History WebOriginal / MysteryFleshPitNationalPark

* FateWorseThanDeath: Living organisms, including humans, who are swallowed by the pit can become fused into malformed, amalgamated masses of flesh and organs called Amalgamations, whose components are typically still alive and cognizant. There are people who have been recovered from being part of an Amalgamation. [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/630519082138107904/qa-002 Their quality of life afterwards was debateable]] -- in practice, the people "recovered" from amalgamations survive as collections of organs and tissue within room-sized life-support modules, barely able to perceive or communicate with the outside world while their families are stuck having to pay up a fortune for care that would ultimately be futile and unsustainable in the long-term. If anyone in this state was even able to be kept alive for more than a few months, then their care and maintenance almost certainly would have gone under with Anodyne when it went bankrupt.

* FantasyContraception: One of the reasons the "Pleasure Domes" were opened for public use was that amniotic ballast has potent spermicidal effects Combine that with its equally potent aphrodisiac effects, and you basically have an easy way to have entirely consequence-free sex.

* CapitalismIsBad: The lore has undertones of this. [[MegaCorp Anodyne]]'s immediate reaction to discovering a gigantic sleeping EldritchAbomination is to dig into its flesh, [[MainliningTheMonster sell its body parts]], market it as a tourist attraction with chain restaurants and a Marriott hotel onsite, and keep [[NoOSHACompliance insufficient safety precautions]] for workers and visitors.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Living organisms, including humans, who are swallowed by the pit can become fused into malformed, amalgamated masses of flesh and organs called Amalgamations, whose components are typically still alive and cognizant. There are people who have been recovered from being part of an Amalgamation. [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/630519082138107904/qa-002 Their quality of life afterwards was debateable]] -- in practice, the people "recovered" from amalgamations survive as collections of organ within room-sized life-support modules, barely able to perceive or communicate with the outside world.

* FantasyContraception: One of the reason the "Pleasure Domes" were opened for public use was that amniotic ballast has potent spermicidal effects.
* ForWantOfANail: Had it not been for some particularly stormy weather and some sheer bad luck, the events that led to the 2007 disaster wouldn't have occurred, the park wouldn't have shut down, and the Superorganism wouldn't have stirred in its sleep and [[HumansAreInsects caused untold mayhem and destruction by doing so.]]

* JustBeforeTheEnd: This seems to be the opinion of the United States government, at any rate: their report on the 2007 disaster ends with the depressing conclusion that any efforts to contain the Superorganism are only delaying the inevitable, and that when the creature awakes it will spell doom for the western hemisphere if not the entire world.

* {{Mascot}}: Caver Coop was the cute Anodyne cartoon mascot that existed to convince frightened people -- especially children -- that being down in the pit wasn't like being "[[SwallowedWhole swallowed alive]]" and [[BlatantLies was actually quite safe]]. Coop became an AbandonedMascot after 2007.

* MundaneFantastic: The central thesis of the setting: an impossible organism, alien to all other life on Earth, so vast it’s most easily described in terms of geography, is discovered in the southern United States… and is converted into a tourist trap and corporate cash grab. Even the author explores it primarily from the lens of it being a defunct national park, with its most disturbing aspects left to CrypticBackgroundReference and NothingIsScarier. There are few other settings where the near-awakening of an EldritchAbomination and the ensuing massive devastation can be presented as a dry, clinical industrial disaster report that places the blame on human negligence.

''Mystery Flesh Pit National Park'' is a [[WorldBuilding worldbuilding project]] created by artist [[https://www.reddit.com/user/StrangeVehicles/ Trevor [="StrangeVehicles"=] Roberts]]. It revolves around the titular Mystery Flesh Pit (''Immanis colosseus'', aka the Permian Basin Superorganism), an [[TimeAbyss ancient]] and [[{{Kaiju}} indescribably gigantic organism]] living underneath [[EverythingIsBigInTexas the Permian Basin region of West Texas]], and a lucrative tourist attraction sanctioned by the American government... [[GoneHorriblyWrong until 2007, that is]].

%%* BeneathTheEarth: The Flesh Pit is both this and a WombLevel.

* ForWantOfANail: Had it not been for some particularly stormy weather and some sheer bad luck, the events that led to the 2007 disaster wouldn't have occurred, the park wouldn't have shut down.
* FreudWasRight: The Superorganism (which, remember, compels people to worship and delve into it) tends to be depicted in a decidedly yonic shape in illustrations and maps, not to mention its vocalizations consist of what's explicitly described as "carnal moans." And then there's ''everything'' about the amniotic ballast bulbs.

* ForWantOfANail: Had it not been for some particularly rainy weather, the events that led to the 2007 disaster wouldn't have occurred and the park wouldn't have shut down.

* BodyHorror: Besides the Permian Basin Superorganism itself, the creatures that inhabit its body are often examples of this. They're actually the descendants of countless animals swallowed by the Superorganism that managed to survive for ''millions'' of years by living as parasites deep in its body, evolving to adapt to their unearthly environment, or perhaps being shaped by it, for better or worse. Because the Superorganism is known to have had an aquatic larval stage, most of them are descended from sea creatures.

