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Blog / The Rapture Logs

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Front cover/Pastiche of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway album cover, painted by Rappu.

Rapture’s nothing but bullshit. That’s just another scare tactic used by the Christians to get us to convert. It may have worked in the Dark Ages, but we’re civilized now. Now, we OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING
— The opening lines.

Rapture is coming; it's not quite here yet, but it's coming. In the meantime, we're treated to a surrealist telling of an absurdist apocalypse in the form of daily journals kept by sixteen-year-old Jordan Dooling. While we may not have salvation yet, we do have endless zombies, ferocious creatures who seem to have been ripped straight from creepypasta, an eldritch universe bleeding its way into our own through floating "Doors," The Blues Brothers that can create entire worlds inside your own head, politics thrown out every window possible, a being that will either control you or abuse you in ways you'll really wish weren't possible, boomboxes on legs that blast dubstep and viking metal endlessly to a dying world, a large slew of gods that can't agree on anything but want to hide it the best they can, a man-sized cockroach with Jesus Christ's head, and we may or may not have the slender man, too.

OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING is an apocalyptic novel written by DJay32 told through an experimental stream-of-consciousness journal style. It features young Jordan as he uses this opportunity to possibly meet his online friends for the very first time all while struggling to make heads or tails of this rather ridiculous rite of salvation slowly coming into play. The story has received fairly polarizing reception: the experimental style and the unsettling events are not everyone's cup of tea, but those who trudge their way through the fire and flames seem to really enjoy the experience. The logs are primarily a story for The Fear Mythos, but it's theoretically accessible to anyone.

The epic takes place from 11:59 PM on May 20th, 2011, and it finishes on the morning of October 23rd, 2011. It spans an overture, four acts, an intermission, and an epilog.

You can find the story here, and there's a really convenient table of contents here. You can now download them in a free PDF here! The Rapture Logs have complementing art by Amelia, Cadet, darkforestwarrior, Logic, Rappu, The Visitor, and Wiratomkinder. There's also a a character sheet.

There is now a sequel blog called The Cockroach Metamorphosis.

So open up that notebook; let’s find out what Jordan wrote next.
— The intermission, "No Rest for the Rest of Us"

Tropes present in the story include:

