Dear Journal,
Not too terribly much happened today, which is a nice change. I’ll use the extra time to catch up on the things I missed in yesterday’s entry, then hit up the main points.
Just glanced back, seems I left off talking about when I first saw Joe’s magic.
If my mane wasn’t already green, it probably would’ve turned green with envy. I already had plenty of reason to be jealous of this guy. Now he’s going and manifesting freaking magic right in front of me, David Blaine-ing it up in somebody’s empty backyard.
I wonder how much he can lift. I wonder how fine-tuned the force is. This probably explains the strange damage to everything, all the broken glass and missing paving stones and hydrants ripped out of the ground. Pretty strong talent.
So maybe I didn’t like the reason that Joe decided to come back with me, but I wasn’t about to argue with him. We need every person. I went with him to his home base, a tiny house with a generator running in the front and no sign of damage (one of the only ones on the block not screwed up somehow). Everything he wanted to bring was computer related somehow.
Unlike Sky, he had no compunctions about his life before and didn’t try to hide anything from me. Told me he’d been some kind of important software developer (called it a Systems Architect or something, whatever), for an important tech company on the other side of the country. He had come south to help with the launch of a new product, and was living out of a hotel for another week before he flew back.
Well, obviously that plan never came to fruition. Wasn’t there a book about migrant workers like that? No, I think that was a different book. Whatever. Joe the pony had a similar story to Sky and me: left alone, didn’t know what to do or where to go. Scavenged for what he needed and kept alive however he could. More hospitable to life of all kinds where the ground wasn’t always made of concrete, and by the sound of it more of the hostile animals moved this way across the city. Guess that might explain a little of why he was so much more afraid to travel and had such a harder time going out without having to fight a little to stay safe.
You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff he said he did (me neither). The house wasn’t his, and the only thing he seemed to care about bringing was an extremely expensive-looking laptop and a duffel bag filled with portable hard drives. Yeah, you heard that right. A duffel-bag full. What’s in it?
Apparently the sum total of human knowledge. Or… maybe just a few tiny (but important) parts of the internet. Wikipedia, webMD, business directories and databases full of classic literature. While I was trying to get in touch with other human survivors (shut up, we are), he’d been milking the internet for all it was worth. Before there were animals getting in the way, he broke into every house he could and ran some sort of thing from a thing and did… he explained it in exhausting detail, but it went a little over my head.
Honestly, I don’t really care how he did it. What matters most for us is that he could. Of course, you might want to know (as I did) how a quadruped with gigantic fingernails at the end of each arm instead of hands managed to use a keyboard and accomplish any of these things. Personally, I thought that this indicated he was deceiving me about the things he’d done, but of course I’d misjudged.
He proceeded to demonstrate his “magic” telekinesis could also do precision work, like pressing the keys on a keyboard.
Why couldn’t I have woke up able to do that? Why couldn’t Sky? If we could do things like that, rebuilding a civilization would be far easier. Being able to manipulate things in the human way, essentially keeping our hands, would’ve made this awful transformation at least slightly more tolerable.
Is it fair that I’ve got this tiny pot of boiling rage for Joe right now? Okay, rage is probably too strong a word, and it’s not for Joseph. He isn’t the one that left me a useless, weak, small, helpless…
He didn’t do that. It’s not his fault he can still do things the way a proper being of a proper intelligent race can.
Granted, I don’t know if I would trade Joe’s “magic” if it also came with his complete lack of practical skills. Can you believe he’s never learned to drive a car? Almost thirty years old, and he still relies on taxies to get anywhere. Not only that, but he appears to have subsisted for these two weeks entirely on instant pancakes. I found a dozen empty boxes in the kitchen (he hadn’t taken out the trash, yuck!), all of the same brand. This one’s less his fault, but I could tell from the smell of the place he hadn’t showered since the Event. Stallions apparently get quite an odor if you let them fester.
Fester is not a word you should ever have to use about a person. Just… not. I don’t think there’s a single context where someone festering in any way is a good thing.
