How Life is Going!

Oh yeah, this is my OOG blog, isn't it? Well, let me give you followers an update (how on earth did I get twelve?).

Firstly.

OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING is done and out and a downloadable 1100-page PDF! Click that link for the download location thing! SlendySlayer did a grand job helping me edit it, and she's actually the one who organized the PDF itself and just seriously check that thing out. She did well.

Over 400,000 words. At least 85 pictures by seven different artists. More art coming soon.


NOW, what about what else is happening in my life?

I'm in college, for those who don't know, getting my GCSEs. Which.. are the British equivalent of a 10th grade education, really. Easy stuff for me, I just haven't properly been to school since.. what, 2010? So now that I have the chance I want this. I'll be taking my exams next week.
Yeah, I'm not worried.
I could go on with stories of how well I did in the classes themselves. Science, I was flying through tests faster than anyone else, getting some of the highest scores on them. Math, I was one of those kids who usually knew the right answer and people deferred to. Psychology, whenever I even showed up, my teacher generally loved me. English?
Oh god, English.
Is it any surprise to you guys that English is what I'm pursuing A-levels in next year, that English was the only class I did all my homework in, that English was a class I helped my teacher teach when she got too tired of our class, that English was the class where the lowest grade I got on anything was a B (and that was once and a half), and that almost everything I wrote for English class was shown to examiners and other teachers?

..but anyway. What is my plan for this summer? Well, I plan on playing much Rock Band (been slacking off on that, will get back into it when I get my copy of Green Day: Rock Band). I'll probably write stuff here and there. I'll hang out with friends. I'll see if I can get the Otso vlog running more.
Y'know, nothing big.
Oh, and I'm going back to Finland. :D For probably closer to six weeks this time. I'll talk more about this as we get closer to the date. Because goodness, I do want to talk about that. But for now, Jordanilla on päänsärky!

OKAY LET ME TALK MORE ABOUT WRITING

There's Fearblog of Fear, which is shifting into more of an actual plot with some semblance of depth.
There's Benefits, which is my way of making sense of why the hell I smoke now. Going pretty well.
There's Topography Genera, which is.. inching along as usual. Just gotta get video elements up.
Oh, and PLAN 31: RISE OF MCFEAR. My love letter to the Ace Attorney series. Writing that requires me being in a specific mood, though, so its updates will come in waves.
And then there's stories I'm not ready to post or announce yet! One of those stories is a blogpasta that's taking me an annoyingly long time to write, much trickier than other stuff I've written, but when it's ready it'll also have a bit of art to blow people's minds. Another one of those is my love letter to Omega's Mephi while doubling as a post-Rapture story, still in the brainstorming stages because it's the kind of story that I can't afford to blindly jump into. Another one of those is relaaaated to the blogpasta project but will not be ready for reveal for a long long time, a multi-person project that is unlike anything I've ever done.
And, of course, there's the usual Rapture secret project Rappu and I are working on, which is back to the forefront now that the PDF's out. That's one of the biggest reasons I go to Finland in the first place. But again, I'll talk about all this stuff later.

I've also been reading many books! There's Tolstoy's Anna Karenina which I am in love with though it seems to be talking more about horses than I really care about. What I loved-- well, one of the many things I loved-- about War and Peace was its sheer diversity of genre. It covered so many things. Anna Karenina is much more reserved, focusing on a smaller amount of things. And it's a little hit-or-miss with me in that regard.
I'm also reading Franz Kafka's The Trial, which I'm finding really interesting. It sounds vaguely metaphorical and I eat that stuff right up.
And then there's James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, which... is like an oasis I skirt along every now and then, not yet ready to dive headfirst in, but I dip my feet in every once in a while and it makes me feel giddy and in love with everything. When I've had more experience dipping into these oases, I will go deep-sea diving into the Wake.
Then I have a lot of books I will read when I'm not reading all these others. King's IT (I'm getting close to the end kinda), Tolkien's The Hobbit (ugh I do not like his prose but I keep telling people I'll read this stuff), Eliot's Middlemarch (got it on a whim, looks interesting!), Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (also looks interesting and like it will help me understand Ulysses when I eventually get to that), Homer's The Iliad (it's interesting, I just put it on hold a long time ago), Adams' Watership Down (Rappu recommended it, she usually suggests things I end up loving, will get to it), Pratchett's Guards! Guards! (a Discworld book everyone recommends, excited to read it), and Pratchett's Reaper Man (looked interesting!).

