Interview No. 184

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is one of Newgrounds most brilliant minds. They went out to place a spotlight on the different creators of the Newgrounds community. With the Underrated Artist Hangout Thread and The Official Hav Show Thread. They also had their own project called Nol's Therapy Mansion. I am pleased to welcome the genius that is @HavryloThePigeon.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: Like a lot of people, I originally sort of hung around Newgrounds and various other flash sites back when I was a wee lad in the early 2010s; sort of the final years of the "flash era" before flash games in general began to die out in popularity. Newgrounds never really stood out to me compared to all the others, but around 2019 when news broke that Flash was gonna be shelved soon, I started re-visiting a lot of these old flash sites to see how they were doing, and\ Newgrounds was one of them.

I had vaguely heard of Newgrounds experiencing an uptick in users after the Tumblr exodus, but it wasn't until I spent a few days browsing the site that I began to realize that this place still was still quite active and had a thriving community. Of course it's still not nearly as big as it used to be, but the community was still very much there, and I really liked how it was continuing to operate as an independent content-hosting service that didn't have the restrictions and algorithms of bigger social media apps. So in September 2019, I made my Newgrounds account so that I could be part of it. And I don't make accounts lightly, I promise :3

Q: When and how did you begin writing?

A: I can't really answer that myself. Apparently I always had the talent, since I've always done well enough in English classes and all that; and I used to write a lot of stories as a kid. Honestly, I feel like it's just one of those cases where you feel compelled to do it because you just do. I was never discouraged by anyone to stop writing, nor did anyone ever put a lot of pressure on me to write. It's just always been there.

But I'd be lying if I said there weren't times where I gave up on trying to write because I felt it was pointless; especially nowadays where a lot of people prefer to just read stuff online over reading full-length novels (including myself at times) and I've tried getting into other things like art and drawing, etc. But the only thing I've ever really been good at, it seems, is writing; at least that's what I probably have the potential to be good at. It's like the passion isn't always there, but it still eats away at you, begging to be used.

That may sound like a non-answer, and I suppose in a way it is. Maybe because there really isn't any clear-cut answer as to why writing has always been my default quirk. In university I'm studying English and Creative Writing, though, so let's hope this quirk does some good for me in the long run.

Q: How would you describe your writing process?

A: It varies a lot, and probably not for the better.

Sometimes I can write poems in a single night and feel happy with them. If I'm writing a short story, I maybe spend a couple days labouring over it, then after some time when I'm finished I go back to revise it/clean it up. As for longer stories/articles/zines, my structure is usually to write up a plan, fill in sections of the story in the order that I desire, until eventually it can be fit together as one. And then doing revision later. Nothing particularly unique about my process, I'd say.

A lot of the ideas I get for stories and poems are, weirdly enough, often based on the music I listen to; which probably explains why they're so weird. That was the primary inspiration behind Nol's Therapy Mansion, for example, but I'll talk more about that later.

And of course the books that I do in fact read influence my writing too. If I had to list some authors that inspire me the most, they'd be:

• Haruki Murakami
• Cormac McCarthy
• Denis Johnson
• Charles Bukowski
• Osamu Dazai
• Jesmyn Ward
• Leonard Cohen

Q: What can you tell us about Rhodia?

A: A defunct story I'm no longer working on...

Q: You had an idea to bring Newgrounds an official magazine which would lead to The Official NG Fanzine Thread. It looked absolutely incredible. From the Introduction to the Best of the Month. Why did you not pursue it further and end it?

A: To put it bluntly, I just felt it was a waste of time. Plus I realized that I didn't really have the capacity to go through every aspect of Newgrounds so comprehensively, searching for the best content for it every single month. And, of course, there's the Tank Tribune, which actually started up around the same time as my little thing. So I figured you would be the much better guy to run a regular publication for NG, especially with all your credentials. :)

This is a habitual thing, though. I'll pick up on something I'm really passionate about, but then once the flame dies out or the reception isn't as good as I'd hoped, I just drop it. It's a part of growing up, I'd say.