* BodyHorror: Besides the Permian Basin Superorganism itself, the creatures that inhabit its body are often examples of this. They're actually the descendants of countless animals swallowed by the Superorganism that managed to survive for millions of years by living as parasites deep in its body, evolving to adapt to their unearthly environment, or perhaps being shaped by it, for better or worse. Because the Superorganism is known to have had an aquatic larval stage, most of them are descended from sea creatures.

** And honestly, something called a "Mystery Flesh Pit" should be on that list SOMEwhere.

* BodyHorror: Besides the Pit itself, the creatures that inhabit the Pit are often examples of this. They're actually the virtually unrecognizable descendants of countless animals the Pit swallowed during its existence that managed to survive for years by living as parasites deep in its body, evolving to adapt to their unearthly environment, for better or worse. Because the Pit is known to have had an aquatic larval stage, most of them are descended from sea creatures.

And that's just the ''tip'' of an iceberg comprising a tragic tale of mankind's hubris and corporate greed coming together in the face of the unknown.

* FreudWasRight: The Superorganism (which, remember, compels people to worship and delve into it) tends to be depicted in a decidedly yonic shape in illustrations and maps, not to mention it emits what's explicitly described as "carnal moans." And then there's ''everything'' about the amniotic ballast bulbs.

* SingleSpecimenSpecies: The Pit is apparently a single-specimen ''[[ExaggeratedTrope phylum]]'' (an order of life on the level of chordates, arthropods or mollusks) according to the disaster report, being not just the only known ''Immanis colosseus'', but the only known member of Immanemqa known to science. However, whether or not the Pit is the only member of its kind has been called into question with the existence of an ancient Sumerian tablet documenting a "living underworld/underflesh god." With that in mind, the nature of what's described in the tablet is unmistakable.

** Material from after 2007 sometimes delves into it as well, as the Permian Basin Recovery and Containment (the successor to Anodyne post-2007) pushes for legislation around the Pit to be relaxed that deliberate satirizes modern [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/664486625249820672/slightly-concerning-mailer-ad-going-out-to-texans corporate friendly legislation and inclusivity policies]] applied to [[EldritchAbomination the Pit.]]

* EldritchAbomination: Crossed with an EldritchLocation due to the size of the Flesh Pit itself. While [=StrangeVehicles=] claims that "it's not magical and it's not interdimensional", it is certainly influenced by Lovecraft. There are strange effects that it has on the human mind, documented by scientists even, and it's suggested that the Superorganism is capable of compelling humans to worship it.

* EverythingIsBigInTexas: The Pit was discovered by oil workers in the Permian Basin of West Texas, and [[EldritchAbomination it certainly is "big"]]. Additionally of the peripheral elements of the setting is the fictional city of Gumption and the economic boom and bust it underwent as the Pit was discovered, developed, and then abandoned, and Anodyne's emphasis on exploiting the resources of the Pit and being tragically lax on maintanence and safety is a thinly fictionalized version of the fossil fuel industry that operates in the region in real life.

* ShownTheirWork: A lot of the material from the setting consists of period-accurate materials from the Parks Service, especially when it comes to the strange anatomy of the Pit and the creatures that live inside it or the machinery used to explore it, down to the typeface and visual style.

* MeaningfulName: The Permian Basin Superorganism's scientific name, ''Immanis colosseus'', translates from Latin into "monstrous and gigantic."

* SingleSpecimenSpecies: The Pit is apparently a single-specimen ''[[ExaggeratedTrope phylum]]'' (an order of life on the level of chordates, arthropods or mollusks) according to the disaster report, being not just the only known ''Immanis colosseus'', but the only known member of Immanemqa known to science.

** The [[https://redd.it/lsqzs8 Circus Clown Chymus]] is a formation made out of a group of circus clowns that fell into the pit and were [[ImMelting partially digested]]. Some were still alive when rescuers cut them out. The use of an antacid spray to neutralize the effects of the digestive fluid on the "gooey, shrieking mass" instead flash-calcified them into a birthday cake-colored mass of horrifying twisted faces.

* ApologyGift: On July 4th, 2007, the staff of the Mystery Flesh Pit made the decision to keep the pit open past the normal closing time as an apology (and compensation) for a cancelled fireworks show. This was one of the contributing factors to what would happen later that night.

* EatenAlive: One of the primary dangers of the Flesh Pit is that much of its anatomy consists of ''functional'' digestive organs. Specialized equipment and ointments are used to counteract digestive juices, and much of the man-made architecture in the park is specifically designed to prevent peristalsis (i.e. swallowing). This was the unfortunate fate of many trapped in the Pit during the 2007 incident. In particular, [[spoiler:two ranger vehicles trying to escape the pit were sucked into a digestive organ and "presumed lost", while an elevator full of people was caught dead in the path of the Pit's reflexive vomiting; when rescue teams reached it, the occupants were dead or mortally injured from being partially digested by the gastric juices]].