Sooo I got a lot. And as I said at some point earlier, I ordered Green Day: Rock Band, and I'm excited to play it. Been getting into Green Day recently, and I'd intended on getting the game eventually as I just plain love everything Harmonix makes.

SO YEAH

More Fun With Word Counters

Rapture's finale (original): 27,000 words
Rapture's finale (revised): 29,000 words
Rapture's finale plus credits: 31,000 words
The complete Rapture Logs, third draft: 411,000 words

LOOK AT THAT
LOOK AT THAT NUMBER
LET IT SINK IN

Note to Self

Write one creepypasta for every Rapture Fear. EAT and The Plague Doctor have already been done with "The Ballerinas of Versiansa" and "Death's Beacon," respectively. Write more.

• THE ARCHANGEL
• THE BLACK DOG
• THE BLIND MAN
• THE BRUTE AND THE BURNING BRIDE
• THE CHOIR
• THE COLD BOY
• THE CONVOCATION
• THE DYING MAN
• EAT
• THE EMPTY CITY
• THE EYE
• THE GROTESQUE
• THE INTRUSION
• THE MANUFACTURED NEWBORN
• THE MOTHER OF SNAKES
• THE NIGHTLANDERS
• THE PLAGUE DOCTOR
• THE QUIET
• THE RAKE
• THE RED CAP
• THE SLENDER MAN
• THE SMILING MAN
• THE UNNAMED CHILD
• THE WOODEN GIRL
• The Adrift (The Unnamed Child)
• The Speculum (The Mother of Snakes)
• The Rapturous (The Smiling Man)
• Asclepius (The Bleeding Tree)
• The Reverie (The Grotesque)
• The Kingdom (The Intrusion)
• The Pacific (The Quiet)
• Tuonetar (The Red Cap)
• Hestia (The Burning Bride)
• The Iemaker (The Brute)
• Tytar Tuuri (The House of Fortune)
• Lerna (The Unbounded Face)
• The Vane (The Woman in the Wind)
• The Catechist (The King in the Mountain)
• Eris (The Glitch)

Rapture Condensed Credits, version 3

When OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING is finished, I'm going to go through each and every log and assemble a complete list of credits for each and every thing I need to give credit to. And that's gonna be a lot of work. But in the meantime, I've assembled a short version! And revised! And revised one more time.


Antagonists based off creatures from The Fear Mythos
The Slender Man is copyrighted to Victor Surge.
"Big Ones" homage to SCP-093
This particular story's portrayal of The Empty City homage to secretcity
Dogscape taken from the creepypasta of the same name
Various puzzles from Ciphers and Beacons homage to video games I grew up with
Some characters loosely based off or using visage of my friends, including but not limited to:
Daniel Finnegan, Eric Taylor, Catie DeBiaso, Thomas Minor, Michael Brown, Paul Botsford, Tropers/BobbyG, "alliterator," "CuteWithoutThe," "The Visitor," "LizardBite," "ExorcistGamer," "MesserTod," "LoveHopeRainbows," "Allanbag," "Foolamancer," "RedRockingHood," "Cadet," "Rappu," "TheSomnambulist," "Omega," "queenofinsanity6"
Any characters portraying real people do not even begin to represent the person's actual views, opinions, choices, personalities, or anything. I stress this.
Any locations portraying real places do not represent the location's actual state of being, landscape, map, political standpoint, or anything.
The thousands of songs and albums and bands portrayed in this story are completely copyrighted by their own labels and producers and writers. I do not claim ownership on a single thing here.
Promotional art by "Cadet," Catie "Fentzy" DeBiaso, "shapedlikeitself," "Rappu," and "The Visitor"
Promotional videos by Jordan "DJay32" Dooling and Eric "Bones" Taylor
Leitmotifs in promotional videos by Bound by the Moon
Written by Jordan "DJay32" Dooling
"August 14th, 2011," "August 15th, 2011," and "August 27th, 2011" have excerpts written by Catie "Fentzy" DeBiaso.
I give full permission for the story OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING to be used in any way, shape, or form the Fearbloggers see fit
TheFearMythos11/TheFearMythos12/TheFearMythos13

A Tired Ramble That Becomes Self-Gushing

I'm so tired. But let's make a blog post; it's been a while.

So OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING is 4/5 complete. Over that by now, actually. There is exactly one month of logs left to go; the newest log was September 21st, and the story will end on October 21st. ..well, I'll probably write an epilogue of sorts, but that's nothing, that'll be easy. For now, we just gotta worry about this thing we call Act IV.