Oh yeah, and I was on the Newgrounds Podcast to talk about it too. I actually asked the crew to delete it because I'm just so ashamed of how awkward I was, with that insane stutter and my social ineptness on full display for hundreds of people to see. I shouldn't have gone on the podcast in the first place, considering how the fanzine was never going to get up off the ground anyway. Well, at least I learned to not believe my own hype lol.

Q: You would start highlighting underrated artists on the forums, which would later become the Underrated Artist Hangout Thread. What made you want to place a spotlight on the artists on the site?

A: There were some artists on NG I enjoyed that, in my opinion, weren't getting enough recognition by the wider NG community. And given the accessibility of Newgrounds and the supportive community there is here of propping each other up, I figured I'd fit right well into it by making something of a series out of it. And it was definitely good

Q: You started NSFW Artist Interviews by Interviewing Edeshye. From one interviewer to another I can understand the choice. Why NSFW interviews? Why Edeshye as your first pick?

A: Edeshye and I had been acquaintances for some time before the interview, so he was my natural first choice! But aside from that, I just saw that nobody else on Newgrounds was trying to make a thing out of interviewing NSFW artists, so I tried to jump to the chance to do it. However, even after that first interview, it was hard to find other artists willing to be interviewed with me; I must've gotten turned down by like 3-4 people. But honestly I get it. I'm just some nobody on Newgrounds, no reason for them to waste their time with me lol.

Q: What can you tell us about The Official Hav Show Thread?

A: It was just a thread to gather ideas for The Hav Show, a podcast I did back in 2021 as basically an audio form to the stuff I was doing with the Underrated Artist Saga and my fanzine. I dropped it after a few episodes because 1) I didn't have enough ideas to keep going, and 2) I was terrible at riffing over a microphone; which you can clearly tell just by listening to it. I'm leaving them up just as a sort of reminder of how far I've come or something like that, and I'm also just less ashamed of it than my abortion of a fanzine podcast. I'd like to think my voice has gotten slightly less bitch-boy esque since then.

@Matthew-Lemons and @GenericAnime, I'm still incredibly sorry lol.

Q: My absolute favorite thing by you has to be Nol's Therapy Mansion. You wanted to collaborate with other Newgrounds members. It reminds me of scottmale24 was here and we talked about Epic Quest! - The Newgrounds Choose Your Own MS Paint Adventure. Where that was drawings, this was audio. It was like listening to a radio serial. Where did the idea come from? Where is Episode 3? Why did you decide to drop this project?

A: Yeah this was a pretty weird thing. Some of my main inspirations for it were Yume Nikki, and - you'll die in agony when you hear this - motherfucking Roblox horror games. I just thought it'd be a cool idea to try and make a little series based off some of this scant ideas I had of this alternate fantasy world within our world, where the main character is someone who knowingly puts himself into it and has at least some idea of what he's getting into and is okay with it. But at the same time he's also clearly disturbed and his apathy towards his situation is at least partially born out of that. Sort of a metaphor for a period in my own life where I was apathetic about life and felt like I lived in a world that was alien to me.

And it actually got a fair amount of momentum, which was pretty cool considering all I had was an Audacity mic and some choppily spliced together audio files. I made a thread offering people to give me ideas, and I actually got more than enough ideas to work with for a second episode from a whole bunch of different people, including some of the artists I had made friends with through my shouting-out posts. @SaucySaucepan even made some brilliant fanart of characters he wanted in my show. It was really awesome to see all this traction for my stuff, even if it was just a tiny community on a niche art site like Newgrounds.

Ultimately I didn't make Episode 3 because I couldn't figure out what exactly I wanted out of it. Even by Episode 2 I could tell I was stretching myself thin with the writing and story (there was probably six minutes worth of Zeph rambling that could've been condensed a helluva lot to save time) and I just couldn't see myself improving enough with future episodes to really sustain a following, let alone grow it. And so, I dropped it. Yet another project I jumped on only for a brief, fleeting time, because it just didn't represent the heart of what I wanted to make. Whatever that was!

Q: olskoo at one point made a thread where anonymous confessions could be made. You took this idea to the next level asking for confessions, rants, and venting and gave us Hav's Depression Chamber - Episode 1. Why an advice show? Why only one episode?

