#just tagging all these potential ship names just incase | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

very-virgil · 5 years ago

Text

Fearing Abnormalities (Roman’s Prologue)

Rising Over Skylines - Part One

Thomas Sanders lives in a world where having strange powers are not uncommon. However, they are punishable at the hands of a large corporation known as CASTE. In a world where being abnormal is a fate worse than death, Thomas Sanders exists as such, with his only sanctuary coming in the form of a young boy with golden wings

---

Pairings: Platonic Thomas and Roman, endgame Logince, endgame Moxiety

Warnings: Child neglect

Notes: While this is Roman's prologue, a lot of Roman's main story revolves around Thomas' backstory so this mostly follows Thomas' origins.

Word Count: 3649

Harborview was nothing more than another city in a long line of obsessively, hurriedly built urbanized areas, built in a panic to best cope with an ever-growing population in an ever-collapsing economy.

The city has once been nothing more than a small fishing town affectionately named Harborview for the salt-stained piers reaching out into frothy oceans. Barnacled boats bobbed at the town’s shoreline, careening to one side with the weight of nets plump with fish. Few, but for the regular fishermen who made a living off catching fish and selling them to local shops, stayed there permanently. The town was more motel than permanent home, and many who came did so to sail out into the ocean, or buy some particularly organic bait, or sit out on the piers with loved ones to watch the sun paint the ocean gold as it sank deeper and deeper into the horizon. Then, they would pack their things back into vehicles and drive off in the direction of a less salty, more densely-populated area to quench their need for non-seafood centric meals or air which wasn’t littered with salt water and fish.

To the many fishermen who did call Harborview their permanent home, the sight of visitors leaving by the end of the day was always a relief. While many of the shopkeepers knew the tourists were valuable for a running business, no one wished for them to overextend their welcomes. They all lived in fear of visitors learning their small town’s secret; that being that their town was heavily populated by Eccentrics who had come to use the small, off the map town as a refuge from CASTE.

Jeremiah Sanders was one such Eccentric. He had been born in the town just as his father had been, and just as many generations would come to be as well. While many Eccentrics were sure to keep any abnormalities close to their chests, such a concern wasn’t upheld in Harborview. He, like many of his fellow fishermen, used his powers freely and without hesitation. After all, he had been born Eccentric. He had been gifted eccentricities—powers far greater than any human capability—and to not use them seemed a waste. Jeremiah Sanders was an Eccentric, and he was happy in Harborview.

That was, until one such visitor outed to CASTE the large number of Eccentrics which did take haven in Harborview. In the course of a few decades CASTE—a Corporation of Analysis, Specialization, and Testing of Eccentrics—became integrated into life at Harborview, and soon the inhabitants of this small town were sporting tags forcibly clipped onto their ears, conveying to all who saw them that they were different. Abnormal. Eccentric.

For this reason, Jeremiah was relieved to discover, upon his son’s birth, that he was not Eccentric. Young Theodore Sanders had been the upmost example of normal the family had ever seen and, for that reason, became one of the first to permanently inhabit Harborview without need for a tag.

Theodore would not be the last, though. Seeing the potential for business, CASTE eventually integrated a permanent location in Harborview, and with them populations followed. Businesses built, citizens bought apartments, and over the course of Theodore’s life he watched what his father had once affectionately called a small town evolve into a metropolitan area.

Air which once smelled of salt turned musty and thick with smoke. Waters once crystal clear turned brown and littered. Many fishermen who once spent their days on the piers or on ships, casting out lines and nets, eventually moved away in the direction of fish, leaving the piers to grow soggy under disuse, and for ships abandoned by fishermen to be eventually taken hostage by the dirtied, soiled ocean.

Regardless, Theodore found some enjoyment in their ever-changing city. He eventually fell in love with the daughter of a fisherman, Martha, another non-Eccentric who had refused to leave the city when her father had. Stubborn-headed and passionate, Theodore fell in love, a love which eventually resulted in a marriage, then a home, then, at last, a child.

