I love media where a bunch of guys go into a cursed place where everything is fucked up, and then one by one they become fucked up. Love their little journals like “Day 28… Hector is worms now. Beginning to question our mission??” 

Posting this iconic piece of media that I just NEVER found online isolated except in an archived reddit thread

The anime is called Daily Lives of High School Boys, for anyone who wants more of this kind of thing. And yes the entire series is like this.

Rewatching Truman Show for the first time in a long time, and the detail that’s stuck with me this time is the set design.

The characters drive modern cars and hock modern products, but it’s all presented with a veneer of 1950s wholesome applecheeked Americana. Truman’s life is presented as an escape for the audience from the drudgery of the modern day, and the aesthetic they’ve chosen for this is the post-war economic boom. This is the simple time, the movie says. This is the good time. Doesn’t the modern day suck? Let’s go back and see our friends from the days when life was good.

And it’s a lie. Truman’s life is a lie, and the image of white picket fenced suburbia they’ve presented is a lie. It’s an elaborate construction to recreate a false memory that’s comfortable for advertisers. The movie is a satire, but it’s also a very blatant statement against the nostalgia for a golden age which never existed. It’s a lie. It doesn’t exist.

I don’t know. I’m spitballing. I’m biased because I despise mid-20th century Americana and I naturally treat it with hostility, but it’s very gratifying to see a movie kind of agree with me.

Let me tell you a story.

Earlier in the summer, I went to Florida with my friend. We decided to visit a town nearish to where we were staying called Seaside, as we had heard it was a cute place. What I did not know at the time was that Seaside is the place where they filmed The Truman Show. It was a "master-planned community," constructed in the 80s to be the perfect beach town.

Seaside, FL

Seahaven

And yes, it really does look Like That. Not just in their tourist-agency photos, in real life it looks like that. Arguably the irl Seaside is even prettier than movie Seahaven, because the the office buildings where Truman works don't exist; the town is 100% cutesy homes and little shops.

I think about Power Wash Simulator a lot more than I should. The gameplay wasn't great (it was passable for a 'something to do with your hands' kind of game, but it's no Hardspace: Shipbreaker on Open Shift or anything) but it lives rent free in my head for having such a batshit story presentation. I cannot stop thinking about how they actually made that.

It shows something that I think most horror games lack, a division between the character’s mission and the story plot. Power Wash did a great job of feeling like the character is falling down a rabbit hole as a side effect of just doing their job.

It’s held together by loose threads that tighten up as the story goes on, slowly converging into being one thing.

The plot is not suspenseful, it’s just there and it waits for you.

It's also extremely funny how they manage to tie the plot not just into power washing, but into the limited functions that you expect from a power wash simulator. Like through the whole thing the ONLY things you can do are what you would expect from a power wash simulator -- accept jobs, clean stuff, and receive messages from clients. You don't have other functions that a guy who also has a power wash business would be able to do, you can only do Power Wash Simulator stuff. They commit to the bit. They do not cheat and give you extra abilities. You experience the entire story as a power wash simulation and a power wash simulation ONLY and that is just so incredibly funny to me.

It has plot???

It has the most unhinged plot that you could possibly put in a power wash simulator. There's time travel and aquatic precursors to humanity and an averted apocalypse involved and all you do is power wash.

sounds like I need to play power wash simulator

Well I hope you like pretend power washing

reminder to worldbuilders: don't get caught up in things that aren't important to the story you're writing, like plot and characters! instead, try to focus on what readers actually care about: detailed plate tectonics

Me, looking at my detailed physics calculations for how much of a "slope" on the floor would be caused by the spaceship's deceleration: I take this personally

I think about Power Wash Simulator a lot more than I should. The gameplay wasn't great (it was passable for a 'something to do with your hands' kind of game, but it's no Hardspace: Shipbreaker on Open Shift or anything) but it lives rent free in my head for having such a batshit story presentation. I cannot stop thinking about how they actually made that.

It shows something that I think most horror games lack, a division between the character’s mission and the story plot. Power Wash did a great job of feeling like the character is falling down a rabbit hole as a side effect of just doing their job.

It’s held together by loose threads that tighten up as the story goes on, slowly converging into being one thing.

The plot is not suspenseful, it’s just there and it waits for you.

