Inside The Mind: Phillip Schneider IV

Welcome to a special edition of Inside The Mind, as I am joined by none other than The Mother F*cker of the Universe, The Prophet of Ash, The King of Gore, The Rated X Superstar, God, Phillip Schneider. This marks the fourth time Schneider has come to ITM, this time requesting the chance to adress his future. Welcome to the show, Phil.

As a recurring guest I feel the need to bask in the spotlight at least one last time.

So right off the bat, if you haven't read the F*ck In L.A. results, read those before this interview because this is talking out of character about the in character events that happen on that show.

Let's get right to the point, if you lose at End Game, will that really be the last time we ever see the Phillip Schneider character? No leaving and coming back.

So I didn't pick the End Game name, but I don't think Drakz could've found a better name. And originally speaking, The End Game WASN'T going to be The End Game. When we originally started plotting this feud out, we were planning on a two PPV feud, so we either climaxed in a tiebreaker third match, or Schneider so far behind the eight ball that he had to do something extreme, do or die.

But the End Game is truthfully it. We've got two different endings plotted out with angle progression both ways, but both endings see the End Game as the final match of Phillip Schneider.

So this is the final chapter of Phillip Schneider?

Almost surely, this is it for me as a roleplayer. I've been doing this since 2003. I'm at the point now where I've been writing for as long as some people in the federation have been ALIVE. I'm not sure how our age demographic currently skews, but if there's any younger members currently on the roster, there's a chance they weren't alive when I wrote the first Phillip Schneider/Obo the Hobo roleplay. I mean you, the man behind the mic, where were YOU in 2003?

In 2003, I would have been four.

Exactly, and I was a sophomore in high school when I started here. Now a days, I simply don't have the time to dedicate to the federation that I want to. If the federation was still running like it used to, with biweekly shows, I would've had to leave a long time ago but I've coasted along for the last year or so by taking off a fair few of the smaller shows. I'm a very busy person, though. Right now, I'm working 45-50 hour weeks with 10 to 12 hour days several days a week. On the side, I have several freelance projects I work on. Then I have a lot of other creative endevours that I'd like to do, but simply don't have the time to do. I'm not sure how open this is to the WFWF side, I know most people on the fantasy booking board know it, but I also run the WCWA fantasy booking federation. I've been writing that since July 2004. And those shows have suffered a lack of inactivity over the last year or so too, as life in general has been very busy and my creative energy has been stretched thin.

I never wanted to be the type of person who just drifts away from the federation, slowly putting in half assed efforts before no showing a bunch of times and then just leaving. I've seen a lot of the people I'd consider "the greats" leave in that way and it leaves a tarnish on their legacies. When I knew my time was coming to a close, I approached Drakz with this storyline. I want to say it was before my angle with Josh Dean even started, when we started laying this angle out.

So the storyline regarding your end game, pun fully intended, started to be put in motion back at SuperBrawl?

Not neccessarily. We knew going into that match that after we popped the cherry that there'd be return encounters, but we didn't really know when. The WFWF doesn't have the biggest reserves of talents so high level guys are going to cross paths from time to time. That's what makes it so remarkable that Drakz and I didn't face off for over ten years.

Will you stick around the federation in a "backstage" role? Helping the new guys, being a guide? Like a Pat Patterson type role.

Not sure what you're suggesting, but I like girls.

A role where you'd help the newer guys if they came asking you for advice. Not sure if this would be the right word here, but a teacher/trainer type role.

I've already tossed around the idea of writing the occassional PPV match still. I hate writing TV matches because you have to limit what you do. You can't write the crazy ten head drops leading to five false finishes, kick out of three finishers before finally getting the win type of matches on a regular TV show. It's also hard to even write match psycology on normal shows with shorter matches, but it's a waste to really go nuts with a match that ultimately is a throw away match. But I don't know how much of that idea is me not wanting to let go of the WFWF as a whole, wanting to stick around.. eventually come up with a new character, make another run for it.. It's scary to let something go that's been a part of me for 13 years.

I'll probably continue to read the works of the writers I legitimately enjoy reading. Drakz, Kyzer, SYE, Josh Dean.. I usually try to read at least the first roleplay everyone does because it's amusing to see almost everyone fall into the same pratfalls individually, over and over again. You can't reinvent the wheel.

