The art for the second act, as drawn by Cadet. Left to right
Donnie, Jordan, Anna, Danny, Bones, Fentzy. The Beast up at the top.
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, weOH 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 complete day-by-day telling of the world's biggest apocalypse since Revelation, 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 dimension 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 rape you in ways you'll really wish weren't possible, and we may or may not have the slender man, too. And don't forget the spidercats.OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING is an apocalyptic novel written by DJay32 told through daily journals. It features young Jordan as he, British girl Donnivan Rand, American boys Daniel Finnegan and Eric "Bones" Taylor, and American girls Catie "Fentzy" DeBiaso and Anna Rhodes try to make heads or tails of this rather ridiculous rite of salvation slowly coming into play. The story has been called a dark comedy with "almost Pratchettian" elements, but it's more frequently called "incredibly disturbing;" the Rapture logs are renowned for their horror. It's a part of The Fear Mythos, so that's probably for the best.The epic takes place from 11:59 PM on May 20th, 2011, and it will finish at October 21st. It spans four acts and an intermission. We're currently on the third act.You can find the story here, and there's a really convenient table of contents here. The Rapture Logs have complementing art by Cadet and Logic.
I promised you a vast adventure.
I promised you a hero’s journey with no stops, none of the conventions expected.
I promised you parallels.
I promised you magic.
I promised you Rapture.
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: You'd be hard-pressed to find women in this story who aren't.
Action Survivor: Jordan isn't exactly the most fit to kick butt.
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."
Alternate History: What the world would have succumbed to had Harold Camping's May 21st, 2011, Rapture prediction actually come true.
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.
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."
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."
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.
Close one eye, step to the side is the phrase commonly associated with The Musicians.
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.
Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Xanadu is a higher plane of existence to what it used to be, The Empty City. The Rake apparently did this as well to become The Anathema. And The Beast was "formerly a Fear," but now has "ascended to something beyond." What this means is currently unknown.
Big Bad: It looks like The Beast matches its name by being this throughout the story, though each act tends to have its own series of arcs focusing on Fears.
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.
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," for those who speak French. Jordan later says he had no idea he could swear in French, too.
Biological Mashup: Spidercats? Cockroach Jesus? Hell, Legsteps are half-this.
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.
A Boy and His X: A boy and his guitar controller. A boy and his journals.
Break the Cutie: Everything happens to Donnie. Everything. By Act III, she's all the worse for it.
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.
The Caligula: The Harlequin considers herself to be a God. She expects to be treated as one. Probably as she does something terrifying to your intestines.
Chekhov's Gun: The B-4000k oven in "Operation: Kelvin."
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 is unknown yet.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Early-Bird Cameo: Throughout the first 'week' of logs, just about all the Fears make some kind of appearance. For instance, EAT/Salmacis and her Campers are in London, and The Ecclesiarchway is spotted on the day Jordan starts heading to Spain.
Easily Forgiven: Played straight with Anna and averted with Donnie. Anna rapes and otherwise tries to kill Jordan on several occasions, but the rest of the protagonists forgive her very easily *
Probably because Tiresias specifically requested this, as she's a little on the insane side.
. As for Donnie... Jordan declares he doesn't love her like she thinks during the Act II finale, and... well, she still hasn't forgiven him.
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.
Everything's Worse with Bears: The very existence of the Eldritch Bear is because of this trope. Also technically playing with it.
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 insane one, and that description was basically "He doesn't look like the slender man." Whether this was reverse psychology or.. or anything is yet to be seen.
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 Nickname: The story has been nicknamed "OGTRIB," though DJay insists on the shortened title to be either "Rapture" or "The Rapture Logs."
Fanservice: Act I's White Jester arc got so much praise that a second one came in Act III.
Cockroach Jesus was originally just an Ensemble Darkhorse, a one-time character for the opening logs. He's increasingly becoming more and more important to the plot now due to the sheer popularity of him.
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 every log chronicles that, but.. c'mon, it shows from time to time.
The Ecclesiarchway calls the Neonate's plan to prevent Rapture "absolutely nothing."
Free-Range Children: Actually, 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.
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"
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:
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.
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.
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!
Mood Whiplash: It's a comedy story, but that doesn't mean it won't get shockingly disturbing; for example, you'll never know if the sex is meant to be funny or abusive until your emotions have whiplashed.
Musical Spoiler: "Of course. If the music intensifies, there’s gonna be battles. Should have expected that. My gaming skills must be getting rusty."
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.
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.
Shortly after, he finds out that Marble Hornets has actually continued, despite the apocalyptic conditions. "Holy shit. The first minute is just Jay grabbing a shotgun and shooting the Operator in the face. Well, the lack of face." And later, "The Operator will be back, and in greater numbers."
"Holy cock. I woke up in a hotel. I don’t remember anything from the past several days. I mean, I remember being in that city, and running from that.. giant screaming face. And then I went down an alley and.. motherfucker. It was the slender man. It’s like motherfucking Marble Hornets Part 2. What the fuck."
"HELLO, LIVERPOOLIANS! WE ARE THE BEATLES, AND WE'RE holy fuck flying zombies"
"Okay, you know Silent Hill, both the video game series and the film?" The scene Jordan encounters is an homage.
The protagonists encounter a thick fog and hear things flying around them. This was one of the original suggestions for what would become EAT in the overall mythos.
"I can hear the hum of mechanical dragonflies, of marble hornets."
"This book contains the secrets of the secretcity," secretcity is a puzzle-based map series for Half-Life modification Sven Co-op, and it happened to be the map series various locations in Xanadu are taken from.
"Exit, stage left! waitwaitwait lemme do this right. I'll be there in three, two, one, aaand KICK THE DOOR DOWN" is a reference to the crappypasta story "Hawaii 50."
The Noga Wastelands are a reference to the Agon Wastes from Metroid Prime 2.
Shown Their Work: DJay put incredible efforts into making this story consistent, lengthy, and interesting. One example of the efforts would have to be the Peisistratos, eldritch library of Tiresias. In history, the Peisistratos was the Greek tyrant who stuck to the dictionary definition of the word, being not evil but simply rising to power despite not being royal blood. He ordered The Odyssey and The Iliad to be permanently copied and saved. The Fear Tiresias is not necessarily evil as the rest are, but he seems to have risen to a power of his own, and his library contains every book ever written. Meanwhile, Tiresias in Greek mythology was an esteemed blind prophet who had spent seven years as a woman and the rest of eternity as a man. The Fear Tiresias is The Blind Man, as well as serving as a prophet figure in the story. Nothing on the sex change thing yet, though.
The protagonists have to walk from town to town a lot, sometimes getting to drive, and these are usually without the aid of rabbit holes to speed them on their way. DJay looked into exactly how long it would take to walk and/or drive between all these places and tried to keep things as accurate as he could.
Sudden Name Change: Due to "creative difficulties" involving the person on whom the character was based, Jane was renamed Anna about halfway through Act III, and all previous references to "Jane" were redacted.
Too Kinky to Torture: Jordan. He runs into The Harlequin, who normally kills and enslaves her victims. She decides to spare him because he's just too happy to obey her.
and there's a really convenient table of contents here.
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