I used to take separation for granted.
After today, I'm going to have to think long and hard about my relation to both the virtual world and that of the ponies. Because I'm more wrapped up in everything than I thought...or maybe it's just that our worlds are more wrapped up in each other than anyone thought, and I'm just at the epicenter. Being toyed around with...and I don't like it. Or maybe I'm just overthinking it?
Regardless of the big picture, explanations are almost certainly in order, so I'd better get talking. It didn't start right when I came out into the other world, which happened pretty much instantaneously when I got to the network location (Twilight didn't waste a second when I made myself known). There were a few conversations with various ponies, explaining where and why I'd been out. Without going into further details, a sudden, loud noise irked me massively, enough to make me go into the source-the Everfree Forest-to investigate.
"You would think to come in here, simply because of noise in your ear?"
"Yeah. Right, I forgot to mention my impeccable hearing...also makes me rather sensitive to things like nails-on-a-chalkboard type shenanigans. And if a tree falls in the forest with nopony around, I heard and can prove it-it does make a sound."
This elicits a smile from my listener, specifically a face that says "I see what you did there".
Anyways, curiosity got the better of me and I went into the forest. As I just said, it turned out that a tree fell...onto a cragodile. By the time I reached it (and helped get the tree off), it was kinda pissed, and it ended up attacking. It got a clean strike in, slamming my avatar straight into a patch of blue as the collision was suffered, leveling down from Third Form to Second. When it resisted my lasers, I had to modify the frequency specifically for the rocky outer coating.
I managed to drive it away, but I had no idea my problems were nothing up to that point. No warnings were incurred by touching the plant, and no residue was left behind, so even with the semiopaque Second Form I wasn't able to tell that anything had happened. Mostly because it hadn't happened yet.
"I'm still not completely sure why the joker wasn't laughing right then and there. Is there something I'm missing?"
"Of course you weren't pranked immediately, it's always delayed."
"If I had known that, maybe I wouldn't have felt played! But I ended up a victim of Cum hoc ergo propter hoc because of that time-delay."
When it first began happening, I had been in for a few hours. At that point in time, I was talking music with the resident disc jockey, and it was going pretty good at the time...until she suggested using the network. It seemed like a good idea at the time, so I gladly assisted.
As it turns out, Vinyl is one of the more learned unicorns...not surprising, and she's smart and powerful enough to access the layer. Before we could attempt anything, though, I noticed a few stray pixels in the bottom right corner of my optics, and looking back, I could have sworn it was in the shape of a Missingno. Maybe I should have taken that as an omen, because as Vinyl and I continued checking basic function compatibility, glitches slowly began to occur and accumulate on my optics. It wasn't really a problem, up until my ears began to indirectly feel the effects on my eyes...which led to my thought processes messing up big time, because I think with my ears better than my eyes.
Then I made a mistake. I turned off my optics, intentionally blinding myself-or tried to, at any rate. But it appears Poison Joke doesn't like easy workarounds, and punished me for the attempt.
EMERGENCY
SHUTDOWN
{exit/<disable>/}
Initializing Earth[Tera].BIN
Initializing Earth[Tera].JV
Commencing KPRO.697
{ANNIHILATE} ...............
I jumped five feet, figuratively, when that message appeared in my optics (but not on my screen)...and kinda lost it. I started yelling at the now-confused unicorn that she had done something wrong, set something off, get-out-of-the-network-this-instant and probably plenty of other things I now regret. In response, she left the system in a hurry, and removed herself from my vicinity in "meatspace"-physical space-as well, yelling for help because I apparently needed it...which I did.
In other words, I screwed up the last section of the first impression.
"Come to think of it, Missingno is exactly what the joke was! I encountered it unconventionally, intentionally or no, and it messes with the graphics a bit-but the effects on the player's psychology, as I have now shown, are arguably the worst part of the hit." Geez, that was a complex rhyme!
"Hm...it appears that you are in a fix. I'm making the cure, yet I wonder..."
"I have pics. Excuse me, pictures. But I think I'd rather let that curiosity be behooved, after these visual artifacts have all been removed." Neither of us spoke directly to each other for the rest of the time, aside from thank-yous and such after it was done.
As Zecora worked, she chanted something...in a different language, Swahili maybe? (You pick up on a few things when you know someone who speaks many tongues.) I merely quietly listened, but found myself considering my own rarely-used second language. No sound escaped my mouth, which formed the words, but it's been a while since I've ever spoken the language.
After a liberal application of anti-Joker serum to the inner skin, my eyes see true once more.
I also see my errors, all of them, and while I am myself I will not make the same mistakes again...but that doesn't mean that what I've already done is any different than how it was before, and at least one pony has been adversely affected by my actions.
Discounting the (very small) mess I made while I was in a high panic, before I was told to go see the zebra. But that's a story for never, you'll just have to imagine it for yourself.
I downloaded a program (and a few videos of its proper usage and results) directly to the layer, and dictated a message with instructions-for-access, to be mailed directly to one Vinyl Scratch. It was the least I could do to apologize for the trouble I had caused her, even if I hadn't meant to do any of it.
I'm told she reacted positively to my music examples, and to the sequencer itself. After all, not everyone has Synthesia...excuse me, synesthesia.