  • Action Girl: The logs generally fixate on badass women as a result of the narrator's narrow obsessive mind.
  • Action Survivor: Could be said to be a story all about these.
  • Adjective Animal Alehouse: The July 24th entry mentions a San Francisco coffeeshop named "The Bold Lioness."
  • Aerith and Bob: Among the names of eldritch creatures, we have "Tiresias," "Salmacis," "Xanadu," "The Ecclesiarchway," and.. "Cockroach Jesus."
    • In Act IV, we're given two legendary characters who prefer to go by the names of Vainamoinen and Bob.
  • Alternate History: What the world would have succumbed to had Harold Camping's May 21st 2011 Rapture prediction actually come true.
  • Analogy Backfire: "It’s like being assfucked by a dominant female angel. In the ears. Note to self: Figure out how it’s possible to be assfucked in the ear."
  • Anti-Villain: There are arguably no villains in the logs, only victims and assholes with rational intentions.
  • Arc Number: Eight and five, while originally strictly a Dream Theater reference, wound up being one of the bindings of the whole story.
  • Arc Words: Rapture is coming.
    • El bufon blanco for the Spain trip.
    • INDISEN. Jordan thinks he finds out what it is in "Rael's Exodus," but "The Battle of Dominiere" starts to turn that on its head. "Obfuscation" only distorts it more, and then "Topography Genera" lifts the wool over his eyes... only for Act IV to have him question the details again and again.
    • ''Obfuscation," introduced with The Musicians in Act II, increases in significance throughout the logs.
    • Planck level.
    • "DRAW A STAIRWAY FOR MY GOD AND ASSEMBLE ALL MY FAITH."
    • The word "eldritch" comes up frequently, almost as if it has some deeper meaning.
    • "What did Doctor Cloud discover in the Genera?" is a question often asked by The Neonate of Act IV.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Becoming supernatural or "eldritch" and what that actually means are significant motifs in the story, especially towards the end. Doctor Cloud's experiments cause him to become a reality-breaking monster called The Anathema. Rosa Syclus becomes The Harlequin by means revealed to be The Ecclesiarchway. And at some point, Bones becomes a god named Thoth. The Neonate of Act IV spend a lot of time debating what it actually means to be a 'Fear,' and an answer isn't explicitly given.
  • Author Avatar: A complete author deconstruction and attempt at a reconstruction, as a matter of fact.
  • Badass in a Nice Suit: Nice suits show up a lot in the story, for whatever reason. Maybe people figure the end of the world is no excuse not to look sharp.
  • Bears Are Bad News: The very existence of the Eldritch Bear is because of this trope: It was written into the first log as literally just a bear that was also indescribably not a bear, to make fun of this trope. Wound up being played straight as the story went on.
  • Big Bad: There are multiple villains throughout the blog and its sequel, and many appear more prominent than others in certain Acts. The main one is built up to be The Beast, who manipulates things in the background from very early days.
    • Act I gives us The Harlequin for the first half, running the show.
    • Act II has The Ecclesiarchway and The Musicians, though The Musicians are more of The Dragon.
    • Act III revolves around the seemingly-incompetent "new Fears" of The Neonate, and the mysterious actions of The Anathema who seems to be behind their arrival.
    • Act IV focuses on the "new new Fears," their odd philosophies and perspectives on things, and the reasons why they're here all of a sudden. The Beast actually stops being a Big Bad here and becomes a sort of protagonist working against the Bigger Bad that is Rapture itself. And then The Ecclesiarchway just plain plays with the concept of the trope, as he wants to be a Big Bad.
  • Big Damn Heroes: "..again, Cody’s gonna try to handle it. ..with a shotgun. Goddamn, man. Big Damn Hero."
  • Bilingual Bonus: Those who know Spanish will laugh when Jordan tries to understand it but fails miserably. Most notably confusing "bufon" for a cognate for "buffoon."
    • "FILS DE LA PUTE." Jordan had no idea he could swear in French.
    • If you know Finnish, you'll love Act IV, which has more than its fair share of it.
  • Bizarrchitecture: Welcome to Xanadu. It only gets worse the deeper you get.
  • Book Ends: Act I (well, the overture) begins with Jordan chastising people who believe in superstition and ends with him lampshading his superstitions on wishing for things at 11:11 PM.
    • The first and last lines of the story both dismiss Rapture as "nothing but bullshit."
