captivating for her adversaries - whether Sci-Twi or King Sombra - as to provide a core plot point in a story? How do you think so few others have realised this?

7133643
well see

That's a tough question to answer because like I'm not a lot of people, so i can't really say why other people don't think the same way i do. Except I mean I could but then maybe I'm wrong and wrong is, like, soooooooo not me i don't wanna take a chance, y'know? Like I know what kind of destinations people end up sometimes 'cause like i see people specifically saying adagio's super-flat and stuff, but i don't know how they get there and all that. Maybe they don't wanna think cartoon ponygirls are crazy hot, maybe their mum's like crazy stacked and they don't wanna accidentally end up wanking to their mum so they don't wanna write about horsegirls being wacky busty, who knows. Or maybe they're some of those peeps who want their stories to be really in the ground and have the realisms and junk like that. There's like fifty megasquillion reasons people wouldn't put dagiboobs on a pedestal.

most of them are probably stupid, but hey people are stupid--and there's no shame in that, it's like sometimes it's a mood and stuff, y'know, like sometimes you wake up and you're all peppy and springy and other times you wake up and you're just fskjlajfhgdsa ghdsak potato and then people yell at you for thinking potato when you shouldn't have and now you hate potatoes for it and isn't that just really dumb, like, who could bring themselves to not like potatoes, y'know, but it's totally a thing that can happen.

but i always say that if you're a dumb, at least own it. If you write dumb shit but try to make it out like it's not dumb shit, you just end up with a pile of cringe.

So to me, like, having dagiboobs be the root of a conflict is just kinda me wanting to be honest about how i see the character. Like, sure, some people make Adagio into this really grounded interesting character--actually wait no scratch that most people don't do that but shut up look it's happened at least once okay. And sometimes it's good and all, but also just, like, I think it's fun to imagine Adagio as being this like walking puddle of perfection so it kinda follows that she has pretty spectacular boobs. And boobs and dicks and the like are just fun to think about and i write to have fun so it seems kinda natural to make stuff like that be the centerpiece.

7133763 Boring, dumb, potatoes, oedipal issues - it's making lots of other authors sound a bit like Sunburst? I do very much like that definition of 'cringe,' many could learn a lot from it. Do you think that's how Sonata gets away with it? She's a dumb, but she owns it?

7133788

it's making lots of other authors sound a bit like Sunburst?

oh

oh dear

to anyone reading this: if you think I said you were like Sunburst, I'm sorry. You might be a bit shit now and then--it's okay, we all have our moments--but I'm sure you're not that bad.

anyway Sonata

so i watched a youtube thing a while back where basically this guy like tried to see if he could get into basically anywhere by carrying a ladder--you know, one of those foldy stepladder things jackie chan beats people up with--with him. and he did, y'know, he got into like the kitchen in a restaurant just by carrying a ladder and acting like he was supposed to be there. linky-doo

and I think with the sirens it's actually kind of the same deal, right? Because their whole deal is being, y'know, persuasive 'n junk, like they want you to think that they're the best things on the planet and all that.

but there's three of them, right? And they can't all be the best thing ever. That's, like, duh read a dictionary ya dingus.

So to a degree, at least two of them have to be lying, then, yeah? Or maybe to like a minute of arc or something, because they're pretty dang close. But obviously they're not going to act like they're not the best thing ever--if they don't believe it, why should anyone else, right?

So I think with Sonata, at least part of the charm of her, for me, is that either she genuinely doesn't realize how thick she is or she's really ridiculously good at faking it. Which means that whatever she ends up doing, she's not half-assing it--even if anyone else would read through her thoughts or whatever and it's just a bucket of moldy carrots in there, she's committing and I think you can get yourself cut quite a lot of slack if you're confident about it.

I guess that's kind of a really big yes, but also sort of a no? I dunno, there's a lot of Sonatas out there. But I guess yeah, whether she knows she's being a stupid little knobsquirm or not, she's usually not going to pretend she's something other than what she thinks she is.

