Only God Can Top Me

22; she/her/hers; trans; wrasslin’ fangirl

[afloweroutofstone]

Saoirse is a trans woman in the Metro DC branch of DSA who was arrested several weeks ago for protesting in support of Palestine. The court has just issued an absurdly punitive order preventing her from entering Washington, DC for the next six months (she’s in the suburbs). You can donate to her at the link below to show your support and help her out in a tough situation

Saoirse Gowan legally exiled from DC, organized by Saoirse Gowan

Hi, my name is Saoirse and I'm asking my friends, loved ones and admirers for mone… Saoirse Gowan needs your support for Saoirse Gowan lega

[slavery]

when you unsuspectingly see your best friend at the store

[internalscorpio-deactivated2019]

why the fuck would this be my reaction

[slavery]

You must not have a best friend

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So I noticed on the wildlife brochure that there’s a logo marked “joint disaster reclamation venture”. What was the “disaster”, if the brochure is before the closing incident?

Because the Mystery Flesh Pit was a discovery unprecedented to modern science, the Dept. of the Interior, along with the EPA, initially classified it as an ecological disaster.

Anodyne Deep Earth Mining INC. had been awarded the primary operational contract for the earliest surveys and expeditions into the pit with a unique agreement that they would be granted an exclusive mining lease for resource extraction.

In the interest of transparency in government, the partnership was made public knowledge, with the development activities being referred to as “reclamation”. This terminology stuck around even in the decades following the discovery, long after the immense value of the Mystery Flesh Pit was realized.

Ironically, this terminology was finally accurate only after the 2007 accident. Anodyne, INC. continues to jointly operate the Permian Basin Superorganism Containment & Ecological Exclusion Zone, but has taken a number of steps to distance its brand from the role it played in the tragedy.

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During the heyday of the Mystery Flesh Pit National Park, many attempts were made to entice foreign tourists to visit the park. Many of these earlier marketing campaigns were met with middling effectiveness, while later branding strategies focusing on the natural health benefits of the Amniotic Spring Baths yielded far greater success. This south korean language advertisement is an example of an earlier campaign which, like its original american counterpart, focused on the thrilling and adventurous aspects of the unique park.  Many thanks to members of the MFP Discord (invite link-> https://discord.gg/mVsRtewwV9 ) who provided the translation of this poster. Thanks Ranty!

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Of the many activities available to visitors to the Mystery Flesh Pit National Park, perhaps the most difficult and challenging were the many natural trails and hiking routes. These natural trails, unlike the reinforced & enclosed “tour” trails familiar to most park visitors, were well-respected and infamous among hiking enthusiasts for the intense endurance required to successfully hike a full route. Climbing, Caving, Diving and Orienteering were all skills demanded by a trail hike, though the introduction of the Interventerial Camping Equipment Kit made the logistics a manageable prospect for park guests. For a $130 deposit, pairs of visitors could rent a kit from the park’s lower visitor center for up to two weeks at a time. While revolutionary for the time (and essential for any serious attempt at camping within the entrails of the Mystery Flesh Pit), many have complained about the noise and weight of the Support Packs, as well as the claustrophobia of the tent design. Today, surviving units in operating condition are often used by Antarctic research personnel on extended expeditions where vehicular shelters are not viable.  

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Newspaper clipping from the Dallas Morning News in 1975. This is one of the earliest public accounts of the pit, from the days when James Jackson used to personally give tours. 

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This chart, and many others like it, were produced by the Park Service as an educational tool for use in classrooms, museums and universities. Popular among natural history enthusiasts, the illustrations featured on these posters were the result of intensive expeditions and surveys into the Mystery Flesh Pit. While visitors are almost certain to encounter common fauna such as the myriad of Macrobacteria subspecies, many organisms such as the Venous Shamble and Abyssal Copepod tend to evade trails and high-traffic areas, making them difficult to spot. As a practical tool, these illustrations were useful in training Wildlife Management rangers in proper firearm techniques for safely dispatching a dangerous organism. For this reason, the designers of this and other charts attempted to represent the scale of the organisms in relation to each other as accurately as possible. 

