Line #105 WebOriginal/MysteryFleshPitNationalPark


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6	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/q6myr1dhduz21.png]]
7	[[caption-width-right:350:Fun for the whole family![[note]]poster taken from [[https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/brvgkh/tourism_poster_for_mystery_flesh_pit_national/ here]][[/note]]]]
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9	''Mystery Flesh Pit National Park'' is an AnalogHorror series created by [[https://www.reddit.com/user/StrangeVehicles/ Trevor [="StrangeVehicles"=] Roberts]]. It revolves around the titular Mystery Flesh Pit (''Immanis colosseus''), better known as 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]], when [[MegaCorp Anodyne]]'s lethal negligence causes a horrific tragedy.
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11	And that just barely scratches the surface of a tragic tale of mankind's hubris and corporate greed joining forces in the face of the unknown.
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13	Most of the lore can be found on either the [[https://www.reddit.com/r/FleshPitNationalPark/ official Subreddit]] or on {{Website/Tumblr}} [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/ here]], with videos being hosted on a related Website/YouTube [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPxSRoOaCNaZzNfLk71EOPw/featured channel]]. While building the setting, Roberts is also in the process of creating a book, and can be supported on his [[https://www.patreon.com/t_roberts Patreon]].
14	----
15	!!The Mystery Flesh Pit contains examples of:
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17	* FiveFiveFive: The number to call for information about the [=GeoSpa=][[TradeSnark ™]] Amniotic Ballast hot tub is 888-555-0168.
18	* AmbiguouslyEvil: The Pit, assuming it's even sentient, might be able to [[MoreThanMindControl psychically influence parkgoers into worshipping it]], or this might just be [[BizarreAlienBiology a natural side effect of its biological processes]]. Or maybe some people are just naturally inclined to worship [[{{Kaiju}} really big things]] like [[EldritchAbomination the Pit]].
19	* AmbulanceChaser: Some attorneys made a point of [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/625716530518360066 advertising their services]] to parkgoers who might wish to seek compensation for injuries or trauma resulting from the hazards of the Pit. It was a niche but highly profitable endeavor, and the suits and settlements only became frequent after the disaster in 2007.
20	* AnachronicOrder: Content produced varies widely but generally falls into materials from the discovery and early days of the Pit and Anodyne's explorations of it, the heyday of when it was a national park, and the events that've happened since the 2007 disaster.
21	* 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, so one might say that it backfired ''considerably''.
22	* ApocalypseHow: Discussed on a continental level. The report on the 2007 disaster concludes that if the Pit ever became mobile, there is very little humanity could do to stop it, meaning all life in the entire western hemisphere could perish. It may escalate to a '''Planetary''' level depending on how far the creature roams, its unknown capabilities and intentions while ambulatory, and whether or not it reaching into the mantle would mean its exit leaving a hole in the crust that'd make Yellowstone look like a spilled coffee cup.
23	* AprilFoolsDay: The post was taken down the day after, but for this [=StrangeVehicles=] announced he would start posting about the exceedingly mundane, understood, and safe Familiar Metal Tower National Park.
24	* BeneathTheEarth: The Flesh Pit is underground. It's both this and a WombLevel.
25	* ArtisticLicenseBiology: A [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superorganism "superorganism"]] is a real natural phenomenon—that said, the term only applies to multiple creatures working together like bees or termites, while the Flesh Pit appears to just be one single gargantuan monster.
26	** Possibly subverted, given what little is known about the organism (such as its decentralized organ systems), it could be one akin to a massive fleshy Portuguese man o' war or anemones, both of which are colonies of individual organisms acting as a whole.
27	* BiotechIsBetter: Subverted with Anodyne's [[WetwareCPU wetware computers]]. While incredibly powerful, they turned out to be AwesomeButImpractical due to both their high power requirements and the highly specialised equipment needed to maintain them, especially after the 2007 disaster.
28	* BizarreAlienBiology: The Pit. It seems to lack any sort of symmetry or even an overall body plan, and it's noted that the deeper one travels inside it, the less like terrestrial biology it becomes. It has what are essentially ''biological hot springs'' inside it (to say nothing about what the [[FantasticMedicinalBodilyProduct "water"]] can [[FantasticDrug do to you]]), and the non-Newtonian "blue tissue" found deep within the Pit has properties that suggest the Pit metabolizes fossil fuels as a food source, but perhaps its strangest features are the "Gift Gardens" -- air sacs that inexplicably contain exact replicas of items that visitors to the park had previously misplaced. And that's not even mentioning the [[OurMonstersAreWeird creatures live in the thing]].