A: I thought it'd be a cool idea at first, but it didn't get much traction and I sort of realized there was a reason why it stuck to the forums. So that endeavour was over and done with pretty quickly. Needless to say I ain't no Therapy Gecko here lol.

Q: You have had many ups and downs here on the site. From not doing much on the site, to praising Newgrounds and hoping to add content to it, to wondering if what you're working on is good enough, to talking about your future, and ceasing your endeavors on Newgrounds. You have had many incredible ideas that we have spoken about through this interview. It is an impressive portfolio and shows off your skills well. Could you elaborate further on your rollercoaster of growth here on Newgrounds and what you hope to achieve outside of it?

A: Oh man, you didn't even address the most embarrassing shit. Back during the Half-Life collab I joined the official server of all the animators working on it, because I wanted to """write an article"""" about the collab's development process. However because I had no people skills I had no clue what to ask anyone, and I never reached out to anyone about any personal issues they were facing during development. So my """article""" was solely based off the crap I was

seeing in the public Discord chat. It got to the point where @TerrorByte chewed me out over DMs for being the nuisance I was, and so I took the hint and just dropped the whole thing after that. So yeah, if you want the most embarrassing moment in my whole NG career, that would be it lmao.

But I think the main takeaway I've gotten from my time on this website is that, as much as I may hate myself for all the bandwagons I've boarded and crashed, it's all really just a part of growing up. I've had my time on here to figure my shit out, and I still have plenty of time to continue doing just that. I used to feel ashamed for not having scored something big when I was still younger, but now I realize that I'm very grateful for having had the privilege to divulge in all my ridiculous avenues of creativity without having everything I do constantly scrutinized by people online at such a young age. When you're young and you blow up, the negative repercussions will always be far heavier than the positive ones. And as much as I may have wasted my childhood online, at least I didn't have to experience that, even when there were many times where it could've amounted to that. People complain that you can't get a large following on Newgrounds, and honestly that's kinda true these days, but at least in my case it definitely saved me from much more dire consequences. It's a small but tight-knit community where everyone is sort of kept in check, which is really good and I'm glad to have at least experienced that while I've been here.

As of for now, I'm moving on from NG because I think all my endeavours here have run their course. I'm not really looking to become internet famous anymore. I feel like I'm reaching a point now where I'm just realizing how toxic it can be to focus on that kind of shit. Not saying I'm fully independent of the desire to become internet famous - I still think about it a lot, and it's obviously much more helpful for your career, whatever it is, to be internet famous,- but having online attention just for the sake of it is something I'm now realizing is simply not worth it. I've come to the same conclusions as the people you shouted out, @wavetro and @Burner98, that online attention-whoring comes back to bite you in the ass at some point or another.

I still post here on NG fairly regularly and I still check for notifications, but that's the tale end of it. I'm not a creator on here anymore. From here on out, I'm just moving forward with my life. That's about all I can say right now in terms of what I "plan to achieve" outside of here.

Q: What can we expect from HavryloThePigeon in the future?

A: You can expect me to occasionally be in the BBS, usually in either Politics or General, just having a normal one with all the other forum regulars. This might sound weird but I don't have a lot of internet accounts where I feel I can just be my normal, chill, boringly authentic self, but my Newgrounds account is one of them. So yeah, I'm not ready to just up and leave this place quite yet. As long as I feel like I need to someone "authentic" for the day, I'll still be on the regular, at least for the time being. It's been fun, and now I'm like Mario on the castle roof, just lounging around.

That's about all I gotta say. Thank you Great One for giving me this opportunity :D

I have always loved the ideas that HavryloThePigeon would come up with. Whenever I saw them working on something new, I just had to know what it was. I was sad to see many projects just stop though. Juggling all of that would be a hassle. Believe me, I can know. I am glad that we can still expect to see HavryloThePigeon around on the forums at least. Maybe something will come to this pigeon, and they will share it with Newgrounds. Whatever it is, I am eager to see it!

The Interviewer is a part of Dohn's Desk Productions

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