Old Blogger's Tales

Apocalyptia

Apocalyptia by xenosaurus on tumblr

Start

xenosaurus: I think it was before I started posting story concepts on tumblr but I had an old concept called 'apocalyptia' which was a dark comedy about a world where every apocalypse movie premise happened simultaneously

: The big joke was that all these HUGE disasters cancelled each other out. A bunch of shit flooding kept the zombies contained. The super intelligent apes stopped global warming. The leather-clad motorcycle murder gangs intimidate the alien invaders.

: Everything sucks in like 8 overlapping ways but it's just become the norm at this point. There's a guy named Cannibal Jack that people trust to cook for them for some reason.

: The main character is a recluse with a shotgun who just wants to sit in her shack and give cynical advice to passing young people, but unfortunately, her younger brother and only surviving family member is a conman with his fingers in every stupid decision being made within a ten mile radius

: The brother's name is Sal, which is short for SOMETHING but he changes his answer every time. He seems to think this qualifies as an alias, and bizarrely, it usually works. Notable 'definitely Sal's real name' options include Salt, Salmon, Salamander, and Salad.

His sister's name is Marian, occasionally called Misery Marian. It is a running joke that young characters think this is a reference to her bad attitude, but anyone who actually CALLS her that is clearly terrified of her for some unspecified reason.

: Sal's got an on-again off-again business partner by the name of Kent Bardsley, who is just.... SO irresponsibly horny. Sal's motivation is money, but Kent's is sex. He keeps getting run out of town for sleeping with important people's wives. He's an idiot, but he's not a conman like Sal, he just helps him with his schemes as an in to towns so he can visit his assortment of fuckbuddies.

The joke of Kent's character is that the 'apocalypse' he's part of is conservative scaremongering about sexual freedom destroying society. He gets a last name because while Sal calls him Kenny, Marian calls him 'Bardsley' with deep contempt.

: The fuck types of our characters so far:

Marian: fuck off

Sal: fuck you, pay me

Kent: fuck me

Cannibal Jack: what the fuck

: There's an alien named Glipix who is investigating why the invasion failed and her analysis tends to boil down to 'damn bitch you really live like this?'

Kent is really into her but his flirting goes right over her head. Marian's the only one she respects anyways.

: Kent: Hey, you looking to get those eggs fertilized, beautiful?

Glipix: What pollinators are operating on this horrible planet? Did you see one? I need to speak with them if you did.

Kent: uh

: I have a mental image for a TV opening where it's Marian at like. 12. watching some apocalypse happen through a window and saying "The world ended when I was a girl..." in a really serious tone, and then it pans out to show like 6 other apocalypses happening and her voice turns sarcastic and she says "about thirty fucking times, actually."

: Alright here's more content for you guys:

—Marian is 46 and spent her 20s and early 30s as a mad max style motorcycle gang member. 'Misery Marian' was her moniker while she was LEADING one of these gangs.

—Sal and Kent are somehow unaware of this.

—Sal's apocalypse is capitalism. Also Godzilla.

—I'm not kidding about that, Sal and Marian's parents were killed by a giant dinosaur that still sometimes shows up to bother Sal.

: A couple of you have already caught on to Marian's lesbianism before I even mentioned that her gang was all women and it's mostly MEN who are afraid of Misery Marian, there are an awful lot of women who call her that and seem totally star struck instead. I'm so proud of you guys.

: I haven't actually talked about him, so: Cannibal Jack (sometimes called CJ) is one big joke on if he ACTUALLY eats people. It's really hard to tell if he's hitting on you, implying he's going to hunt you for dinner, or just Like That.

He's one of the only main characters who knows Marian from her Misery Marian days, and always gives her vaguely-nervous VIP treatment. He calls her 'Miss Misery', and it's another point of comedy how fast he goes from offering her free drinks to telling Sal that he doesn't need more sugar in his coffee because he looks sweet enough already with this horrible grin on his face.

(Also Kent has definitely hooked up with Cannibal Jack and it is incredibly ambiguous if this nearly ended in his murder or if CJ just has all of his dalliances within arms reach of a huge oven and spice rack.)

: gonna do the LGBT character roundup next because I really don't want to leave "Kent the promiscuous idiot" and "Cannibal Jack the ambiguous predator" as my only gay/bi men, that's not a good taste to leave in everyone's mouth

: LGBT character roundup, aka 'have some more characters':

—Owen, aka "the Owl" or just "Owl", a 22 year old voluntary cyborg who was born after the apocalypse(s). He's the only visible member of a group studying the new plants and animals that have popped up, as he's basically their overworked errand boy. His nickname comes from the cartoonishly huge lenses in his goggles, which make him look like an owl. He's bi.

–Gladiator, the byproduct of a super soldier initiative that failed when a malicious AI replaced the artificial memories they were going to have implanted with a bunch of random how-to videos. Almost seven feet tall and strong enough to crush a car, Gladiator has no idea how to kill someone but DOES know how to make a flawless birdhouse out of household items. He's gay.

–Sunrise, a doctor who wears a plague mask (horror movie style, not the real ones) and a black cloak. She plays up the creepy factor so that she doesn't get kidnapped and forced to stay in one settlement like most doctors are, because she's trying to get everyone vaccinated. She WILL scream at you about herd immunity. She's a trans woman.

: I like the idea of every storyline starting with Marian opening her door to find one or more of the other characters there to tell her to come get her stupid brother. Some examples:

Kent, nursing a bloody nose: Heyyy Marian! (awkward laugh) You, uh, wanna help me rescue Sal from the fight club we tried to start?

Sunrise: Marian, your brother is selling vials of the chicken pox virus as zombie repellent again.

Owl, visibly panicked: Oh, thank god you're home, Sal talked Gladiator into helping him build bomb shelters but they've all flooded and the shark mutants are there and—

Glipix: Marian. Your kinsman is attempting to steal my blood, and, more importantly, his strange little friend is disrupting my survey of human mating habits. Make them stop or I will shoot them.

End

[A bit different but a tale nonetheless! I personally would love this as a tv show. Miriam is my favourite character but I, too, want to sit in my shack and give cynical advice to passing young people.]