29	* BlobMonster: Macrobacteria, one variety of creature living in the Pit. Contrary to what their name suggests, they are actually a species of echinoderm that evolved among numerous other [[TerrestrialSeaLife formerly-aquatic]] life inhabiting the superorganism's body.
30	* 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's species is known to have an aquatic larval stage, most of them are descended from sea creatures. In more detail:
31	** A wildlife safety brochure reveals that surface animals (including people) pulled into the Pit may be combined into "amalgamations," with "partial fusing of major body elements and relocation of internal organs to locations on the exterior of the body." The brochure notes that in the [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial extremely unlikely]] scenario that an amalgamation contains one or more [[WasOnceAMan human constituent organisms]], visitors should immediately contact a park ranger.
32	** The cephalopod-derived Venous Shamble gets its name from the many long veins that extend out of its body, which it uses as ''legs''.
33	** The [[https://redd.it/lctuez Amorphous Shame]] is a mustelid relative that has adapted to life in the pit by losing its hair, teeth, eyesight, and eventually ''limbs, muscles, and skeleton'', becoming a living tangle of viscera, glands and veins.
34	** 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 mound" instead flash-calcified them into a birthday cake-colored mass of horrifying twisted faces.
35	* BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu: Anodyne was able to keep the Pit from awakening completely during the 2007 incident, but their Plan A backfired so horribly that 750 people died, [[spoiler:the device they used for Plan B was broken in the process, and the Pit could still wake up at any time.]]
36	* CallASmeerpARabbit: [[BlobMonster Macrobacteria]] are not actually bacteria at all, but rather echinoderms that have evolved certain similarities to bacteria as some sort of adaptation to their [[WombLevel environment]], as explained [[https://www.reddit.com/r/FleshPitNationalPark/comments/jarn0a/first_official_mystery_flesh_pit_ama/g90etj6/?context=3 here]].
37	* CameFromTheSky: This may or may not be the origin of the Superorganism and its kind: [[https://nasa-oic-va-gov.tumblr.com/post/650998381181878272/nasa-orbital-imaging-center-vanguard-program a NASA probe]] appears to have found a fossilized Superorganism on Venus, although it's unclear what, if any, relation it might have to the one in Texas.
38	* CapitalismIsBad: The lore has undertones of this. [[MegaCorp Anodyne]]'s immediate reaction to discovering a gigantic sleeping EldritchAbomination is to dig into its flesh, [[MonsterOrganTrafficking 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. And as a direct result of Anodyne’s hubris and assumed superiority biting them in the ass, said abomination is now effectively a ticking time bomb that could wake up at any time, likely with [[ApocalypseHow consequences on a planetary scale,]] without anyone being able to stop it from causing massive amounts of destruction and carnage.
39	* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: The setting as a whole, by virtue of growing used to the existence of the Superorganism.
40	* CoolCar: [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/190619043473/one-of-the-earliest-challenges-in-the-development The Grumman IAV]], described by one commenter as "an articulated racecar with a winch." After the 2007 disaster, the few surviving examples became highly sought-after by wealthy car collectors.
41	* {{Cyborg}}: There are a few scattered references to technology derived from the Pit facilitating cybernetic technology, though in-universe much of it remains classified by the US Government after the 2007 disaster, and [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/630519082138107904/qa-002 Anodyne's experiments prior to that]] were very controversial. Notably, TheNarrator of the tumblr account says this was ''not'' a pleasant existence, with many cyborgs being barely a step above a BrainInAJar.
42	* DeathSeeker: What happened near the end of the official timeline of the 2007 disaster, with [[spoiler:people leaving the hastily-erected field hospitals and crawling back into the pit orifice. A few survivors have expressed that they felt compelled to go into the pit, but as most of the people who did try to go back in had succeeded, there isn't that much information about why.]]
43	* DeliberateValuesDissonance:
44	** Documents pertaining to the Park were produced between the 1970s and the early 2000s, and reflect the attitudes of those eras. The most blatant example is [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/626186735847702528/this-info-kiosk-was-originally-installed-in this info kiosk]], in which Anodyne describes undocumented Mexican grunt laborers very stereotypically and [[MoodDissonance in the same cheery tone as the rest of the info]].