Joseph showed me his near-complete backup of the english Wikipedia pages, and it was incredible. Then he proceeded to explain to me that there was no way we could get across town, because the animals would all eat us. I would have to stay and live with him, since he could keep me safe with his “magic.”
I think he’s probably way smarter than me, bordering on the point where you lose the ability to function as a regular person in society. I explained we wouldn’t have to walk across town, no matter how dangerous it was, because there were two of us and we could drive (though I was going to make him take a nice long dip in a pool first).
He protested that he didn’t know how to drive, and I told him he’d only have to sit there and press the pedals lightly when I said so. He could fit everything he wanted into the car, and we could be there in minutes. Everybody wins.
He’s extremely stubborn, but he caved in the end. Guess my threat of leaving him behind if he wouldn’t come motivated him after all. Seems like even those people who pretend not to care about social contact really crave it after all.
I shoved him through the doorway and into the pool to get clean (no desire to be around for that) while I loaded his crap into a pickup truck nearby, one with the most spacious cab I could find. He was still damp when he made it back, but smelling like soap and chlorine was way better than the alternative.
Can’t say I liked how close we had to get to do the actual driving, to say nothing of how nervous and tentative a driver Joseph was. I say driver, but it was more like “accelerator! More, more… good… less, less…” for twenty minutes or so. Huan rode in the passenger seat, sticking his head out the window and having the time of his life. Pretty sure that’s some kind of dog genetic imperative.
Got back safely, made some introductions, all that fun stuff. Still tons of unanswered questions about Joseph, but after being around me for so long he was starting to shut down and I feared pressing him would do damage. Sky and I helped get his crap into the basement bedroom even though he has that stupid unfair cheating magic stuff and could’ve done it easier himself. We had to hold bags in our freaking mouths and carry them between us, but you didn’t see him helping, did you? Too lazy for my shirt.
Actually, nobody wears shirts anymore. After yesterday, I’m considering moving shirts up the order in priority.
I wonder if we’ll find enough people to fill up this house and start having to share bedrooms, or branch out to other houses. That’d be pretty awesome. Maybe the next one I find will have laser vision, or an extra set of arms coming out of their neck. Maybe they’ll have a skunk tail, or bat wings.
How does he know how to use that magic stuff, anyway? You’d think there would be a huge learning curve. Took me weeks to learn how to drive stick without grinding the transmission every now and then, and that’s got one lever and a pedal. The amount of power Joseph can manifest with that stupid horn boggles the mind.
Today came, Cloudy Skies did the breakfast thing for everybody, and Joe Glow just ate the pancakes, nevermind that she’d done plates of fresh crepes with the last of our strawberries and cream she’d whipped herself.
Got to admire the dexterity of a meal cooked with somebody’s freakin mouth. Well, a little hooves. You stay this way long enough, and you start learning little tricks. Ways to bend and grip things that hold them in place.
Of course, we wouldn’t have to if this stupid disaster had been a little more egalitarian with its cheating powers.
I don’t even want to think about how it must work, or the implications the mere existence of such an ability has for our understanding of reality. The Event and all the missing people is hard enough. Still, of all the people to get a power like that, did it have to be the one with no practical skills whatsoever?
Joe was incredibly awkward when around both of us, barely speaking ten words during the whole meal and staring openly at Sky more than once. Well duh. I’ve tried to get her to wear clothes around me. Joe’s got a few ugly pairs of shorts, so I can only assume (like me) he actually wants to feel human still.
I wanted to know about his powers, about how maybe he knew them and could teach us, but all he said was that he didn’t think he could and the way he knew it all was complicated and he didn’t want to talk about it right then.
When that was done, he went back in his bedroom, and didn’t come out until late afternoon. He spent most of the day setting up computers and rearranging furniture, or at least that’s what Sky says he did.