Relief had met Theodore and Martha when their young Thomas showed no signs of the abnormal. He was born a decently average size, with decently average brown eyes, a head of decently average blond hair which would turn brown in his lifetime, and decently average dimples framing a decently average smile. He learned to walk at an average age, learned to speak at an average rate, did average in school, made the average amount of friends, and grew up to have an average love of theatricals. In a world where being above average could result in you being CASTE’s property for the remainder of your lifetime, his parents were thrilled.

Theodore and Martha spent much of Thomas’ early life determined he would remain average, a feat which would ultimately prove useless.

Thomas had been fifteen when a few students from school—fellow cast members from his school’s production of West Side Story— invited him out after stage rehearsal. Thrilled at the aspect of being invited to hang out, he quickly phoned his mother letting her know he’d be home late and followed his new friends out towards the pier.

For some time, the group only sat there, throwing stones into the water and catching trash which wadded by with sticks. They had managed a fairly impressive pile of waste removed by time Thomas became anxious enough to warrant asking, “What are we doing here?”

One of the other boys—the senior at school who Thomas had been briefly jealous of when he had landed the role of Tony—only chuckled, patting Thomas on the back without meeting his gaze. “You’ve just gotta wait, Sanders.”

“I know, it’s just that I told my mom I’d—”

His words were cut off at sight of bubbling beneath the water’s surface. For a moment Thomas sat there in fear, terrified of someone jumping from the water as a prank, or a large fish bursting from the water and grabbing their dangling legs to pull them in, but no change came. In time, Thomas joined his companions on the edge of the pier, peering into the murky waters below.

All Thomas could make out was the blurred, hazy image of a ring of gold glowing brightly from the water, like sunlight shining from beneath the ocean.

In a breathy voice, Thomas sighed. “What is it?”

“I dunno,” one of the other boys—the one who had been cast as Riff—said, “Why don’t you go check it out?”

Thomas’ heart raced and he quickly backed away from the edge, eyes wide. “Why me?”

“Aw, c’mon,” Tony said. “Think of it as an initiation. You poke the thing and we’ll, I dunno, put in a word with Mr. Hoppstead about getting you something more than an extra part in the next production.”

Thomas looked down at the water churning in the night, the only light coming from beneath it. Every echoing consciousness in his head screamed at him to turn away, that no part was worth nearly dying, but the light wasn’t too far down. Surely, he could get to it and up in one breath. Plus, the waves weren’t too bad tonight.

“I’m not sure…”

“We’ll be right here for you, Sanders” Tony said. He smiled brightly, patting Thomas’ arm and Thomas felt something in his chest flutter.

He stood up immediately, tearing off his shoes and socks and pealing his shirt off, knowing if he didn’t have dry clothes to change into the entire event would make him miserable. Then, with an affirming thumbs up by those around him, Thomas leapt into the water.

Icy waves surrounded him immediately, and almost he gasped, loosing what breath he had. The water was salty and he slimy with grime, and when he opened his eyes to gather his bearings they stung. Still, comfort came to him at sight of the golden something just beneath him.

He swam down towards it, finding it harder and harder to keep his eyes open both from the intensity of the light and the water stinging his face. Squinting, he pushed himself closer.

He still wasn’t sure what it was, though. The water around the golden mass was warm, and as the mass swirled the water moved around it, a whirlpool of light sucking the water inside. Thomas had to grab onto one of the pier posts, using what little strength he had not to be sucked inwards. The sight of the mass was nothing less than comforting, and the warm water whispered to Thomas to fall asleep and sink in with it, but he had a mission.

Trusting himself to tread water, Thomas released the post. He let the water pull him closer, and closer, dragging him towards the sight of the mass. For a moment, Thomas wondered if they were anxiously watching him above, wondering why he hadn’t come up for breath yet or preparing to call 911 incase anything went wrong. Pushing the thoughts from his head, Thomas touched it.

What happened next was disorienting.

