That Tune Is His Mind Control Music.

[rionaleonhart]

Here is a genuine thought I had a couple of nights ago:

Perhaps I should write fanfiction about Derren Brown's hammering-a-nail-up-his-nose act. But how am I supposed to write convincingly about that if I don't know how it feels? I suppose I'll have to NO WAIT NO THIS IS A VERY BAD IDEA.


Speaking of bad ideas, one spawned in a recent exchange with emmarrrrr:

emmarrrrr: (regarding Dissidia: Final Fantasy) You don't control Jecht - Jecht uses his manliness to make you input the moves he wants to use!
rionaleonhart: The idea of the character controlling the player is a rather interesting one. Although I suppose it wouldn't make for a terribly good game. (That is exactly what would happen in Derren Brown: The Videogame.)

So! Derren Brown: The Videogame. It has all sorts of different story paths, but it turns out that programming them in was entirely pointless, because Derren will always manipulate your choices to ensure his preferred outcome. You'll replay it in the hope of getting the 'arrested for fraud' ending this time and realise halfway through that, for reasons you can't quite place, you're taking all the actions that lead to the 'world conquest, intimate relationship with David Tennant and all the broken glass you can eat' ending again.

Whenever you interact with another character, Derren's internal voice quietly analyses all their language and behaviour in the background. Because Derren may claim to 'switch off' his analytical powers in day-to-day life, but it is so much more fun to assume he can't.

You barely need to touch the controls, of course, because the main character can read your intentions. Most of which he has carefully planted himself. Despite its quite clearly being a terrible concept for a game, it somehow achieves perfect scores in every magazine and on every review site, and even Yahtzee sings its praises.

Also, the ending credits send the player into a catatonic trance, just in case Derren is short on volunteers for his more disturbing television sequences and needs to resort to kidnapping.

Even knowing this, you're going to buy the game.


Mr Brown has been using his Twitter more in the past couple of days, which pleases me. My favourite of his tweets has to be the thousandth:

1000th tweet! Omgomg! Ok, here we go... I'm gay! God, that's so much better. Huge cloud lifted.

With the initial rather low-key 'by the way, I'm gay' mention in the Independent, and the Sun's later 'EXCLUSIVE: DERREN BROWN IS GAY, A FACT THAT WE ARE SURE DID NOT BECOME PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE HALF A YEAR AGO (LOOK, LEAVE US ALONE, WE REALLY WANTED TO MAKE THAT "MIND BENDER" PUN)', I think Derren Brown's thousandth tweet is actually the third time he has come out. Perhaps he is going for some sort of record.

Comments

[lo0o0ony-lauren.livejournal.com]

Oh my god oh my god DVB video game. DO WANT. That whole thought process was so hilarious.

'world conquest, intimate relationship with David Tennant and all the broken glass you can eat' lol lol lol this is all he wants out of life.

Hammering a nail up your nose won't make your head explode but it is VERY BAD. When I was in edinburgh last summer, my director was learning to do that trick (he's a mentalist, not just a mental) and you'd walk into the kitchen to find him sat a the table, a vaselined chop stick halfway inside his nasal cavity. Ick ick ick.

[rionaleonhart]

It would be a terrible videogame. I would buy five copies and find myself unable to remember why.

I am fairly confident that I will be able to resist hammering a nail up my nose, but the thought did occur, which was a bit disconcerting.

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

It sounds like Silent Hill, what with all the different endings! And I think psychological horror is right up Derren's alley.

[rionaleonhart]

Obviously, the really Silent Hill-inspired aspect is in the spinoff game, Derren Brown: Trick or Treat. (Which would be the most frightening videogame ever made. It would take 'messing with the player's head' to a whole new level.)

[amy-wolf.livejournal.com]

Riona, step away from the nails.

(As I understand, expert training offers a technique for getting the nail up there so it doesn't cause any damage, and there's very little pain. So if Derren Brown himself offers to teach you, you may go for it.

Not that you'd have a choice.)

I do hope Derren goes for the world coming-out record. Eventually, he'll end up prefacing everything he says with "I, Derren Brown, am gay. And..." Or, if you can get the right set up, "Speaking of giant mechanical spiders, I'm gay."

Must not write Derren/Giant Mechanical Spider, must not write Derren/Giant Mechanical Spider

[amy-wolf.livejournal.com]

Also, having checked Derren's blog, Coops is apparently responsible for the parasite-that-eats-fish-tongues entry, and the lottery was predicted through telepathic contact with sea lions.

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

Must not write Derren/Giant Mechanical Spider, must not write Derren/Giant Mechanical Spider

How about Derren/Giant Mechanical Elephant?

[gasmask.livejournal.com]

write it write it write it

[perrie.livejournal.com]

Pete Firman did a spot in the comedy show that was on in my venue during the Fringe, and actually did hammer a nail up his nose. And then removed it. Onstage. In front of about 200 people. In a very small room. He was dabbing at his bleeding nose with a tissue for about half an hour afterwards and I had to watch through my fingers!