Some time ago I wished that I could find other survivors, even if they were the worst jerks in existence. I would like to redact that wish, and re-file under the wish “find someone with practical survival skills and maybe some plumbing, or electrical experience”. We’re probably going to need more solar if Joe runs his crap night and day.
It appears the question “can ponies control their schedules enough to stay up at strange hours and sleep during the day” is answered with a resounding “yes”. Way to go, Joseph, revolutionizing the new field of four-legged science.
Whatever. He has strength and precision. Tomorrow he can go get a gas generator and hook it into the grid. Well, probably he’ll go get it and make me hook it into the grid, since of course he wouldn’t possibly know anything useful like how to actually install a generator. Back at his old place, he actually used daisy-chains of extension cords to get power to the computers and video game consoles.
Yes, he was playing video games. Yes, he brought the consoles with him.
No, I’m not going to strangle him. That wouldn’t be very neighborly. Besides, strangling him would be strangling hope. Pretty sad state the world’s in.
Still, least I’m not alone. I do prefer this to nobody. Eccentric, strange, but also someone going through some of the same things. Maybe one day we’ll have our own colony after all. Our own herd.
It’s hard to tell from his spotty responses, but I think Joe knows something about the strange markings I saw in the street the other day. I think he may’ve been studying them, or… causing them, or… something. Maybe they’re a clue about why this happened.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll pester him enough to actually get an answer.
—A
Keeps reminding me of The World, the Flesh and the Devil
Anyways,enough of me reminding you that I am reminded about a reminding movie.
Keep up the good work Starscribe!
My words are a matter of pride...
We are talking 'bout magic today.
Read this:
And that's how Joe learned how to use magic.
Interesting... please, continue with this story, and may it one day reach a thousand likes!
Would have made my day for Joe to occasionally mutter "Fucking normies."
It seems the Rapture came for the socially apt.
Thestral, anybody?
Leon: I will learn to your level of magic!
Joe: You cannot master this fine art, plebeian!
I don't know, I like to imagine them meeting.
If fate plays to our favor, they may one day meet.
Nonetheless, I have a goal to work Leon up to, and plans in my head.
Joseph and Sky is my OTP. SkySeph is best ship.
Nah, just kidding. I don't see it working - though it still could.
Either way, Joe is new my favourite character.
With the statements in this making stallion seem like something A is unfamiliar with I feel safer in assuming he's female, maybe not proven, but more likely now with the language present
Yay.
Ha! Joe had the same idea Robin did. He's also a lot better at it.
Video game consoles? Plural?
When your power comes from solar-cells and generators?
That's... rather short-sighted and dickish.
Still, at least with modern consoles that might make DVDs a target of opportunity thing when scavenging. A few movie nights in a row while the worst of the dog problem solves itself might actually be both good for morale and increase their odds of survival.
Only so many full trashcans and stores even a pack may get into, after all. After that a rather swift culling of those numbers should happen. A bit dark, yeah, but that's the end of the world for you.
And now there were three.
Just posting this time to let you know I'm still enjoying the fic a lot.
6058887 I'm going to try to use a dictionary for the book cipher. I'm unsure if it'll work. I'll post my results whenever I finish.
EDIT: Well, it makes no sense. That was a bust.
I don't think I read this for the story, as much as I read it for the mystery of what happened to everyone. I am REALLY curious as to what is going to happen, and what other people will appear.
Keep up the good work on making me want to rip my heart out from all the suspense!
6059716 There's already two. One is mine and just got approved a few hours ago.
It's the end of the world, and I'm a little pastel magic horse.
...better play some Skyrim.
#JoeForBestPony2015
Also, fun fact: Wikipedia does in fact offer this functionality. Apocalypse-ready. The sum of human knowledge (or at least much of it) in 10 incredibly compressed gigabites.
I've never understood why dogs do that. It's kind of weird.
Also, this is the second time they've simply hopped in a car and started driving. First it was a semi. Now it's a pickup truck. In order for a car to start, doesn't there need to be, oh I don't know, keys in the ignition where the buck did they get the keys from????
