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Third Anniversary Author Interviews [Blacklight rewards]

Namohysip

Dragon Enthusiast
Staff
Partners
  1. flygon
  2. charizard
  3. milotic
  4. zoroark-soda
  5. sceptile
  6. marowak
  7. jirachi
Hey everyone! It's been a long time coming, but with the third anniversary of Thousand Roads rolling around, it's about time that we get to the author interviews. Several players from the old Blacklight campaign did reviews so much that they earned enough to get an author interview to talk about their work, as well as their future prospects. Some have already turned in their answers, and those who were interested will have their interviews be featured here in the coming days!

I'll be trying to time them to downtime during the mafia game so it doesn't get too distracted. But until then, we hope you can take a look at all the authors here! I will also try to include links to their chosen works.

Thanks to all of the interviewees for answering my questions, and of course for reviewing so often during Blacklight!
 
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Ambyssin

Namohysip

Dragon Enthusiast
Staff
Partners
  1. flygon
  2. charizard
  3. milotic
  4. zoroark-soda
  5. sceptile
  6. marowak
  7. jirachi
Ambyssin
Guiding Light (FFN link)
Path of Valor

Q: Tell us a little about yourself! What's your favorite kind of writing, and does it differ from your favorite kind of reading material?

A: I'm a newly-minted doctor of medicine who's about to begin residency in pathology. I occasionally glimpsed at some Spyro the Dragon fan fics in my teenage years, but didn't look at anything related to Pokémon until I'd graduated college and only (foolishly) began writing once I was in medical school. I tend to write things that are zany and over-the-top, with shonen-esque power scaling involved. Dialogue in particular tends to be the most fun for me to write. In some regards, I could point to multimedia writers like Ian Flynn, Evan Stanley, TJ Fixman, and Lauren Mee as inspiration.

I also vastly prefer writing and reading pokémon to humans. I know that puts me at odds with a lot of TR authors, but I personally tend to find the humans to be the least interest aspect of Pokémon. Probably why I gravitate more toward the Mystery Dungeon spinoffs and other media elements where the 'mons overshadow the humans. That said, I tend to be too picky when it comes to what I read, but unless there's some sort of even going on I will mostly stick to PMD fics because my time is limited and will only be getting more limited from here. I wouldn't be surprised if I have to drop reading fics all together. [nervous laugh]

Q: What piece are you the most proud of from your body of work?

A: Uh, I only really have two pieces to my name. PMD: Guiding Light is actually done, so I think that kind of wins by default?

Q: How about any short stories or segments of a larger work?

A: The thirteenth episode of Guiding Light comes to mind. I affectionately refer to it as the "electric rave arc." It sees, among other things, pokémon going Mantine Surfing, performing in musical numbers, and spoofing the Team Rocket motto from the anime. It's very silly, but it's one of my favorite things I've written.

Q: Do you have anything you're excited about planned for this year? Any goals or major milestones?

A: No specific goals or plans for the remainder of the year, given the major life changes. Hopefully I'll be able to continue working on PMD: Path of Valor and continue to entertain the folks willing to give it a read.

Q: What was the most challenging thing you've had to write?

A: I think that would have to be the seventh episode of PMD: Guiding Light. It's a very emotionally heavy set of chapters that sees the main protagonists at their absolute lowest and deals with incredibly serious themes. Things ended up having to be rewritten a bit, too, based on feedback from others. I'd like to think it paid off because, for the people willing to read up to that point, it's where they really believe the fic takes off.

Q: If you could tell yourself of the past any one thing regarding your work, what would it be?

A: Learn what third-person limited narration is and use it. Would've saved my past self a lot of trouble. XD

Q: Sell your work! What's one thing you want people to know about your writing?

A: It's really entertaining, I promise! Sometimes you just need to read something that's unashamedly wild and crazy, with incredibly quirky characters and references aplenty. And that's exactly what Path of Valor is: a wild and crazy ride.

Q: Is there anything else you'd want to mention?

A: There's a reason Namo and I beta for each other. We basically share a brain.

