Ayyyy, Here's our first of the Written interviews featuring TheMajorTechie!

Original Gdoc file

Q1: Welcome and thank you for joining us TheMajorTechie! We’re glad you could take some time to answer a few of our questions! First off, tell us about yourself. How did you find your way to the fandom and what do you do?

A1: Back in the days of Gen 3 and 3.5, I was actually very much against MLP as a kid. I didn’t want anything to do with it, I whined when my little sister wanted me to watch a Gen 3 MLP movie with me, and overall, I just didn’t want to see it, period. Fast forward to a several years later to around sixth or seventh grade, I randomly stumbled upon the season finale for Gen 4’s season 2. Short to say, it was very different from what I remembered MLP to be, and during that time, I had recently been trying to write a “book” of sorts. Yeah, it still turned out to be a garbage fire after the seventh draft, but it’s actually what drew me into the fandom. After I watched a couple more episodes of MLP gen 4 out of curiosity, I decided to take a look at what the internet had to say about it, and that’s how I stumbled upon Fimfiction. I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to have a place where I could practice writing stories, so I made an account on the site and joined.

Nowadays, I’m beginning to consider trying again at writing original fiction, but I still hope to be active on the site well beyond the end of Gen 4.

Q2: I see you’re a person of culture and have done some editing for the “wonderful” Evictus. What can you tell us of your time working with them?

A2: Short to say, he often ends up ignoring advice and just pushing out whatever it is that he wrote. My time editing for him was typically spent telling him to rewrite (and in some cases, rewriting myself) parts of his stories simply because he doesn’t seem to understand how to make things flow naturally, not to mention keep things in-character. He seems to have a habit of bumping the ratings of what would normally be rated-E stories all the way up to an M rating because he decided to make (insert some character of the Mane Six) incredibly OOC and equally potty-mouthed.

Out of the select handful of stories that Evictus ever sent me for editing, only one of them really ever received any amount of praise. “The Attack of the Gigantic Donuts” was one of his only stories that I was able to successfully turn around, while stories such as “Teacher’s Aide” and “There’s Always Room for Another” ended up flopping out of the fact that I really can’t write (or edit, for that matter,) romance at all.

Plus, there’s also the fact that at the time of this writing, he’s gone through two other editors, with equally little success. At this point, he’s pretty much become sort of an unofficial mascot for the bad writers of Fimfiction, and I remember once in the comments of one of his stories receiving a “Golden Turd Award” for editing his story.

Q3: Speaking of editing. Any projects that you currently have on the table in regards to your editing work?

A3: Oh geez, I haven’t had the time to do anything much in terms of editing for nearly half a year at this point. I still do occasionally get requests in PMs to edit a story or two, but I have too much going on in real life to really help out all that much.

Q4: How about your writing project? Anything you’d like to share or point our reader’s attention too?

A4: My current flagship story, Pony-Me, is finally wrapping up after over a year of work. Initially beginning as an experimental one-shot driven by my annoyance at Comcast for my internet constantly dropping connections on a daily basis, it actually ended up growing into a massive story reflecting on my emotional state and my personal views on the future of technology. It’s actually also the one story I’ve devoted the most time on out of anything I’ve ever written. A few months into writing Pony-Me, I ended up writing out an all-encompassing “Universal Framework” document to act as a backbone for the plot and the story universe, hence the name.

Now, with the story coming to a close, I’ve been slowly working on adapting that framework for use in original fiction, where I plan on writing a fully-original story based on the Pony-Me universe, with all references to MLP removed.

Q5: What’s your current Keyboard setup? I see you enjoy mechanical keyboards and would love to know what switches you have a preference for when writing or doing work!