45	** 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 deliberately 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.]]
46	* DisasterDominoes: The 2007 incident started off with innocuous errors or changes to routine, and bit-by-bit escalated into a catastrophe.
47	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: A pathologically greedy MegaCorp makes massive profits off extracting invaluable natural resources, despite the fact that continued extraction will [[ForegoneConclusion inevitably]] have catastrophic consequences for all of humankind. Instead, the company [[CapitalismIsBad deliberately plays down risks while displaying criminal negligence of safety features]]. It's [[GreenAesop not a coincidence]] that the Flesh Pit is located in the Permian Basin, the most prolific oilfield in the United States, after all.
48	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Early artworks contains more psychological and ominous theme that are largely replaced by a more rigid scientific tone. Notably the first version of the post-2007 signage refers the pit as "the underground god" in ancient Sumerian. Revised version later on refers it merely as the "superorganism."
49	* 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," a third vehicle had to be left for dead because there was no way to rescue the inhabitants before "full mastication" occurred, 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]].
50	* EerilyOutOfPlaceObject: The [[https://www.mysteryfleshpitnationalpark.com/image/677724123022114816 Well of the Abhumans]] contained several humanoid corpses in varying states of decomposition. Carbon-dating dated two of the bodies to different eras in Earth's past; the third, however, is merely noted to possess a skeleton comprised entirely out of plastic, although the significance of this remains unclear.
51	* EldritchAbomination:
52	** 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. Its biology is utterly alien to anything else on Earth, has strange properties on human consciousness that include hallucinations and clairvoyance, and it's suggested that the Superorganism is capable of compelling humans to worship it.
53	** 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 floating within the blue tissue layer seemingly consumed the pilot.]]
54	* EnemyMine: Of a sort. Project Freefall was created and undertaken by a joint effort between the USA's Department of Defense and the Soviet Academy of Sciences, in 1979, where both superpowers were still very much at each other's throats. The USA and the Soviet Union, despite their differences, understood the Pit was a ''dangerous'' unknown factor that threatened them both if it didn't stay controlled.
55	* EverythingIsBigInTexas: The Pit was discovered by oil workers in the Permian Basin of West Texas, and [[EldritchAbomination it certainly is "big"]]. One of the peripheral elements of the setting explores the fictional city and county of Gumption and the economic boom and bust it underwent as the Pit was discovered, developed, and then abandoned. Not to mention, 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.
56	* FacialHorror: [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/637992941520125952 Some poor victim]] of ''[[NothingIsScarier something]]'' in the pit displays some unknown sort of facial damage that took out most facial tissue and left one ''big'' eye without lids. Knowing the Pit, the best-case scenario is that the man's face got melted off by acid; otherwise, some manner of horrific genetic tampering may have been involved.
57	* FailsafeFailure: One of the park's untested master failsafe mechanisms was a network of sensor stations that could inject the Pit with thousands of liters of potent muscle toxin, the theory being that the injection would paralyze or sedate the Pit long enough to get things under control. In 2007, [[spoiler:it had the ''opposite'' effect, causing the Pit to enter spastic fits that escalated the situation from bad to worse]].
58	* FantasticDrug: The Pit's "amniotic thermal springs" produce a substance known as amniotic ballast with a concentrated mix of chemicals that is, among other things, a ''very'' potent aphrodisiac and mood-altering substance in its most concentrated form. Another chemical within the ballast acts as a natural contraceptive, and is particularly potent within the springs with the highest concentrations of aphrodisiacs.
59	* FantasticMedicinalBodilyProduct: The Pit's ballast fluid can also be used to treat both cancer and dementia. Unfortunately, it's also addictive, with many suffering from "depressive withdrawal periods" after the park closed in 2007.
60	* FantasticReligiousWeirdness: One offhand mention from a fictional magazine, [[https://64.media.tumblr.com/a3a34886b383f47f60d33f96fb8998ea/40c97767163ea883-5d/s1280x1920/7ff75a1aa9788e2236dc30cb6b2a7934ce603f02.png Sanctify,]] says that a rabbi declared eating Pit meat to be non-kosher. Kosher laws prohibit Jews from eating both bottom-feeding animals and the hindquarters of animals. The pit is ''probably'' a bottomfeeder, and nobody knows where its hindquarters are.