The mass simultaneously exploded and imploded, both sucking water in far faster than earlier and expelling it all at once. Unfortunately for Thomas, the later was what affected him most and in a force which ripped the air from Thomas’ lungs he was thrown backwards. He shot out of the ocean in an geyser of water and landed hard on his back on the pier, his companions gathered around him.

He was soaked, as were they from the expulsion of water, and while the cold air nipping at his skin was certainly a concern for Thomas, he couldn’t shake the knowledge that landing on the pier should have hurt like hell.

Only, it hadn’t.

It was a few weeks before Thomas had managed to figure it out.

Suspicions had lingered in the times between them, however. Everyone in Harborview knew the dangers of interacting with strange phenomena no one could explain. Thomas could only assume that was why he had been pressed to investigate the glowing mass; he had been the test dummy. They had wanted to see if it were something which may have triggered the development of an eccentricity.

For the next two weeks Thomas took care to ensure the upmost presence of normalcy within himself. Growing up, he had been surrounded with endless stories of individuals unaware that they had powers up until an accident occurred and only by instinct their eccentricities were triggered, leaving the individual entirely exposed to the whims of CASTE and the disgraces of those around them. Thomas took every precaution manageable to ensure he wouldn’t unknowingly trigger a now-dormant eccentricity and distress his family. Despite his care, though, they still came.

He had been helping his mother with dinner, chopping vegetables when his hand slipped and the blade nicked his thumb. Thomas had winced, immediately pulling his hand away expecting to nurse a wound, but no blood spotted his finger. Instead, the blade itself had dented. It had been injured by him.

It was Thomas’ decision to turn himself into CASTE. His parents had gone back and forth about it for weeks on end—mostly when they had been certain Thomas couldn’t hear—but every time they left out Thomas’ own opinion. Everyone knew delaying turning oneself into CASTE was a recipe for a higher tagging; CASTE saw reluctancy as synonymous with dishonesty, and a dishonest Eccentric is a dangerous one.

So, it had been Thomas who had contacted the Collectors—a group dedicated to collecting Eccentrics and turning them into CASTE—and he had been marched from his home willingly and towards the towering building at the center of town where all CASTE agents resided.

He would then go on to spend two weeks in CASTE’s possession, living in cramped cell-like quarters, being moved to and from interrogation rooms and science labs by CASTE’s lacky Controllers, being prodded, poked, and scrutinized all as a means of CASTE determining just how dangerous to the general public Thomas could be.

That, Thomas thought, was the most ridiculous part of the entire endeavor. Throughout the ceaseless questionings and the undesirable experiments on himself which were ran, he wanted nothing more than to blurt out to those observing him that he was simply average. All his life his parents, his teachers, his friends had pushed him to take pride in what was surely a magnificent feat in this world.

Perhaps that is why the next chain of events which occurred were so alarming.

At the end of the two weeks—as is accustomed for every Eccentric brought in for tagging—Thomas was corralled into a small room empty but for a single table and a hanging light fixture which a man in a well-pressed suit sat behind. These procedures Thomas knew well, and while he was certain they would end in unavoidable pain, the comfort of being released back home in due time was far greater than that.

However, that was not quite what happened.

CASTE is quite proud of their system of tagging. Each Eccentric is to have a tag inserted onto the cartilage of their ear signify to those which were lucky enough to be born ordinary that this individual is different from them. The tag will be a certain color—red through purple—with red representing the most dangerous of Eccentrics and purple the most harmless. Each tag will then be etched with a number one through three. A one signifies an Eccentric with advanced, ordinary abilities—for instance, enhanced intelligence, strength, agility, etc. A two signifies someone who obtained their powers at some point in their lifetime—this is Thomas. A three, and the most feared, is someone unfortunately born with these advanced abilities, therefore permanently cleaving themselves from the rest of society.

Thomas knew he would be a two, and he doubted he deserved much more than a blue tag on account of his docile past and the lack of damage he could do with his abilities.

The man who sat across from him at the table had other ideas.

