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NEVERMIND IS BACK ON KICKSTARTER

ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT WITH FUNDING AT 34%

“Nevermind is a biofeedback-enhanced horror adventure game that takes you into the dark and twisted world within the subconscious minds of psychological trauma victims.

As you explore surreal labyrinths and solve the puzzles of the mind, a biofeedback sensor monitors how scared or stressed you become with each passing moment. If you let your fears get the best of you, the game becomes harder. If you’re able to calm yourself in the face of terror, the game will be more forgiving.

…

One exciting facet of Nevermind is its potential to serve as a full-fledged therapeutic tool for those who struggle with challenges - mild or severe - relating to stress, anxiety, PTSD, or other similar conditions. Although informal testing results have been promising thus far, we are excited to be in discussion as we speak with researchers who are eager to explore Nevermind’s potential impact via rigorous clinical trials.”

Watch Markiplier’s LP of the demo 

NOTE: This is a TWO YEAR OLD version of the game - it looks and plays MUCH better now!

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Two of pentacles

by Daniel_VG

I don’t remember when the thought first started. It might have been shortly after my birthday in June. God what an awful evening it had been. Plastic plates with half eaten pizza and cake were littered throughout the house. Someone had managed to squish a whole piece of chocolate cake into my bedroom drawer where I keep my underwear.

I can tell you one thing, going to work commando style is not the best experience. Having my reproductive system smell and taste like cheap icing was also not an option.

I’m not going to go into any additional gory details about the state my bathroom was after the party had finished, but I do remember the feeling of being out of breath. By the time I had cleaned up most of my apartment, my heart was pounding in my ears and felt as if I’d run a marathon.

A couple of nights after that, the thoughts began.

“What if I’ve left the oven running?”

“Did I really lock the front door? Better check to be extra sure!”

“Have I switched off the lights in the living room?”

You know, they are stupid things to obsess about, but when you have to go back to your apartment four or five times to check the door, you start getting late to work. Getting scolded for not being punctual, or even being called unprofessional start a whole other bunch of irrational thoughts and fears.

“What if they fire me for being constantly late? Should have turned that oven off! Wait, I didn’t even cook yesterday.”

“I’m sure those two are talking behind my back. Jesus, what if they know that I’m going to be demoted and make fun of me?”

As you can imagine, things only got worse. One light switch left unturned could culminate to thoughts of isolation from my friends and colleagues. They did seem awfully distant to me anyway, plus, getting rid of unnecessary social interactions would allow me to focus more on getting my life back on track. Right?

So I quit my job a couple of months after the birthday party, to focus more on me. I kept the apartment in an immaculate state. Numbered each room and had a very rigid regime of visiting each one at a particular time to make sure that everything was in order.

The fridge door was closed.

Check.

The oven was no longer connected to the power outlet.

Check.

The bathroom window was still nailed shut.

Check.

You understand that once I had made sure that my daily routine ensured the proper functioning of both my household and myself, all my past worries were gone. This didn’t last long however.

“What if someone comes over uninvited?”

“They’ll make a mess out of your place.”

“All your sacrifices and hard work, gone, flushed down the drain.”

I couldn’t allow that, but I couldn’t bolt myself inside the house indefinitely. Or could I?

The next day I had emptied out any e-shop that would offer long shelf life food and beverages. Needless to say that my savings and any existing credit I might have had was long gone by the time I was forced to stop my splurge spree. But it was worth it.

Soon I had stocked up enough canned beans, tomato soup and dried fruit to last me for a few years at least.

“But what if you run out?”

“What if you don’t have any more food left and you’ll have to go outside?”

“Holy crap! What if someone comes over when you’re gone and messes up your place?”

No. No! That couldn’t happen. I had to figure this out, be smarter than the cunning gods, who were pushing the fates against me. Rations would extend my isolation for quite a while, but it was only a temporary solution. Perhaps I could extend the rations even further by sleeping for extended periods of time?

That’s the trick! I started staying in bed for ten to twelve hours a day in the beginning. Luckily the rations I was eating had led to a major weight loss, which brought an unshakeable fatigue with it. By the time a month had passed I would only get out of bed for a couple of hours to use the bathroom and keep myself hydrated.

