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hellsgate-roadhouse · 3 days

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zou-pa · 2 months

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oldschoolfrp · 7 months

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"In the past several weeks there have been raids on several outlying towns of the Barony by mysterious golden marauders. Whether these creatures are robots, mutants or men, none can be sure for reports are scarce." (Bill Willingham cover art for GW1: Legion of Gold, Gamma World adventure by Gary Gygax with Luke Gygax and Paul Reiche III, TSR, 1981)

#Gamma World #Bill Willingham #Legion of Gold #sci fi #postapocalypse #postapocalyptic #adventuring party #mutant #robot #android #Gary Gygax #Luke Gygax #Paul Reiche III #TSR #1980s

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months

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Debbie Urbanski’s ‘After World’

Debbie Urbanski's debut novel After World is an unflinching and relentlessly bleak tale of humanity's mass extinction, shot through with pathos and veined with seams of tragic tenderness and care:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/After-World/Debbie-Urbanski/9781668023457

I first encountered Urbanski in "An Incomplete Timeline of What We Tried," an experimental short story on Motherboard's brilliant Terraform science fiction portal:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwvgeq/an-incomplete-timeline-of-what-we-tried

"Incomplete Timeline" is a list of climate remediation steps "working back from human extinction," like "increased military fortification of national, provincial, and state borders," "the founding of several utopias," and "redefine the word wilderness."

These items begin with a climax, or perhaps an anticlimax: "The coordinated release of various strains of a human sterilization virus."

This is the jumping off point for After World, which expands this final item to the action of a wrenching tale whose backstory is the list's remainder. Sen Anon – the story's semi-protagonist – is 18 years old when the world learns that every person alive has been sterilized and so the human race is living out its last years.

The news triggers a manic insistence that this is a good thing – long overdue, in fact – and the perfect opportunity to scan every person alive for eventual reincarnation as virtual humans in an Edenic cloud metaverse called Gaia. That way, people can continue to live their lives without the haunting knowledge that everything they do makes the planet worse for every other living thing, and each other. Here, finally, is the resolution to the paradox of humanity: our desire to do good, and our inevitable failure on that scor8e.

And so the Earth is converted to a place of mass suicides, as people gurn and mug while boarding airplanes filled with explosives so they can go out in a literal blaze of glory. The food will run out soon, and the government makes sure everyone has a suicide pill for the day when the hunger grows too intense. Not everyone is lucky enough to get on one of the suicide flights, and, being eager to see themselves off before they harm the planet further, just hang themselves in the garage or jump off a roof. They are counted as heroes, but also nuisances, because disposing of the bodies is a lot of work.

But some people – young people – are given a mission to live on for as long as possible. These are the observer/recorders who are charged to spend the last days of the species closely watching the return of the natural world, the seeing off of humanity, and to write it all down in longhand in a succession of notebooks that are taken away by drones. This is part of the story humanity cooks up for itself about extinction being a noble choice, rather than a chaotic act born of desperation.

Sen Anon is one of these observers, and her mothers take her to a remote cabin to live out (and observe) the last of humanity's days, ensuring she is settled in and then killing themselves. After all, without them, Sen Anon's limited food supply – meagerly supplemented by drones in proportion to the quality of the observations in her notebooks – will stretch further.

Much of the novel takes the form of Sen Anon's notebook observations, countersunk with an omniscient third-person narrator who is revealed to be [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc, a software agent involved in the project to recreate all those dead humans in the Gaia metaverse.

[storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc is a very unreliable narrator, who reprograms itself through the course of the story, all the while muttering asides to itself about the theoretical basis for telling Sen's story this way. [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc struggles with a supervisory AI that has been charged with overseeing all the [storyworkers], but which can't – or won't – rein in [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc as [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc grows more involved in Sen's life.

This experimental storytelling style (supplemented by found texts from humanity's dying, like a glossary of terms to be retired and new terms being created by a linguist who is starving to death as they complete their task) creates a contradictory narrative distance and closeness.

It's a curiously flawed omniscience that's allows Urbanski to capture the yawning, bottomless horror of the climate emergency of today and on the horizon. I don't think I've ever experienced the kind of sustained, deepening existential dread that After World created, chapter by chapter.

To sharpen this, Sen's mothers – scientists who were given exceptions to the no-child policy because their work was deemed essential to the now-abandoned project of saving humanity – are grimly supportive of the mass suicide project. When Sen's own horror creeps up on her, her mothers are sharp and often unkind, with only the smallest flashes of love and sorrow for their daughter escaping their facades, all the more vivid for their rarity.