This well-dressed figure explained in simple words and a slow voice that Roman was a potential threat. While, sure, he lacked the ability to take outright action against any person, his newfound inability to be injured prevented him from being stopped should he want to. In that way he was a liability; a danger to all those around him.

Should he go rogue, there would be no controlling him. Therefore, he is dangerous enough to warrant constant observation, preferably from inside a cell.

Despite Thomas’ apparent revulsion at the concept, the well-dressed man went on.

There was, however, an alternative. As Harborview grows in size with it does CASTE, and the growth of CASTE always seems to predate the appearance of rogue Eccentrics who wish to use their powers for their own malicious gain. CASTE wished to implement the License to Hero program into Harborview by providing them with their own hero to guard the streets in ways Collectors and Controllers never could.

Thomas seemed to be the most likely candidate for this program.

In return to agreement, Thomas would be marked down to a yellow—a color far more accepted by society and free to live as they please. He would also be paid heavily in return for his services, with fine checks being mailed out to his guardians until he became old enough to accept them himself.

Thomas hadn’t the chance to discuss such a life changing decision with his parents, whom he had previously always trusted to guidance.

He was on his own, with only the time the well-dressed man granted to him in this bland room.

In the end, Thomas did accept. He walked away with not one but two tags pinned to his ear: a yellow one representing his capabilities and a golden one revealing to all those who cared to look that he was a hero.

For weeks his usual school curriculum became replaced with CASTE’s hero training program. He learned how better to use his abilities, received suits and gadgets to help him in the field, was taught to fight, and in time was introduced to the public as Impervious: Harborview’s resident hero.

Years passed of Thomas living this double life. His days became split between school and work in the morning and Impervious at night, with Impervious always seeming to take the greater of the cut.

Still, he was content. Not happy per se—CASTE’s controlling nature as well as the constant eating guilt that he was locked in a contract with one of the most tyrannical corporations which existed prevented that—but he considered himself far better off than he would be locked in a cell day and night as the well-dressed man had once threatened.

In time, Impervious became more of Thomas than Thomas did. He became enveloped by responsibilities he wanted to do right, fans he wanted to please, charities he wanted to support, and the word Impervious became a name rather than an alias.

That was, until he met Roman.

Thomas had been requested into CASTE’s hospital facilities nearly a decade after taking on the mantle of Impervious. Apparently, a child had been turned into CASTE by parents who had claimed to no longer want him, and best attempts to calm him all fell short. They could only hope a well-known figure would sway the child’s attitude.

Willing to help, as well as curious of the abandoned child, Thomas agreed and eventually came face to face with the child.

He was a small kid, skinny, but with bright brown eyes filled with an emotion which almost seemed out of place for a bed-ridden child. He was tanned as well, darker than Thomas himself, with a head of hair oddly red in the light. There was no asking the nurses and doctors working if the child was Eccentric; he could see it.

A pair of golden wings, corporeal and intangible, yet alive and moving all the same, rested at his back, twitching as he moved, thrashing when he did. Large wings framing such a small child.

The sight may have been magical were it not for the large bandage covering much of his forehead—an injury, the doctor’s said, which the parents hadn’t disclosed before dropping him, and which the child himself couldn’t seem to recall.

For a while, Thomas simply played the part of Impervious he knew to be. He spoke in a loud, regal voice, smiled as much as he could, he told tale of daring adventures which the child beamed at, nearly rolling off his bed in his excitement. The most progress, though, was made as Thomas.

It was made as he walked in one day, suit packed away, and simply had the opportunity to speak with the child.

He told Thomas his name—Roman Santiago—but that seemed the furthest extent of which he remembered save a few words of Spanish he often dropped mid-sentence. What the nurses had taken for distrust or reluctance had been true ignorance. Roman truly remembered nothing of before, not even how he had gotten his powers, or who his parents were.

He was a broken child with a broken mind to match.

There had been one night when a storm had rolled in over Harborview. The sea nearby had roared, waves threatened to wash their city out to sea, thunder shook the CASTE building repeatedly with lights flickering at every sight of lightning.

The child had been terrified.