But it wasn’t enough. I know you’re laughing at me behind your little screens, but I’m telling you, that I needed to sleep longer. So I’m holding this old prescription bottle of anti-depressants I used to take. They never really helped, only made me extremely drowsy, so I stopped taking them months ago. But today they might actually be my salvation.

I’ll take around 20 of them, that should do the trick.

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A reddit user received this in the mail with a note from the USPS, that said “The carrier who services your route was involved in a Industrial or Motor Vehicle incident. Due to the incident your mail came in contact with blood” (Source)

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The Freaky Flowing Mountains of Lake Erie, photographed by Dave Sandford

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Baroque Period Anatomical Wax Model

Venerina - Anatomical Venus 1780-1782

Marie Marguerite Bihéron

Anatomical Eve - 16-17th Century

Anatomical Venus - 19th c. Wax

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Guys, sorry for my massive inactivity

I had a problem with the email, and I was lucky enough today to have an epiphany to remember all my login stuff

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UNETHICAL EXPERIMENTS: SHOCKS FOR PICTURES

In 1862, French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne wanted to test the popular theory (at the time) that the face was directly linked to the soul.

He had already done some work applying electric shocks to patients’ damaged muscles and he reasoned that if he could apply electric currents to a subject’s face he could stimulate the muscles and photograph the results.

One problem was that while it was easy to activate responses with electric shocks, it passed too quickly for the camera to record.

One of the patients at the hospital where Duchenne worked was a shoemaker who suffered from facial paralysis, which meant he would hold facial expressions longer- long enough to photograph.

The above picture is one of the pictures.

Duchenne subjected the shoemaker to over 100 sessions. While it was clearly unethical and pretty painful, Duchenne figured out the muscles required for a genuine smile.  

SOURCE

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A follower suggested this to me!

What you see above is called a stone baby.

A lithopedion or stone baby, is a rare phenomenon which occurs most commonly when a fetus dies during pregnancy.

It is too large to be reabsorbed by the body, and calcifies on the outside, shielding the mother’s body from the dead tissue of the fetus.

The most bizarre part is that most mother may not even know about their stone baby. 

It is not unusual for a stone baby to remain undiagnosed for decades, and it is often not until a patient is examined for other conditions or a proper examination is conducted that includes an X-ray, that a stone baby is found.

SOURCE

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A compilation of some of these little porcelain creeps and more

ROBERT THE HAUNTED DOLL A doll where the original family caught it running from room to room and speaking to their little boy. The doll now resides in Fort East Martello Museum, where staff have creepy experiences with this doll. More information here

DOLL WITH 3 FACES

what even

DOLL THAT AGED

 When the family first bought this doll, it was brand new. They put it away in a chest and to their surprise when they took it out after a couple years, it looked withered down, as if it had turned into an old man. More information here

REBORN BABY DOLLS

Dolls made to look exactly like a real life baby. They feel and weigh like one too.

They have a toddler version

And a small child one

WHAT

a doll designed for shaving?

REAL LIFE BARBIE

A women who dresses and attempts to look like a real life barbie. The effects are unsettling at times. 

THE HAUNTED MANNEQUIN

La Pascualita, the corpse bride is a supposedly haunted mannequin. There have been plenty of creepy experiences with this one, but the most outstanding fact is the legend that she isn’t a mannequin at all, but the perfectly preserved corpse of the last owner’s daughter!

TODDLERPEDES

Artist Jon Beinart t thought this was a terrifying idea and he was right. 

ISLAND OF DOLLS

This entire island is filled with discarded doll parts, inspired by a little girl who drowned near the island. 

MUMMY/ZOMBIE DOLLS

made by artist Shain Erin

MANDY THE HAUNTED DOLL

Mandy is a porcelain baby doll made in England or Germany between 1910 and 1920 and donated to the Quesnel Museum in British Columbia in 1991. Mandy’s donor had said she would hear crying in the middle of the night coming from the basement, and it wasn’t until after she gave Mandy away that the crying ceased.

DOLL CAM

Just recently made a post about this, but it’s where you can go and view a live stream of haunted dolls all gathered together in one house! Try and see if you find any suspicious activity. Here’s the post

DEMONIC DOLL

You probably recognize this from the Conjuring. It’s based on a true story. A couple of girls noticed strange activity in the doll. They would come home and find it in a different place than where they put it. Soon notes began to appear from nowhere, saying “MISS ME” and “PLEASE HELP”.