  • Break the Cutie: Any character that might be considered cute is put through as many trials as it takes to turn them cynical and paranoid.
  • Brick Joke:
    • Jordan mentions having seven cats in his neighborhood on the first day. By the end of the day, he gets ambushed by several spidercats.
    • The dog in the August 16th entry.
    • Asclepius, a talking tree, is deathly afraid of lawsuits. A good month later, Jordan travels down a rabbit hole where Spider-Man, Batman, Alice from Through the Looking Glass, and Victor Surge, one after the other, attempt to sue him for infringing on their copyrights.
  • Chekhov's Gun: The B-4000k oven in "Operation: Kelvin."
  • Chekhov's Gunman: From the July 4th entry: "Danny, I had no idea you were secretly Chekhov’s righthand gunman."
    • Act IV: Pirkle Vainamoinen sacrifices himself to the Mire of the Drowning Mermaid so the protagonists can prevent the third Beacon from being delivered and protect Salmacis. Not even a week later, when Bob Sampo is captured by Queen Louhi, Pirkle comes to the rescue, implied having killed the Drowning Mermaid... and subsequently killing Salmacis in the process.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Inverted; The Beast has the strange inability to win at Guitar Hero (he is ludicrously bad at merely setting up a game controller), even though he's a Physical God trying to win his prey in a supernaturally-enforced challenge. This gets used in the climax to con Xanadu; in another supernaturally-enforced challenge with the universe up for grabs, she picks The Beast as her champion and believes she can simply use her powers on The Beast to utterly humiliate Jordan at his own Guitar Hero game. They lose, Rapture cancelled.
  • Cloudcuckoolander:
    • Anna was tortured horribly by the Fears, becoming an Axe-Crazy girl with a lack of restraint. And she talks about the sweet smell of blood a lot. But whether she's truly crazy or just Obfuscating Insanity, it's hard to know.
    • Act IV: Pirkle Vainamoinen often says peculiar things with little context or much in terms of explanation.
  • Companion Cube: Tiger Stripes. As long as Jordan has his guitar, he refuses to let go of it and speaks to it often.
  • Dangerous 16th Birthday:
    • On Fentzy's sixteenth, she was deep down a rabbit hole, fighting an eldritch boss battle of sorts.
    • On Eric's sixteenth, he was driving a car away from an explosion, among other things.
  • Dark Action Girl: The Harlequin, with a Freudian Excuse.
  • Darker and Edgier: The opening logs focus almost entirely on the comedy. The logs following it are also very comedic! And then the protagonists reach Blackpool, and we're treated to a few quiet and stagnant entries with some comedy thrown in. And then comes the troper meet-up, and the story just goes downhill from there.
    • The first half of the apocalypse in general is fairly lighthearted, with Jordan generally taking things in stride and cracking jokes. By the time he's had two and a half months of it, though, it seriously wears on him and the logs increase significantly in length and angst.
  • A Day in the Limelight:
    • In the August 14th entry, Jordan hands his journal to Fentzy, and we're treated to her commentary for a few hours! And again a couple more times in Act III.
    • Act IV: The "Rael's Odyssey" serial is from Donnie's perspective, with a brief log by Danny.
  • Deus ex Machina: In the opening log, Jordan is completely prepared for the end of the world at 11 PM. And then, at 11, his guitar controller falls from the sky. A literal gift from the gods in an otherwise-atheist tale.
  • Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: August 13th, Jordan runs into The Ecclesiarchway, controller of all the zombies, and one of the smartest and most formidable eldritch abominations the universe has ever seen. And they have a dance-off.
    • This is arguably one of the defining tropes of the story. At least half of the eldritch abominations depicted in the story are in, at minimum, an uneasy truce with the human protagonists with some, like Tiresias and Salmacis, in open alliance. Even those typically depicted as a real threat (the Ecclesiarchway, the Harlequin) can be quite accommodating under the right circumstances, at least to the heroes. They don't appear to be nearly so gracious to anyone other than the heroes, though.
    • Act IV: The Beast finally makes his menacing presence known, towering over the protagonists in ways they can't even comprehend, threatening to slaughter the whole party and regain control over the world, so naturally this leads right into... a Guitar Hero duel.
