"Mankind must not go back to hiding in fear. No one else will protect us, we must stand up for ourselves. While the rest of mankind dwell in the light, we must stand in the darkness to combat it, contain it, and shield it from the eyes of the public, so that others may live in a sane, normal world. We secure. We contain. We protect."
Item #:SCP-4445Object Class: SafeSpecial Containment Procedures: Security of these data has been compromised, rendering further secrecy counter-productive. In accordance with Information Security Protocol 008-C-1 ("Class C breach") and the recommendation of General Bowe, our current orders are to allow all but the most sensitive data to remain freely available, [DATA EXPUNGED], that these data are ██████████ of ██████████ released from the imageboard "4chan" and uploaded to a community-edited website (i.e. a "wiki"): here.Description: SCP-4445 is the incomplete archives of the SCP Foundation, a secret, global organization which exists to study, catalogue, and contain SCP Objects: artifacts and "items which jeopardize normalcy". These range from humans with strange powers, to creatures of extraterrestrial or extradimensional origin, to objects causing unexplainable phenomena, to [DATA EXPUNGED]. All of them represent clear threats to human normalcy, human society, human sanity, human lives, or quite simply the universe at large.Of course, the nature of SCP Objects means that those who contain and study them must possess certain qualities: keen intelligence, a clinical outlook, and complete ruthlessness. The stakes are far too high to allow concerns like morality or the loss of human lives to interfere...In layman's terms, the SCP Foundation is a wiki that serves as a collection of reports on paranormal artifacts/humanoids, based around the idea of an international agency that contains items that threaten the normality of the world. These items are referred to as SCPs, with each one given containment procedures, a description, and history of experiments on them. Originated as "creepypasta" on ██████████ (██████████) board, and then moved to its own site.For those who haven't figured by now, "SCP" stands for "Special Containment Procedures" (with a motto of "Secure, Contain, Protect") - which sums up both the goals and methods of the foundation's supposed actions. Supplementary information includes short stories, profiles of "researchers" , and an associated [DATA EXPUNGED]. There is also roleplaying, but it's still getting off the ground, not counting a "██████████" ██████████ guild that was disliked for having much lower standards. And to prevent any future flame wars, the SCP Foundation website predated the TV series Warehouse 13, but not Raiders of the Lost Ark.An independently developed Survival Horror game called SCP: Containment Breach revolves around SCP-173 escaping its chamber, and is currently in beta. It can be found here.Now in Russian, French and Korean!Has a sister site, The Wanderers Library, that focuses on the Serpent's Hand GOI and their headquarters. A third site focusing on the Global Occult Coalition also been started.Note: Due to the ever changing nature of the SCP Foundation site, some of the entries may no longer be entirely accurate.
Addendum 4445-01: For specific SCP items, please see the list.
Addendum 4445-02: SCP-4445 provides examples of:
open/close all folders
Examples A - B
Adaptive Ability: SCP-682 in a nut shell. Its ability to spontaneously evolve and regenerate lets it counter or at least survive everything thrown at it. This includes SCPs that have reality warping powers. The Foundation's attempts to kill it are numerous and their failures often spectacular.
Affectionate Parody: SCP-1802 is one of the Foundation itself, made to be constantly curious of the things around him, to collect them, and to cache it away in containers.
SCP-1968 looks like a big bronze torus until someone touches it, at which point it'll start moving and warping in impossible ways. Rather fitting for an object that can warp the events of the past.
Alien Lunch: Well, more like Alien Snack, but SCP-261 dispenses some truly weird items which may or may not be able to be described as "food". One example of "food" is the package of "Lemon Clams": a self-steaming package of clams, which, when eaten, taste vaguely of lemon. The problem? In-depth analysis of the clams do not match any known species of clam found on Earth.
Heavily implied by The Administrator's letter, which claims that the SCPs themselves are the universe's conservation of insanity after the end of myths.
More particularly, several of the SCPs are implied to be the cause of certain Real Life myths themselves. For example, the file for SCP-953 notes that the people in the cultures it is traditionally associated with have had generations to learn to deal with it, and that their myths about the creature can be considered a crude precursor for formal Special Containment Procedures. Thus the surrounding folklore is one of the first things that should be considered when planning containment. There are several SCPs that are mythological beings, creatures, locations, or figures - Valhalla Gate pulls people from, well, Valhalla to do battle with the living, a kumiho, Jormungand, and Baba Yaga are in containment, djinn of all sorts are referenced...
