Last Days Journal is a series of fictional blogs about the fate of the world after the zombie apocalypse. While the plot of the site originally focused more on avoiding the zombies and the source of zombieism (a virus), it has evolved into inter-factional warfare between the people who took over after the fall of society.
Tropes:
- Adults Are Useless: Initially, the majority of the survivors with power were teen-agers.
- Affably Evil: Zooxanthallae
- After the End
- And I Must Scream: There are a great many such scenes, especially with Kamarov and Boone.
- Apocalypse How: Somewhere between level 1 and level 2 with most of humanity getting wiped out, but technology mostly intact, if deteriorating.
- Artificial Limbs
- Ax-Crazy: Boone, though initially with a machete instead of ax. Numerous other characters have been this as well at one point or another.
- Badass Crew: When a major site-wide crisis is at hand, this usually occurs to sort it out. It's like Ghostbusters only with zombies and automatic weapons.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Quouar
- Blood Knight: Boone
- Bloody Hilarious: Anything written by Boone. Ever.
- Boom, Headshot!: Captain Dryfter's username is actually "Operation Headshot"
- Boring, but Practical: Flamethrowers may seem like an excellent, exciting way to take out zombies, but it's a really bad idea. The simple weapons are the best against zombies.
- Crapsack World: There are zombies. Everywhere.
- Crazy-Prepared: Nergal Heavy Industries (though that's because they caused it), as well as a fair number of the survivors
- Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Raider Faith. Just substitute God for Boone and Jesus for Kam, make Communion a lot creepier and more blatantly cannibalistic and you're set.
- Death by Materialism: More a meta-example, but because of Big D's obsession with weaponry, he was driven off the site.
- The Determinator: Captain Dryfter and Danni
- Diabolical Mastermind: Cerberus and Katsuo, though each had an army.
- Die or Fly: Danni and her pyrokinesis, Dryfter and his regenerative ability
- Dissonant Laughter: Boone, one of his more infamous traits.
- Double Entendre: The entirety of some of Kamarov and Boone's less plot relevant threads.
- Downer Ending: This is usually true when a main character dies, with a few exceptions. Big D is a rather notable exception.
- Elaborate Underground Base: Just about every survivor group
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Averted. One villain has a dog, and Cerberus is named after a three-headed dog.
- Evil Duo: Antistes and Quouar
- Exotic Weapon Supremacy: Agatha's inventions are awesome.
- Exploitation Film: Pretty much everything at one point or another. More so anything involving The Remnant, the Raiders, or the Ferals. A lot of the earlier posts play out in this manner.
- Face–Heel Turn: Katsuo, and arguably Kamarov.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Antistes and Quouar, though I suppose they didn't *have* to work together ever.
- Genre Savvy: Most of the survivors survived because they recognised the zombie apocalypse when it started.
- Glorious Leader: Rene, and just about everything he did to rebuild as much of the United States as possible. Despite not being the Glorious Leader himself, he allowed for The Ministry to seize control later on.
- Gorn: Virtually every kill or quest undertaken by Boone or Kam has resulted in extreme amounts of gorn, to the point that Tal won't even talk to Kamarov anymore, and the Raiders have taken to referring to Boone as a "Blood God."
- Government Conspiracy: One of the theories is that the government developed the zombie virus in the first place.
- Happy Place: Some of Boone's more livid posts involve this.
- Heroic BSoD
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Quouar
- Heel–Face Turn: Antistes
- Hollywood Tactics: Averted and played straight, depending on who is fighting.
- Hot Sub-on-Sub Action: The Cats Eyes plot
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Kamarov Blak, Antistes
- Identity Amnesia: Captain Dryfter, after nearly getting killed by an exploding bridge
- I Did What I Had to Do: All the morally ambiguous characters, but especially Kamarov and Nickson.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The Raiders, and most of the secondary character groups the heroes fight against.
- Immortality: Anyone with Cell 2147, though the actual degree to which this is true varies greatly.
- Immune to Bullets: Zombies!
- Made of Iron: Captain Dryfter
- Manipulative Bastard: Antistes, Quouar
- Military Alphabet: Consistently used by most survivor group leaders, and especially those who had once been part of Nergal Heavy Industries
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Anyone that survived. More so Rene and Alan than anyone else, as most other main characters have since perished.
- Not Using the Zed Word: Averted and played straight, depending on who is talking about them.
- One-Man Army: Anyone with Cell 2147
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Quouar about Kamarov Blak and Faust.
- Plot Tailored to the Party: Considering the community makes the plots, they usually try to make it possible for everyone else to figure it out, not to mention play on the characters' strengths.
- Power Nullifier: Corubicon's antidote to Cell 2147
- The Power of Rock: Hobbits discovered what happens when you blast rock at zombies... All the zombies come running!
- Psycho Serum: Cell 2147, though this is arguable.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Basically any number of viruses, contagions or dangerous chemicals hoarded by the various groups, usually let loose by Kamarov or one of his flock. Antistes was known for doing this with his Cleric to a large degree, and Ahmose died in search of it.
- Self-Insert Fic: Just about every individual in the story is guilty of this to varying degrees. Most openly admit it, but some have the decency to split themselves from their character early on.
- Soaperizing: At times, the site can be like this.
- The Quisling: The Clerics and ferals
- Tank Goodness: Averted. Everyone hates the only person with tanks.
-
Tear Jerker - Too Dumb to Live Big D
- 20 Minutes into the Future
- The Virus Malaysian Rabies
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Everyone. It's how the site works.
- Wild Child Danni
- Zombie Apocalypse
- Zombie Gait: Averted. The zombies tend to run.
- Zombie Infectee: None of the Survivors have died of Malaysian Rabies yet, though.
