Thread:Dr0Shadow/@comment-1988716-20141106110347/@comment-1988716-20141116160135

Where did you get the ideas for your interpretations of the Fears/other eldritch things?

From what I remember, it tends to vary depending on the Fear, though oftentimes I'll base an idea off of previously written interpretations. For instance, The Blind Man being a time-traveling badass, that's based on some early interpretations of The Blind Man having control of time-- it's thematically linked to him being the Fear of memory. I just took that and combined it with Tiresias from Greek mythology, taking some liberties to make him out to be an all-around sensible and wise and formidable individual. And The Black Dog's body horror interpretation, it being a dog made up of the flesh of its victims, actually predated the current standard of it simply digging up secrets. But the decision to take that and run with it, showing that after enough flesh-stealing it's arguable whether it was ever really a dog, that was my attempt at a deconstruction (which wound up working uncannily well for personifications of guilt).

EAT being more emotional, that's just me making her a character more than a monster, something which I later tried to apply to more Fears. The Slender Man having facial features and a hat, yeah that's based on the original stories, coupled with making him a character a la EAT, and then carry all the "parallels with Jordan" stuff through to their logical ends and you have The Beast, more a metaphor for my feelings towards my dad than anything else.

That's another thing: A lot of things in Rapture are based very heavily on my thoughts and feelings, whether it's my attempt to analyze them and question them or just to play them straight. Rapture's such a personal story for me because I made it personal. This is also why I'm uneasy about people writing in the cycle itself (though I'm more than happy with them simply writing in their own canons and basing everything on my stories).



Was that Omega, as in the unlucky man, appearing in Ukhu Pacha?

It was Omega. Omega's been a part of Rapture in some way for a long time-- he was the one who broke Tiger Stripes in Act II! It's taken me a while to come up with his part in the bigger scheme of things, but I've got some ideas. Omega in Rapture isn't quite the Unlucky Man so much as he's just more of.. a.. constant. He can die as many times as he wants, but he'll always truck on somehow.

Why did you decide that your universe was to be called the Ceesverse?

There are some things I came up with in Topography Genera that carried over into Rapture. When I got to the point in the logs where I had to give a name for the Earth universe, I decided pretty quickly what it'd be, but I wanted the reveal to proceed a little slowly, so at first I had characters name it the "Ceverse." Ce is an element, specifically element number 58. But it expands to "Ceesverse," even if this is still a shortened form of the real name. Basically, just as Tuonela is named for its red hostess, our universe is similarly named. This is arguably my take on pantheism. The goddess in particular is pretty obvious, but I won't get into it here.

Why did some of the outer gods/Neonate appear before they came to the Ceesverse (is it like what the Somiverse did, with time-traveling Fears)?

Are you referring to The Colour of Blood? Because okay, that's a good question. And I don't have a perfect answer. She can get away with being so confusing and nonlinear because she's not so much a character but rather an entire universe that resembles a character. I don't fall back on the "eldritch" excuse too much (not seriously, anyway), but when I do I like to make sure it's for important reasons. The Colour of Blood's thematically something I don't even understand in real life, so I wanted to capture that.

How does it feel to have your works highly loved in the Fear Mythos community?

It feels flattering! But more importantly, it's humbling. Popularity isn't something to take lightly; it brings with it a responsibility to up your game. The more popular I get, the more I want to prove to my audience that I've earned it. And that takes a lot of hard work, a lot of introspection, a lot of research and improvement, but when it pulls off the feeling is like.. well. If social interactions were nature, it would be that intangible moment where the sky is just right and the temperature's perfect and you're just swinging from tree to tree, riding waves, leaping over drops, admiring life. Those moments that you can never really appreciate during the event, instead that simply make up our memories. That's how it feels. I'm just one figure in our abstract mythos, but my works are catching on, so no matter what I do I will influence how our mythos looks. And I'm gonna take that and make sure to use it wisely.

What is your favorite/least favorite Fear/UXP?

People always ask me this. I guess I'm gonna have preferences, but before I get into that I want to make a point: One of my intentions with Rapture is to use every single Fear and UXP, to get familiar with them, and in the process of writing these huge stories I've learned to appreciate every one of them. They all have a lot of potential. I know I used to be pretty harsh about criticizing Fears, but I've gotten better about that.

Anyway. That being said, I personally fear EAT, The Dying Man, The Mother of Snakes, and The Black Dog the most. I find The Grotesque and The Choir the most fun to write. I'm recently gaining appreciation for Nobody (and, yes, The Last Gift). I don't really think about UXPs all that much, but I love how The Jack of All looks.

My least favourite Fear is The Fear Deliverer, because he is downright painfully badly-written sometimes.

What do you do outside of the Fear Mythos?

Surprisingly a lot. My family runs a DVD/coffee shop here in Mevagissey so I'm often working there. And recently, R'n'D Media has been.. picking up steam-- I'm the head writer (though we still have yet to release any videos I've written, BUT GIVE IT TIME), also head of the radio division (apparently!), and I'm also the most frequent consultant for getting legal stuff done (apparently). ..and I apparently make scores for videos sometimes. But writing, that's my main focus, I've written some of my strongest stuff in R'n'D and can't wait to get to share the finished products.

Oh, and I read plenty of books. I'm not yet at alliterator levels of reading, but this year alone I've read all of James Joyce's stuff (well, I'm still working on Finnegans Wake, but then again that is literally the hardest book ever written and I've freaking looked for harder), all of David Foster Wallace's stuff (I read Infinite Jest in a week! That book's as long as War and Peace! ...which took me nine months!), all of Mark Z. Danielewski's stuff (if I had to recommend any book to anyone ever, it would be House of Leaves), the Kalevala, Moby-Dick, a lot of absurdist and modernist theatre, Heart of Darkness, The Summer Book (even I have easy reading), an entire screenwriting textbook, and I'm currently reading the Gormenghast trilogy (well, and the Wake). I don't quite know what happened to my life, but I've got to recommend reading books to everyone. It's remarkable. To think, this revitalized interest in books all came from House of Leaves-- so that's another reason I need to recommend that book to people. It will fuck your shit.

...anyway. Those are my answers.