  • Disc-One Final Dungeon: In the opening logs, Jordan's certain the world's gonna end at 6 PM. And then 6 PM comes and he remembers time zones and thinks it's gonna happen at 11. And then 11 PM comes aaaand it turns out we're not even a fraction of the way done with the story.
  • The Dog Was the Mastermind: Cockroach Jesus and Doctor Cloud both qualify to an extent.
    • Also, an example that crosses into its sequel as well. The Eldritch Bear is, after Cockroach Jesus, the second creature Jordan encounters in a newly Rapture-fied world. Turns out, this bear is none other than Nyarlathotep, and in the second book it's its appearance of choice.
  • Down the Rabbit Hole: The Doors are outright referred to as "rabbit holes," though the story's hardly an "escape to a better world" plot. Unless you consider the interpretation that the entire story is a metaphor, in which case it becomes a deconstruction of this trope.
  • Dual Wielding: Jordan's second weapons, swords Hammett and Hackett.
    • In Act III, we meet Phil the Gunslinger, who dual wields pistols. Phil Collins, that is.
  • Early-Bird Cameo:
    • Throughout the first 'week' of logs, just about all the Fears for the first half of the story make some kind of appearance. For instance, EAT/Salmacis and her Camper are in London, and The Ecclesiarchway is spotted on the day Jordan starts heading to Spain.
    • In mid-Act III, Jordan briefly meets a woman named Jessica. She comes back in Act IV. A lot.
  • Easily Forgiven: Forgiveness comes up a lot in the logs. Some characters are forgiven faster than others, though whether each case is because of specific reasons or whether it's a sign of a looming character flaw is up to the reader to decide.
  • Eldritch Location: Down the rabbit holes...
  • Enemy Mine: The only thing the Fears fear is the coming of the Rapture, which, we're told, would be just as devastating to what remains of the human race. Many are willing to work with Jordan and company in the hopes of preventing it from happening.
  • The Faceless: The Beast. Does he even have a face? Only few characters know, and one of them has been driven insane. He has never been accurately described by any character besides the aforementioned Cloudcuckoolander one, and that description was basically "He doesn't look like the slender man." Whether this was reverse psychology or anything isn't seen until Act IV, which is an act filled with all kinds of faceless imagery.
  • Fanart: Inverted! D Jay explicitly asked artists Cadet and Logic to be the official Rapture artists when both expressed interest in drawing art related to it. As yet, there's yet to be any actual Rapture fanart.
  • Fan Fic: One has been written by esteemed Fearblogger alliterator, titled "One Saturday in May." It can be read on the official site here.
  • Fanservice:
    • Act I's White Jester arc got so much praise that a second one came in Act III.
    • Act IV: The Beast became such a well-liked badass character that, for the Grand Finale, DJay threw in a scene of him playing DragonForce while riding The Rake as it rained blood..
  • Fate Worse than Death: According to The Victims: “Inevitably, all fates past the twenty-first of October would be eternally worse than death."
  • The Federation: The Rise Against Fear organization can be considered this, with sister branches in Spain and, inevitably, other countries.
  • Filler: Inevitable. This story takes place over the course of five months, and every day (sans one at the start) is chronicled in often minute-by-minute logs. Technically, none of it is explicitly there to fill space, as the story is just about the apocalypse and its narrator, and every log chronicles that, but.. c'mon, it shows from time to time.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • "This neighbourhood’s got at least seven cats."
    • The egg sacs in the entry of May 24th foreshadow there being four Rakes
    • In Act III: The Anathema building something big foreshadows the coming of The Neonate.
    • The Ecclesiarchway calls the Neonate's plan to prevent Rapture "absolutely nothing."
    • In late Act III, Jordan runs into a series of stone passageways with seven doors for the Ciphers, seven doors for the Knights, and then seven doors for the Beacons.
  • Free-Range Children: The protagonists' parents aren't often mentioned. Fentzy's were killed, Bones' were as well, but few other characters get explanations. It's just assumed they're all dead because it's the apocalypse.
  • Gilligan Cut:
    • "I’d write a lot more if more exciting stuff were to happen. …I was expecting something exciting to cut me off mid-sentence. Like a Gilligan cut, but.. well, n—FUCKER THAT’S A BIG PENIS"