Jesus. This isn't gonna be easy. It hasn't been so far, and it won't be now.

So far, we've had a lot of Fear politics and some glimpses into Xanadian politics as well. To be honest, Xanadu probably won't get that much focus. ...probably. I mean, I do want to skirt along the edges of conventional high fantasy, but c'mon. Rapture is high fantasy. High.. surrealist apocalyptic fantasy horror black comedy romance adventure mystery. In stream-of-consciousness.

Wouldn't it be rad if, years from now, people looked back on Rapture as one of our generation's important works of fiction? For its deconstructions of the blogging medium, the zombie apocalypse and post-apocalyptic genres, epic video game motifs, and.. whatever the hell else it deconstructs? As well as for being a work written entirely in stream-of-consciousness; I'm pretty sure that counts for something.

You may have noticed I'm in a self-gushing mood right now. "They say pride comes before the fall," more like they say the asshole comes with the stupid quotes. Now I'm talking to myself.

The point is that I need to write before I can do all of my boasting. And honestly, I'm really nervous. I mean, shit. This is the act that has been foreshadowed since, like, day one. The final battle at the end of this has to be, like, all magnitudes of epic. It has to be completely built up and completely complex and completely eldritch and completely extensive. The Lamb versus The Beast! Cockroach Jesus versus the slender man wearing a scarf and trilby! This is something I never thought I'd write!

This entire story is something I never thought I'd write. Five months of deconstructive apocalypse with me as the protagonist who gets laid a lot all told through stream-of-consciousness? Jeeeeesus. A work of the internet medium, at that. One of these days, the internet medium will be massively big. Like, exponentially more than it currently is. And on that day, I kinda really really hope that Rapture will be remembered.

...and I don't even need to mention that Rapture is an epic. It is, in every way, an epic. The noun form. And I can't tell you how cool that is to realize: I wrote an epic. I wrote a modern epic.

..well. I'm writing one. I need to finish it. I do. For the good of everyone! And for the good of myself!

</ramble> I NEED TO SLEEP DAMMIT

Sunsetters: "The Last Sunset"

Life ends, inferno
Splashing surroundings.
Watch the sky turn red.
Trees darken and voices join the sentient wind.
Apologize no more,
Don't mourn the last sunset.
Cold figures laugh at themselves,
The ultimate practical joke.
They see skies fading,
Their faces regret nothing at all tonight.
Still, they think once of
The last sunset bitter.
Water dies,
Unknowing.
With its last breath gone,
The Earth becomes memory.

This is my first attempt at writing proper lyrics for a Sunsetters song. It's titled "The Last Sunset," and it's meant to be a fictional sad piano song off of their debut album, Sunsetters. Track six. See, I went and figured out a rough idea of their entire discography, all eight albums, all thirteen discs. Sunsetters will be relevant to both Topography Genera and Rapture.

I hope that the excerpted lyrics might be satisfactory for anyone who.. likes poetry. <:D

Future Sequence (oh my god)

Whoa, Blogger's updated its engine and stuff. This is surreal. ANYWAY, let me give you an update on my life! :D

So first of all, OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING has started its fourth act. We're two logs in. I've been taking my time with writing it, brushing up on my high fantasy and charting maps of the realms of Xanadu. I have to make at least eleven boss battles for this act, man. This is a difficult act to write, but I intend on putting forth the effort to do it because my readers deserve an epic finale to an epic of a story. And I owe it to myself to make a story I can be proud of consistently, from start to finish.

Second, I've been posting Rapture on Slender Nation, and I've added hashtags to every log. I want more readers, y'know? I want to put my name out there. It's about time I stop being anxious about that and flaunt my stories in more places. Hell, doing this has already gotten me, like, eight new followers in about a week. I'm pretty happy with that!

Third, I recently took a break from writing the epic that is Rapture and wrote a 25-post comedy blog called PLAN 31: CLOSE ENCOUNTER OF THE SOCK KIND. It's a mixture of DCA, Topography Genera, and Rapture. ..like, it literally is a mixture of the three stories. But also with Fear Mythos inside jokes thrown in. But I mean, you could probably read it without knowing any of our inside jokes; if you take it all at face value, it probably seems accidentally Pratchettian. I seem to be good at that despite only ever having read about fifteen pages of one Terry Pratchett book ever. xD But yeah! PLAN 31 really turned out well, considering literally the only reason I started it was as a writing exercise.