A5: It really depends on what time of day I’m doing my writing. Most of the time, I do my writing at night, after I finish all my homework for the day. Given the time of day that I typically write at, I usually end up writing on my Microsoft Surface Go tablet using the type cover, which is quiet enough not to wake anyone but still nice and tactile. When I’m writing outside of my usual writing schedule, I use an old Micro-Innovations (Really just a rebranded Chicony KB-2961) keyboard. Deskauthority has specs and a description at this link here. Just like the description states, it’s actually often mistaken to be a mechanical keyboard due to its tactile feel (not to mention noise) when in reality it’s just a well-made rubber dome board. While I do hope to get a Model M keyboard at some point or another, for the time being I’m perfectly fine with the keyboard I currently have. After all, I literally grew up with it. Years ago, my dad let me have his old work computer, which ran Windows 95 and had a lowly 166MHz Pentium processor coupled with 32MB of RAM. Its only three peripherals were the Micro-Innovations keyboard, a Logitech Mouseman Serial (which I used up until I got a new 5-button mouse, which is now showing signs of dying), and a pair of unbranded beige speakers. The Mouseman Serial now has issues with jittery cursor movement, so it’s been retired to my spare parts box, but the keyboard and speakers I still use daily.

Q6: What’s your ideal computer setup and specs? Assuming unlimited money what parts would you choose to power your new supercomputer?

A6: I’m not gonna go into too much detail simply because there’d be too much to list, but here’s the basics.
CPU: Ryzen Threadripper 2950x
RAM: 64GB DDR4
Storage: 1TB boot drive + 5TB storage drive
GPU: 2x Nvidia Geforce 2080Ti (because why the heck not if I have unlimited money?)
Case: I want to make my own case some day, but I’d probably go with a full-ATX desktop case. Otherwise, the case that I envision making myself would be woodgrain and aluminum with glass panels on the sides and top.

Q7: With this new computer, what’s the first thing you do with it?

A7: Get good at animating in Blender, and finish learning how to program so that I can do E V E R Y T H I N G I want to do in life.

Q8: Outside of computers, ponies, and reading, what are some other activities you enjoy?

A8: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… sleeping? Family vacations, nerding out with my friends in D&D, playing Super Smash Bros with the same friends, learning new things, robotics, piano playing, watching Youtube, watching Netflix, reading the news, doing homework, collecting memes, listening to music (multiple genres), and drinking water.

Q9: What would you consider the optimal number of ears for a head? Assuming you can add or take away as many as you’d like.

A9: Two. Why?

Q10: Knock knock. Who’s there? Its best pony at the door! Do you invite best pony in for a dinner of your favorite food and drink?

A10: Sure.

Q11: You and best pony have finished dinner and are ready to chill to some TV. What’s your go to show to watch and chill with best pony?

A11: I… actually don’t watch much TV. I guess Discovery channel? I usually get by on books and Youtube/Netflix.

Q12: Best pony is gone now. Sad face. What music do you listen to, to pass the time while writing or doing other activities?

A12: Aw, heck. I’ve got a playlist currently standing at 273 songs at the moment. Let’s just go through every. Single. One.

It’s mostly pop music, but I’ve got quite a few orchestral ones in there, some remixes, and like one dubstep song.

Q13: What’s your favorite meme of 2018 and why is it big chungus?

A13: Big Chungus is C H O N K Y. That’s why.

Q14: If you could say anything to your fans, followers, or random passersby that enjoyed your work, what would you say to them?

A14: Thank you.

Q15: What’s something wholesome or good you’ve seen or participated in, thats come from the fandom?

A16: Every time somebody in the fandom runs into some sort of problem, it’s as if the entire fandom swarms to their aid, whether it be financial, familial, or otherwise. It’s nice to see such a close-knit community.

Q17: One last question for you. Are there any projects, writings, work in or out of the fandom that you’d like to take a moment and rep, share, or otherwise tell us about?

A17: Message in a Bottle by Starscribe, the Time Loop Trilogy by Eakin, and After Eternity by Star Scraper. There are many more stories beyond those three, but I can’t pull them off the top of my head like I can with these.

Thank you again for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer our questions and we hope you have a wonderful rest of your day!

If you liked this interview and want to participate, go check out the thread for written interviews!

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and finish learning how to program

It never ends :D