Hey Starscribe, I thought you were trying to make this story as realistic as possible given the weird premise. Driving a car without keys isn't very realistic.
Ha Ha, horse puns!!!!!!!
6059770
I still think that A is a guy. Not only did he work as an auto mechanic (an industry dominated by men) but a few journal entries ago he talked about how he wouldn't want to have foals because that would be dooming his children to the same difficult life he was living. I don't remember which entry that was from but I remember it was sometime after he met Sky but before he met Joe. If A is a woman(mare?) then she probably wouldn't even have considered that possibility because it wouldn't be possible.
It would be a really good idea if we could refer to the main character by some kind of name besides just A (his/her first initial). Since we don't even conclusively know this person's gender, I say we should refer to him/her by the unisex name "Alex". Who's with me????????
6060251
Theory: Ponies are genetically predisposed to making horse puns. It is entirely beyond their control.
6060251 The semi, they explicitly mentioned spare keys. Truckers frequently hide extra sets around the cab. The pickup … dunno.
I suppose they could hotwire it. A was a mechanic and would possibly have sufficient knowledge of the ignition system to do so. Or there was a set of keys in the house, which seems pretty likely.
Ah, classic wizard. Knows everything and can bend reality backwards, but ask him to do anything practical and he just stares at you like you're speaking a foreign language. Still, A's going to need to lay down the law about electricity consumption and Joe pulling his weight. It's the end of the world here, buddy. The controller will still be there after the new generator's installed.
Of course, some self-esteem wouldn't hurt. "useless, weak, small, helpless…" Only one out of four, little pony. Only one out of four.
Well then, we have the anti-social, technogeek grump, and the adaptive, go-with-the-flow hippie, and the realist, trying to get by middleman.
...
Discord? Is that you? Because only you would have chosen out of so many, THESE three being the only obvious ones is weird.
6060251 The car likely was owned by someone who lived on the street. Break into house, find keys, hit keyfob button, locate corresponding car.
So, basically he's Sheldon Cooper?
6060687
eeyup
6060464
6060251
The pickup and the sports car were gotten from dealerships. Presumably they got the keys from inside the building.
Behold, the most dedicated gamer on earth. Everyone's gone, he's a pony, and he needed to make a daisy-chain of extension chords just to plug it all in.
In all seriousness, though, I don't know why he'd be playing video games instead of trying to find resources or people.
I've never considered the Protag's gender to be even an issue. He sounds male to me, but even if he isn't I couldn't care less. I don't know what this interest is about.
Joe now feels both less dangerous than in his introduction last chapter, and less useful.
This is the best possible development. You get video games and BACKUPS OF THE INTERNET from this pony! Maybe even anime. And nothing would ever get done again.
6061477 And so society died a slow, quiet death.
Cipher:
I have a feeling that this is a Vigenere cipher at work. I also feel that this is why there's a double letter in the code, throwing everyone off.
Does anyone know of a program which will go through all possible keyword letter combinations and spew out the results? Because I'd be happy to go through all the (pages of) results.
Aww, As got horn envy
Hmm, is he raiding the local library and grabbing all the major works like lord of the rings, History books, ect... Ect....
Gotta keep humanity's history alive!
6059707
Then why isn't all of LA still there
6059734
*scribbles that idea down for my own lpoe fic
6060249
I need to download that sometime
Great. A anti-social nerd who spent a week fleeing reality with videogames. And he's so accustomed to living off ready meals (just substitute pizza with pancakes) that it doesn't even cross his mind to eat something different even when it's right in front of him.
Well, not just gaming, obviously, but a proper programmer would figure out how to build a spell matrix in two days, tops... it's just coding in the end (which makes me think that the transformations weren't random but fitting to the person's actual skillset).
Also, Joe probably reacted to that code circle like we did here on the board, ignoring everything that was more important :)
And he's never seen a naked female close up, irrespective of species.
Now I feel sorry and worried for A.