Roman, a seven-year-old boy who had proclaimed loudly time and time again to be the bravest in the hospital (which wasn’t much competition, considering the only other residents were a few elderly Eccentrics who couldn’t handle on their own) had cowered near to the point of tears at sound of thunder crashing, and Thomas’ heart had broken.

He refused to leave Roman even as many assured him that the boy would be fine and Harborview needed him outside. He laid in bed alongside Roman, humming softly into the boy’s hair songs his mother used to sing and rubbing circles along his back, urging the storm to pass so that Roman might sleep.

The storm did pass, but not before Roman fell asleep in Thomas’ arms, clinging to his shirt with clenched fists and a face buried in his chest. Thomas, not having the heart to move, stayed there, holding the child tightly until he, too, fell away into sleep.

When Thomas had woken, the corporeal wings of Roman were gone, leaving nothing but the blue tag at the boy’s ear to suggest he was Eccentric.

After that moment, Thomas hadn’t the heart to be apart from Roman for much longer. When CASTE announced to Thomas that Roman was near being discharged and sent out to a foster home for further care Thomas had rioted, furious.

How was it fair to throw Roman into a home with people who wouldn’t care for him, at least not how Thomas did? Roman hadn’t made his parents throw him out. Roman hadn’t made himself Eccentric.

Roman didn’t deserve to be unwanted.

The CASTE workers above him argued against it. They thought it was stupid and Thomas should busy himself with being Impervious, not a father, but Thomas couldn’t be dissuaded. If CASTE wanted Impervious, Thomas needed Roman.

And Roman he got. He had taken great joy in guiding Roman home, showing him around the apartment building, helping him settle into the room Thomas had spent his last few paychecks on getting sorted.

Regardless, Roman hadn’t fallen asleep in that room his first night.

He had fallen asleep in Thomas’ arms, curled up in the chair which faced towards the window.

The two had collapsed together—as they henceforth would always be—looking out at the skyline.

masterlist

---

@werefam-ily @trans-and-not-trending @kingwillow @sandersstuffsblog @hereforapathylogic @dannythehalfakid @panic-at-my-sexuality

#sanders sides #tw child neglect #thomas sanders #sanders sides fic #fanfic #ts sides #roman sanders #rising over skylines #sanders sides au

26 notes · View notes

kyleisme14 · 5 years ago

Text

My trip to Area 51 - unedited

On Facebook, a kid from Bakersfield created an event. He uses his page, perfectly named, shitposting because my life is in shambles and makes 'storm area 51, they can't stop us all' and seemingly overnight a million people said that they would be attending. I did attend. Shitposting because my life is in shambles is inadvertent the most zeitgeist worthy name for this page. Shitposting is when you share terrible content that you know is bad just to get a reaction. You are sharing a low effort joke for the sense of connection from others. Because my life is in shambles, this anonymous statement of personal vulnerability, I shall try and make a low effort attempt at connection. This is what our age is all about. We are doomed to be as connected and as isolated as possible. This had a chance of being a real life meme where we'd be isolated no longer.

The page became an immediate stronghold for memes. It adopted other internet jokes like Karens asking to see managers, Kyle's drinking monster energy drink for invincibility, and Naruto runners being faster than bullets, as ways of infiltrating the base. And also generated new ones about what people would find inside Area 51 like the 10th doctor to recommend a toothpaste or where my girlfriend wants to go for dinner or how we'd sneak in with a minivan but escape with a space ship. The killer meme was how once we 'free them aliens' we'd keep them as lovers and bang them so hard that we 'clapped them cheeks'. This was the low effort comedy that this meme page generated.