Fourth, I'd may as well say this somewhere: Topography Genera isn't gonna be updating much for a few months. Because Rapture. I mean, there'll still be updates, sure, but don't expect much in the way of serious story.

Fifth, "How's that Rapture project with Rappu going?" Just fine. >w>

..sixth:

FI(D)JDSIGUaufhgsoDIAJFIOJDIUFDHSIGFusfhidjgffgiusnmgd9uadnfzcijosvxkfhuesbfdijcvxfedis9ogfgh9udijf(IOJMDSG*JDISGSGJDS(UGIDJSGMDSGIJDSgsdigjs9gifkmdsf9ifdghu9gj

Act III is over!

OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING's third act is complete. That's right, "The Duels of the Knights of Xanadu" is over. Clocking in at a staggering thirty-nine logs, this has been Rapture's longest act. It has also been the most down-to-earth, and it was probably the most character-driven and complex piece I've ever written.

Am I proud of it? Yes.

Am I satisfied with it? No. Yes. Maybe.

So what's the scoop? What was the third act about? Well, it focused on expanding upon a recurring motif of the story that I had only barely scratched the surface of: The Fears falling from their heaven. The concept that the Fears view themselves as these God-like beings with true power over the human race, yet in the end, a bigger fish comes around and shows them how petty they are. Once they realize there's something far more eldritch than them coming to kill them all, they start to trust humans a lot more. But their fall from heaven doesn't come without resistance, of course, and that's where a lot of Fears go crazy with insecurity (like The Ecclesiarchway or The Harlequin).

Then on the other side of the plot fence, the third act was about emotions and being too driven by them, letting them land you into nasty heaps of trouble. ..'sabout it.

So what's gonna happen next? Well, that's what I'm gonna be figuring out over the next few months.

Another Rapture Ramble!

So next up in OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING will be the exciting finale to the third act. I've been writing in excess lately, and I.. well, it'd be inaccurate to say "I've burned out." Because I'm around that point in my life where I can write pretty damn easily. The only problem there was that I got burned out for that one day, which itself was because I've had to write two filler logs in a row. Filler isn't fun to write.

But it was necessary filler, it really was. The protagonists had to go from Iceland (to Finland, and then) to Australia, and they had to meet up with the Knights of Xanadu on the way and decide to focus their efforts on attacking The Neonate. But on the way, I had to throw in creative rabbit holes, and that really.. gets repetitive. But really, the logs were necessary; there needed to be a break between the epic logs before and the epic finale after.

But hey! Now we're at the finale, which was planned to be the climax/turning point for the whole story! Of course, I've eased a lot of the burden by sorta spreading the climactic revelations out among the logs preceding it. Plus Jordan's been naturally progressing as a human being to become a better person, whereas he originally was planned to just have a mindblowing "THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO" speech in the climax. But now that'll be much more logical, more like a final nail in the coffin instead of putting all the nails in at the same time.

As for what the finale will entail, you can probably predict some stuff at this point. The setting will be the Topography Genera Center South (originally planned to be West), or rather it'll be half that and half Xanadu. ..a very specific place in Xanadu. The chess pieces will be the protagonists, Phil Collins and Beavis Superbear, The Neonate, The Anathema, some more people I'll figure out, The Ruin, Salmacis, Tiresias, The Musicians, and Cockroach Jesus.

I gotta say, this is probably one of the most plot-heavy serials I've written since DCA. And it's not just plot-heavy, it's heavily specular in its reflection! Yes, there will be many parallels here with Topography Genera and-- if I can play my cards right-- DCA. Rapture's crossing paths with all kinds, and it's gonna do it in such a way that you won't even notice if you're not specifically looking. ..if I can play my cards right.

Honestly, I'm nervous as fuck about this.

On a much more mundane note, I'm thinking of naming the serial "Topography Genera." Simply because that's a really nice name. But I might think of a better name.

Fun Ramble Time!

It's funny. I've been writing a lot lately, but very little of it will have been all that apparent. Topography Genera's been slowly developing the character of Duchess with audio logs I've been writing and Squeek and Shayde have been so generously voicing (and alliterator's been posting them on the blog), and I intend on introducing some more interesting aspects of Duchess soon. But that's still only a portion of my writing as yet!

So where's all my writing going? OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING, where else? We've got five goddamn Rapture logs all waiting in the queue to be posted. Five! Each log takes about six hours to write on average, so that's over a day's worth of writing right there. And lemme tell ya, I am hella proud of what we've got in store for you.

