“THIS IS HALLOWEEN, THIS IS HALLOWEEN”
Well. I’m not quite back to the regularly scheduled program, so to speak. My grandfather is still dead. That hasn’t changed. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but it sure dulls the pain. I don’t think anyone ever actually gets over the death of a loved one. We just kind of move on.
And I guess, at least for this blog, it’s time to move on. It feels a bit cheap, perhaps, to have a man’s entire life summed up in 2000 words, and that’s that. But I don’t know what else I can say. I love my grandfather. Sometimes that’s enough. I don’t know for sure, though. All I know is that my life and this blog are, ultimately, separate entities, even as intertwined as they are. I am free to mourn as I choose, for as long as I choose. This website is not.
That isn’t true, necessarily. This website is still what I want it to be. I could write more about my grandfather, about my feelings on death and loss and grief. But, frankly, it’s exhausting. I think everyone understands that. I can keep my grief personal, separate my private world from my public world, in a sense. Even as I draw pretty much every bit of material on here from my private world.
I guess I’m just trying to justify to myself that it’s okay to move on. I don’t know if it is. My mom tells me it is. She’s probably right. But it’s hard to convince myself of these things. Even if I don’t cry, I still have a hard time comprehending loss, and a harder time explaining it to others. Or maybe the explaining is easier than the feeling. I can write, but I can’t think. Whatever the hell that means.
But I digress. It’s October now, October 1st as of when this post will be posted, and that means one thing: it’s spooky season. I love Halloween and fall, I always have and I hope I always will. I’ll go into more detail about that, probably next week or whenever I write my piece on the distinctly weird Midwestern tradition of pumpkin patches. But for today, all you need to know is that I love Halloween, and I love scary things.
Horror movies are my favorite genre. Stephen King is my quasi-role model, though I have many conflicting feelings about the man. Trevor Henderson is my favorite modern artist. I love the concept of horror video games, but usually they end up making me too stressed to play. Maybe I’ll give Alien: Isolation another shot one day. Maybe I’ll finally finish that totally legitimate copy of Silent Hill 2 that I downloaded. Maybe Swamp Simulator won’t be my favorite horror game forever. We’ll see.
But for all the horror I consume, all the games I play and spooky things I write about, the horror place that I read the most of is the SCP Foundation. What is the SCP Foundation? Honestly, it’s really hard to explain, and I had a hell of a tough time trying to figure out what the hell was going on the first time I came across it. But now I can’t get enough of it, which is good because there are like, and I shit you not, 10,000+ individual horror stories on this one website. I’ve read maybe a couple hundred of them.
Basically, the SCP Foundation is collection of short horror stories compiled into a database mimicking a government bureaucracy. In general, each “story” is actually a numbered entry in a database (now numbering over 4000 entries) for the “SCP Foundation,” a fictional organization dedicated to securing, containing, and protecting various anomalous entities, to use the terms of the group. Or maybe the government just wants us to think they’re fictional.
Anyway, each entry is the containment procedure, descriptions, and related documents for a single entity. These range from relatively safe items, like this happy blob of pudding, to world-endingly dangerous items (known on the website as “Keter-Class”), like an indestructible homicidal lizard-thing or Radical Larry. Those are some of the classics.
At first glance, a lot of these entries rely on some sort of grotesque bodily harm or deformation to elicit an emotional response from the reader. Like, sure, the lizard-thing is scary because it’s unkillable and wants to eat everyone. That’s spooky in a kind of slasher-movie way. But the deeper you go, the more unsettling the SCPs (that’s the generalized name for the entities) become. There’s some that screw around with space-time and perception. There are some that alter memory. There are some that are transmitted by reading about them; those are the cognitohazards and infohazards, and those are some of my favorites.
A lot of the SCPs generally take one sort of idea and run with it. My favorite ones will come up with something that might sound reasonable for a short horror movie, and then go with it to every possible direction, all with a scientific flair and the methodical labeling of a deeply efficient, deeply impersonal bureaucracy. If you look at the large-scale implications of something like the video tape from The Ring (which is basically just an SCP object), or the real-world social, economic, political, environmental, and religious implications of the existence of something like John Carpenter’s The Thing, and then throw in a government organization dedicated to controlling these entities, you basically get the SCP foundation. And I love it.