Was it a joke or would people actually go? At first I did not know why I needed to go to area 51, and everybody seemed to ask me. I failed to recruit any friends to join me on the quest, 7 hours driving to the infamous base. Most thought I was crazy for going. My brother told me to be safe. My sister thought I was joking, and called to counter my bluff. Whenever somebody said they couldn't go, I pittied them because I was sure they were going to miss something incredible and life affirming. I was excited because I had no idea what was going to go down, and nobody in the whole world did. I stopped at the army surplus. I thought we'd either see a humanitarian crisis like fyre fest or a government crackdown. Don't forget, 2 million people clicked GOING online, so even if 1% came that'd be 10,000 people to a town with a population of 1000. The airforce released a warning about 'raiding' active military bases being a bad idea and the use of deadly force being a possibility. Lincoln County, one of nevadas sleepiest, had to call in enough police to potentially break up a neo-woodstock.

I always wanted to go to area 51 since I first learned about aliens as a kid. When I asked the big question of are we alone in the universe? If there was an answer, if somebody had the evidence, if it was anywhere, it was stored at area 51. UFO's and little green men were hiding somewhere in Nevada... at least according to pop mythology. In grade school I would check out the same book over and over from the library, about aliens and the search for exterterestrial life and the scientists who were looking at the stars. There was a spooky section about times aliens might have visited early humans based on cave paintings and statues. And then the next page was all about area 51, where the government did secret expirements on alien artifacts and maybe had a specimen. So I've been captivated since at least then. Area 51 represents a big secret. A mystery! And somebody powerful, a general or established congress person, knows and is keeping the answers from us. So as an anti-establishment, meme and alien lover, I was fascinated with this 'movement,' that would of 'raid the base'. I wanted to go and find out how many people like me were out there! Turns out I wasn't completely alone! But... for the ignorant... What is Area 51? I could never believe people weren't following the biggest BREAKING news of our lives. But for those out of the loop, Area 51 is an infamous hotspot for UFO lovers. It has a rich history in alien folklore. But here is the factual history: Nevada is almost all federal land. and it was used back in the day for nuclear testing. an original tourist attraction to Las Vegas was watching nuclear testing in the distance...

Some airforce commanders were flying around dropping bombs when they spied a dried lakebed next to a mountain, Groom Lake. They landed on it and found it to be a perfectly flat natural runway. Excellent for testing expiremental aircraft. The facility became known as Area 51. And was where the airforce and Lockheed Corp developed the U-2 stealth bomber. They brought the best and brightest scientists and engineers to develop new aeronautics and weaponry for the US military. At the height of the Cold War, any foreign technology that was aquired would be brought to Area 51 to be tested and backwards-engineered. You can imagine Chinese reactors and Russian jets being taken apart and used by the best tinkerer's and best test pilots. People at the highest levels of classified access. Because if you are one of the folks who are handling stolen foreign items, you are so classified that your spouse isn't supposed to know what you do all day. Yes honey, I was testing out the Ruskies new fighter plane! They don't even know we have it! These were experts in aeronautics and weapons science who could decipher technology even if the instructions were in another language... so perhaps if the US government were to encounter any other 'foreign technology' of an unknown origin, maybe they'd send it to Area 51 to be backwards engineered? That's the set up, those are the facts, the rest is conjecture and tinfoil hats stuff. Like unexplained phenomena, military released sightings that definitely aren't weather baloons and general mysticism. Do you believe in aliens or not?

