#scp-087

Alien: How can a music sheet be dangerous? Human: If you get close to it it will slowly force you before it to finish the song. Alien: And that is bad because? Human: It’ll make you slit your own wrists and use your blood to finish the notes.  Alien: Oh....... -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alien: What could be scary about a man who only appears in your dreams? Human: The fact that he often appears before bad shit is about to go down. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alien: A cowbell? Human: Safe to say if it looks innocent it’ll probably be the most dangerous thing in the world.  Alien: Fair enough. Alien: What does it do? Human: If you ring it it will summon a creature that will constantly attack you in your sleep until you commit suicide.  Alien: Do humans really do that if they don’t get enough sleep? Human: Yup, excluding college students.  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alien: What in the name of gorbo is that!?!? Human: Pack predators that lure their prey in by mimicking voices of people and loved ones. Alien: That’s evil!  Human: Really? Did the bright red skin and dozen sharp pointy teeth not give it away? -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alien: An endless staircase?  Human: Perfect for exercise. Alien: And the catch? Human: Just don’t turn around. Alien: Why not? Human: ...... Human: Just don’t turn around. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alien: This one seems pretty tame.  Human: If by tame you mean drowning someone and then taking their dead body to the ocean floor to be turned into pulp by the pressure then yes. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alien: Why is this creature not contained? Human: Kinda hard to contain something that can move continents.  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alien: A soft drink? Human: That makes you not sleep.  Alien: Don’t they do that already? Human: You don’t understand. Human: You drink it and you’ll never sleep again. Human: Ever.

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Alien: Metal wire? Human: Imagine if it was grass that feeds off electricity to grow.  Alien: That doesn’t sound so harmful. Human: Did you know most living creatures generate some form of electricity through bio chemistry? Alien: I do, and your point? Human: This will attach itself to any electrical current and sap it dry.  Alien: I still do- Alien: Oh. Alien: Oh that is awful. Human: Imagine a hundred metal wires stabbing into your body and wrapping themselves around your nerve systems.  Alien: LALALAL I’M NOT LISTENING! -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   

Alien: A tree? Human: Correction, a plague tree. Alien: So the fruit gives you diseases? Human: No, that’d be silly.  Human: The fruit spawns swarms of insects that transmit the plague to you if agitated. Alien: How is that better?!?!? Human: Who said is was supposed to be better? -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alien: A dollar bill? Human: Not just any normal dollar bill. Alien: Do I even want to know? Human: It makes you forsake all of your worldly possessions to meditate and find inner peace. Alien: That doesn’t sound so bad. Human: It also makes you strip naked, shave off all your hair, cut yourself repeatedly, and then enter a meditative state so deep you eventually die from thirst because you didn’t drink. Alien: Oh come on! -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alien: A magic carpet? Human: No. Alien: Oh good.  Alien: For a second I thought- Human: It’s a fungus carpet that eats people. Alien: Is there anything normal about your planet?  Human: Not the carpets, I can tell you that much. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, today I want to summarize some of the top SCP’s in a non-scary way. SCP stands for Secure, Contain, Protect. It is a collaborative fiction website that allows anyone to contribute. The gist of SCP is for contributors to write fictional but realistic scientific logs about supernatural entities and artifacts. Classic internet Creepypasta definitely inspires and overlaps with SCP, but not all entries are scary or short.

The word SCP describes...

The whole concept of this fiction - “Have you ever heard of SCP?”

the fictional organization - “The SCP foundation sometimes has some pretty questionable ethics when trying to contain these monsters:

Individual entries - “My favorite SCP is the magic toilet that’s a portal to hell!”

For me, the appeal is in the little intricacies. Specifying the dimensions of the creature, the scientific process used to test its abilities, secondhand evidence of what it can do without just outright showing. I enjoy that typically there is no attempt made to explain the origin of the object or creature’s power, only the limits. For example...