See, Act III (The Duels of the Knights of Xanadu) so far has just been expanding on Rapture's comedy focus while introducing the seven Neonate as well as trudging through the seven Knights of Xanadu. There's been almost a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment with the introduction of The Beast, eldritch king of kings, and there's been a bunch of Wham Episodes with revelations of Cockroach Jesus' place in the story and a whole lot of heart-fucking with Jordan's romantic interests fluctuating more than The Beast's. But overall, it's just been comedy and setting up a lot of character development. So far.

But then we had that five-part serial titled "Obfuscation." That was supposed to mark the part where this act officially shifts in focus from light to dark. Rapture's done being hilarious, my friends; it's leaving its lighthearted silliness at the Door now. The upcoming five logs are considerably darker in tone. You're gonna be seeing a lot more cynicism, a lot more stress, a lot more tension, a lot more conflict, a lot more racing the clock, a lot more chessplay, a lot more backstabbings, a lot less romance, and a lot more rabbit holes. 'Cause yeah, Act III has had a distinct lack of rabbit holes so far.

See, this shift is something I had been planning for a very long time. I admit I've forgotten exactly why I'd been planning it for so long, but I know I wanted to have half of this act focus on comedy and the other half focus on horror. ..now, there hasn't exactly been much focus on horror in these logs I've written, but then again, I've lately developed a philosophy that horror isn't something you can just force. Though I haven't even been trying. <_< I've just been trying for tension and desperation, and I've succeeded at those.

The thing is, Rapture isn't exactly a horror story. It's cosmic horror, sure, but the logs themselves are more of a thriller-comedy-mystery thing. If I had to come up with one name for this genre, I'd call it "apocalyptic." Apocalyptic horror fiction. Apocalyptic cosmic horror fiction. Yeah, that sounds about right.

But horror isn't a genre. It isn't. It's an emotional reaction. The scariest of stories are the ones that don't just slap a bunch of flashing lights and jump scares and demons in; they're the ones with the stories that naturally strike a chord. Like 1984 isn't a horror story, but it terrifies me with its concepts. ..and such. I will admit that films like The Shining and Marble Hornets do manage to capture horror excellently with their use of suspense, but there: It's the suspense that scares us, not any abstract concept of "horror." And I'm experimenting with suspense and tension in Rapture now.

You wanna know the scariest thing I've ever experienced? This is an entirely personal thing, and I do not expect anyone to empathize (because horror is nothing more than an emotional reaction, highly subjective): The secretcity maps I often mention.

Valve has their famously brilliant Half-Life, and one of Half-Life's most successful features is its extensive modding community. Arguably the most popular non-commercial mod is Sven Co-op, a mod where basically people make custom maps with cooperative multiplayer capabilities. And in Sven Co-op's extensive mapping community, there was a mapper named Turrican who created a series of maps (secretcity, secretcity2, secretcity3, secretcity4beta, secretcity5beta, secretcity_keen) that were just.. oh god.

The premise: You're in a large building with many rooms to explore! The rooms range from normal (living rooms, cafeterias) to personalized (offices, bedrooms) to quirky (a giant Magic 8-ball, a long dark corridor with a single well-lit door at the end), but there were always secrets in the majority of the rooms. You'd find a secret button if you looked hard enough, or you even had to shoot one single brick out of hundreds on the walls, and it'd usually open up a secret passage to an even quirkier room often with even more secrets. If you looked hard enough in each map, you would seriously find yourself stumbling down a hidden crawlspace leading to lava pits, worlds made of pure colour, sprawling mazes of file cabinets, or even right back to rooms you thought you had just left. And as the maps went on, Turrican started to make some huge adventures with so many secrets that even after years I still don't know them all.

But what was so great about these maps was that there was no point. Most maps for Sven Co-op have a set goal, enemies to kill, a room to find where the map would end. Even most of the other "fun" maps had actual ending rooms, and the ones that didn't at least had briefings telling you what the map was. The secretcity maps had no point. A newcomer is completely lost. You're just dropped in this large empty building (unless you're with friends, but even then, your friends are the only people there). And hell, sometimes you'll think you see someone walking around the corner up ahead, but there turns out to be no trace of anyone. You're alone, isolated, and all you can do is explore. And you don't often find things that make sense. And there's no end! There's never a part where the map ends, only where a set series of puzzles and rooms might loop you back to the main building or something.