    • Jordan's looking for a weapon. He finds a dog. "no, that'll never work." He finds the dog again. "no, that'll never work." He looks further, finds the dog again. "Jordy, stay focused, you can't kill someone with a dog." Cut to him finding Eric again. "hey, hey eric, hey I brought a dog. 8D"
  • Hand Wave:
    • How can Jordan write so damn fast? He claims to have just gotten good at it thanks to all the journal-keeping.
    • How can— "Eldritch." But what about the— "It's eldritch, I ain't gotta explain shit."
  • Hope Spot: The Seven Ciphers are how we prevent Rapture! Yes! It all makes sense now—right up until Tiresias tells the protagonists that it's the opposite.
    • Grand Finale: Aw yeah, The Beast and The Harlequin have united to take down Rapture for once and for— wait, why is everyone dancing now? And then later on, when The Beast actually does appear to win the Final Battle, it turns out he's become a Puppet of the Indisen and is now going to deliver Rapture for once and for all.
    • And then subverted, as the Rapture has a Villainous Breakdown at precisely the right time and the Beast kills himself before the Indisen can regain control.
  • I Call It "Vera": Tiger Stripes the guitar controller, Hammett and Hackett the swords, and Aniland the other guitar controller
  • Iconic Item: Jordan's Tiger Stripes, trilby and purple scarf.
  • I Have Many Names: Almost every major character has at least two names. A brief and incomplete listing:
    • The six (human) main characters all have their personal names and a prophetic name that the Fears use, in addition to any personal nicknames:
      • Jordan, Rael, the White Jester, The X
      • Donnie, Victoria, the Red-Capped Dresser
      • Fentzy, Rauri, Juliet, the Misericordia
      • Anna, Camilla, the Forsaken, "the girl who never existed"
      • Eric, Bones, John, the Blind Harlequinade, Thoth
      • Danny, Nicholas, the Architect
    • The Fears go by a number of titles, as well, usually reflecting their status as both characters within the Rapture Logs story and their part of the larger Fear Mythos shared universe of which the Rapture Logs are a spin-off:
      • The slender man (always in lower case by convention), the Operator (from Marble Hornets), The Beast, "Sanche"
      • The Archangel, the Ecclesiarchway, "Archie," Death, Prince of the Afterlife
      • The Wooden Girl, the Harlequin, "Mistress," The Harlot
      • The Rake, The Anathema, Doctor Cloud
      • The Choir, the Musicians
      • The Cold Boy, the Ruin
      • The Plague Doctor, the Beacon, "Ace Man"
      • The Judge, the Eye, Judge Griezelig
      • The Convocation, the Morphs, the Thunderbirds
      • The Dying Man, the Host, The Devil
      • The Black Dog, the Omen
      • The Nightlanders, the Victims, the shadowpeople
      • The Blind Man, Tiresias
      • EAT (Epping AquaTarkus, Evolutionary Adverse Trigger), Salmacis, "Leviathan," "Cthulhu mark II," the Camper, Ceesrais
      • The Empty City, Xanadu, Universe X, accessed via either doors or rabbit holes, though it turns out The Empty City is not Xanadu at all
      • Jessica, The Colour of Blood, Red, Tuonetar, Tuonela, The Scarlet Scare, Red Riding Robin Hood
  • Indy Ploy: "Donnie, hold on tight. This is a bit of an Indy Ploy, but here goes."
  • The Insomniac: Fentzy has trouble sleeping. Revealed to be because of The Beast.
  • The Internet Is for Porn: In the June 18th entry, Jordan finally gets some free time on the internet. A few minutes later, "OH HEY PORN."
  • Jump Cut: Jordan updates his journals sporadically, sometimes mid-excitement, sometimes before and after excitement. Gives off this effect.
  • Kangaroo Court: The Judge's courtrooms, where the judge is a creature you cannot look at, and the jury and prosecutor are the same entity.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Jordan does this so much that you can probably find a post in which he lampshades Lampshade Hanging.
  • Lethal Joke Weapon: Parodied in the August 16th entry when Jordan's choice of weapon turns out to be a dog. It works.
  • Made of Iron: Tiger Stripes is a plastic controller, and it took months of using it as Jordan's primary weapon against even solid cars before it broke all of a sudden. Though this is called into question in a serious context, it's never explained, instead left open to interpretation.
  • Madness Mantra:
    • RAPTURE RAPTURE RAPTURE RAPTURE RAPTURE RAPTURE RAPTURE RAPTURE.
    • DON'T GO DOWN THE RABBIT HOLES.
  • Magnetic Hero: Jordan generally, but especially when they venture to kill Zalgo.