61	* 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.
62	* 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.
63	%%* ForWantOfANail: Had it not been for some particularly stormy weather, questionable attempts at compensation and 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.]]
64	* 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 are explicitly described as "carnal moans." And then there's ''everything'' about the amniotic ballast bulbs.
65	* FrickinLaserBeams: The [[https://redd.it/kh8p8q LaserScope Anatomical Environment Multitool]] was developed to help engineers and surveyors easily cut paths through the Pit. It also turned out to be pretty handy in defending against the indigenous wildlife and is still in service in the Pit to this day.
66	* GaiasVengeance: The Pit ''was'' dormant, until Anodyne started to mess with its internal biology. Now a 200-mile-wide creature could start walking around any day now, and we can't figure out how to keep it asleep, so all we can do is try and delay the inevitable.
67	* GeniusLoci: The Pit's interior is not only explorable but able to support its own internal ecosystem, with many [[OurMonstersAreWeird bizarre creatures]] being found within. It also has extensive nervous tissue that was once harvested to create supercomputers, and has tissue similar to grey matter, but doesn't seem to respond to actions or communicate in a conscious way.
68	* HumanoidAbomination:
69	** The Abyssal Copepods are mostly just oversized crustaceans, but have suspiciously humanlike hands.
70	** The Gasp Owl, despite the lore claiming that is evolved from avians, looks like a malnourished baby that walks with its large five-fingered hands.
71	* HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: The infamous disaster resulting in the closure of the Park happened on July 4th.
72	* IncompetenceInc: Anodyne, if the CGR's incident report is to be believed. One of the ''[[DisasterDominoes many]]'' contributing factors behind the 2007 incident that got the park shut down essentially amounted to lack of maintenance on a water pump. An ''emergency'' water pump.
73	* InSpiteOfANail: Despite the massive changes in technology and politics in this world, its 2007 had UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush as POTUS and Rick Perry as Governor of Texas, just like in our universe.
74	* IronicName: "Anodyne" means either "comforting" or "harmless." As this page can attest, Anodyne the company is most definitely neither of those things.
75	* 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 [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt entire world]].
76	* {{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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJLQ5pDpzHw This EAS video]] reveals the true shape of the Superorganism as it stirs in its sleep, causing an earthquake in the process - apparently, it possesses five limbs in a radial arrangement around a central body almost reminiscent of a starfish.]]
77	* {{Kayfabe}}: Many commenters on the official subreddit share their fictional memories of visiting the park and otherwise speak of it as though it were real.
78	* MagicalNativeAmerican: Downplayed. Within the setting, there are legends amongst the Caddo Nation from the surrounding area [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/630519082138107904/qa-002 of a beast within the earth that might have been the Pit]], and reference to healing waters. However, whatever the "[[AncientArtifact ritual sites]]" that Anodyne discovered when they began excavating it are has been left unclear as of yet.
79	* {{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, for obvious reasons.
80	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane:
81	** [=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's body, and suggestion blaming the amniotic fluids run contrary to their established properties]].
82	** In November of 2021 Roberts provided an explanation in a Q&A as to why [[spoiler:the survivors climbed back into the Pit. Apparently, they were [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/668782955144069120/qa-004 just trying to go back and rescue their loved ones still trapped in the Pit.]]]]
83	* MeaningfulName: The Permian Basin Superorganism's scientific name, ''Immanis colosseus'', is Latin for "monstrous colossus."
84	* MegaCorp: At its height, Anodyne was the twenty-third largest company in the United States by revenue and dealt in a wide variety of products, [[MonsterOrganTrafficking most of which had some connection to the Flesh Pit]].
85	* MonsterOrganTrafficking: Up until 2007, Anodyne were extracting fluid from the Pit's [[BizarreAlienBiology ballast bulbs]], mining building materials from its skeleton, harvesting its brain tissue and ''marketing the whole thing as a tourist attraction''. And the handful of materials written from the modern day indicate that the allure of the unique materials found within the Pit is slowly taking precedence over the fear of waking it up, as commercial extraction hasn't tapered off, but even increased.
86	* 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.
87	* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast:
88	** The fauna living in the Pit have a variety of wonderful names, including the Venous Shamble, the Shrieking Cloistropod, the Amorphous Shame, the Stinging Triocanth, and the Abyssal Copepod.