I grew up with this map series, and I'm so glad I did. I've been looking for a gaming experience similar to this ever since I found out about these maps, and the closest I've found has been the Metroid series. I find it terrifying in such a fascinating way because-- here's what I forgot to mention-- you die a lot in secretcity. Many doors lead to your death. You might be dumped in a bottomless pit, you might be trapped in a vat of rising water, you might be crushed by the very walls surrounding you, you might die mysteriously, or you might run into the eldritch abomination that hides in select secrets for all the maps: The Nomble. The Nomble is an incomprehensible giant screaming face. And it scares the shit out of me. Because you really never know where it's gonna be (I mean, I do, because I've memorized the maps), and even when you think it's nowhere near you, you shoot the wrong brick and bam, a giant screaming face too big for reality enters the hallway and kills you. Or you'd enter a vent where no light escapes only to find yourself literally engulfed in screaming face until you die of unknown causes.

So, after all this, you're dumped in an empty building and you just know that around any corner is gonna be some new twisted and demented room with no point whatsoever, and you just know that if you press one wrong button, you're going to die somehow. But you also know that if you keep looking, you're gonna find yourself on a surreal journey through impossible worlds where physics and reality do not match, walking down eldritch corridors where the walls move and doors surround you. And it's just the best fucking thing you've ever lived through.

secretcity is genius. And I have been trying to capture it (as well as many other influences) in OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING. I have been trying to find any gaming experience like it as well. I want to know the fears and thrills of exploring a surreal world. Preferably in a modern facade, modern office buildings and all that.

..what was I talking about?

HAPPINESS, THY NAME IS POST 101

And so, all it took to get me back in a writing roll was Bones sending in his voice acting for Topography Genera. NOW LOOK AT ME, I'm ridiculously happy!

Topography Genera has resumed. We're working on the finale to the first movement now. alliterator and I have been brainstorming and figuring out exactly where we want this story to go, and lemme tell you, I am really happy with the ideas we have. And we have a full cast of voice actors, so I'm pretty sure we can do all kinds of things.

The end of the first movement will experiment with... things. We're still working out exactly what our limits are, you could say. And we're still introducing all the Fossils. >W> Liquid Len and Duchess may have been telling you guys "THIS IS FT-SMILE, HE CAN HARM YOU" and all that, but we haven't actually shown Fossils here yet. Besides FT-HADES in that one HELP video. And EAT in Testing in Progress. But rest assured, you'll encounter a Fossil before the end of this movement. Give it a week, tops. Don't quote me on that, I just jinxed it, you watch.

In Rapture news, I'm really sure the next log's nearly done! And I'm positive that you guys can expect new Rapture art very soon. And a new T-shirt.

But hey, while I wait for Rapture, I can focus on Topography Genera and scaring a new generation of readers with my own epic cosmic horror story! ..other than Rapture!

..I'm really proud of myself. .w. ALSO I MADE THAT PAGE UP THERE, I was heavily inspired by Lizard Bite's Seann Reads blog, which had a list of links to his works on a separate page. So I did it too! I'll keep adding to it, and I'll probably add stories that don't feature Fears. Then again, I put Fears in everything.

A Possibility

[enter SHADE and RED]
Shade: ..what the fuck? I'm alive?
Red: I thought I was definitely dead, dead as a dodo.
Shade: I thought the end had come, EAT had eaten all.
Red: SHHHH, DON'T SPOIL IT!
Shade: What? It's just the end of the DCA.
[enter ALLITERATOR]
alli: Hey, how's it going. I wanted to let you guys know that you're in Rapture now. The story, not the.. not the place.
[SHADE is now SHAYDE; RED is now REDROCKINGHOOD, so.. so still RED]
Shayde: ..oh shit.
Red: That explains why I have boobs all of a sudden.
?: FOOL
Red: OH GOD IT'S MEPHILES
[enter FOOLAMANCER]
Fool: No, you weirdy. I'm Foolamancer! Sorry, I coughed there and said "Fool" randomly.
Shayde: That's an oddly specific thing to do when coughing.
Fool: Shut up; this is just a promotional teaser anyway.
[enter THE VISITOR]
Vis: sup
alli: Hey, how's it going.
Fool: Yo.
Vis: what we all doing in here?
Red: I have boobs.
Vis: i can see that.
[enter LIZARD BITE]
Liz: Heh, "Vis" rhymes with "Liz."
Vis: well hello to you too.
[enter MESSERTOD, EXORCISTGAMER, ALLANBAG, LOVEHOPERAINBOWS, and some other guy]
?: "Some other guy" I take offense to that.
[THESOMNAMBULIST!]
Som: That's better.
alli: What are you doing here? You were never a part of our party.
Som: Wasn't I invited?
Vis: yeah, but Djay didn't know your real name. i got to kill spidercats.
Som: I wanted to kill spidercats...
[Somnam kills some spidercats]
Som: Hooray!
[then he disappears]
Som: Aw. Bye, I guess.
[HEY FOLKS. I'M DJAY32. oh wait, I'm supposed to be at the other side of the planet, aren't I? Okay, looks like some things need explaining. HERE GOES]
alli: Right, hello. My name's alliterator. I alliterate. We have all been gathered here today to witness the teasing of some sort of.. wait, what'd you say it was?
[I DON'T TALK; WE'VE MOVED ON FROM THAT. THIS IS YOUR JOB.]
Fool: Beep beep meow!
[SHUT UP]
Red: I guess I'll do the honours. In OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING's August 22nd entry, a cast of characters was introduced.
All: THAT'S US! :D
Red: We are based on real people, but just as (five out of six of) the main protagonists became fictionalized, so have we!
Vis: are you saying that Donnie wasn't fictionalized? that she portrays her real self without flaw?
Red: You know what I mean!
[At the same time, I finished an eight-year-running script series which was, in many ways, the predecessor to Rapture. So I needed something else to do with my life.]
alli: So much for "We've moved on from that."