Moral of the story; unless you are Pete Firman, or insane, it seems like a really really bad idea to me.

[rionaleonhart]

unless you are Pete Firman, or insane

I do not know Pete Firman, but from the sound of that story I am not sure the two are mutually exclusive.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

WHY IS THIS HOT

[rionaleonhart]

I do not know what 'this' refers to! Terrible videogame ideas? My sexy sexy writing style? Worrying musings on nails going where nails are not supposed to go? Derren Brown in general?

[bubbles-san.livejournal.com]

Worryingly, I appear to be the only person in the world not susceptible to Derren's mind control, therefore, I could probably win that game! Awesome.

[rionaleonhart]

That's just what he wants you to think.

[dancesontrains.livejournal.com]

I think Derren Brown's thousandth tweet is actually the third time he has come out. Perhaps he is going for some sort of record.

Lol n00b to the loads to times most people have to say it? And of course, now I realise that you meant on a nationwide scale via the mass media. Does Facebook count?

I think I need more sleep! Or possibly more chocolate, idk.

[rionaleonhart]

I was going to say 'yes, one wouldn't think one would need to come out three times on a nationwide scale', and then I remembered that I have seen people being surprised every time, so, er, perhaps one does. Maybe Stephen Fry needs to come out another couple of times.

BACK AWAY FROM THE NAILS, RIONA.

[saaski-moql.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I don't know how twitter works. How does one actually read the poster's...posts. Tweets. Whatever.

Also, I--wait-he...see, I am not entirely sure I understand how this works. Derren Brown hypnotizes people, yes? And then does crazy, crazy, often-psycho-sadistic things to them. But. Er. Did they really happen, or were faked and he said so and it was performance, or...what. I've seen clips of him doing NLP hypnotism and that I (guess) I can see as being ability, but, er...

Oh dear, now I find myself watching clips online from trick or treat and he's taking a mold of her face without her knowing that is so cool

and, uh, sorry, what was I saying? Sort of side-tracked by the ridiculous awesome of a secret face plaster cast. Forget about the hypnotism bit, that was EPIC.

Re: BACK AWAY FROM THE NAILS, RIONA.

[rionaleonhart]

I'm not a Twitterer myself, but it seems fairly straightforward; you load the page and there they are!

And I think Derren's hypnotism stunts are usually real. Because otherwise he would have used a great number of stooges, and he'd need to pay them all well enough to keep it a secret for many years. Sometimes, on his stage shows, I think he'll use hypnotism to cover up the fact that he actually performed a trick using a different method, but I think that if he were faking it all he would have been exposed by now. (He says in his book that he wishes he could know what the people he hypnotises are really experiencing, because he's very resistant to hypnotism himself and he isn't sure that the reactions of his subjects are exactly what they would be were they really to see a rhinoceros in their office.)

And I couldn't help laughing at the sheer audacity of the secret face cast. Amazing.

[the-funmonkey.livejournal.com]

Derren Brown is gay?

[rionaleonhart]

I know! He could have given us some warning, honestly.

[bubbles-san.livejournal.com]

This is COMPLETELY OT but you seem the most likely person to know- is there a comm for Pokemon crossovers anywhere around here?

If there isn't, could you coerce someone into creating it? I'd do it myself, but I'm already running two other comms as it is and don't need the extra work.

[johnnypurple.livejournal.com]

Was he ever in the closet about being gay? Though perhaps I am confusing your almost-stalkerish/utterly obsessed journal with standard media coverage of Derren Brown. Though standard media coverage of Derren Brown in Australia is pretty much zilch (woe!) so lucky I read your journal then or I MIGHT HAVE NO IDEA WHO HE IS.

So who are you on twitter? I may feel the need to stalk, er, follow you.

[amy-wolf.livejournal.com]

He was, apparently. Riona once posted a pre-coming out interview where Derren was terribly evasive about why he was still single, and kept coming up with awkward lines like "I have my parrots" when asked why he didn't have a girlfriend.

[rionaleonhart]

He was in the closet for some time, but came out in 2007, I believe, in a rather quiet mention in this article. As I didn't discover him until this year, my almost-stalkerish (oh, dear) journal does not cover that event.

I don't have a Twitter, I'm afraid!

[newbie1990.livejournal.com]

Asjdhas to be fair, I did not know he was gay until you mentioned it in your journal (not - not this entry, the first time you mentioned it). Maybe casual followers of his were/are unaware? I don't think his media coverage mentions it much (other than The Sun, and er, Telegraph? article), so...

Edited for clarification.

[rionaleonhart]

I'm not criticising him! In fact, I'm fairly certain his coming out over Twitter was a joke. 'It's my thousandth tweet! In order to celebrate this momentous occasion, I shall announce something everybody knows.'

He doesn't mention it often outside his occasional comings-out, though, so I suppose some people would have been unaware of it.