It’s kind of hard to get into reading the SCP foundation, though, firstly because the text is so dense. There are very few photos, and initially, everything looks like exactly what it’s supposed to; files in a database. Coming across a wall of text broken into segments, sometimes with colored boxes and the occasional experiment log, isn’t very exciting. Which is why the SCP Foundation requires some investment to get into, I guess. Once you get to reading them, though, many of them can become horrifying and interesting in their possible implications, origins, uses, and more. It just requires some time to read it all. And of course, it helps that each page starts with the containment section, to kind of hook you. Like, what sort of monster requires fifteen layers of alternating lead and concrete? Hint: It’s Larry. And the liberal usage of the [REDACTED] and [DATA EXPUNGED], stand-ins for “classified data,” allow the reader to come to their own conclusions about how things work, furthering the interest.
That’s maybe the most interesting part of the SCP Foundation. Since it’s a hugely collaborative project, put together by hundreds(?) of people, the ideas presented here vary widely. Sometimes they’re funny. Sometimes they’re genuinely unsettling. Sometimes they’re neither of those things. But, usually, they’re a ton of fun to think about, and the fact that not everything is explicitly spelled out makes the experience almost interactive.
Although, that being said, the use of [DATA EXPUNGED] may turn some readers off, since it’s initially confusing. I had to tell myself when I first started reading that it was okay to not know everything, and in that action I kind of put myself into the shoes of a researcher at the Foundation. Which is the point, I think. The hardest obstacle to reading this stuff, to me, is really the format, since it’s so obscure and different than any other type of horror on the market. But that’s why I love it. Its feel so viscerally real, so calculated and exacting. The format makes the horror initially seem distant, but the deeper you dive, the closer everything gets. And that’s where the investment pays off, because reading the SCP Foundation is most rewarding after you’re already several layers in.
That isn’t to say that the surface stuff isn’t great. It has to be, to get someone like me interested. But there’s so much here. So, so much. That’s actually perhaps one of the other hurdles to reading, that it’s initially overwhelming just how much content there is. There’s the standard SCPs, of which there are over 4000. Then there’s associated test logs and experimental data with certain SCP, which could easily add another thousand stories. Then there’s the tales, which are more traditional horror stories, but set in the world of the SCP Foundation and written for people who already know what’s going on. They’re actually, in my opinion, sometimes the hardest to understand. And then there are a couple associated websites with other similar articles that link back to the SCP Foundation, not to mention all the collected documents from the various Groups of Interest, which are kind of secondary organizations within the world of the Foundation. Not to mention that some dedicated community members will write massive story arcs centering around certain SCPs, which sometimes link and connect with other story arcs. Frankly, the amount of material here is ludicrous. I have several dozen tabs open on my phone as I write this, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Maybe another hurdle is the time commitment. Some articles are very short, and only take a few minutes to read. They’re good for short bursts, like while you’re on the bus or waiting for your food at a restaurant. But there are others that could very well be entire novels. For example, SCP-001 and all its associated content could very well take someone the good part of an entire day to read. SCP-3000 took me a good hour to read. And you never really know how long each entry will be; what looks like a couple minutes may link to several other experiment logs that then link to other SCPs and related tales. It’s a massive, intricate spiderweb of pieces woven together by hundreds of individuals. Which maybe brings me to my last point.
There isn’t really much continuity. I create continuity in my head, based on what I’ve read and what pieces I pick up, but at the end of the day the SCP foundation is limited to (and vastly improved by) its status as a collaborative project. There isn’t some sort of master plan or key sheet as to what everything means, where everything goes, what Sites have what SCPs, the defining traits of every K-class scenario, what’s canon and what’s not, and the like. Though I guess the amnestics have a defining page. But, frankly, I kind of love that about the Foundation, because it allows for so much more creative freedom in the collaborators.
I guess what I want to say is this: if you like horror, if you like science, if you like thinking about alternate worlds and secret societies and the things that go bump in the night, then read some stuff from the SCP Foundation. Don’t let the formatting, the size, the initial confusion deter you. In fact, let me give you a brief rundown of some things to know, and maybe how to read entries into the SCP Foundation. Here’s some ground rules that I wish I knew at the beginning.
1. It isn’t real. You aren’t supposed to read it as real; it takes place in a fictional world. It isn’t an urban legend website. Yes, I was initially confused as to whether or not this was some elaborate hoax meant to troll me. I was young and susceptible then. Now I’m just old and susceptible. But as the internet gets larger and larger and stories spread farther and farther, it’s worth repeating for younger audience members that creepypastas are not true, no matter how convincing the reddit post is. Don’t let another Slenderman stabbing happen.