Red: There was much potential in our characters! We were a cast of survivors who had found each other, formed memories, and had witty inside jokes amongst each other!

Love: We also all had usernames, most of which weren't mentioned in the log. So readers are probably wondering who's talking.

[I'M SORRY ABOUT THAT. For the record, I don't expect Rapture and this new project to cross much.]

Red: The point is that DJay went and said "Hey, why don't I make a script set in the Raptureverse, and why don't I make it about those guys? It can be funny and stuff too!"

[That's probably exactly what I said to myself. But yeah! That's right!]

COMING SOON TO PROBABLY A TUMBLR NEAR YOU:

The Adventures of the Fearbloggers: Rapture Tales

by DJay32, based on characters by the Fearbloggers

based on a universe half-by DJay32 and half-by copyrighted things and shit

ALSO: THIS ISN'T ACTUALLY AS DEFINITE AS IT SOUNDS. There's a good chance nothing will become of this. No matter what, don't expect this anytime soon.

Rapture Credits for now, revised

When OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING is over, I'm gonna go through each and every individual log and write down every single thing that I didn't invent, and then it's all going in the credits. That's gonna take ages. So I'm making highly condensed credits sequences here!

Antagonists based off creatures from The Fear Mythos
The Slender Man is copyrighted to Victor Surge.
Protagonists based off my friends, including but not limited to:
Daniel Finnegan, Eric Taylor, Catie DeBiaso, Jane Bennis, Thomas Minor, Michael Brown, Paul Botsford, Tropers/BobbyG, "alliterator," "CuteWithoutThe," "The Visitor," "LizardBite," "ExorcistGamer," "MesserTod," "LoveHopeRainbows," "Allanbag," "Foolamancer," "RedRockingHood"
Any characters portraying real people do not represent the person's actual views, opinions, choices, personalities, or anything.
Any locations portraying real places do not represent the location's actual state of being, landscape, map, or anything.
The thousands of songs and albums and bands portrayed in this story are completely copyrighted by their own labels and producers and writers. I do not claim ownership on a single thing here.
Promotional art by Jane "Cadet" Bennis, Catie "Fentzy" DeBiaso, and "shapedlikeitself."
Promotional videos by Jordan "DJay32" Dooling and Eric "Bones" Taylor
Leitmotifs by Bound by the Moon and Paul Botsford
Written by Jordan "DJay32" Dooling
"August 14th, 2011," "August 15th, 2011," and "August 27th, 2011" have excerpts written by Catie "Fentzy" DeBiaso.
I give full permission for the story OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING to be used in any way, shape, or form the Fearbloggers see fit
TheFearMythos11/TheFearMythos12

WHAT SHOULD I DO

Well. Now I want to write something and don't know what.

