Bart, cursed by a debilitating disease which afflicts his mental stability, spends the vast majority of his days at the Saint Junivus Psychiatric Ward. He faces a constant uphill struggle to piece apart reality and fantasy, and he is dogged to do it alone.
When a global outbreak changes everything about his already shaky reality, he must explore what life means to him. The ETS (Equine Transformation Syndrome) pandemic could become his salvation... or it could become the very thing that forever breaks his mind.
This story shares the same universe as Pandemic by ASGeek2012 and Pandemic: What you are Meant to Be by Halira
Note: If you find any details that conflicts with either story, or you interpret the details as something that conflicts, let me know. I intend to do my best to keep this story to cannon with Geek's universe.
Edit: Had a slight mistake with the series tag. I rectified it.
Keeping an eye on this. Promising premise, looks like this starts in the middle of the original Pandemic story timeline and ahead of mine by at least a week from what I can tell.
A few things stand out. After a week the most people would be happening would be the hair, tail, ears and the possibly wings or horn. The farthest along was starting to have their legs become pony like and the fur was starting. Also you do not need the Equestria Girls tag as it is not in that universe and hints at a surprise character who only applies to the main story.
Still I am tracking this story and would like to see how people in this institution deal with the change. As this could become very interesting.
8960751
That might depend on the location how many infected and showing signs there are, but yeah, a week in there should have already been word out.
8960751
There are a few reasons for this event that simply haven't become relevant yet. All of them should be amply covered in the next chapter. The only contributing factor I have chosen to reveal thus far is that, with the exception of Monty, Bart spends next to no time looking at anyone else due to what they represent.
However, do trust me that I have carefully taken everything into consideration.
Edit: Also, none of my reasons should conflict with the rest of the universe as I understand it.
I saw your post and I have come
Saved for later reading, when it's not the weekend and I'm not swamped. Still, it's you. So that does mean quality.
This is an interesting story premise for it a guy who suffers from hallucinations and so he can't even trust his own senses or his own thoughts and resonating, that I more of a story that I can sink my teeth in. His situation is also further compounded that by the fact that he is treated like a child who can't make any major decisions for on his own and isn't trusted to do anything on his own. The guy is one of the 'crazies'(sorry no offense) but doesn't want anything to do with the others as he believes they would turn on them in a moment. I would like it to be more clear what condition he has exactly and what happened that lead him to be there in the first place, which doesn't help at all in the self-esteem department and what are the effects it has on a person, so far he seems to imagine and live entire scenario being momentarily disconnected from realty; that must be fuel for more self doubt about himself. I can easily believe that he imagine that the ETS his part of his hallucinations and I wonder who he will put into contact by it, either intestinally by the staff, accidentally, or that he breaks out to get infected himself. I wonder how he will learn that people with desirabilities get to start over whole as a pony. I wonder if the experts will see it as a cure all for all people with mental illnesses? Will he still be seen as crazy even after he is transformed?
this is more of a story that I can identify with being marginalized by the rest of society and tackles one of the current issues in society that still has strong prejudices against people with mental disabilities.
Looking forward to the next chapter and good luck.
Perhaps another sentence or two about the previously reported strange symptoms popping up as a lead into the explaining that a full fledged pandemic was underway. Just to aknowledge that there had been news of strange symptoms occurring to this point. Think that is enough to resolve the timeline issue. There are chances people in less affected areas might not have taken it seriously with just random reports of it from elsewhere before the announcement that a crisis was in effect.
I think this is a good opening. Only quibble I have with it is that it seems that the news broke rather suddenly of the ETS outbreak when it was rather far along (full ponies). I would think some of the people there, especially the physicians, would already be aware of something happening before that, even if perhaps they dismissed some of the reports of ears, tails, and whatnot as a hoax at first.
In either case, I will be interested to see where you go with this story.