If you were to return, do you think the idea of bringing Samantha into the picture as a wrestler will ever cross your mind?

I've messed around with the idea of a spin off character a few different times. When I was writing with Meg, I enjoyed writing Alexis scenarios because it was working with familiar characters even if it wasn't a Schneider roleplay. I prefer to write Percy over Schneider almost any day and could absolutely write a different character with Percy managing a new world. The Better Caul Saul to Schneider's Breaking Bad. But there lies the problem, Phillip Schneider's Walter White has reached the Apex, there's not really anywhere left to go with him.

But I am walking away because I just don't have it in me to write competitively any more, not on a consistant basis. I would love if I could just pitch an idea and come back five hours later and a roleplay is written exactly how the idea hit me, but that's not how it works. And trying to write while sleeping produces stuff like the mouse roleplay.

I was looking through PMs, the first idea for this chapter of the story with Drakz was June 13th 2014. So concept to execution is probably going to be right at a year.

Should win win against Drakz, what happens with the World championship? Please don't tell me you hand it over to someone not worthy.

WHEN I win the title for the third time, I hand it over to Stan McMann.

I've got a few scenarios in mind for the aftermath. It'd spoiler the fun if I just came out and said what I was going to do, now wouldn't it?

The entrance music parallels the Phillip Schneider story, it plays into Schneider's mindset heading into a big match. Most recently, you've used "All or Nothing" by KMFDM when you brought in the Decaying Society. And then it transitioned to "Paint it Black" when you returned against Drakz. What is your process in selecting entrance music?

I've actually been using "Trust Nobody" by Ill Bill for my most recent matches too, though there weren't nearly as many within this arch that I would've liked due to my own lack of time and the creative direction we've went in. I've looked at entrance music more from a UFC walk out music stance than a WWE "this is my theme song!" point of view. But I knew for my last song, the music would be important. As you said, a lot of the music I've used over the years has defined the character. When I was first starting with really violent stuff, I was using "Bite the Hand that Bleeds" by Fear Factory. But all the way back to my debut with Los Hobos, I was using "Last Resort" by Papa Roach, a tongue in cheek thing that these hobos were on their last chance. I thought about using that again for the last match but decided against it. I've also tossed around the idea of "Nothing Left" by Insane Clown Posse. It's not your typical ICP song and it fits my out of character perspective fairly well. I've also had the idea of "Something to Remind You" by Staind. If I do an epilogue, that's the song I'll be using to frame it for sure. But I've come up with a different song entirely. I'll tell the story of why I'm using the song I am, but not the song.

My mom's best friend for the entire time I grew up was very worldly. She traveled all over the place, lived in like six different countries, exprienced everything. She came back here to visit after spending some time in Italy and brought back a cassette tape recorded off of Italian radio for me. This would've been about 1995 or 1996. I didn't have a music taste myself yet. I thought The Ninja Turtles 2 cassette I had was awesome. But this was "exotic" and there was one song on the tape that really hit me. One of those "Oh, this is different. This is the type of music I like" sort of deals. That song is what I'm going to be entering to at End Game, as a tribute of sorts to my mom's friend, who passed away from cancer several years ago.

Will your last roleplay bring us some of Schneider's past? As a sort of last hoorah? Will we get a scene between Kylie and Schneider for old time's sake?

As best I can, I'm bringing closure to the characters in Schneider's universe. I've always tended to write open ended so there's branching options. So that a story can be told five different ways and adapted to how I want or need to do it. But writing that way leaves a lot of loose ends that aren't always tied up. Like The Decaying Society didn't have real blow offs for the most part. The three minions were presumably all killed during the Psycho Circus cage match. But I've got some things that I think fans of my writing will enjoy and a few tricks still up my sleeve.

We'll see these tricks when WFWF presents End Game, coming to the board sometime in the near future. Thanks for your time. Any last words before we sign off?

Read. Read everything. Watch everything. Consume yourself in media because it's only going to result in the best stuff spilling over. Wrestling, horror, drama, musicals, documentaries, watch and read everything.