6061567 You can try this ultility. You may have better luck with it than I did. I didn't get anything out of it.
I'm curious, as regards the code, how many layers of encryption were used. Part of a fault of the vigenere cipher is that it can be cracked by brute force, using a computer, which functions more than fast enough for most ciphers like these.
I've been suspecting something like a skip code or a diagraph cipher as a second layer of encryption. Of course, because we have zero clues and an extremely short phrase to work with, our options are kind of restricted at the moment. If, however, some different similarly coded (i.e. using the same key) messages pop up elsewhere in the city, we should be golden (or at least, much more than currently)
6061844
Just reading this:
So we do have something to go off. We just don't know what it is. That's the big problem.
Funny you should mention brute forcing the Vigenere, since that was one of the first things I thought about doing when it came up. That digraph idea of yours looks promising though. I'll have to look into it.
6061567
Cipher Related:
The biggest issue I can think of with that idea is the fact there is no way to truly tell which decoded message is correct. Even if we restricted the list of potential keys to that which produce intelligible text, we would still have a couple thousand interpretations. I have found a Vingenere cipher solver online but so far no luck. The best we can hope for right now is either a crib in the ciphertext or a clue as to what the keyword is. Even knowing how long the key is would help at this point. Either way I am stumped as to how to proceed from here.
6061878
Without any true clues, something like this could be completely uncrackable. Even the 'simple' Vigenere cipher can be unbreakable if the author intended it to be. And in saying, so far my luck with any Vigenere cipher breaker has been much less than anything hope-inducing. I tested them by generating my own sentences, then inputting the correct keyword to decipher.
Yeah. Not encouraging.
I personally think from that experience we should give up using them at this level.
I'm going to list some problems anybody deciphering this faces, so that they (or we) systematically eliminate them:
1. Determining the pigpen cipher variant used. This is the first and one of the most important, since it takes us through the first level of encryption. This is also important because if it's wrong, then the following decryption could be made invalid due to the type of cipher it uses.
2. Determining the number of levels of encryption. This one is hard, but important. Knowing how many levels of encryption there are is important if we want to calculate the outcomes possible if we have to brute force it. Clues will be invaluable in figuring this out.
3. Picking out any clues or cribs. So far, we have nothing but the text itself, some context and some vague 'It's somewhere in there' hints. Anything that could possibly be considered a clue or hint becomes infinitely useful when attempting to determine anything about anything. Again, it would be useful for inputting if we ever have to brute force it (which is looking more and more like our best option here).
4. Determining the different combinations and the types of ciphers used in the encryption. There could be a number of different ciphers, all layered repeatedly. This ties in with clues, since they will hint at or give away what sort of ciphers we're looking for.
5. Organization. For the most part, we're all running around trying our own ideas and failing (not too badly though) at basically guessing this thing. If someone were to truly have a go at cracking this thing, they would need to organize and share the workload. Double the people, half the time and work per person.
6.
In this case the 'enemy' is this unrelenting code.
I am most interested in seeing this code figured out.
I'm open to collaboration if anyone wants to work on this. Just PM me and don't be hesitant about it. The more the merrier and better.
I'm thinking that A is still male but he de-aged. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a cutie mark because he noticed sky's right off the bat. He may be the same age as apple bloom or the other cmc. Its also why joe may have offered to protect him because he's only a young kid. Mabe early teens.
6058448
See, now that's awesome! If the story can get someone to read who isn't even a fan, I'm sure that must mean that I did my job. Hopefully she enjoyed it. Tough I'm not sure how any code I wrote could possibly live up to all this hype.
6058504
The damp towel was probably in your hands, though, which condult. I wonder if hooves do (I don't actually know. I believe A mentioned using a special stylus-pen in chapter one when talking about smartphones.
6058841
I'm sure A would've had trouble without a special pen, though I can't imagine holding that in one's mouth is very fun (particularly since you would need a stable surface to keep the smartphone on while you used it, hardly as convenient as the way humans have it)
6059680
Trying! So far I've managed to keep writing even though I'm on vacation. Probably should be able to keep it up, so I'm not way behind when I get back in the land of the living.