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Jackson Letter #2 August 24th 1973

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Often called “lighthouses” by seasoned hikers and park field staff, the emergency trail phones located along most developed trails within the Mystery Flesh Pit National Park were the result of one of the most ambitious subterranean telecommunications projects of the late 20th century. Conventional radio communication systems were completely ineffective at piercing the miles of dense flesh and bone which constituted the geobiology of the park. Over a two year period beginning in 1975, more than 150 miles of cables were laid, threaded and draped through the organs and tissues of the Permian Basin Superorganism in order to establish a reliable land-line communication network. While the Anodyne Corporation developed the bulk of this infrastructure – at enormous expense – AT&T was subcontracted to design and install the unique public call boxes most park visitors would be familiar with. Guests could use these “emergency” phones to call the Lower Visitor Center at no cost, or they could be used to call an outside number for a small fee. Though engineered to survive the humid and caustic environment of the Mystery Flesh Pit’s internal anatomy, routine maintenance was required to prevent phones located in the deeper sections of the park from becoming subsumed by natural muscle actions of the pit. Today, it is unknown how many, if any, of these emergency phone stations are still operational, as the United States Dept. of the Interior has barred civilian access to the former park’s many trails.

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Coke Heartthrob was first introduced on Valentines Day in 1985 as a limited promotion, but sold so well over the summer that Coca Cola added it to their primary beverage roster in 1986. The defining ingredient in Coke Heartthrob was, of course, amniotic ballast harvested from special glands deep within the Mystery Flesh Pit. The potent aphrodisiacal properties of amniotic ballast were diminished by heavily diluting the chemical before adding it to the beverage, but Coke Heartthrob still developed a notorious reputation for its unusual intoxicating effects. The taste of Coke Heartthrob was described as “Syrupy-Sweet” with hints of “Amaretto & Rosewater”, and the beverage had a light pheromonal scent similar to perfume. A combination of increasing extraction costs after the 2007 tragedy, as well as changing cultural attitudes, ultimately saw the decline of Coke Heartthrob sales until the Coca Cola company decided to discontinue the beverage in 2011. 

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One of the many lucrative results of the development of the Mystery Flesh Pit were tremendous advances in the fields of computer science and cybernetics. The American conglomerate Anodyne, Inc. pioneered the design and development of “wetware” computing in the early 1980s by harvesting living nervous tissue from the Permian Basin Superorganism. The processing capabilities provided by these living tissues were decades ahead of technology at the time and allowed Anodyne a brief commanding share of an already saturated computer market.

While the user interface of these computers were similar to other machines of the time, the resource requirements necessary to power the electrical systems as well as the living tissue life support systems made them expensive to operate, and almost impossible to repair without highly specialized equipment.

Following the 2007 incident which permanently closed the pit and plunged the company into bankruptcy, Anodyne was forced to dissolve its cybernetics division and related assets. Today, even late-model “wetware” machines are rare to find outside of computer museums, as maintaining the internal organic tissues of these computers has been made effectively impossible with the loss of the proprietary knowledge & equipment after Anodyne was shuttered.

[mysteryfleshpit]

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Photos of the April 1980 annexation which brought the Mystery Flesh Pit into the U.S. National Park System. President Carter, near the end of his presidency, met with D.o.I & Anodyne personnel at the entry site itself to officially sign the proclamation. Below, an aerial photo of the pit and surrounding site captures the scale of work that took place from 1978-1981 to develop & improve the park’s interior infrastructure. 

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Some of the many NPS & Contractor staff you might encounter during a visit to the Mystery Flesh Pit National Park (I thought I would upload the large/clean versions of these designs since they are a little lost on a small kiosk photo. I’m also curious if formatting the art like this increases the amount of reach it has. My suspicious is that it might.)