7134425 Sure, Sonata is a stepladder, I can totally see that

You first broke onto the scene with your story shipping Adagio with Vignette Valencia. She's one of the more recent Equestria Girls villains who's flown under the radar a little bit, along with Juniper Montage and actually Gloriosa Daisy, now I think of it. Would you be interested in shipping sirens with any of them, or the Shadowbolts, or Wallflower Blush?

7134928
ok so like

I straight-up could not tell you a thing about over half of the Shadowbolts. I know that Lemon Zest likes loud music I guess and Sour Sweet does the wAcKy MoOd sWiNgS because quirky means you have a character I guess. The other three, they just... they completely failed to leave any kind of lasting impression on me whatsoever, so there's not really much appeal there for me. if i wanted to write them i'd have to like figure out who the actual hecc they are and how to make them funny and stuff and i just can't be bothered to work with them. maybe if like they all melted together into a big ol' dick or something, but apart from something really out-there like that, nah. they just--they don't even occur to me when I'm trying to have a nice hard think for storystuffs.

i realized after typing all that out that sugarcoat is a thing. So i guess actually three of them have something going on or whatever, but. Yeah, no, point is, I straight-up don't ever think about shadowbolts unless someone asks me too, so i'm not likely to ever ship them with anyone.

out of the others, hrmmrgl. the thing I liked about Vignette and Adagio is that Vignette is sorta like a siren-lite. she's got the same "omg go away I'm too good for you" attitude, she just has less to back it up than the sirens do, so there's a kind of commonality there. and I guess you could sorta make a similar case for Juniper? idk, I'd have to mull that over a bit. 's one of those things where it's, like, one direction's really kind of a brainless shallow easy thinglet but the other's a little trickier. Like, y'know, Juniper wants to be a movie star and the sirens kinda already have the look and the attitude going on, so, like, does Juniper wanna get with them--absolutely, they're, like, everything she wishes she was all bundled up on busty silver platters. but then you have to turn that around and be like okay what does the siren see in Juniper. And i think that's where you're likely to run into trouble. but there's ways to make it happen, I'm sure, so who knows, might be a fun thing to try sometime.

Gloriosa I think actually might not be so worst on that front tho? especially her and fluffsiren, i think you could probably find some similarities there, sure. not as much in like attitude and all that, but in terms of their values and stuff. Like if you look at her and Adagio, y'know, they're both totally down with getting their hands dirty, they're both big on family 'n that--if you decide adagio is anyway but she's hella cute if you do so fuck it she is 'cause I said so--there's some willingness to break a few rules if it means getting what they think they need, blah blah blah. So maaaybe yeah, there's something to be done there?

7134968 I hadn't thought about Gloriosa and Adagio before, that would be new and interesting to explore. Yes, it does seem that most Equestria Girls villains to have graced the screen since the sirens have rather failed to leave much impression. Sci-Twi did, of course, and, ironically, Wallflower. I notice you've written stories of Sci-Twi interactions with both Aria and Adagio, do you think you'll ever write a Sci-Twi x Sonata story?

7135075
so realistically it's tough to say because basically i don't really plan out my stories super-far in advance. I think it's definitely possible, tho, since i write mostly silly faffage and it's easy to make sci-twi be silly because she can so smart in some ways and such a fuckin idiot in others. so there's definitely some potential there, I'd say. Her and Sonata I could definitely see being a funny pair. all dependent on me having a goodthink to kick it all off, tho, since I don't usually have the most luck just sitting down to write a story with X character and Y character.

7135788 That's such an accurate description of Sci-Twi I'd be surprised if it said anything different in the official cliff notes document the show writers use. Sure, I look forward to reading their silly times together if any plot ideas come to you

Was there anything about Fishboobs that you now see differently, given King Sombra's return in the final season?

7136125
ooo, that is a good question. Overall i'd sorta hafta say no a bit, if only because, like, Sombra spends most of that story being just a dick, and, well, he's not that at any point in his return, so there's not like a super-direct comparison I can make there. if anything, i'd say the way the show made him this obnoxious chadlet instead of pony sauron probably makes my rendicktion of him more authentic, which i guess is a goodfeels? I guess he's a bit more of a dick in the show than a vilain so maaaybe i feel vindicated a bit but that's kind of a stretch.