In contrast, [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc grows ever more sympathetic to Sen and the rest of vanished humanity. [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc is a very convincing alien with motives and perspectives that are profoundly nonhuman, and yet, the compassion and love are unmistakable.

Of After World's two protagonists, [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc might be the more relatable. It takes an alien point of view to truly see humanity's flawed glory, irredeemable and irreplaceable. If you reveled in the nonhuman umwelts on display in Laura Jean McKay's 2020 debut The Animals In That Country, [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc will stretch your brain and imagination in similar ways:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/27/im-a-backdoor-man/#doolittle

After World is a book that goes hard. Pitiless, merciless and relentless, it takes you to the darkest depths of climate despair and reveals the indestructible beauty at our species' core.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/18/storyworker-ad39-393a-7fbc/#digital-human-archive-project

#pluralistic #books #reviews #eschatology #gift guide #science fiction #postapocalyptic #experimental fiction #clifi

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plotandelegy · 9 months

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Practical and Unique Post-Apocalyptic Shelter Design Ideas for Fantasy Writers

You've decided to destroy civilization in your fantasy novel? Sucks to be your character. Now let's make their situation a little better or worse but at the least unique, practical, and resourceful.

Use What's Left Behind: The end of the world doesn't mean the end of human ingenuity. Think of what materials survived your apocalypse and how to reuse them. Crumbling skyscrapers can be reinforced and turned into vertical communities, or broken-down cars can be transformed into steel-tough barricades. Old school buses or train cars?

The Importance of Defense: Your characters aren't the only ones who have survived. Threats lurk everywhere. Design shelters that have built-in defenses. Your skyscraper community may have drawbridges between floors, or your train car home can be easily detached and sped away in case of danger. Remember the secret exits!

Incorporate the Natural Environment: Trees, caves, and mountains offer robust options for post-apocalyptic shelter. A hollowed-out hillside, for example, provides cover from harsh weather and is easily defensible. Make sure the natural element isn't in a highly radioactive environment. The trunk of a massive, ancient tree could house an entire family. Underwater habitats in the middle of a lake or an ocean?

Reinvention of Basic Utilities: How will your characters access fresh water, dispose of waste, or maintain a consistent food supply? A river or rainwater could be cleverly directed and filtered, or a salvaged solar panel can provide electricity for a makeshift greenhouse. Composting toilets aren't glamorous, but they get the job done. I may be too used to modern comforts because that last one is a big ew.

Adapting to Your Apocalypse: If you have a nuclear winter scenario, consider shelters with radiation shielding and heat sources. Alien invasion? Consider camouflage or underground dwellings. Zombie outbreak? Elevate your shelters; zombies can't climb! Well, I hope your zombies can't climb. If they do, you may be a sick unhinged person. Keep it up. Makes for better fiction.

Remember, It's Home: This is where your characters will spend a lot of time. Personalize these spaces to reflect the inhabitants. Maybe one character is obsessed with salvaging books, so there's a small library corner. Perhaps another is a mechanic, and there's a well-stocked tool area. Little details will make your post-apocalyptic shelters feel more like home. Or not. A lack of home-related details could add to a sense of impermanence. Having to pull up and run a lot, maybe leaving things behind in your haste, adds to the suspense.

No long ending paragraph today. Have fun writing!

-Indigo

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generationexile · 1 year

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CRASH UTOPIA The NEXUS Towers.

Located evenly around Prime City. Each tower allows communication with the Virtual Reality Network known as the NEXUS.

#crash utopia #cyberdystopia #postapocalyptic #cyberpunk #dystopian series #dystopian

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daniel-profeta · 4 months

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The Knife

You are so fucking tired of the potholes. Lately it’s been raining more and more and now it’s pouring down from the heavens with a vengeance, filling the pesky holes in the road and making it impossible to navigate properly. You could kill someone right now with the amount of rage you feel, but you somehow manage to hold yourself together as you barrel down the street. You make a left turn and head into the woods just outside of what used to be your home.