Soon the doll’s activities began to be more sinister and mediums were called and confirmed it was a demon hosting the doll’s body. 

More information here

REMEMBER THIS TERRIFYING GIF?

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Death and the Maiden (1900), Marianne Stokes

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Leg amputation in an 1821 illustration by the Scottish surgeon Charles Bell. The tourniquet was there to numb the pain and reduce blood flow, but this could also lead to serious tissue damage.

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Rokurokubi

Found in Japanese folklore, they appear to look like normal human beings during the day, but at night they gain the ability to stretch their necks to great lengths.

Some legends say that the rokurokubi were once Buddhist who broke various precepts of Buddhism and were transformed into these demons. They are often sinister and feed off the blood of others who broke the precepts or human men.

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10 Of The Most Unsettling Modern Artists

10.- Dado

We’ll start this list with Yugoslavian-born Dado (1933–2010), to ease you into things. At first glance, his work can often look banal or pleasant, because of his color choices. They are often pastels instead of the deep reds and blacks most “creepy” artists favor. It’s when you look closer at images like The Large Farm (1963; pictured) or The Footballer (1964) that you see how sickly and grotesque the creatures in them are. Their pained or leering expressions, their tumorous growths, and bodies that are hodgepodges of other forms, or simply wrong. In fact, the pastels only make images like The Large Farm worse, because of how rarely you see them in a horror setting.

Among Dado’s admirers is H.R. Giger, the infamous designer behind the blockbuster Alien franchise, Species, and Darkseed. He has works by the painter featured in his collection, which also includes prints by such luminaries as Salvador Dali. I think we can all agree that’s a pretty credible endorsement.

9.- Keith Thompson

Keith Thompson is more a commercial artist than he is a fine artist. He does monster-design work for such projects as Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim and Scott Westerfield’s Leviathan series. His work has the polish and technique that you would expect from a Magic: The Gathering card, rather than something you’d expect to admire in a museum.

Look at the image above, Pripyat Beast, with its amalgamation of animals and terrible deformities, to get an idea of the kind of thing he’s happy drawing. Its backstory—that the monster and creatures like it are the result of radiation from the Chernobyl disaster—is so farfetched that it feels like a throwback to the 1950s, but that doesn’t change how discomfiting it is to look at. One of the more bizarre compliments paid to this piece was when the SCP Foundation (a creative writing community centered around supernatural creature sightings) took it for their mascot—calling it “SCP-682.” Considering the numerous other horrifying pieces Thompson has in his oeuvre (such as Lili), presumably they’ll find plenty of other inspiration in there as well.

8.- Junji Ito (Albtraume’s admin personal favourite)

On the subject of commercial artists whose work is far more horrifying than would seem profitable, Junji Ito’s comic books are truly some of the most horrifying pieces ever inked. And it’s not just the grotesque detail he pours into every blemish and wrinkle of his abominations—the deeply irrational way he’ll have humans react manages to be frightening instead of a cause for rolled eyes. For example, in his comic The Enigma of the Amigara Fault, he has humans strip off their clothing and climb into human shaped holes in solid rock, which is oddly unsettling even before he makes the holes elongate and curve. Or his comic series Uzumaki (“spiral”), in which a man’s obsession with spirals starts as laughable, but quickly becomes unsettling, even before the obsession works its transformative magic and turns the man into something inhuman but alive.

Ito’s work is distinctive among Japanese horror comics in that he draws his “normal” characters with an unusually realistic and somewhat cute style. It really helps his monstrosities stand out in sharp relief. Ito’s desire to scare people is perhaps a natural progression from his former profession—dental technician.

[ADMIN NOTE: If you liked him PLEASE read this manga.]

7.- Zdzislaw Beksinki

When an artist is quoted as saying “I cannot conceive of a sensible statement on painting,” most likely the artist is not painting kittens onto collectible plates. This Polish painter, born in 1929, spent decades creating nightmarish images of fantasy realism until his gruesome murder in 2005 (he was stabbed 17 times). His most prolific period, in which produced highly detailed images that he described as like taking a photograph of his dreams, was from the 1960s to the 1980s.