I wish the show had gone with my version of him, but like, I've always done things better than the show anyway so blaf

but anyway i guess overall the answer's a no. Fanfiction's in a weird bit for me where like i know that in theory you could always be like "guys season 9 never happened in this fic so just pretend you don't know about any of that" but i've never really felt comfortable doing that. but i cut myself a lot of slack if i write stuff before the show does that same stuff. like if I wrote sunset being run over a bus or something (not to say i'd ever do that, because that sounds like something only a petty bitch would do and obviously i'd never admit to being one of those) but then in the show we find out she gets hit by a truck instead i'd just be like okay that's whatever i guess, y'know?

7136993 I'm pretty sure they only decided to bring him back because they read your story, and their lawyers must have vetoed the melonlight idea. Shame. I agree, writing off whole bits of more recent canon can be challenging. Even if you say the events didn't happen, readers still tend to stick with those characterisations informed by later instalments.

In Diary of my Better Self, you had the crackship pair meet for the first time in the story, but in Dawn of the Dumb the pair were already in the situation together - which did you find easier, in terms of making the ship convincing, and making the audience care about it? Was there anything you had to consciously write differently with that in mind?

7137990
well, hmm. again, i'm not a lot of people, so, like, which one turned out more convincing isn't something i can say, to a degree. overall, i think the dobs ship was easier, but that was also sort of a joke one, y'know? and I didn't try to justify it beyond, again, the joke that Adagio and Vignette are so in love with themselves that they hook up right away when they look the same.

but i think in general, i find it's easier to write shipfaff when you start with the characters in some sort of relationship. It's, like--you can start a story however you want, right? like say you wanna write a story where fuckin idk Twilight's got a can of spam for a face and she talks by making whistling noises with her toes. well, like, if you start a story with that, you're good--but if you're writing this thing and it's all serious and blah blah blah but suddenly Twilight's got a can of spam for a face, you need to explain it and stuff and like sure maybe you can make it work but it's not just as simple as saying the thing, y'know?

So, like, there're times when in a story it'll have, like, character A says to character B ily and I just go no. no, fuck you, you don't. You're lying. That's not a thing. Shut up.

But if you make it so all that stuff happened before the start of the story, you don't have as much work to do, kinda. You can still screw it up, sure, but speaking personally, I find it's usually easier to start with a premise of character x and character y have some kinda thing going on and work from there. 'cause then you can just, y'know, say the relationship's there and as long as you're consistent with that going forwards, you're probably good--it's harder to start with one kind of relationship and then convincingly change it into something else.

7139439 What I find particularly interesting about that is that a relationship is more believable if you're told about it than if you're shown it, which is like the opposite of the first rule of writing. But I think part of that is that announcing up front 'X and Y are a couple' leaves it up to the reader to decide if that's a believable ship or not, and avoid the story if they think not, rather than have it try to persuade them.

In Sunset and the Faint Understanding of Twisted Arousal, you gave one of the most believable explanations I've seen for how Twilight and Aria might end up together. Did you have any other thoughts of what their future life together might involve, whether it turned out to be real or otherwise?

7141287

which is like the opposite of the first rule of writing

almost like it's a dumb rule or something :P

anyway that other question

So the short answer is basically no I don't. as I said, I don't do a lot of planning in my fics, they're much more just like hey this made me laugh let's do that, y'know? So if my fic ends in a certain spot, prolly that's right about where I've just stopped thinking about it and moved on to something else.

(Which I don't usually advocate for, btw. My stuff's dumb and bleck and goofy, so I think I get away with just winging it all the time, but if you want people to like think you're legit and stuff you probably shouldn't do that)

but it could go a lot of different directions, I guess. A comment I liked said something about Aria x knives being the real ship there or something like that, which I really liked, so maybe they have a messy breakup when Twilight walks in on Aria snogging a steak knife one time too many or somethin. Of course that's assuming it actually was real and has to make at least a little bit of sense--if it wasn't, then, like, I dunno, basically anything Sunset can think of could happen.