89	** Many locations within the Pit, such as "God's Mistake" and the "[[MonsterClown Circus Clown Chymus]]." [[NothingIsScarier Few of these are elaborated upon]].
90	** And honestly, something called a "Mystery Flesh Pit" should be on that list ''somewhere''.
91	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The park operators' attempts to bring the situation under control in 2007 escalated the incident from a minor incident to a catastrophe. Not only did they get 750 people killed, their actions [[spoiler:partially woke up the Pit]].
92	* NightmareFetishist: Seemingly most people in the setting. Because how else would you describe someone whose idea of a good time is [[WombLevel crawling through the internal organs]] of an EldritchAbomination, bathing in its bodily fluids, spotting the [[OurMonstersAreWeird bizarre creatures]] [[GeniusLoci that live in there]], and in some cases outright ''worshipping'' the thing. For a more literal example, religious pilgrims engaging in "psychosexual rituals" within and ''with'' the Flesh Pit were common enough to merit mention in hiking pamphlets.
93	* NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: Some of the National Park Service-branded material is directly based off of Carlsbad Caverns National Park in nearby New Mexico.
94	* NoHistoricalFiguresWereHarmed: James "Slippin' Jim" Jackson, the discoverer of the Flesh Pit, is partially based on James Larkin White, the discoverer and keeper of the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.
95	* NoodleIncident: The 2007 disaster was originally this, with the only information being vague references to improper maintenance by Anodyne and a response to a {{Website/Tumblr}} ask mentioning "unseasonably heavy rains" and "under-lubricated pump bearings" as causing the incident. This all changed in June 2020 when [=StrangeVehicles posted=] [[https://www.reddit.com/r/FleshPitNationalPark/comments/hi678l/2007_mystery_flesh_pit_disaster_investigation/ this]] official report detailing what happened that day.
96	* NoOSHACompliance: The official report reveals that Anodyne was ''astoundingly'' blasé about conducting routine maintenance on critical park infrastructure.
97	* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: The device used to [[spoiler:pacify the Flesh Pit during the 2007 incident]] relies on [[AncientArtifact "mystic artifacts"]] excavated from ritual sites near the flesh pit; due to commercial development of the park destroying those sites, no other artifacts have been recovered intact. [[spoiler:The only artifacts recovered were damaged during the device's first activation, and no one is sure if it'll work the next time it's turned on without replacements.]]
98	* NukeEm: Nuking the Flesh Pit was [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/637785875861962752/unfortunately-only-the-cover-could-be extensively discussed]], but ultimately decided against.
99	* OrganicTechnology: Anodyne's various experiments in trying to adapt pit biomaterials for commercial use, includinghte aforementioned cybernetics and organic computers.
100	* OurMonstersAreWeird: [[https://www.reddit.com/r/FleshPitNationalPark/comments/hnlsa1/major_parasitic_fauna_chart/ Several]].
101	** The Abyssal Copepod are essentially giant crustaceans with ''human hands''.
102	** The Venous Shamble is some sort of cephalopod with one long thick tentacle and long external blood vessels that it ''walks'' on.
103	** The Greater and Lesser Ballast Sirens are what appear to be complex mollusc-like creatures that act as ambush predators, as well as producing fluids that are similar to the ballast fluid within the amniotic springs.
104	** The [[MeaningfulName Amorphous Shame]] tops them by appearing to be merely a cluster of random organs that used to be a ''[[https://redd.it/lctuez weasel]]''.
105	** Then there's the Flesh Pit itself- a Megafauna hundreds of miles wide possibly extending down in to the Mantle.
106	* OurLawyersAdvisedThisTrope: Various legal disclaimers pepper the park's print materials. This includes your basic warnings about visitors being "responsible for their own safety" outside of marked boardwalks, mandatory safety briefings, and death/injury incidence reports. But it also mentions a Conduct & Consent pamphlet for entering into the aphrodisiac swimming pools and a suggestion to consult a physician, cleric, or sexual wellness counsellor before entering. After the 2007 disaster, it was commented that it was probably the illusion of managed risk that did the park in.
107	* PurpleProse: A lot of the humor of the work derives from a spot-on parody of the type of overwrought language found on tourist information panels and brochures--except instead of them talking up a nice waterfall or canyon, it's describing the wonderous sight of looking at a gargantuan lung from the inside.