While Beksinski didn’t believe he was making any particular point, since, as he put it “meaning is meaningless to me,” some of his works certainly appear to be symbolizing something—for example, the 1985 painting shown above, Trollforgatok. He grew up in a country devastated by World War II and forcibly seized by the Soviet Union—it’s easy to imagine those creatures as, perhaps, the Polish citizenry, and the head as some sort of ruthless institution. But no, the artist claimed it was nothing like that. In fact, Beksinski even said his work was meant to be either optimistic or humorous, which would have to make it some of the blackest humor ever created.

6.- Wayne Barlowe

Thousands of artists have tried to portray Hell, but Wayne Barlowe is definitely among the more famous—even if you haven’t heard of him, you’ve probably seen his work. Barlowe’s art has been featured in an array of high-profile films, from James Cameron’s Avatar (where his work earned him personal praise from the director), to Pacific Rim, to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire. His magnum opus, however, is unquestionably the 1998 book Barlowe’s Inferno.

His portrayal of Hell is more high fantasy than simple torture chambers—a wasteland with grand demonic lords and armies. But you’ll never mistake it for Tolkien. His description reads, “Hell is characterized by its complete indifference to human suffering.” Take the above painting, The Examination, inspired by Flemish paintings of autopsies. His demons often show a curiosity about human souls, even as they completely disregard the pain they inflict in studying them. It’s somehow worse to know that we humans aren’t even important enough to be objects of hate and torture. We’re just idle curiosities to the demons—if that.

It’s no surprise Guillermo del Toro said of Barlowe’s Inferno: “The Devil has found an architect.”

5.- Tetsuya Ishida

The social commentary in Ishida’s 180 works is not subtle. His acrylic paintings are often of people turned into objects, such as packaging, conveyor belts, urinals, and even a hemorrhoid pillow. There are also superficially pleasant paintings, depicting people’s rooms merging with nature, as if the people in them are escaping their dreary surroundings through the use of imagination. These, however, are much less vivid than the above painting, which turns food-service workers into mannequins that pump food into customers, like cars at a full-service gas station.

Whatever your opinion about the accuracy or insight of his metaphors, the style with which they are executed is so uncanny-valley that any humor is overwhelmed by feelings of disgust and fear. This career of bizarre work was brought to an end in 2005, when Ishida, 31, was hit by a train, almost certainly in an act of suicide. The body of work he left behind is so highly regarded that paintings such as this untitled work have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

4.- Dariusz Zawadzki

Born in 1958, Zawadzki continues in Bekinski’s tradition of frightening fantasy realism. It’s actually in the face of some discouragement that he entered the field at all. As hard as it might be to believe, given the rich texture and details of his work, he was told by a teacher early on that he did not have good enough vision to be a painter. Maybe the teacher just wished they could not see his horrifying images so clearly.

Zawadzki’s work has a certain steampunk element to it. He often paints robotic creatures with the working components visible beneath their artificial skin. If that doesn’t sound especially creepy to you, consider the 2007 oil painting The Nest (pictured). The body language of these chicks is convincingly similar to living animals, but they are in a bizarre, partially eviscerated condition. It’s sickening, but still intriguing enough to keep you from looking away.

3.- Joshua Hoffine

Born in 1973 in Emporia, Kansas, Hoffine is a photographer of horrific tableaus that combine traditional fairytales with childhood fears in a way which obliterates any trace of whimsy the stories possessed. (Childhood Fears is also the title of his most popular photo series.) His training in mainstream magazine photography and Hallmark-card design gives his work a slickness and professionalism a lot of horror photographers actively avoid, since they’re often going for a documentary or “found footage” look.

While some of his works look a little too staged and whimsical to be really scary—for example, his photo series Pickman’s Masterpiece, a homage to one of H.P. Lovecraft’s characters, a painter called Pickman—his best is truly disquieting. Take the 2008 piece Bedside, shown above, which, like many of his pieces, features his daughter Chloe. By directing her not to show much emotion, Hoffine avoids forcing a particular response on the viewer. Instead, the contrast between the pink pleasantness and the cockroaches draws out a natural reaction. It’s a balance Hoffine can often expertly strike.