SCP-173 is the original one, as far as I can tell. Originally, it was an image of a creepy statue just posted on 4chan with a description of how it can move and kill you when you aren’t looking, but then people started copying that style and making their own entries until it became a thing.

SCP gets much bigger than individual entries: there are fan games, fan art, whole organizations and recurring characters, but I prefer the Lovecraftian, almost Twilight Zone-esque single entries. Maybe if I really get into an SCP phase this time, I’ll check out the bigger stuff, but for now I just wanna describe some of the singular entries in a way that isn’t too spooky. Also I wanted to do this by starting at the highest rated SCP of all time and then working downward, with the highest being SCP-173 as the progenitor. Now, keep in mind that SCP is unified and collaborative, so each of these entries is written by a different author. That is part of why I have little interest in the larger story lines when they are not bound by one canon.

●●|●●●●●|●●|● is the second highest rated SCP, and for good reason. It shows a creepy image of a shadowy monster, then a series of wordless IKEA-esque instructions that describe the creature. For example, a little cute graphic explains that writing down the creature’s name will summon him and cause him to steal the paper his name was written on. On the other hand, speaking his name will cause him to whisk away the human who spoke his name. This one is particularly clever and eye catching, as you are wondering right off the bat why the name is so unusual and why there are no words. This is my favorite kind of SCP: one that makes the reader do some of the legwork to make it satisfying when you figure out what the deal is with this SCP.

SCP-____-J is the third highest rated and not remotely scary! It is the shortest SCP entry I have ever seen and is simply described as a rock that makes you procrastinate, hence the shortness of the entry and even lack of real number. This is what I mean when i say indirect: you are shown proof that the rock does in fact make the assign researcher procrastinate, rather then a description of how his life has fallen into shambles because of procrastination. It’s not high art, but I really appreciate cleverness.

SCP-049 is the fourth highest rated and the first one of these that I would describe as an archetypal entry. 049 looks like a plague doctor, but seems to be able to instantly kill living things but also reanimate corpses. The entry describes several interviews with the doctor, where he keeps talking about curing the “Pestilence” when asked why he kills and then reanimates living things he comes into contact with. This one is a lot of fun because it is mildly creepy, but not scary by any means. Most of the entry is describing his actions and interviews while in captivity and being tested. He talks to the researchers as fellow men of science and is honestly surprised when they don’t appreciate his “cure”. It’s a little cheesy, especially the dialogue, but this one is fun.

SCP-087 is the fifth highest rated and great classic example that isn’t an object or an entity, per se. This one is simply a dark staircase that extends infinitely and perpetually has the cry of a child just out of sight. Furthermore, all people who enter the staircase report the sight of a sudden appearance of a featureless face. Finally, there was a 2 week period of knocking coming from the door that leads into the staircase. I love this because it is a little freaky and leaves a lot to the imagination. Is it a ghost? Is this whole thing just a singularly entity trying to trap visitors? No explanation is given, and that is what I love about SCP in general. Three logs are provided that detail specific incursions into the staircase, but that goes beyond my interest in the simplicity of the concept.

SCP-055 is the sixth highest rated and another great example of a “memetic hazard”. This is a common type of SCP, and the “he who must not be named” and “procrastinating rock” entries above are also examples. “Memetic hazard” means that the object or entity can influence people just by being thought about, in a nutshell. The actual SCP puts a fine point on the difference between cognito, memetic, and info hazards, but I am summarizing here. What I am trying to say is that a lot of these entries are about creatures whose powers affect the way they can be written about, and SCP-055 is the ultimate example. The entry simply describes all the ways that nobody knows anything about it. No one at the foundation knows where it came from, what it looks like, what it can do. Researchers that look at it suddenly can’t remember as soon as they look away. Writing down what it looks like will let you remember as long as you look at the paper, then forget as soon as you look away from the paper. Even looking away from the thing itself will cause you to forget that it ever existed in the first place. Again, this isn’t outright terrifying, but it is a neat read to see all the little tests they performed to find the limit of this thing’s “unknowability”.