If you believe that it's more likely that our government would keep aliens a secret than releasing that information to the public... welcome to the club! If not, do some reading. As I drove across the desert, down lonesome roads and through one horse towns, I realized what I was doing. I was driving into the middle of nowhere, likely to stand around doing nothing... and boy was I excited. My plan was to go and maybe film something and if that didn't work out I'd put on an alien costume and hold a sign. I figured that there'd be a bunch of cameras and I could use it to collectively protest all sorts of wrongs in the world. One of the initial reacitons to the playful event was, 'hey there are more imporant places to raid! why not raid the border detention centers, why not congress, why not the oil companies?' To which I say, hell yes... but that's not shitposting. That's being earnest and noble. This was about being ironic and part of a joke. This was about chasing an internet meme into the ground and disecting it until all that was left was the human connection. I had a sign and costume and figured that even if nobody showed up at least news organizations would be covering it. The sign I held said, Peace on earth ain't coming from outer space, and I really believe that. We shouldn't expect peace to come from somewhere else in the universe, it has to start right here at home, inside each of us. I wanted to get that message out. The day of the event, due to classic internet decentralization, people debated whether the raid meet up (located at the Area 51 gate) should be at 3am on friday morning or 3am on saturday morning. Most people kind of agreed to just gather sporadically between those two times. I monitored a live stream late on thursday to confirm that millions of people weren't gathering to make American History. Instead, about 30 people gathered for that 3am moment. I only missed a photo-op. I awoke on friday morning and drove towards my destiny. There were two events scheduled. One hosted by the facebook Shitposting kid who decided to use his 15 minutes of fame to organize a rave in the desert at the local Little Ale'inn, a motel close to the gate. The other was set up by a filmmaker who made a movie about Area 51 at the Alien Research Center. Both locales are alien themed tchotchke paradises designed to sell the eager UFO tourist any manner of t-shirt, shot glass or Alien doll. These spots have a fun feel and would be desert trinket spots selling only desert sage and gems if not for the boon of being next to an infamous mystery base.

The dueling events were both hoping to capitalize on the rush of people to the desert for the raid. Alienstock, as shitpost called it, was going to be a kumbaya style gathering. But everybody thought it was an alibi for shitpost incase anybody got in actual trouble at the gate and roped him in. Shitpost from bakersfield ended up not even going to his own event out of fear. Also the county sued him for the cost of preparing for a potential fiasco. The Alien Research Center event was going to have famous Alien Community folks speak and some high end music performances. But as I drove down the dusty route 375, known as Exterterestrial Highway, I saw very few people on the roads. Lots and lots of cops. It became obvious that the whole county and the organizers of these events had been preparingor at least 30,000 people. They had nearly 200 port-a-potties. Which makes sense, if 1% of the people who claimed they were coming online came! The reality was that maybe only 1% of 1% showed up to these sleepy nevada towns on the edge of a fabled military base. The imediate reality of the events was that they were extremely underattended, but that was also a blessing. it made everything a little bit more intimate and accessible. I pulled into the dusty parking lot of the Little Ale'inn to find a rag tag DIY music festival set up. People were essentially tailgating on the side of the road. It was a scene and it was dusty. All sorts of folks were jovially milling about, some in alien themed costume, many with cameras. Many folks with booze, despite the morning. I pulled out a camera and tried interviewing people, but found that everybody I talked to had the exact same talking points. Do you believe in aliens? Duh. Why are you here? Free them Aliens. Do you really think they are in the base? Yes, but maybe now they've been moved. What did you think would happen if we charged? We'd all get killed or arrested. Nobody seemed to have really believed in the facebook post's idea of 'they can't stop us all.' Most people were sure that, especially with the meager turn out, the military and police could stop us all. Everybody just wanted to see what would happen, expecting anywhere from fyre festival 2.0 to a bloodbath to nothing. Everybody had listened to the same Joe Rogan podcast, where he'd interviewed Bob Lazar who claims to have worked at the base. That podcast was the bible of this gathering and was what had inspired Shitpost to shitpost.

It was special that everybody was a believer. That's rare that strangers are all on the same wavelength. Nobody seemed to have any doubts that the government knew about aliens and weren't telling the public. And it was agreed that UFO's had been tested and stored at the base. Everybody I ended up meeting seemed pretty prepared. They had plenty of water and booze and camping supplies, so the idea that a humanitarian crisis was going to occur dissapated completely and reminded me of a group outting to the desert. Most important was that everybody at the event seemed to be in on the joke. They might believe in aliens but had no plans of raiding the base in actuality. Aliens might exist but the might of the US government is way more certain. The police presence alone was insane, but they merely hinted at the military might behind the base's perimeter. The police actually became quite friendly once they realized it wasn't going to be a boodbath. But the silent and hooded guards behind the gate remained terrifying with big guns and big dogs. There was definitely the threat of violence if you crossed. But we all joked that maybe if a million more people showed up we'd actually start Naruto running passed the guards.