7146219 Aria snogging a steak knife on multiple occasions is a good image, thanks for providing it. I do like the idea of creating just enough worldbuilding to write the story, and not wasting the effort developing that further.

Ok, enough questions about planning stories then. Of all the mane cast (including Sunset, Starlight and Sci-Twi), which mane cast x siren ship do you think would be most disastrous/least believable? Imagine it's for a serious romance story of a reasonable length, which ship would most make you say 'Nope, go back and think think again' when you read it in the description?

7150730
hrmmrgl

So on the like least believable spectrum, I think overall I'd have to go with Applejack/literally any siren, just 'cause, like... Applejack's boring and sirens are sort of the opposite of that. In like a big way and stuff.

In terms of what'd be like most disastrous, I'd probably say, like... Rarity/Sonata or Adagio/Pinkie? I think those're the two pairings where they're both lopsided in terms of maturity and to some degree prone to histrionics. i think we've seen in the show that pinkie's feelings can be hurt fairly easily, so i could totally see the just like cloud of gnashing bitch energy adagio emanates being too much for her to handle.

And sonata--I mean canonically she wears literally the most atrocious dress that anyone's ever been put in, so like, she could end up doing the stuff rarity's friends pulled with their gala dresses, minus the consistency and reasonableness. and Rarity's big on you know decorum and manners and all that sorta thing and Sonata's just like la lala la la shin--food! So basically that's just one pairing where i think a lot of interactions between the two would be really bleck and that just makes me not see it lasting long at all if it ever starts

Which I guess isn't to say that they're totally impossible. like, thing is with the sirens, you have to make up a bunch of stuff about them anyway for them to be really be like complete characters and that. So with most any ship, like, there's probably some way to spin some siren to make it work. Because obviously spinning sirens are sexy and if they spin fast enough they'll be dizzy and won't notice who's trying and failing to make out with them. But you could make arguments like I dunno maybe Adagio likes being clever and fabulous enough to just wing it when she needs an evil scheme, so she appreciates how Pinkie tweaks her typical party format to suit different situations, and Pinkie realizes the untapped potential of adagio's boobs as party attractions can get behind how Adagio tailors her music to get listeners feeling a certain way and that's kind of the same thing Pinkie's usually after.

But even having said that, yeah, I'd seriously be raising an eyebrow if somebody wanted to do something like Rarity/Sonata or Adagio/Pinkie or the like.

7151946 I agree, I've seen some reasonable attempts at showing how Applejack might befriend a siren, or might end up getting together with one, but never anything that persuaded me that they'd then stay together. And with Sonata and Rarity, it's probably fair to compare them to Pinkie and Rarity. And while Pinkie and Rarity have lots of episodes together (Pinkie, Rarity and Maud seems to be a thing they do a lot), there are very few Rarity x Pinkie shipping stories to be seen. So Sonata x Rarity I think might be like that, but more explosive and messy. I love the suggestion of Sonata's dress, though, a story of Rarity taking her to task for it could be fantastic!

A lot of your stories are M-rated, and sex scene stories tend to lean towards shorter couplings for more immediate gratification. So without the long-term requirement for a ship to last, which siren x mane cast ships do you think would be most fun for that kind of story? Would Applejack still cause issues there, even for one-time hookups?

7153835
I think there're definitely more ways to make just about any siren/mane cast ship work if it's just gonna be a shot fling or whatever. even if it's like the jankiest most mega-yuck ship, you could probably write it so they end up in bed together--sirens probably love to party and stuff and even the snooty fluffsiren might like bang applejack if she's bored enough or fed up with her sisters or whatever.