* SingleSpecimenSpecies: The Pit is apparently a single-specimen ''[[ExaggeratedTrope phylum]]'' (an order of life on the level of chordates, arthropods or mollusks) according to the disaster report, being not just the only known ''Immanis colosseus'', but the only known member of ''Immanemqa'' known to science.

* {{Kaiju}}: The Superorganism may not a conventional example on account of being stuck in a giant hole in the ground, but [[spoiler:the official incident report claims that it ''can'' move, and nearly got free during the 2007 disaster. Anodyne's successors are now [[SealedEvilInACan working to prevent it from happening again]]. [[https://youtu.be/kJLQ5pDpzHw This EAS video]] that played during said disaster reveals the true shape of the Superorganism - apparently, it possesses five limbs in a radial arrangement around a central body almost reminiscent of a starfish.]]

** And then there's the "blue tissue" speculated to be used by the Superorganism to digest fossil fuel deposits. [[spoiler: An expedition into it revealed a hollow space filled with surfaces that resemble broken rainbow colored glass more than living tissue, before a parasitic organism half a kilometer in size seemingly consumed the pilot.]]

* FreudWasRight: The Pit (which, remember, compels people to worship and delve into it) tends to be depicted in a decidedly yonic shape in illustrations and maps, not to mention it emits what's explicitly described as "carnal moans." And then there's ''everything'' about the amniotic ballast bulbs.

* JustBeforeTheEnd: This seems to be the opinion of the United States government, at any rate: their report on the 2007 disaster ends with the depressing conclusion that any efforts to contain the superorganism are only delaying the inevitable, and that when the creature awakes it will spell doom for the western hemisphere if not the entire world.
* {{Kaiju}}: The Pit may not a conventional example on account of being stuck in a giant hole in the ground, but [[spoiler:the official incident report claims that it ''can'' move, and nearly got free during the 2007 disaster. Anodyne's successors are now [[SealedEvilInACan working to prevent it from happening again]]. [[https://youtu.be/kJLQ5pDpzHw This EAS video]] that played during said disaster reveals the ''true'' shape of the Pit - apparently, it possesses five limbs in a radial arrangement around a central body almost reminiscent of a starfish.]]

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: [=StrangeVehicles=] claims that the Pit is "not magical and it's not interdimensional" and its biology is extremely alien but comprehensible, yet its ability to psychically influence people and its containment measures including mystic artifacts make it decidedly eldritch. In addition, there is no explanation for the survivors of the 2007 disaster [[spoiler:crawling out of their field hospitals back into the pit, and suggestion blaming the amniotic fluids run contrary to their established properties]].

* StressVomit: The pit did this after [[spoiler:Anodyne injected it with muscle toxin during the 2007 incident]]. It digested people trying to escape, filled the air with acidic vapor for fifty miles, sent large pieces of undigested material into the air that came down and crushed things that were outside of what they had considered the danger zone, and allowed at least three of the organisms living within the pit to rampage on the surface.

* FreudWasRight: The Pit (which, remember, compels people to worship and delve into it) tends to be depicted in a decidedly yonic shape in illustrations and maps, not to mention it emits are what's explicitly described as "carnal moans." And then there's ''everything'' about the amniotic ballast bulbs.

* BodyHorror: Besides the Pit itself, the creatures that inhabit the Pit are often examples of this. They're actually the virtually unrecognizable descendants of countless animals the Pit has consumed during its existence that managed to survive for years by living as parasites deep in its cavernous innards, evolving to adapt to their unearthly environment, for better or worse. Because the Pit had an aquatic larval stage during its early days, most of them are evidently descended from sea creatures.

* FreudWasRight: The Pit (which, remember, compels people to worship and delve into it) tends to be depicted in a decidedly yonic shape in illustrations and maps. And there's the fact it sometimes emits what's explicitly described as "carnal moans," not to mention ''everything'' about the amniotic ballast bulbs.

* TimeAbyss: The Permian Basin Superorganism is ''ancient'', enough that many species have evolved to live exclusively in its organs over millions of years. There's also mention of it having many undigested bones and shells of marine organisms in some of its gastric seas, which, if it hadn't moved from its location in West Texas, would make it at least as old as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interior_Seaway oceans that once covered the area during the Cretaceous]].

* FreudWasRight: The Pit (which, remember, compels people to worship and delve into it) tends to be depicted in a decidedly yonic shape in illustrations and maps. And there's the fact it sometimes emits what's described as "carnal moans," the nature of the retrocognitive material ''gestation'' bulbs, not to mention ''everything'' about the amniotic ballast bulbs.

** The Gape Owl, despite the lore claiming that is evolved from avians, looks like a malnourished baby that walks with its large five-fingered hands.

* FreudWasRight: The Pit (which, remember, compels people to worship and delve into it) tends to be depicted in a decidedly yonic shape in illustrations and maps. Then there's ''everything'' about the amniotic ballast bulbs.