6059684
If it's any consolation, I'm sure A is as mad about it as you are (probably more, since a straight answer would solve tons and tons and tons of the difficulties of daily life if A could replicate it somehow). Poor pony has no idea of the unfortunate side-effects of being an earth-pony. If A only knew...
6059689
If it does, that would be a first for anything I've ever written! My Little Apprentice is coming very close, but it has had a whole year to get to that point. Here we are halfway there in two weeks. Dang. ^^
6059691
I'm not sure if A would understand enough to know it was worth writing down. I only wish. Can I even say words like that with a teen rating?
6059707
Leaving the robots, cat-ladies, and... uh... auto mechanics... to fend for themselves. Really a poor founding group for Equestria, if that theory is true. Hard to think how a society could've evolved that values sociability and friendship so much if the founders didn't understand what that even was.
6059718
Joseph may not be the fairest unicorn to compare against, honestly. It's possible they will meet. This party might be a sack full of socially incompatible
peopleponies, but the skills are getting more practical by the day. It's possible some future plan to reach other survivors will find success. Or maybe not. Only time will tell.6059721
Joe: 9/10 qt 3.14159, spaghetti deployed
6059724
With the insanity of effort that has gone into cracking code stuff, I'm surprised nobody's compiled some huge chart of all the evidence for A's gender by now. I wonder which people will figure out first.
6059728
Some seriously unfair advantages, I think. I was actually a little worried when I noticed Robin had done it (since this chapter wasn't released yet), but I didn't think it was right to change it. Don't mess with a good idea, I guess. On a side note, I think I'm going to download that archive myself. Seems like a useful thing to have.
6059734
I'm not sure if any of the characters know enough about wildlife to figure that out, unfortunately. Sky's the closest to an expert with animals they have, and she was just a farm girl. Not really the same thing.
6059738
Well thanks! I appreciate that you're still with us! Granted, it seems from the numbers Fimfiction posts that lots of ponies still are. I hope they keep along for the ride. I can see how such regular chapters might wear out people's desire to read eventually.
6059770
Poor A. Your perspective does seem to fit what's happened in this chapter, though there are plenty of arguments that could be made for other sections. If true, it would probably be more stress for the poor earth pony than a change of species. Or at least as much.
Course, a change of species would cause plenty of stress on its own to account for everything A's been going through.
6060251
I know this has already been said, but yeah. The new cars were from the dealership, not from people's homes. Many of those keep them right in the cars, and I'm sure of the ones that don't is fairly easy to find the keys when you can break into the building and search at your leisure. I could've talked about it in more detail, it just felt kina silly to talk in detail about breaking in and stealing keys. Wanted to get on with the chapter I guess.
6060326
6060330
I could get behind that. I see no reason why language as insufferable as theirs couldn't have some systemic explanation.
6060464
Also true. It seems pretty certain to me A could hotwire most vehicles. Maybe not the newer ones where all the security is digital, but anything older than that...
6060537
I wonder if A will ever stop with the self-deprecation. Guess someone who was strong and capable before the Event would feel the sting of losing most of their abilities more than someone who didn't have much power before anyway (like Cloudy skies), or who kept most of it (like Joseph).
6060567
Discord might explain as insane as things have been, though screwing up an entire planet seems a little extreme, even for him. At least in the show it seemed like his Equestrian destruction was fairly localized most of the time. Probably could've expanded, but... a whole planet? Might be ambitious for him.
6060873
6060998
Some people just have priorities this bad. No really, they exist. Were it not so, we wouldn't have 4chan or so many dank memes.
6061051
One of the reasons I chose to go with this style. See how much not specifying one outright would alter what people thought about the story. See how people would identify a character who made no attempt to hide their own sex but also never felt the need to talk about it, because it's inconsequential to A's daily life. Males and females alike need fresh water and food at the end of the day, and that's still more or less the place A is hovering on the survival pyramid.