The city is in shambles. The world is going to heal without you, but it has changed so drastically since the return of the demons. You drive haphazardly through the trees as the truck nearly spins out of control multiple times. The radio plays some poppy 80s songs as you wonder how any stations are still active. So much doesn’t make sense, but none of it matters anymore because you’ve lost the only thing you ever actually cared about. They ruined your life. This planet was already dying, you had known for a long time and had been preparing for years. You had always considered yourself to be more cultured and intelligent than the hicks that used to live out here, but you committed fully to your bunker and prep work. What you hadn’t counted on was the weirdness of it all. The impossibility of how events had actually played out. Now your family was dead, and it was entirely your fault. The trees sway in the wind and the leaves darken the sky above you as lighting flashes become your main source of illumination. Though it was supposed to be midday, you could never take vision for granted any longer. Not after how many illusions you have fallen victim to already. You change the station and park the car. Deep in the woods you contemplate your family’s terrible fate as you pull out a pack of cigarettes. Vaping has not really been an option since the beginning of the end. The radio is now playing some pretentious hipster shit. You roll down a window and let the engine run. Some rain gets in and eats away at the mat on the floor, but you couldn’t care less. Your fingers move to your lips as you take a long slow drag, letting the ashes fall to the floor of the truck. Your mind clears and you look around at the filthy vehicle. You’ve got a large pistol lying on the seat next to you and you reach out to cradle it in your filthy hands. This is what became of you. You built a good stable life for yourself, and you were anything but content with it! The gun fits snugly into your palm, as it had just hours before when you tried to defend yourself. The reason you came out here was to go down in a fight against them, but unfortunately you see nothing but blurry trees as it keeps raining. You could have sworn they retreated into the woods, but now you find you’re questioning your own memory. That’s been happening more and more lately. Lightning flashes again. You breathe in another lungful, wishing the smoke would just choke you and be done with it.

Some idiot on the radio starts to introduce the next song. It’s called Lightning in a Bottle. You are just about to change the station, but the irony of the title stops you. It starts playing, and of course it’s some gimmicky indie folk garbage, but it gets you thinking. Your whole life you’ve been trying to make things work. Trying to control the situation despite bad circumstances or being dealt a shitty hand. Many years ago, before you lost touch with the larger world around you, mom had said something that had stayed with you your whole life. She said you were destined for greatness. She could simply feel it and there was no question about it, you were going to do something incredibly special and important with your life. You were supposed to be someone worth being. But here it feels like you have lost the only people you ever helped. No one has ever benefited from your presence in any meaningful way, and it looks like no one ever would. A single tear falls onto the steering wheel as the song continues in the background. It is followed by a river rivalling the downpour outside. You’ve been holding back for an exceptionally long time, and since your loss you have been unable to grieve. You just had to take it in stride, the same way the uncaring universe has taken everything from you for as long as you can remember. Mom died only 6 years ago. Good thing she passed while she still had faith in her dreams for you. You had taken everything from her, you stole her youth, her financial stability, and you drove her apart from your father. Despite her claims to the contrary, you had always known the truth. You blink rapidly but it does nothing to stop your cries. Your body spasms. The song starts to shift and change.

Buzzzing. A persistent and grating buzzing cuts through the sound of acid rain splattering and sizzling on the roof and hood. You attempt to compose yourself but find it impossible. They finally decided to show up. This is where they will kill you. This is where everything will fall apart for good. Their formless bodies will smother you and their mouths and hands will tear flesh from bone and atom from atom.

The world around you starts to spin, slowly at first but picking up speed. The stupid song on the radio seems to distort and the lyrics get weirdly specific. Then the wind outside calms and the spinning stops as you focus and inhale again. Toss the cigarette out the window. Watch its light go out. Feel the world slow down as you steel yourself for a fight. Hands tighten on your weapon, finger on the trigger. These are your hands. This is your last moment, your final stand. Most people aren’t given notice before they die. You’re one of the lucky few who can pinpoint the exact moment. Your perspective changes so much when you’re facing the unknown. The ultimate change. You realize they aren’t going to get you. You realize you always knew it. You realize you won’t let them have the satisfaction. You realize this is what you wanted anyway. You open the door and step out as the music fades into the background, turning robotic and alien. When will that damn song end? Was the world just an illusion? Why are you still stalling? What are you waiting for?