One of the proposals for SCP-001 is a sheaf of papers that contains a complete, accurate report about an SCP. The problem is it's the next one to be found.
Almighty Janitor: Wilhelm Grungkok. He knows about the Foundation way more than one would expect from, well, a janitor, because researchers usually ask him to clean up their messy offices, leaving him alone with sensitive documents for hours. Oh, and he cleans up 682's pen on a daily basis.
Amplifier Artifact: SCP-914 on the "Fine" and "Very Fine" settings. SCP-248 is a Factory SCP that increases the performance of anything it's placed on to 110%.
His driving skills will cause this to everyone in the general vicinity. Even if he's on a bike. He blows up the Iranian equivalent of the foundation by having the SCP send him in on roller skates.
How the hell did he manage that with an electrically-powered segway?
Ancient Tomb: SCP-557. And they can't find the thing that got out of it after 4500 years...but anything called the "bastard son of Apepcan't be good news.
The physically-invulnerable SCP-723-D's initial fate; sealed within a massive block of concrete. Given how badly written he was, though, it wasn't undeserved. He did manage to escape one last time, but the two thankless personnel tasked with his decommision killed him by complete accident, after SCP-723 fell victim to a previously unknown peanut allergy while the three were getting drunk at a local bar. They then put SCP-723's body back in the concrete. Just to be safe.
SCP-515 has to be restrained to the point of nigh-immobility, with his limb bones broken for good measure, because whenever 515 moves, a cluster of asteroids comes closer to Earth. The faster he moves (or, formerly, she, but the first 515 died and the current one popped up to replace her), the faster the rocks move.
SCP-747 is a group of children in animal masks that dance around any subject they take interest in, turning that subject into a doll over a period of time. During that period, the subject loses all five major senses until final transformation.
SCP-231 also has to be restrained at all times, and attended by doctors who haven't taken the Hippocratic Oath. Once a day, she has to be subjected to Procedure 110-Montauk, which is so horrible that most of the details are classified, or else she gives birth to something that will possibly end the world. Worse, the psychological trauma appears to be an important part of the process; after every fourth procedure, they erase her memory of the whole shebang so that she doesn't get used to it.
SCP-138, The Ever-Living Man. A severely decayed, hideously decrepit man who is at least 4000 years old, with dozens of unhealed mortal wounds all over his body, who for some reason cannot die... no matter how much he wants to. The SCP are trying to euthanize him, but so far, their attempts have been ineffective.
Victims of SCP-318 are imprisoned within paper scrolls, and they can only see and communicate with the outside world when unrolled (and the Foundation doesn't do that often.) If the paper is damaged enough, they stop responding... but it's unknown if they die, or just lose their only connection with the world.
Anyone who touches SCP-911 ends up floating in an infinite featureless void, unless they manage to escape through a portal that only opens rarely for a few seconds.
SCP-373 allows one to talk to people who, apparently, are imprisoned in a black void where they perceive nothing but the voice of whoever is talking to them. Though it might all be a hoax on part of SCP-373.
SCP-762 is an iron maiden that gives anyone inside of it a Healing Factor and immortality until they are released, but puts sharp spikes through their body. When it was recovered, it contained someone who was probably stuck inside for centuries.
Each of the band members of SCP-332 seem to be aware of their surroundings, but something unseen controls their movement, making them stand still like a statue until they all play in unison, trampling over anyone nearby. For nearly 40 years, they have been in physical stasis, not aging, nor taking any wear and tear by standing in the same spot, and now the SCP Foundation has placed a tall concrete barrier around them. The agents, for some reason, chose to confiscate the whole band, members and all, rather than the instruments, which were hinted to be the source of that controlling force.
SCP-1922 reanimates an hour after dying of natural causes. During this period, he claims his consciousness is transferred to a human locus filled with body parts and waits there until he reanimates. His continuing peripheral vascular disease is making his limbs gangrenous and require amputation. He slowly went insane, screaming every time he reanimates now, and his requests to cremate his body are denied.