2.- Patricia Piccinini

Piccinini’s sculptures deal with an extremely varied subject matter, including malformed motorcycles and bizarre hot-air balloons like the Skywhale. But this Sierra Leone native (now an Australian citizen) mostly creates sculptures that make you uncomfortable to look at photos of, let alone stand in the same room as. There are works like the 2004 piece Undivided (pictured), in which a humanoid with back plates and baby animals emerging from its back cuddles a human child. It’s all the more unsettling with its element of trust and affection, as if a child’s innocence is being cruelly used against it.

Perhaps the highest-profile credit Piccinini’s work ever received (if a less than auspicious one) was when, as Snopes.com reported, photos of her piece The Young Family were distributed online via chain email. Various lies were attached to the sculpture—for example, that it was a “malcat,” supposedly a dog-human hybrid being illegally imported into the USA. While people who forward chain emails aren’t known for their hardnosed critical reasoning, it’s still a tribute to Piccinini’s skill at manipulating fiberglass, silicone, and hair.

1.- Mark Powell

Australia seems to offer Poland legitimate competition in terms of inspiring horror artists, as Powell’s Melbourne pieces are some truly disturbing work. His 2012 show of “miniature environments where imaginary beings evolve, devolve, consume, excrete, multiply and decay” is shocking even in this fairly jaded day and age. His earthtone environments and textured creatures are appallingly convincing, and the body language of the figures is precisely designed to make the situations look more normal for them, and thus more believable for us.

Like our earlier artists, the internet has not hesitated to steal images of Powell’s art and invent other contexts for them. The aforementioned SCP Foundation took the disgusting (but oddly homey) image above and made it part of a story called “The Flesh that Hates.” The popular short horror story “The Russian Sleep Experiment” also had that image attached to it, by creators of horror videos like this one. It’s no surprise that Powell’s dioramas made such an impression. While the other artists featured here made stomach-turning statues and demonic beings you can look at, Powell exhibited visions of hell could be walked through.

Source

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The Evolution of Broken Things

by reddit user hislongneck

Posting something online like this is a first. I don’t even really know if I should post this here, but I don’t know where it belongs. I just need to tell somebody. I just - well, I just need somebody to know.

Okay. When I was little - maybe seven or eight, I don’t remember exactly - my mum and I lived on the top floor of this rickety old apartment building. There was mould on the ceiling that really fucked with my allergies, the kitchen door didn’t fit properly and would constantly get jammed… The gutter literally hung off in front of my bedroom window, too, so there was this constant noise of running water. It was really shitty, but it was all we could afford, you know? Mum worked two jobs and the rent was cheap. I was quite the demanding child, from what I can recall. Always wanting some new and expensive toy.

So anyway, we lived in this shitty apartment on the shitty side of suburban shitsville and, when I wasn’t in school, I was there alone. It’s not that I didn’t have friends, but I didn’t have close enough friends to invite to my place and, even if I did, I wouldn’t have wanted them there. I don’t think any of the other kids lived like that. I’d occasionally talk to the 20-something who lived next door (looking back, I’m certain that he was perpetually stoned), but he was too weird for little-me to cope with most of the time. I’d sit at the kitchen table for hours by myself, disregarding my homework and playing Pokemon on the second-hand Game Boy Colour that my mum had managed to get me for my birthday. I was this lonely little attention-starved kid, right? You get it. I’m trying to give you a little context but it’s probably boring you. I’m sorry.

The day I met him, I was sitting up on the roof. It was sunny. I definitely remember it being sunny. His eyes were blue, because I remember thinking that they were the same colour as the sky that day. Apart from that, the only thing I remember from our first meeting is the sound of him crying.

He used to come around a lot after that. He’d sit on the roof and weep, and I’d do anything I could to try and cheer him up. His neck was really, unnaturally long, and he always hunched over. His arms were spindly, like they’d break easily, and his fingernails were long and really sharp. I know because this one time, he tried to pat my head and accidentally scratched my cheek as he pulled his hand away. I still have a thin scar there now. He cried even more that day. I don’t know why I liked him so much, but I did. I couldn’t think of him as a monster - he was so placid, and just seemed so scared of himself. He never tried to hurt me, ever. As weird as it sounds, it was almost like I’d adopted myself a brother. A cowardly, vaguely horrifying monster of a brother, but I genuinely thought of him that way. Kids are weird.

Maybe it was just me.

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