  • Marionette Motion: The Harlequin's Puppets, most notably during the ritualistic sacrifices in Blackpool.
  • Meaningful Background Event: Considering a lot of things happen in the logs while the focus usually remains on a few things at a time, there's a lot of "blink and you'll miss it" details hidden away.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Salmacis was the Greek water naiad who raped and became one with the demigod Hermaphroditus.
    • Tiresias was the Greek blind prophet (who happened to live once as a man and once as a woman to settle a bet between the Gods).
    • Xanadu was the Chinese city commonly associated with paradise. It was Charles Foster Kane's estate's name in Citizen Kane, and in Rush's "Xanadu," it was the name of a fabled lost location said to bring immortality, only to trap people within for eternity.
    • Dominiere is named for fake-French of "Last Domino," "domine derniere." The Last Domino is the second movement to Genesis' "Domino," and it's about vivid nightmares caused by a breakup. Much like the hallucinations of The Musicians, and the breakups happening throughout the serial.
    • Salmacis and Tiresias always call Jordan "Rael." Rael was the protagonist of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Genesis' surrealist prog rock opera about a kid's transformation into a better person who obsesses less over romance.
  • Mêlée à Trois: In Sanctuary Francisco, it was a standoff between The Ecclesiarchway, Indisen, and the protagonists in the middle. And then the Masked Massacrer showed up!
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: Spidercats? Cockroach Jesus? Hell, Legsteps are half-this.
  • Mood Whiplash: You'd best prepare a brace for your neck if you plan on reading the story.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: Another recurring trope in the story.
    • The fate of the world will be determined by plastic guitars. This is serious business.
    • Camels with jetpacks. That's all the description they really get.
  • Musical Spoiler: "Of course. If the music intensifies, there’s gonna be battles. Should have expected that. My gaming skills must be getting rusty."
  • My Friends... and Zoidberg: Jordan often forgets about Anna when considering important decisions. Lampshaded when Donnie gets hurt: "I need to find Fentzy and Bones. They can help. And Anna. Right. And Anna." This later comes back to haunt him.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Beast. Nothing says "oh god main antagonist" like The Beast.
  • The Nicknamer: Jordan comes up with names for everything. So does Tiresias, evidently, only his are more prophetic because "eldritch."
  • Now You Tell Me: "“ALSO WATCH OUT FOR THE MINOTAUR”''' Oh hey, thanks for the warning."
  • An Offer You Can't Refuse: With alarming regularity. Any time one of the Fears needs the White Jester to do some of their dirty work, they tend to threaten one of his friends with death and/or torture.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Everything that Jordan doesn't write can be considered offscreen moments of awesome; we have six protagonists and only one of them is telling the readers what's happening. Though Tiresias battling Nyarlathotep, and The Beast fighting The Musicians are two good examples in particular.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • In "The Battle of Dominiere," the August 1st entry, Jordan's just chillin' around, checking out the Canadian town of Dominiere, when all of a sudden a bolt of lightning zaps from the sky to the ground directly in front of him. And then Anna emerges out of it, brushes the dust off her jeans, licks the blood off her crowbar, and then walks away. Jordan shit bricks.
    • Grand Finale: The Beast and The Harlequin unite to smite Rapture a new asshole with the whole world watching, only to suddenly break into song and dance as the Camper Festival crashes down onto the battlefield. The protagonists watching the fight are confused at first, but as the ramifications of what's going on sink in, they lose whatever hope they had left.
  • One-Liner:
    • "Sorry, Harly.. but this time, *sunglasses* you’re going Brazilian."
    • "I guess his call's *sunglasses* just been dropped."
    • The battle with Lerna in Act IV consists entirely of one-liners based on historical quotes, such as when Lerna takes the form of Richard Nixon: “Don’t get the impression that you arouse my anger. Only get the impression that I’m about to hit you in the face.”
  • Le Parkour: When Phil Collins shoots at Jordan, "FUCK YOUR SHIT, I’M WALKING UP THIS WALL." He didn't know he could do that either.

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