Anyone who looks at SCP-531 when the statue is not looking at another of its own kind will undergo a slow and painful transformation into another SCP-531. Once complete, their soul is forever trapped in the statue.
Apocalypse Wow: The 2013 story contest's "Competitive Eschatology" group has every single culture's world-ending beings appear at once, and not just humanity's.
SCP-1288's dimension heard about our 2012 Mayan Apocalypse and decided they should get in on that. The "Wow" factor is from the giant Mayan pyramids (apparently nuclear power plants) at the center of every major city.
How you have concluded that the end of the calendar signifies the end of all things, we can not be sure. Before we saw you, we thought it only a way to tell the passing of seasons and kings. Your reckoning of time inspired us and urged us to take action.
April 1st of 2010 involved one (or more) of the mods going through and editing articles into a more humorous state. Details included replacing researcher's profile pictures, and the containment breach of a self-inserting SCP: adding "And Fred was there." to the end of Foundation Tales pages, and general editing of SCPs (Classification: SUPER KETER)
Darkblade was here.
April 1st of 2009 featured multiple image replacements on the most popular SCPs, including depicting 682 (the Hard-To-Destroy Reptile) as Barney, 076-2 (the official Mary Sue boundary line), and 173 (the statue that attacks when you're not watching it) as the Statue of Liberty. Also, the site WoobieCan of Sealed Evil, 231-7, was cured and set free, and in its test log 682 was killed by cutting it in half and letting the halves kill each other.
And 914, the only SCP to surpass the original in popularity, was erased and relabeled as, basically, "This is a picture of a box full of gears. Why on earth does everyone like it so much?"
In 2012, the "Groups of Interest" page got a makeover, with the Red Team as the GOC, Anonymous as "Nobody", and Drosselmyer as Dr. Wondertainment. Plus there was a slot added for the Shark Punching Centre. Other SCPs had their pictures changed to comedic images.
Furthermore, Darkblade (SCP-777-J) and a Self Insert named Fred went on an SCP hopping adventure while trying to beat each other up.
And Dr. Clef's Proposal (SCP-001) is Lilith for the moment.
2013 now has all of the pages rewritten to be DogFacts.
"Object Class: Thaumiel" is used in SCP-001 related tales and proposals, to indicate an SCP that has the potential to secure, contain or protect the world from SCP objects as a whole.
From SCP-1006, a Marxist collective of sentient spiders:
Once supplied a source of black ink and poster sheets, SCP-1006 will communicate with humans by creating signs written in English. These communications are largely centered around demands for the dismantling of western imperialism, a scathing critique of the bourgeoisie, and a request for less mosquito spraying in the surrounding area of the park.(read "please stop poisoning our food.").
-Three (3) sets of standard Foundation surgical equipment
-█████ ███ █████████████
-Two (2) D-Class research cadavers
-One (1) gasoline-powered generator
-A variety of chemicals, including large quantities of tryptophan, phenylalanine, █████████ and tyrosine, among others
-One (1) container of powdered coffee creamer
In Dr. Robinson's Statement, after viewing SCP-1981 in 1994, Ronald Reagan became erratic and ordered the killings of "a civil rights lawyer based out of Chicago, a 15-year-old high school student in Oslo, Norway, and the four-year-old daughter of a New York investment banker." Barack Obama, Anders Breivik, and Taylor Swift.
From SCP-1954: "Experimentation logs show that after no less than 20 successful attempts at homemaking tasks, the instructions turn into detailed rituals, some of which mirror those which first were recorded in ███ ██████; some have never been previously documented. Most of these rituals involve murder, cannibalization, ██████ encounters, self mutilation, and canned vegetables."
The Class Ds are recruited death row inmates, but one will likely feel sorry for them anyway.
Guest researcher Dr W. He fed TWO children to SCP 682 for utterly arbitrary reasons. Director Clef realized what was going on and murdered Dr W in the same manner.
Author Avatar: Many characters are named after the usernames of their real-life counterparts. The avatars and the authors are not always alike.