8964537
Reasoning should be sufficiently explained in the next chapter. Although if people continue to be turned off this story, I'll just take it down. I think I seriously offended some people off with this steaming pile of a narrative.
Well, you certainly have my attention. Fascinating choice for a perspective character. When your view of reality is already shaky, how do you deal with a pernicious pony plague? Looking forward to seeing where you go with this.
8965204
Yessssss! My dream come true, to capture your attention for one of my stories.
Well, this perspective is most certainly one that is different from the most walked path for main human characters.
I do wonder... . Is his voice a hallucination, his 'shadow-ego', or something else coexisting with him?
It is different from most Dissociative Disorders I've known of.
But I digress.
This looks interesting, although I'm not one who focuses in human-centric fictions. I'll wait for further chapters to make up my mind. I'll be tracking this!
Edit: I'm faving it due to the quality in both description and characterization. I hope to see where you go with this story.
Okay, finished. Interesting hook. looking forward to more.
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Thanks. Glad you liked it. I'm going to try to finish up chapter 2 so I can post it.
Oh wow, another Pandemic story. Let me just tag this for tracking. There needs to be a Group for all Pandemic stories if this keeps up.
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This already is a group for the Pandemic stories.
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In the immortal words of Homer Simpson.
D'Oh!
Well, this institution is quite decent compared to most - whose reputation are indeed in the pits for an assortment of reasons.
And well, I can see Monty adapting really well into being... something else. He'll keep good company to the lady.
Nice chapter, by the way.
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Now watch it all fall apart!
I shall win your like yet.
Well, at least they'll be able to know it's coming. The flu does hit first. Still, A+ job on that quarantine, folks. Why not have her sneeze on everyone while she's here?
And I do have to love Dr. Webster having almost irrational levels of germophobia. Ah, sweet irony...
Good chapter. Interesting that there would be a Charleston patient transferred to Maine unless she had family nearby there, or she came from a well-to-do family that wanted her completely out of sight and out of mind as they considered her an embarrassment. This place seems to me as a place for the severely mentally unhinged based on the isolation and what we have seen of our protagonist.
Why does that sentence fill me with dread? :D
8972387
It is not. I have loved this story so far.
Nice it's already there can't wait to see what will be the results of the TF on the patients and the staff, wonder who are the actual crazy ones.
Another story to add to my tracking list.
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At a glance this seems to be a mental institution, so potentially everyone to various degrees.
The other Pandemic story going right now spoils me with its daily updates.
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Yeah, I don't think I could quite keep that pace up, but I plan on establishing 2/week when I get back from my vacation period. It's been at least 5-6 years since I've some of my husband's family, and it is taking up a lot of my time right now. Perhaps I may get to squeeze a few hours of writing tonight.
Just caught up with the story. This was a good chapter. I think this is sticking close enough to canon to warrant a move to that folder.
Added to read later ;)
By the way, ETS stands for 'Equine Transformation Syndrome', not Equestria. Looking forward to reading this when i finally got time later.
9045516
Thank you so much for the correction. I shall make it.
Nice we financially get into the interesting stuff now with the personnel starting to panic and the patents starting be agitating themselves and that civility is starting to breakdown from the staff and doctors and doing in human treatment in isolating their own patients to even depriving them of food when they are already so dependent in providing for them. At the moment the protagonist is starting to act, but other then eavesdropping he is still ill define as a character and his condition is still unclear about him, there is certainly a air of mystery and unreliability on POV so I will love to see how he will reacts to what will happen next.
Oh and by the way if you are interested in getting a cover art for a story I am open for commissions, PM me if you are interested.
Ah, that delicious conflict between wanting to do what's right and wanting to do what's safe, muddled by an unhealthy dose of paranoia on both sides.
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Yeah, I worry that explicitly defining something like his medical condition, which I do believe I am still following in line with what my grandmother had, albeit slightly exaggerated, would ultimately be a let down even if didn't break some readers' suspense.