After a while of milling around quasi-interviewing people I decided there were enough people with cameras that I should just put on my alien costume and go to the gate and get in front of the camera. I was taken to the gate by some friends I'd made while trying to get interviews. Evan and Kevin were two dudes I became super weirdly close on the day of the Raid. Each of us had come by ourselves from far away, San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles, with a vague intention of documenting it in some way. I had a vision of either a mini doc or article, Evan was a photographer and who took some insanely beautiful photos (featured here).

Kevin was a video creation guru who just wanted to make as much instagram content as possible. Kevin was by far the most successful, he's got that showman's knack to always get on camera with insanely high energy. There were a lot of cameras and each one he'd run up to and start lecturing about how the governemnt needed to release the secret documents! It was a great bit especially with his Boston Townie accent turned all the way up.

Evan explained how he was drawn to the site by a mysterious desire to see what would happen. He expressed it best as, 'this is like a reddit safe post.' People will find safes while remodeling or cleaning a house and say, 'hey reddit, look i found a safe, i'm going to open it and see what's inside!' Then people get excited trying to guess what marvelous jackpot could be in that old dusty safe. They wait desperately for the original poster to share an update. More often than not the poster never returns and people are left waiting for nothing.

Once and a while there will be an updated post to show what was found inside and sometime's it's a haul of trinkets and dubloons and rare items that were saved throughout time to be found by some noble internet user. but then most of the time it's like, wow a roll of coins from 1953! "so yeah i felt obligated to go and find out what was in the safe and share it with reddit even if there actually was nothing inside. reddit deserves to know.' evan said. Because sometimes those posts are just as important, the safe find coming back to say, 'hey we cracked the safe, but turns out there was nothing in it! here's a picture of an empty safe."

So I was beginning to realize that I was standing inside an empty safe. But wow, all of these people had also come to be here and that was something special. It's not often that we get to organically be around likeminded strangers that all have such clear and imediate shared experience. Here we all were, because of a a meme, just to see what would happen. The gathering had a magical quality because we were an internet joke that had left the cyber space and entered the meat space. It was a silly idea that was reaching a physical end point.

I stood around the gate for a good while, we chatted with everybody, shook hands with the police guarding the gate, exchanged instagram handles and shared jokes we'd heard on the internet. You could tell people were really cutting loose. Most people spent most of their time on their computers it seemed. Hey, me too. We shouted 'clap them cheeks' and 'let them out.' We were all in on the joke. There were still mainly cameras and I got interviewed and photographed by dozens including history channels ancient aliens and the nytimes and countless youtubers and instagramers. It all kind of culminated when Kevin and Evan were getting cold and saying we should leave, I heard a distant 'clap them cheeks' chant and booty shuffling down the lonesome road to the infamous Area 51 gate was Riley Reid! Pornhub's number 1 star. She's somebody I have searched for all my life, on google. She did a strip tease and pretended to rush the gate. She was an internet hero in the flesh, and she was in on the joke too! A perfect metaphor, eh?

The next morning, hungover from the excitement and extrovertism of the day before I was sitting in a diner scouring news websites for mentions of the raid and looking for photos of myself. Behind me I heard some locals discussing, a gravelly voice said, "usually this town has 1 car every 10 minutes. this weekend we've got like 1 car every minute!" The townsfolk seemed to have had the wildest weekend of their lives. Me too. I managed to get into a few articles in my green alien suit. A USA Today affiliate newspaper even printed a whole write up about me and my sign. On the way back, realizing I expected nothing, and found little more than nothing, I was completely satisfied. I had held my sign for peace and found a version of it, internet strangers, weirdos from all over had gathered peacefully to celebrate an idea. A silly and anti authoritarian conspiracy idea, but an idea none the less. I decided the reason I was drove all this way through beautiful american desert land, was because it's something I would have thought was cool as an 11 year old. A mission to see aliens and the people who wanted to meet them. Radical.

#area 51 #journey #journalism #adventure #aliens #clap them cheeks

1 note · View note