Autocannibalism: SCP-524, an Extreme Omnivore rabbit who is so extreme that his diet includes himself. When the only remaining parts of his body are parts that he can't reach with his mouth, his mouth flips inside out, swallowing himself whole in one final gulp. Half an hour later he'll re-appear, whole and unharmed.
Autodoc: SCP-212, which "improves" the body by adding or replacing certain tissues with the nearest artificial equivalent. This may wind up being lethal.
Badass Boast: "[The O5s] judge what is and isn't safe, and that's a vital and important function. But we are the ones who advise the O5s on what is and is not acceptable."
Most competent Foundation personnel. For example, one of SCP-140's archeological digs went very, very wrong. The doctor in charge of the site sacrificed his life to stop whatever the Hell was in there.
Beat It By Compulsion: The "Feral" form of SCP-578, though it's not "beat" as much as "slow it down at least a bit".
Berserk Button: Apparently, SCP-387 (a pile of sentient LEGO blocks) will do something extremely violent and unexpected when shown a pile of Megablocks.
Experiment 387-e: Once a normal community of 387 was constructed, a small mound of Megablocks (a common copy of Lego) was placed near the community. When this happened, everything constructed of 387 stopped moving, turned slowly towards the Megablocks and [EXPUNGED].
Black and Grey Morality: Pretty much all SCPs that aren't trying to outright destroy the world or kill people are extremely dangerous. Take into account that there are other organizations that are trying to use SCPs for their own agendas and it's almost outright Black And Black Morality. The Foundation is a slightly Grey entity, and even then, they've slaughtered millions, altered reality, and are toying with forces they barely understand. But, like one short story says "You want happy endings? Fuck you. You're alive to read it. God help us all."
Black Box: SCP-914. Various settings give the user "control" of the output.
The Blank: SCP-600, which has the faceless version visible on camera, but otherwise takes on appearance based on direct human observers.
Blatant Lies: Occasionally pops up while the Foundation is trying to cover something up. One good example:
"[It is determined that this is the point where Dr. Clef accidentally fell out of his chair and struck his head nine times against the corner of the desk, fracturing his skull and snapping his neck between the second and third vertebrae.]"
Although that example is a strange one, as the only thing being covered up in the source document is the precise nature of Dr. Clef himself.
One of the most notable examples, however, is SCP-835, a creature that is horribly disgusting in its own right, until you read the uncensoredlogs from the mission and discover that it is composed entirely of parts of the human anatomy. Tooth enamel, muscle. All from humans it has digested.
A more offbeat variant is SCP-524. It's a bunny rabbit that can eat anything. Including itself. Anything it eats will regenerate, so it will regularly eat parts of itself, or even its whole body. Literally. It can eat its own head.
Body to Jewel: SCP-375 will do this to anyone inside its vault when the vault is closed.
A lot of articles will read like this, with the article seemingly describing a normal person/object with mundane powers until you read the part about how it kills/mentally scars/otherwise ruins you. For example, a magic boarding pass that transforms into a valid ticket for the nearest public transportation vehicle, completely indistinguishable from any normal ticket (like the bus pass in your wallet right now). And then once you reach your destination, it erases you from existence.
Performance: "Play With the Jenklsedn" by "Rodney Harper"
Program Description: A play all children should attend, Play With the Jenklsedn addresses problems of growing up, family issues, and even how to deal with a family pet.
Observations: Scenes include "Bad Words", "Why We Share", and "Sexual Problems with Cats".
One of the items dispensed from SCP-261 is a package of "Dimensional Donuts". These are small, edible donuts with a spacial anomaly where the hole would be. Things sometimes fall out of this "hole".
Item Description: Dimensional Donuts — A brightly colored box of donuts, labeling in Spanish. Donuts possess a small interdimensional anomaly, located in the hole of the donut which is destroyed once the ring of the donut is broken. When held sideways, small objects fall out of the hole, the object varying depending on person, donut, and time of day. Items noted include small candies, slices of fruit, jigsaw pieces, various forms of ammunition, blood, gasoline, various insects of unknown species, and human fingers.