--

Thanks, Amby, for your interview! And I can attest that we have had a LOT of accidental overlap in some of our stories' plot beats. We still nervously laugh at each other's new beats now and then.
 

Namohysip

Dragon Enthusiast
Staff
Partners
  1. flygon
  2. charizard
  3. milotic
  4. zoroark-soda
  5. sceptile
  6. marowak
  7. jirachi
Q: Tell us a little about yourself! What's your favorite kind of writing, and does it differ from your favorite kind of reading material?

A: I’ve been writing ever since I was young. Nothing came from it except some truly terrible scenes I’m glad no evidence exists of, but I always trended towards writing stuff for other works over original material. When I turned thirteen, I became hyperfixated on pokemon for some reason, ended up searching the web to see if there was anyone else who shared my weird writing tastes but pokemon, and whoops there were thousands actually. I’ve spent the last five years bouncing around the different pokefic sites and circles, and reading all the different things people have come up with. Two years and some change ago, I decided I was finally up to the task of publishing something myself and now I can’t get out, help,

I started writing mainly because the things that I wanted to read weren’t out there, like, at all. So I guess what I like reading is similar to what I like writing in that aspect. I generally tend to draw elements from the published fiction that I like for my own writing, which includes things like Stephen King’s IT, Battlestar Galactica, the Harry Potter books, Attack on Titan, and recently the Animorphs series. My writing style tends to center on things that should be absurd instead played down-to-earth, child characters who have to deal with things way above their paygrades, far-reaching worldbuilding and adventures, and also economical/political conspiracies because for some reason, it worms its way into literally everything I write no matter what. The one thing I will generally always go for in both reading and writing is some kind of mystery. Mysteries are engaging to me, and are the number one most effective way to keep me page turning or writing more pages.

Q: What piece are you the most proud of from your body of work?

A: I only really have one fully-fledged work right now, but if I had to choose one thing from within that work… probably Part II of my main longfic, Psychic Sheep. I got to tell a self-contained “slice of horror” story, with that Stranger Things/Animorphs-esque Kids Solve A Mystery In A Small Town setting I really like. The cast was reasonably sized and all in just two or three places, the slow buildup to the horror-themed finale sequence was something I had a lot of fun working up towards, and the elements that the setting in particular offered fit the vibes I like perfectly. It’s probably going to remain my favorite stretch of the story to write for a long while.

Q: Do you have anything you're excited about planned for this year? Any goals or major milestones?

A: My hope is to churn out the remaining nine chapters of the arc I’m in the middle of by June. If I can do that, I’m halfway through Psychic Sheep! Otherwise… not too much. I had an idea for doing a medium-length fic adapting Pokemon Scarlet and Violet before they come out and seeing how much I get wrong, but the more I look at my schedule the more of a pipe dream that becomes.

Q: What was the most challenging thing you've had to write?

A: There were four chapters of Psychic Sheep in particular that were terrible for me to write. They’re all finale chapters for mini-arcs within the fic, and while by some miracle complaints for these chapters are nonexistent, making sure the chapters did what they needed to resulted in a lot of work and roadblocks for me. Not eager to repeat that.

Q: If you could tell yourself of the past any one thing regarding your work, what would it be?

A: Don’t get caught up with mentioning and writing every little nitty gritty scene and detail, because you’re just going to be cutting half of the content you wrote later on. Also whatever you do please don’t use semicolons in place of commas, this is not a joke I’m still finding them everywhere please save your future self a boatload of trouble

Q: Sell your work! What's one thing you want people to know about your writing?

A: I advertise my work as a breakaway adaptation of an obscure game that’s barely been written for, but I think the real biggest selling point is that it’s just a fun, out-there, and mostly original ride in a way the source material never was. It’s well-paced, well-characterized, has a unique atmosphere, and most importantly is easy to get into no matter what corner of the fandom you come from.

Q: Anything else you want to mention?

A: I have a weird penchant for sticking relevant, extremely thought out music themes on the end of my story chapters, and I await the day I meet someone who also does this incredibly specific and niche thing so we can nerd out together

--

Thanks for the interview, Espy! But I'm going to surprise you with one last question: What music theme would you give THIS interview? She, of course, answered.
 
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