So with Applejack... I mean, really, it depends on kind of the tone you're going for I guess? Out of the mane cast, she and Twilight are probably the ones I have a hardest time seeing going for a quick roll in the hay. so if you're being, like, grounded and serious about it, yeah, she might still be tricky. But on the other side of things, you could have like, Adagio wakes up with a gopher making a nest in her cleavage and fifty bazillion mousetraps covering the floor of her room and obviously it's all aria and Sonata's fault so she's like right okay fuck you both, storms off, set on just fucking the day away with the first person she meets, runs into applejack and she's like oh god why'd it have to be you but also she's too stubborn to go back on her word so she just kind of grabs applejack by the wrist and applejack's like wow she's hot okay sure let's do this.

and again, there's plenty of room to fiddle with siren personalities and stuff. So, sure, yeah, if you're just going for a quickie kinda deal, find some reason to get the two characters together, go from there, it'll probably work. In terms of who'd be the most fun, hrmmrgl. The ones that're coming to mind would be, like, some combination of Adagio, Aria, Rainbow and Rarity--fuck it, maybe all of them why not--just 'cause I think those four kinda have some of the stronger, more striking personalities, and if you're doing something that's not long enough to have a lot of like character 'n faff like that, fun personality goes a long way.

... is what I would say if I knew how to write gud. I'm not claiming that I do.

(I do, but since I said I'm not saying that you can't call me arrogant so ha)

7156090 'Snooty Fluffsiren' is the best name yet! Rainbow, Rarity, Adagio and Aria would be a very interesting four-way combination, because some pairings there are very close matches, and others wouldn't even be in the same room together if left alone. If you like, you can take this group choosing you as spotlighted author for a month as proof that you can write good?

Ok, so, Aria loses a bet with Adagio, and the penalty is that Aria has to let Rarity take her shopping. What happens next? What outfits is Aria forced into trying on? What happens if she finds she actually quite likes some of them? Who picks up the bill, and where do they go for dinner afterwards?

7156421
oh hecc

So there's a buncha different ways I could see that playing out, maaaainly hinging on how gracious a loser Aria is. 'cause she totally could be like um aaaaactually Adagio you did not say I couldn't set anything on fire, in which probably she'd slink away from rarity first chance she get, buy something flammable and start chucking. in which case the outfits she tries on are probably just like little chunks of charred fabric that survive the inferno which are probably like just barely modest--but let's be honest, she fuckin rocks the hobarsonistripper look. And Rarity could totally go like oh that's okay it was the crappy first store i was gonna take her to so that the next couple looked more impressive by comparison so no biggie and actually thats really clever because now something better can take its place also wow you're hot and then they go out for fuckin idk hot dogs or something and probably rarity pays because Aria's money got all burned up.

7159333 If anyone could make post-apocalyptic ash wasteland work as a palette, it's Rarity with Aria as a model. That's a Fury Road side story someone should write sometime.

Ok, Lyra and Bon Bon are strolling through Canterlot mall one Saturday afternoon (as they seem to be in every EG background shot), when Sonata runs up to them and demands their help figuring out if she's a lesbian or not. It doesn't help she doesn't understand what the word means, and thinks it's something to do with her belly button, based on some bizarre misunderstandings of things Aria said to tease her over breakfast. Lyra and Bon Bon would back away slowly, except Sonata is really hot. Where does Sonata wake up three days later, and what does she write in the card she sends to Bon Bon in hospital?

7159582
ok so see

Sonata, being the fantabulagoric smartthinker she is, would obviously understand that you can never get a complete picture of any topic by consulting only one expert on the matter. so obviously she would know that if she's consulting two lesbians, then, well, she might as well ask fifty more too.

and she writes to Bon Bon "hi bon bon, I know I'm expected to say something nice 'cause it's kinda sorta maybe my fault that your legs got crushed in a lesbian sandwich, but Adagio never taught me to read so I can't do that. So just like pretend I said something nice kthbai"

7162362 That's a good thought! Yeah, I've heard lesbian sandwiches can indeed be leg crushing when Sonata's involved, I think that's why Canterlot doesn't have any branches of Subway anymore

I'm afraid those are all the questions we can fit in this month, thank you for your time and your fun answers!