SCP-1954, the 'Housewives Handbook' contains the following line about how the instructions go from weird but mundane (such as putting cat hair in meatballs) to insane rituals:
Most of these rituals involve murder, cannibalisation, sexual encounters, self mutilation, and canned vegetables.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: SCP-993, a children's' television show about "Bobble the Clown" which sends viewers over ten into a coma for the duration of the program. Like most children's' shows of the particular format, it has the normal sort of fourth-wall-breaking, speaking directly to the audience as he teaches the under-tens to commit any number of atrocities. More recently, it seems to have caught on to the SCP Foundation's efforts to keep it from being broadcast to the world; the two most recently archived episodes are Bobble Hates You note Bobble the Clown sitting in a chair, glaring at the viewer for thirty minutes straight and (EXPLETIVE) YOU (EXPLETIVE) YOU (EXPLETIVE) YOU note Bobble the Clown in the room where the Foundation has his show archived, angrily telling the viewer how to breach containment of several dangerous SCPs and murder several important Foundation personnel, featuring an appearance by the animated version of a researcher who happened to be passing by the archive at the time shown on the clock in the show.
Then there's S Andrew Swann's Proposal. In the end, it concludes with the basic truth of the matter: But we found out that there is a God, and it is SCP-001. And it’s a bunch of horror writers.
Compared to the others, the real Bunny-Ears Lawyer is Dr. Glass. He's probably the only one with anything resembling normal human emotions and morals.
Butt Monkey: The Unusual Incidents Unit (UIU), an underfunded division of the FBI that is very inept compared to the other Groups of Interest and is used and manipulated by almost all of them.
C - D
Cain and Abel: There's a human SCP named Cain, and one named Able (with that spelling, though it used to be interchangeable). Cain is Able's Berserk Button (though Able is The Berserkeranyway.) Interestingly, Cain is a friendly, helpful guy whose unfortunate effect on plant life and soil is what makes him Euclid class (that's bad.) Able, on the other hand, is a Keter class (that's ultra-bad) unkillableAx CrazyBlood Knight to the point of basically being a human version of good ol' 682. Looks like the good book didn't give us the whole story. They used to be more interconnected (it's implied they originated from the same place, and exposure to each other caused Cain to go into [DATA EXPUNGED]), but with Able's Re Tool, they're now separate, only bound by their names.
Cannon Fodder: Dying is literally in the job description of Class D Personnel. It can get quite blatant; for instance SCP-120 notes that a moon base was constructed after expending "vast amounts of money and D-personnel".
Despite being Elite Mooks, the Foundation's Mobile Task Forces are surprisingly easily defeated. (Given the nature of what they're up against, this isn't entirely surprising. Even the SCPs that aren't actively hostile are often very difficult to handle.) Read through any given incident report featuring any given Mobile Task Force and watch the team quickly fall apart, one member at a time. Yes, even that time they went after a non-sentient SCP whose only known ability was to produce an infinite amount of pasta.
MD: This is MD, we're on floor seventeen, ME is down!
L1: Down? Why?
MF: Some farfalle cut him to death, fuck if I know!
Of course, this depends on SCP to SCP. Some have managed to destroy horrible magic artifacts with nothing but modern day weaponry.
It might help if you know where D-Class personnel come from. Most of them are prisoners taken from death row, on the basis that since they're going to die and are no longer afforded any human rights whatsoever, we might as well throw them at anything that we can't get volunteers for. A few of them are instead ex-members of Foundation staff, who got busted down to D-Class after they misbehaved so badly that they may well have endangered their entire facility for a petty lark. Either way, any D-Class personnel who manage to survive testing by the end of the month are executed.
Cats Are Mean: SCP-511; a living, cat-shaped mass of debris, flesh, and rot. It's always surrounded by hordes of cats, and makes them very unpleasant. 511s are made by the cats. The cats made it because they hate us.
SCP-607 is a cat that is bonded to somebody it declares to be its owner in a way that causes the owner to suffer any injury it does. The cat will regenerate or revive after any sort of injury. The owner, however, will not, which is bad since the cat is actively suicidal.
Subverted with SCP-529 (a.k.a. "Josie"), who is quite affectionate despite not having any hindquarters to speak of.