As for Bart's personality, yes the POV can make it more difficult to define characteristics without throwing it at the reader's face. However, I do feel I've thrown in a few clues we can use to start piecing it together. We know he's a loner, as he is generally uncomfortable in crowds. He's also self-centered since it took someone else's insight for him to think of 'the other side', and even then the most we got out of him was "I don't really care to know about them, but I can see why others would."
I do believe I hinted at something else about him as well, although I'll have to look back at my notes to make sure I don't divulge anything not already published.
The most fascinating part of this is that I have no idea whatsoever if anything that happened in the library was real. You're making this unreliable narrator work very well indeed. Also, wonderful moment of heroism from David. Looking forward to more.
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Oh, wow. That is high praise! This comment has made my day.
I love that we don't really know how much of what our protagonist sees is real. If it weren't for the fact that we as readers know that ETS is real (in canon, that is), it would feel almost Lovecraftian in nature. That kind of suspense always has me at the edge of my seat.
One thing I wanted to point out, though. The DEFCON scale starts with 5 being the lowest alert level, and 1 being the highest alert.
Given just how total the disease was in the original tale, the most likely probability is every last person, patient and staff alike is already contaminated. Nothing short of an open bonfire hot enough to melt lead could destroy this strand of influenza, nor could an individual with the most robust immune system avoid getting sick. Not unless their resistance to illness is of magical nature. This thing absorbs itself through unbroken skin like no virus in real life has ever conclusively been demonstrated to do. Not even rabies or human immunity virus.
At this point, given this "Freak woman" has been wandering the grounds concealing her "shame" and gave it to a few patients, it is near certain she has tainted everybody in the entire home already. And this is at the point where accelerating the effect will guarantee they won't make the cut for being "cured". Only those who got it a week from now would manage to hold out.
This thing may give back lost limbs, cure sensory loss, and remove all terminal ailments with certainty, but I would not count on it doing the same for any psychological illness. Meaning this won't likely be beneficial.
Since nobody freaked out at the disruption of the common room library, I believe it may have been all in his mind. This tale is going to be interesting. A patient that can't distinguish between reality and imagination, along with a reality altering disease(yes I said disease since our protagonist doesn't know the outcome) will make for some interesting days ahead.
I would have to agree with the commenters above, ETS hasant shown itself to cure mental illnesses. I can see it affecting people in certain ways to help either mitigate or exascerbate thier illnesses. Espeically a batpony with multiple personality disorders.
Just caught up with this. I noticed that the story was put on hiatus. I do hope you return to it someday, as it is getting rather interesting.
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Yes, I had to put it on hiatus to work on a one-shot for a friend who requested it. It is possible he may pass away soon, so it's important that I give that to him.
A minute? I guess Time really is relative...
Giving in to a separate personality or a voice in your head. I think the new one in control is going to have a fun time when the changes start running rampant.
It lives! And no telling if Bart is actually infected or not still because he clearly doesn't have a strong grip on reality.
9439919
Apologies for the if you didn't appreciate it. In all seriousness, I hit a writer's block a while back on this chapter. The conversation between Bart and Dr. Webster in this chapter was possibly the most difficult scene I had ever written in my life. There were so many layers of depth that I was trying to put into it. For me, it was one of the most pivotal moments in the opening act of this story, and it was very easy to flub it entirely. I wouldn't mind going into details as to why I think that is, but I'd have to go into a bit of a spoiler for anyone who hasn't read yet.
This chapter had a lot of important moments in general, and I wanted the best execution possible in my set-up the second act of the story.
9440050
The next chapter is going to be a blast for me to write, for sure. A tiny little detail from Bart's life in this chapter may give you some idea of what's in store for you all next.
Yee gods, I can't trust anything in this story. Is Webster a paranoid monster? Is David leading some sort of revolution? Is Bart even infected?
Gaaah, this really does make us see the story from Bart's sanity-dripping point of view.