//------------------------------// // Q and A Special! // Story: The First Steps of the Rest of Your Life // by Rhino //------------------------------// Alright, we’ll just be going in order by character to keep it simple, if the next time I do a Q and A I get more questions… then I’ll do something along the lines of Coal’s ones where he would make it almost like an interview, but for this first one let’s keep it to the basics. Rhino: How did you and Hydro meet? Believe it or not, high school band. I played trombone, he played trumpet, we just had a conversation one day and really hit it off. We talked some more and found we had similar interests, so really, just a normal “met him at school” story. We’ve been best friends ever since. Do you know any other spells besides Res and Blink? Well yes, I also know levitation and the nerve sensing and dampening spell I used on Specter. Generally speaking though, I sometimes do research into spells that I think are interesting, but mostly I’ll break down spells I already know into their basic components and use them from there. For example, did you know I actually use a modified version of levitation as a magical knife so I don’t have to use a real one then wash it? To me, it’s not about the number of spells you know, it’s about using what you already know to accomplish the greatest number of things. Hmm, I actually have been wondering if I should learn a new type of spell lately, just not sure what to do… Do you ever fear Specs will plot with Angel to get revenge on you? Why would he do that? I take him pretty much everywhere I go, I’ve never done anything bad to him, he has to no reason to plot revenge of any kind on me. Angel really doesn’t have a reason either, the only thing he might be sore about is me dating Fluttershy, but we came to an understanding about that. Hydro: How is it living with Rhino? Not too bad... except on the nights he snores I'm not sure how half of Equestria sleeps when he gets to snoring. Why are you such a colossal douchebag? I'm really not I just don't trust people too easy and volt has a way of majorly getting on my nerves at times. What is the hardest part of working at the dam? Well when the capacitors aren't over loading, The turbines are greased and in balance, the lake has enough water in it for the whole place to keep running, Volt isn't messing with the power grid causing circuits to fry again, and I'm not having to do any external repairs, It's keeping the damn fridge stocked I mean seriously you wouldn't think it's that big of a deal but I swear someone breaks in at night and eats all my food because I come back and someone's eaten an entire jar of jelly and all the drinks are gone -.- Volt: How has life been since coming to Ponyville? A little less crazy than college, here all that’s happened is I’ve been launched into a cloud and gained the ability to shoot lightning out of my horn… in college most situations involved me being blown up partially, being thrown off balconies, and I once worked as a part time electrician for a pimp. Would it be possible for you to leave a “present” outside Hydro’s bedroom? Let me get my Big Book of Things to Replace Quotation Mark Words With, let me go to the presents section, ummmmmm, now I pick a random answer… Sweet Celestia you sick bastard! Where would I even get a dead body of a goat, a tome of necromancy, and the hairbrush of Princess Celestia? I don’t know where you get these sick fetishes Atom, but please keep them to yourself. How was it to be a magnet for a while? I was strangely attracted to the idea, but soon I realized it and I were polar opposites *Random frying pan come out of nowhere and hits Volt upside the head* Blue: How has life in Ponyville differed from what you originally expected? Hmm, well, I’m used to crazy stuff happening, but I’m not even at the Everfree yet and things are already insane what with Rhino and all of his friends. So I guess it’s just more wild than what I was expecting. How did it feel being scared of a cloud? Scared? I wasnt scared! How dare you, sir! What is your favorite thing about Ponyville so far (besides the Everfree)? I like the cozy feel of it. I liked the cloud buildings in Cloudsdale and all, but I like the feel of Ponyville a lot more. It’s just got a real friendly and homey vibe to it. Author: What were some of your biggest inspirations to start writing? What made you want to start writing after spending so much time commenting and reading? What inspired you to write? I’m just gonna tackle all of these at once. Let’s see, I can’t really set into perspective what the biggest inspirations were, so I’ll just mention some that come to mind. I’ve always been a reader, passed 10 million words read on fimfiction recently, and have also enjoyed seeing what I read in my head. When this is put into reading fanfics, it really helps one enjoy the story, but there’s always that small thought at the back of your mind saying what you would do in that situation. But I really had no interest in writing a Human in Equestria fic, so I just ignored it. I began seeing more and more OC’s in stories such as Three of Me, and actually decided to expand upon my own that I had been just tossing around in my head for a bit, Rhino. I ended up submitting him to a story because it seemed like it would be fun to see him in a story, sort of makes him… I don’t know it’s just really satisfying in some way. Anyways, I then found Continuing the Dream, it’s author, Blue Breeze, actually contacted me when I favorite it which really made him stand apart from other authors for me since I normally only comment occasionally but that’s all. I ended up talking with him and at one point… I was tossing ideas to him for his story and after about the thirtieth item on the list, he asked why I didn’t just write my own fic if I had so many ideas. I thought about it, and I realized I probably could write if I put my mind to it and just wrote about something I was comfortable with writing that would also be fun. But I was still a little worried about it so told myself if I reached a certain number of words read I would give it a shot… suffice to say after reading many hundreds of thousands of words in one week, I realized I had plenty of time on my hands to write if I was reading this much. So I decided to give it a shot, and base the characters off myself and my friend, since our conversations generally end up ending unintentionally entertaining anyway. The rest you can see, I’m much better at writing now than when I started, and I look forward to writing even more. How did you come up with Fluffers? I was talking to my friends about wondering what I was going to do for my first arc and one of them pitched a nanobot cloud idea at me, I asked him if I could use it, he said yes, I made some changes to make it more Equestria plausible, added looks, behavior, and wallah! Fluffers. What made you choose to give Rhino a flying squirrel as a pet? Well, I always thought squirrels were cool in real life, their very smart and seem like they’d be a fun pet if you could actually tame one. Behold Equestria! Where the pets are smarter, and any animal that was wild is taken care of by a pegasus. I was thinking about possible pets for my OC and I thought about squirrels… make the squirrel black, make it a flying squirrel, give him a small introductory story and a name, Specter was born and seems like a few ponies like him so I think he was very successful. Why did you make Rhino a unicorn? Well, I was talking to some of my brony friends and of course the question comes up: What breed of pony would you be if you were in Equestria? Well, I looked at general personalities and what I liked about each race, and everything just pointed to unicorn. Magic for one, can’t see a way to go wrong with that. I also tried to base the OC on me in some areas since it’s easier to write about my own personality traits than made up ones. I’m not really sure actually, just seems right you know? I couldn’t see me as anything else. (Strangely enough, of my two best friends and myself, each of us would be a different breed of pony, amazing how well that works out huh?)