2. The order you read it in doesn’t matter. When it comes to what you read, in what order, and how much you read, there is no right way to do it. Sure, the Foundation wiki has some introductory pages, but they’re almost more confusing than just diving right in, in my opinion. Pick an SCP and start reading. Preferably one like 682, which links to dozens of others. It’s a good jumping off point. Oh, and how you read is up to you, too. Fill in those [DATA EXPUNGED] segments with your own answers. That’s what they’re there for.
3. Use the “top-rated pages” section. As much as I read from the SCP website, it’s sometimes a pain in the ass to find new or interesting SCPs, especially if I feel like I’ve read all the most popular ones. Since the built-in search bar is shit, that’s what the top-rated section is for. You can organize by month, series, class, or the like, and then choose one at random. Chances are it’ll catapult you into corners of the website you’ve never seen before, even if you’re a veteran Foundation reader.
4. Click on the links. Generally, an SCP entry will link to other entries. Sometimes they’re by the same author, sometimes not. Sometimes they’re in the same arc, sometimes not. Sometimes they’re just related documents to the initial SCP. Much like that game where you try to get to different Wikipedia pages, usually one SCP is a portal to dozens more, and maybe they’ll just link infinitely onward and eventually connect every single one. If you want to read more, open the links in a new tab, or look up the name of a mentioned SCP, since they aren’t always linked. Of course, this can be overwhelming, too. So, like in all things, don’t feel pressured to do more. It’s your life.
5. And finally, don’t worry about the vocabulary. It may seem confusing at first, but if you enjoy an article even though you don’t understand everything, I think you should keep reading. The vocabulary, which is intrinsic to the format, is also a hurdle to getting into the SCP community. But the more you read, the more it all comes together. Another reason why it gets more interesting the deeper down the rabbit hole you go. But, as a rule of thumb, here’s some brief key terms:
Safe, Euclid, Keter, Thaumiel, and Neutralized: Different classifications of SCPs that denote the general danger of the SCP. Every SCP has a designation, so this’ll probably be the first term that might deter someone from reading more. Safe is pretty self-explanatory; they’re anomalies that don’t pose much of a threat or don’t react on their own. Euclid anomalies are dangerous in that they generally have anomalous properties even without direct interaction, and pose some threat. Keter-class objects are the most dangerous, the ones that actively attempt to escape or pose significant risk to human existence. Thaumiel is the exact opposite; they’re objects that actively contain other SCPs, or assist the Foundation in some way. Neutralized means exactly what it sounds like; the SCP is no longer a threat.
SCP, Anomaly, or Entity: General terms referring to any of the things/creatures/places/words/thoughts/events/etc that the Foundation (the overall organization) contains or attempts to contain. Can also refer to secondary artifacts, like those affected by an SCP object.
O5: Overseers, Foundation staff with the highest level of clearance (5 being the highest, 1 the lowest). They make the decisions, they’re the bosses, the run the show. How many of them are there? 13. Sometimes.
Class-D: Maybe the most morally questionable part of the Foundation, Class-D’s are test subjects and, sometimes, flat-out slaves. They’re almost always condemned felons that exchanged death row for working at the Foundation. O5 says it’s for the greater good. The whole place has that kind of questionable ethics about it, which gives it so much more character.
Amnestics: Amnesiac medicine, used to remove unwanted memories from the general, non-anomalous populace. Kind of like that Gravity Falls episode.
XK-Class Scenario: The end of the world. As in, complete and total destruction. Collapse of civilization or major restructuring have different classifications, like CK-Class Scenarios. There’s even a reality-destruction scenario, where some anomaly restructures the entire universe and reality as we know it. These are the big ones, the reason that Foundation keeps their anomalies contained.
Memetic/Info/Cognito Hazards: Perhaps the most esoteric of threats, these types of SCPs (or their anomalous properties) affect the human mind in a way that doesn’t necessarily translate to the real world. They can be diseases transmitted by language, like in Pontypool. Or they’re plays that make the audience go crazy. Or they’re things that make you obsess over the object in question. Usually the effects are contagious and spread by line of sight or contact, without a physical, real-world vector. But not always.
