And it's been...interesting.
But now I'm back and writing again, and since today is Halloween, I thought I'd introduce you guys to what I think is one of the scariest websites on the Internet, maybe one of the scariest things in human media. That is The SCP Foundation.
Websites like this are what make the Internet such a weird, wondrous, transcendent thing. It's essentially a Wiki that details the attempts of a fictional organization to Secure, Contain, and Protect a variety of creatures, artifacts, ideas, and locations that range from hilarious, cheeky, and fun to nightmarish, disturbing, and madness-inflicting.
Pictured: All of the above.
Think of it as like the BPRD from the Hellboy universe. There are things that go bump in the night, and they bump back. But compared to the SCP Foundation, the BPRD is a bunch of limp-dicked grade school Chef Boyardee Girl Scouts.
Because the shit the SCPF has to deal with frequently defies human comprehension. While they have your standard zombies, vampires, etc., they also have to deal with several versions of God, a virus that turns living things into clockwork robots, a cyborg made out of sandstone in ancient China, a memetic virus that causes all who contract it to rhyme compulsively, and a magical "Zapper" gun that can actually "kill" people and animals on TV programs while making the fictional beings within aware of the existence of the gun's user and making the user vulnerable to fictional attempts to fight back.
That's what makes the SCP website so cool. It's easily the most creative thing I've ever seen. From the conception and description of each entity to the style of chronicling dubious "experiments", the scientific style of presenting the "reports" allows for some truly creepy and wonderfully economical storytelling. Beyond that, there are actual stories written about the efforts of the agency as a whole to fight off competing factions and cults, and stories about the personal lives of the researchers who study SCP's.
The website is like a self-contained universe. Endlessly self-referential, self-consistent, a linear, over-arching narrative but with each entry a self-contained story...you could spend MONTHS on the SCP dossiers alone. But in the interest of Halloween, I've handpicked what I think are some of the absolute creepiest SCP dossiers, both because of the creature they describe and the nature of how that creature's story is presented. We'll start off with the clown pictured above: Bobble.
For this first one, I'll copy down the whole dossier to give you an idea of what they look like:
Item #: SCP-993
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: Any broadcasts of SCP-993 are to be intercepted as detailed in Protocol Upsilon-Beta 3 and blocked from public viewing. All intercepted broadcasts are to be recorded and stored for future viewing. Any subjects used to view SCP-993 must be under the age of ten and are to be dosed with a Class A amnesiac after they have described the episode.
Viewing of SCP-993 must be authorized by three (3) Level 4 personnel.
Description: SCP-993 is a children's television program entitled "Bobble the Clown" which first began airing in ██/██/19██. SCP-993 seems to have been made in the style of an educational cartoon, with the primary plot of most episodes being the titular character, Bobble the Clown, learning a new skill or activity. The program appears to have no supporting cast and the setting of the program often changes between episodes.
SCP-993's anomalous properties become obvious when the program is viewed. Anyone watching aged ten years or older will immediately fall unconscious when the program begins and will remain incapacitated until the end of the program, later reporting a stabbing headache immediately before blacking out.
Children under the age of ten viewing SCP-993 later report that it teaches and advocates activities such as cannibalism, murder, torture, [DATA EXPUNGED]. These activities appear to become ingrained in the subject's mind; repeated exposure to SCP-993 can result in permanent psychotic and schizophrenic symptoms.
Episodes of SCP-993 are regularly broadcast from a currently unknown source, but since ██/██/20██, all broadcasts have been successfully intercepted using Protocol Upsilon-Beta 3 and blocked from public viewing.
Interesting stuff, right? Creepy, right?
But SCP, in the spirit of Halloween, doesn't stop there. The entry details how the show became aware of the Foundation's attempts to block it. And started telling children to attack the Foundation, revealing that the show knows the layouts of the facility where it is being archived and jammed from, and even knows the daily routines of the researchers guarding it.
It's such delightfully creepy stuff, and the SCP website is full of it. And what I find particularly refreshing is the practice of "expunging" or blacking out parts of the reports. When it's done right, it's a masterful exercise in giving the reader just enough information that they fill in the gaps with their worst nightmares.
Anyway, this is Halloween, and you wanna be scared. (If you don't, you probably shouldn't read further). So without further ado, here are some entries that I think can put a little creeping terror back into your day:
SCP-679: "Eyerot" (VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED)
IT'S A TRAP
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