It's also extremely funny how they manage to tie the plot not just into power washing, but into the limited functions that you expect from a power wash simulator. Like through the whole thing the ONLY things you can do are what you would expect from a power wash simulator -- accept jobs, clean stuff, and receive messages from clients. You don't have other functions that a guy who also has a power wash business would be able to do, you can only do Power Wash Simulator stuff. They commit to the bit. They do not cheat and give you extra abilities. You experience the entire story as a power wash simulation and a power wash simulation ONLY and that is just so incredibly funny to me.

It has plot???

It has the most unhinged plot that you could possibly put in a power wash simulator. There's time travel and aquatic precursors to humanity and an averted apocalypse involved and all you do is power wash.

Prompt #793

After being friends with a system for many years, Person A comes to the sudden realization that they, too, are a system. They decide to ask for advice in a roundabout way: asking System B about their journey in learning to live as a system.

@nidoskull @moonfall-collective @pinker-and-blacker

This prompt is just Being On The Derinwrites Forum

sometimes, the only way i know my roommate is still alive is the $30 cheese that appears and disappears from our fridge

the reviews are in

Body horror is weird when you know a lot disabled people because some times people say body horror and it the most deep wrong dread scary things and some times people say body horror and it will be a normal human with the body type of my friend alex who has marfans and the walking pattern of my friend kahurangi who has cerebral palsy and the hands fingers of my friend marama who has a congenital limb difference and bad arthritis

When I was 8 years old my friend in my special ed class at school was diagnosed with brain cancer. She was 6 years old. She moved when she could with this slow drag shuffle because she couldn't really pick her limbs up. She lost control of her face and eyes and hated not being able to pick what she was looking at. She became skinny and shrivelled and wasted at the same time as she became bloated and swollen and uneven . I watched her lose the ability to walk and then to crawl and I watched her lose the ability to feed her self and then to un curl her hands at all. Toward the end she stopped speaking even though it was one of the ability she had left because she didn't have any thing she wanted to say any more. toward the end she looked scared all the time I remember it. She died 5 months after being diagnosed at age 7 . At her tangihanga I remember her mum breaking down and falling to hands and knees and then curling up into a ball face down crying on the harakeke mat in front of the coffin. It was the first time And only time I have ever seen an adult cry like that. It's been nine years there is a memorial stone with her name and a butterfly carving on it at the local park in the footpath. I remember how she walked and moved. I watch a horror movie and I see her

In case you think the writers on strike aren't making good use of their time, think no more!

Only click the read more if you're fully prepared. I'm taking no responsibility past this point.

@derinthescarletpescatarian was this the inspiration for your public universal friends?

Yes

Remember when staff used never before seen moderation tools to thanos snap a blog and all its posts from existence, including reblogs, for insinuating a staff member may be a terf? And then never used that tool again to deal with the nazis and terfs and other hate groups infesting the place? Hmm <3

Remember when they introduced Blaze, promised that all submissions were moderated by staff members, then straight up Blazed people's suicide notes and hate speech?

Patreon chapter bomb has begun! Patrons get one chapter of Time to Orbit: Unknown every day for the next five days! Non-patrons, don’t worry; you’ll bee seeing these chapters in one week’s time.

You can discuss this story on our discord!

Hey read this! This rewired my brain (positive).

#literally devoured this#like i was physically incapable of putting it down#if i had any fucking money i would be pouring it into derin's patreon#literally cannot describe how good this is

Aha yes another one for the Cannot Stop Reading time trap

Some of the best creative advice I ever got was “if you don’t have a good idea, a bad idea will do”

look i love the magnus archives.

there are several reasons for that

but my favourite reason is its title.

if you were to act all silly and ask "who is magnus and what is he archiving" youd get two whole different answers, both completely correct: the first answer is at the very beginning of the very first episode. the second is a spoiler for every single major plot point til the fifth season

TREE! LAW! UPDATE!

the fact that a river ends at the mouth implies that the source is the anus, and a river flows from anus to mouth

not for this one I don't think so

??????

Returns to the scene of my crime post 10k notes like I'm watching a bonfire and bringing my favorite additions to roast like marshmallows over the flames.

You can read Time to Orbit: Unknown here: (x).

FUCK YES IT'S TAL. LOOK AT KEM.