108	* RippedFromTheHeadlines: [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/638308242994429952/some-strange-things-in-the-covid-relief-bill Apparently]], the COVID-19 relief bill passed by the US government included an allotment of over $100 million USD to Pit-related agencies.
109	* Rule34: [[SexualEuphemism "Short-film "documentaries"]] of what people do in the lower reaches of the aphrodisiac pools can be purchased at the giftshop in the Upper Visitor's Center.
110	* ScrapbookStory: As a world building setting, the details of the setting are mostly conveyed through in-universe documentation, with much of them focusing on the discovery, exploitation, and heydey of the park.
111	* ShownTheirWork: Thoroughly, as there is large focus on presenting the setting as real. The bulk of 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. Other materials attempt to replicate industrial forms, academic textbooks, presentations, and emergency alerts.
112	* 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. [[spoiler:This trope gets ''completely and conclusively'' averted due to NASA discovering a fossilized Superorganism on Venus.]]
113	* StarfishAliens: The Permian Basin Superorganism is an incomprehensibly titanic organism with whole ecosystems in it's innards, helps that it just so happens to be literally starfish shaped judging by scans of it. [[spoiler:And the existence of the fossilized remains of what is unmistakably another specimen of Immanis Colosseus under the surface of ''the planet Venus'' implies the "alien" part of the designation here almost certainly applies.]]
114	* StressVomit: The Superorganism did this after [[spoiler:Anodyne injected it with muscle toxin during the 2007 incident]]. It digested people trying to escape before it eventually threw up, filling the air with acidic vapor for fifty miles, sending 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, subsequently allowing at least three of the organisms living within the Superorganism's guts to rampage on the surface.
115	* SwallowedWhole: Entering the Flesh Pit is, essentially, climbing down the organism's throat, and venturing from marked trails carries the risk of becoming trapped and digested. The "Swallowed Whole" guided tour was a one-mile hike to one of the Flesh Pit's deepest marked sections which required visitors to descend -- and later climb -- an eight-story-high ''actively swallowing'' throat structure.
116	* TerrestrialSeaLife: Many of the Pit's native species are descended from sea creatures, such as the echinoderms called macrobacteria and the abyssal copepod. [=StrangeVehicles=] confirms in a Reddit comment that the Pit was aquatic at an earlier stage in its life cycle, so its fauna are most likely descended from organisms it swallowed then.
117	* 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]], thus placing its potential age at about 146 million years. [[spoiler:And the existence of the fossilized remains of another its species on another planet in our solar system may imply that its species as a whole may be far older than even that.]]
118	* WetwareCPU: Anodyne attempted to make these for the consumer market [[https://mysteryfleshpit.tumblr.com/post/637699886736883712/one-of-the-many-lucrative-results-of-the using Pit nervous tissue]]. Unfortunately, while the AD-1 was [[BiotechIsBetter incredibly powerful even by today's standards]], it turned out to be AwesomeButImpractical due to its high power use and maintenance costs, and became almost impossible to maintain after the 2007 disaster, due to most of the specialist knowledge needed to maintain one being effectively lost after Anodyne went bankrupt.
119	* WhamEpisode: The 2007 incident. [[spoiler:A series of DisasterDominoes eventually leads to the Pit spasming during an electrical grid reset, crushing most if not all of the infrastructure built inside and trapping people inside the thing. An untested emergency protocol involving pumping the thing full of muscle toxin makes it essentially puke, showering the local area and people in gastric acid, undigested chunks, and some of the organisms native to the Pit. [[FromBadToWorse And then,]] this whole disaster makes the Pit wake up and the park rangers have to use a currently unknown contingency measure to pacify it. The park closes down, Anodyne becomes bankrupt a year later, and the contingency measure broke so when the beast inevitably wakes up completely, we're screwed.]]
120	* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: In-universe, the Pit was marketed as a ''family'' attraction, with [[https://www.reddit.com/r/FleshPitNationalPark/comments/jlpv7j/happy_halloween_from_your_friends_at_the_mystery/ a cartoon mascot and activities specifically for children]].
121	* WombLevel: The ''entire premise'' revolves around [[MegaCorp Anodyne]]'s attempt to market the innards of a gargantuan monster as a tourist attraction.

Context WebOriginal / MysteryFleshPitNationalPark