GOI: Group of Interest. A GOI is one of many different organizations that exist within the world of the Foundation. There’s the Serpent’s Hand, the Church of the Broken God, the Global Occult Coalition, the Factory, the Children of the Night, and all sorts of others. They all have different goals and motives and tend to clash with the Foundation in different ways. Frankly, I tend to stay away from the GOI stuff. It’s too much for me, to have to keep track of another organization and their internal hierarchy, lexicon, and history. Generally, it’s safe to assume that a GOI is an enemy of the Foundation. If one piques your interest, there’s probably another website all about them. Go wild.
And, really, that’s it. I’d say that’s all you need to know to start reading, and I’d say if you’re looking for new, experimental, exciting, different, unique, and downright batshit crazy science-fiction, fantasy, and horror writing, there is no better place than the SCP Foundation. Hell, you don’t even need to know all this to get into it. I didn’t. Of course, I did read the intro pages, and tried my hand at writing a few early on which kind of jumpstarted my descent into madness, but just skimming the surface can be a gateway into the dark recesses of this community. And it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing, to be able to see all these random people come together and create something huge and terrifying. The farther in you go, the better it gets. Which, frankly, kind of sounds like a slogan for a cult. But the best part is that it’s all free, and you don’t have to kill small animals and give up your friends and family to get in.
I love the SCP Foundation. I think the possibilities are limitless. I want to make a movie out of this stuff. I want to make a TV show out of it. I want to make video games out of it, but people are already ahead of me on that one, like with the fantastic SCP: Containment Breach. Someday, when I’m rich and famous, maybe I’ll be able to spearhead a TV show for the SCP Foundation. I’d love to do that, and feel like I’m contributing to the community. Of course, the intellectual property rights get murky at that point. But maybe, just maybe, someday I’ll figure it out. And when I do, I hope that the Foundation is there to contain it.
As a last note, here’s a few SCPs that I highly recommend as jumping-off points.
SCP-173: The classic, the one that (I think?) started it all. It’s also the main antagonist in Containment Breach. Perhaps the most famous SCP.
SCP-106: Ah, yes, Radical Larry. Maybe the SCP with the most Tales about it? But I have no way to prove or disprove that statement.
SCP-682: I encourage looking at the experiment logs with this once, since they link to so many other SCPs. It’s a veritable diving board of data.
SCP-2521: The most unique SCP, in my opinion. The effect of “reading” this entry is greatest after you’ve read plenty of other ones.
SCP-835: One of the most disturbing ones I’ve read. Perhaps also the most disgusting and hard to read. I think about this one a lot. Be careful, though. This one, and several others, merit trigger warnings regarding sexual violence.
SCP-231: Another that merits a trigger warning regarding sexual violence. And, actually, this one makes me a little uncomfortable to include on this list, because of its content. It might make for a good discussion of what’s tasteful to use for a “gross-out” or “horror” factor versus what should be reserved only for works that treat the subject with the proper gravitas, as well as it what it means to render a topic taboo due to its nature. Or the fact that we all seem to fill in the [DATA EXPUNGED] sections with the same conclusions, regardless as to the fact that nothing definite is given. It’s an interesting part of the SCP Foundation that I didn’t mention earlier; the material on the site is very adult. I have a hard time discerning what goes too far just to get a scare and what’s actually considering the ethical implications of the existence of something like the Foundation, as well as grappling with real-life trauma and the “greater good.” I like to think this is one of the latter. But I don’t know.
SCP-3000: Good God, this one unnerves me. It has some of the best writing on the site, I think. Or at least one of the most interesting approaches to madness.
SCP-507: This one’s great. It’s so much lighter in tone than all the others, and makes for a great sense of relief. Hell, 507 could be a TV show all its own. Actually, it’s basically Rick and Morty. But 507 came out five years before Rick and Morty.
SCP-060: Burn, baby, burn.
SCP-1983: A great example of mixing tales with the regular format.
SCP-1471: I had this guy as my phone background for a little bit.
SCP-001: There’s a lot here, just under this one entry. It makes the most sense after you’re already familiar with the way the Foundation’s world works, the GOIs, and other SCPs.
Frankly, I could go on and on with this stuff. But you don’t need me to show you how to read. If you like horror and sci-fi, you’re doing yourself a disservice by not reading the SCP Foundation. Check it out. Secure. Contain. Protect. And don’t worry about the thing behind you. It won’t be there when you turn around.
Andy- just FYI- it won’t let me “like” your posts. I have had this problem for a while. 🙁