Options: Built For Two. Literally nothing is stopping me from just writing the entire blog now. I know what's gonna happen.
Dark Chao Adventures. I'm on Episode 82. I need to finish this thing. 85's the last.
OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING. ..well, I mean. I can theoretically just write the next log and not release it until the accompaniment video is done. Which is kinda is, but I'm just waiting on some voices.
Topography Genera, yeah no I can easily do this. I've got the next Mordecai answering thing ready. I've got more than that ready. I know where the first movement's going and how it'll end. I think I'm waiting for The Endless Obsession, which I just need two more voices on.
The Parallels: Bright in the Face, okay there is nothing stopping me from writing this, I'm just not writing it.
The Dying Man blog. I'm doing one. But I think I'm waiting for The Endless Obsession first. That's pretty much the introduction of a few more Topography Genera plot elements, including The Dying Man.

And I mean, I could easily do all these right now. Hell, I really do want to do Built For Two and finally show you guys why I started the blog in the first place, why I was really excited about the project. But I mean, it's hard to really focus and want to write. But I'll figure it out.

I AM PROUD OF MYSELF

Holy shit, I did it. I made two logs of OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING. In a row. And they were both surprisingly decent and I am definitely proud of both.

I think I may have even come out of my little bit of writer's block I was having. I mean, it wasn't quite writer's block so much as it was an unfortunate case of "I CAN'T SIT DOWN AND FOCUS ON WRITING AND WHEN I DO IT FEELS FORCED." Because believe me, I was having no trouble coming up with ideas! It was consistently coming up with ideas, ideas that all felt to me like they flowed well, that was the hard part.

But anyhoo, what cured me of this stump this time around was a mixture of things. But I think, mainly, it was inspiration. I watched Edgar Wright's Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, and.. those films, guys! That director! That style! Those actors! That mixture of comedy and suspense! It's so well-done, it's so admirably imagined, so imaginatively realized! The fact that they are linked by trait and motif as part of a conceptual "Three Flavours Cornetto" trilogy is even more appealing to me!

I mean, I first saw Shaun of the Dead ages ago, and it was appealing to me but it took me a few rewatches to really get it. And now that I do, it fucking leaves me in tears. I mean, the comedy makes me laugh to tears, the connection with the characters makes me want to cry by the end, and the sheer brilliant writing and superb camerawork seriously brings tears to my eyes. I really want to watch Hot Fuzz some more, too, so I can fully appreciate that as well. And I am thrilled to hear that there will be a third film in this trilogy (tentatively titled The World's End).

Basically, I realize that good writing isn't just coming up with bizarre landscapes, tragic character relationships, or original settings. Good writing involves using techniques, on directing your reader to see what you want them to see. It's the little things, the hints that prod our eyes towards the events in the background, not the giant events in the foreground.

To sum it up in a sentence, good writing is not the event, it is the way you frame it.


It's a literal case of "It's about the journey, not the destination, man!" I guess that might be one of the more appealing parts of OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING; there is so much sheer build-up to the terminal coming of Rapture, yet the story's not about Rapture, the story's about it coming. The story's about everything leading up to it. And I mean everything, it's about the characters sleeping every day, it's about the characters finding cars and stopping for gas, it's about the characters having what is referred to in real-life as "teenage drama," it's about the clothes they wear and the songs they like, it's about how they change and how they stay the same. And it's about the Fears and how eldritch they are, but it's also about how eldritch they aren't, how they're just like us and how they act because they wish they weren't.

I saw Rapture and I didn't just see a cheap genre fiction with sex and violence and scares; I saw a kid with five months to save the world, and I saw him choosing to look for his friends instead of blindly following the Blind Man's Book. I guess this is why people call me a good writer, and why I call myself one.

I shouldn't really be saying this, but I can't resist.

In all of OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING, there has only ever been one rabbit hole that has closed.

This. Is a hint.

STUFF AND NEW READERS EVERYWHERE

My dad is reading Built for Two, as are the members of my creative writing class. They want me to write more.

Eric Taylor is reading OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING. He wants me to write more.

But I just want to write Testing in Progress because this is one of the best stories I've written. ;_; Besides! I'm nearly done with it!

..that and The Fear Mythos Wiki, which I am addicted to editing.

Seven new Rapture logs!

Seven new logs!

Seven logs!

No fixed Macbook yet, but I got literally seven new Rapture logs written.

Will release them all on January 2nd, for that is my seventeenth birthday!

For Rapture: Operation Ground and Pound part 2

Tumblr only allows me to upload five minutes of video per day, so here's the remaining three minutes of "Operation Ground and Pound," the epic scene from OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING's July 31st log! Music by Dragonforce, in case the credits didn't tell you already.

Note: Due to various reasons, this video really sucked. Part 1 wasn't too bad, but Part 2 is just suck suck suck. I'm sorry.