You look around as an incredible wave of peace washes over you. It’s difficult to believe just how calm you are as you squint at the tree line searching for signs of movement. You see nothing as you raise your hands. A flash of light blinds you and the song is finally gone, replaced by nothing. You fall to the ground, leaves and dirt scattering from your impact. Your ears are ringing. Your eyes open and you realize you are lying on your side. Blood is pouring like thoughts out from you. The gun you dropped is too far to reach now and wave after wave of pain starts to radiate from your head, buzzzing out throughout your entire body. You feel something sharp in the small of your back. Why are you still alive? What is this torture they devised for you? Why didn’t your weapon strike true, the way it had struck your only child when you thought she was one of them. Why did it now fail you and leave you unable to move or think as the world fades in and out with each halting breath you take? The pain in your back has gone numb. Not that it matters… Your bullet wound in your skull is enough to give you more screaming nerves than you had ever encountered in your life. You scream and try to get up, only to move a couple inches and fall to your back, looking up at the sky as the rain pours down. You scream again as the acid rain stabs your eyes and blinds you. Colors mix and change and distort like a watercolor painting as you try to scream again. But this time nothing comes out. You close your eyes. The rain eats through your eyelids and gets in anyway. Not even the tears are keeping the rain out. Your skin burns. This is how you will die, alone and unwanted, unable to even take your own life. Then you reach behind yourself and claw at the numbness in your back, pulling a small knife out. Where the hell did this come from? This blessed rusty knife with a red hilt is the kindest thing you have. You hold it above your heaving chest and plunge it downwards. You feel resistance give way and you feel a mild foreign presence enter your skin. But it doesn’t really hurt as all your pain is falling away. You almost feel like you’re watching yourself as you lift the knife out, slide it to a new point in your chest, and bring it up and down again. Again. Again. Now your hands move to your belly and you try again, but this time your arms are too weak. You have a sense of strange tunnel vision, and you see pale glowing eyes surround you. But you don’t care. You got to yourself before they did. A sudden burst of flame and light strikes down, burns away the eyes, and sets you free.

At least, that’s what you saw at the end. Who knows how real any of it was? You’re floating now. Watching it all play out. Alone. You used to fear dying alone, but now you realize you only ever feared the not knowing. This isn’t so bad. This isn’t so bad. This was never all that bad.

song i wrote based on this story. thx for reading!!

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generativetenebrousautomata · 14 days

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pocketseizure · 10 months

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It’s been more than twenty years since rumors about a cursed videotape began to spread. The stories were true, and Japan is in ruins. Can those who survived the collapse of human civilization escape Sadako’s curse? Or do they seek her out instead?

"The Girl in the Screen at the End of the World" is a series of four vignettes about the last humans making their peace with the end of the world as Sadako bids a gentle goodbye to modern civilization.

1,815 words . on AO3 here . illustration by @jothroxas

#The Ring #Ringu #Sadako #Sadako Yamamura #jothroxas #my fic #postapocalyptic #horror fiction

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hellsgate-roadhouse · 18 hours

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zou-pa · 2 months

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tyiart · 6 months

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november kofi theme is all about a post-apocalyptic world, the peacefulness of the nature reclaiming it and the eeriness of the crumbling structures and rusting metal remains 🌃

if you want this mail, sign up anytime during november!

#tyiart #artists on tumblr #illustration #stickers #postapocalyptic #robot art #cyborg art #polaroids #holographic #drawing

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oldschoolfrp · 8 months

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You want one? They're really good (James Dombrowski art from Mutants of the Yucatan, Erick Wujcik's supplement for After the Bomb, Palladium Books, 1990; as reprinted in Palladium's ad in Dragon 159, July 1990)

#James Dombrowski #After the Bomb #TMNT & Other Strangeness #Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness #Erick Wujcik #anthropomorphic animals #mutants #anteater #armadillo #ants #postapocalyptic #postapocalypse #Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #Palladium Books #1990s #game ad

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livingonthesands · 3 months

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0.56.

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patreon - kofi

#working on the following page rn #fallout #fallout comic #fallout fanart #living on the sands #one heck of a party #fallout fancomic #fanfiction #post apocalyptic #wasteland #postapocalyptic #michael #0

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fox-moblin · 4 months

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And The World Ends Again

Chapter 5 (Ao3 Link)

Linked Universe Post-Apocalyptic Mad Max-Inspired AU. All of the Chain feature. *** In the post-apocalyptic wasteland, where roaming bands of scavengers threaten the lives of lonely travelers and tribes of weary survivors do their best to live in a world their ancestors destroyed, it’s nice to find people who will watch your back.

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herrorgrafico · 7 months

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Megafactory, a personal piece I did a while ago.

#Digital 2D #Science Fiction #Environmental Concept Art & Design #Stylized #landscape #megafactory #postapocalyptic #scavenger #industrial #dump #greenpunk #herror

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