6061292
That's the trade for safety, I guess. Funny how being mysterious and unknown can make things so much moer interesting, and defining them makes them seem mundane, even though what they really were behind the scenes never changed.
6061477
Fortunately they're in LA. Plenty of places to "buy" anime if that's what they're into. Pitty it hadn't been a little later. AX was only a few months later, if that'd been in town there would be enough to last a lifetime.
6061658
Skyrim would be a good game to have if Bethesda (and every other game company for that matter) decided to vanish. Just make sure you download all the mods too if you're stocking up for the end of days, so you can keep changing your game in different ways. A heavily modded copy of PC Skyrim might provide future generations of ponies enough to have fun for decades to come. Just... hope they don't base their opinions of what humanity was like on it, now that all the humans are gone. Could happen, with as magical as ponies are. Probably wouldn't seem at all far-fetched to them that humans were magical too.
6061672
Paticularly if A is female, yeah. Granted, Cloudy Skies is in the same boat either way, and probably less able to deal with it than A would be (at least based on the personality we've seen).
6062037
Actually a really interesting idea that nobody's discussed. It does seem strange that A wouldn't talk about being smaller than the others. Granted, A does talk about being smaller than Joseph. If Skies was also a filly, this could be the case. Seems like the sort of thing that we'll learn by the end of the story.
6062113
Fair enough.
I'd argue A has proven intelligent enough to put two and two together regarding the packs getting more and more desperate and the city slowly falling apart, but good point that s/he might not have the animal cunning to do so quite yet.
Might require seeing dogs fighting over a 'fresh' trashcan or something for him/her to get that type of eureka moment, and that's hardly a given with the current circumstances.
I'm a bit disgruntled that downloading the chapters to my phone leaves behind the pictures, but eh, I guess I'll just go back and check what the pictures were after I've read the chapters
6062113
Who says it has to be the planet? He could have made a copy of the world, filled it with basic animals and simply plucked a few pony bodies for a select few to run around in.
6062184
Dang, me too! I understand why Fimfiction's engine might have trouble with stories with images in them, but that's still really annoying. I wonder if Knighty's even thought about this.It does seem like a fairly niche application of the download function, honestly. I think I can count on one hand the number of stories I've read here that used images regularly.
6062192
True. If there weren't side stories (or you discounted them as being cannon) you could get away with that theory much more easily, too. Making just a single city and a limited area around it, and taking a few people to pop inside it, Truman-show style.
Eh. I almost thought this was going to be a story where everything went smoothly. I've never read one where that happens, and I sort of want to.
But nope. At the very least, A's jealous of Joseph AND getting irritated by him. Previously, it was Sky causing problems. This little group's going to tear itself apart.
I love the idea of 'saving the internet' being Joseph's priority. It's such an awesome idea, and simply for doing it I'd excuse him if he just wants to eat pancakes.
I've got a bad feeling about this Joe. I think that he's one of those types whose morality and ethics is degenerating towards 'animal'. I'm not convinced that Sky is entirely safe around him.
6077810 Maybe, but I feel the "oggling" bit at breakfast was more his social awkwardness. In his field of work (I'm in the same line) the most succesful people are eccentric and usually have next to no social ability. He's likely had very little interaction with the opposite sex/gender and this "apocalypse" would be causing him to prioritize parts of his thought process and biochemistry.
While I wouldn't stare, I'd be making a huge effort to get close to both A and Sky in Joe's position and with my own set of social dysfunction, mainly because my social IRL life is non-existent due to the line of work.
I think he's going to be the moral black spot in the group, but he won't be a creep or a bad guy necessarily. A and Sky (I hope.. she seems rather 'good') have a moral compass pointing in the same direction while Joe likely has one that spins around. So to say.
that picture."magic" i've used that explanation a few times. like when i passed out after school years back and ended up glued to the ceiling. to this day i have no clue who in the house had that much glue and time on their hands. magic is pranking