Chainsaw Good / This Is a Drill: After Able started working for the Foundation, some changes were observed in his endless supply of hack-slash-stabbity-chop-chop implements:
Addendum 076-08: As of 08/11/????, SCP-076-2's weapons have become noticeably different, being constructed of an unknown dull, dark brown metal, the items mechanical in design and nature, rather than traditionalist iron forged items. Rotating blades, chain edges, and drills are often present on subject's weaponry, powered and operated by unknown sources. It is unknown as to what prompted this change, and SCP-076-2 again refuses to divulge any information regarding it, stating only "Your people have created such odd blades. I thought I might see how they worked."
Clef recounts a time when he was bringing a chainsaw to work to test if it had any anomalies worth researching, but wound up in the middle of what he thought was D-Class riot (but was actually a costume party for the research staff). Half the research staff died that night, and the chainsaw was discovered to be just a regular chainsaw after all.
From the list of Things Dr Bright Is Not Allowed To Do;
42) Chainsaws are not the solution to every question.
Childless Dystopia: SCP-1322 is a small interdimensional portal to another world. The people on the other side have suffered a global Sterility Plague, and blame our side.
He handed me a pair of field glasses. Take a look, he said. I saw the German missing half of his head, still screaming. ... The Frenchman, in his terrible calm voice, explained that his shot had to have destroyed at least a quarter of the soldier's brain tissue. Enough to cause instant death, he said. But watch. I kept watching through the field glasses. The German didn't stop screaming... the Frenchman lined up another shot. The rest of the soldier's head was now gone, and the screaming was replaced by some sort of low grunting, the likes of which I have never heard from men.
Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Believing you can keep SCP-616-1 open will make you able to keep it open. For this reason, the Foundation painted Satanic symbols all over it and manned SCP-616 flights with devout people.
SCP-239 is a Reality Warper who doesn't fully understand the nature of her powers. Instead, what she believes to be true becomes true. People are exceptionally nice to her because she thinks they're her friends, so they become friendly. Bordering on Mind Screw, this works the other way as well: Dr. Clef frightened her, and she believed he wanted to kill her, so he became obsessed with killing her.
Clock Punk: SCP-217 is a virus that gradually and painfully turns any animal's organs (including humans) into gear-and-cog-driven machines.
Cloning Blues / Expendable Clone: SCP-1610 is a mysterious liquid that can make six clones out of one person without harming the original. The clones are okay with their situation (they're not supposed to be sapient), it's their creators who had problems with them, especially after turning their head researcher and his loyal secretary into test subjects:
Prometheus Labs researcher: I didn't come to work here so that I could commit murder over and over again. We're making no fucking progress and the higher ups fucking know it. The project should've stopped after the first week. Goodbye. I'm burning my body so you bastards can't fucking kill me more than I want to be killed.
Another researcher: I only wanted to help. All we've done is make humans that want to be killed. It crossed the line when they programmed in the phrase, "I wanted to die."
Combo Platter Powers: Allowing for humanoid SCPs has resulted in many a Mary Sue being listed. These are generally deleted within time, but the notoriously bad ones are decommissioned: they remain in the series continuity as past SCPs and are given elaborate destruction sequences.
The SCP reports are written in an entirely serious tone, no matter how absurd the topic might be - a cake platter that continually generates cakes of various sizes sounds silly, but it's there and has to dealt with, as left unchecked it would bury the entire world under baked goods. Thus, the dry manner of the archive acts a Straight Man to the nature of the SCPs (especially the "joke" ones) and the eccentric behaviour of SCP personnel.
The dead serious warnings after some doctors with a sense of humor pull some sort of stunt/prank.
The Foundation itself routinely does this when recovering SCPs that have caused casualties.
Not fatal, but this after-incident interview ends with a description of some completely accidental injuries on the part of Doctor Clef.
Corrupt Corporate Executive: Marshall, Carter, and Dark, Ltd. is a group that captures (and occasionally makes) SCP objects for exploitation and sale to rich people.
The Factory may have been run by these sort of people.
Cosmic Horror Story: Perhaps at an even greater level than Lovecraft's, as the Foundation hasn't even been able to catalog the number of parallel universes, pocket dimensions, and indescribably vast voids full of incomprehensible entities and forces trying to kill us.
Lovecraft Lite: And sometimes, the Foundation kicks them in the face.
Cosmic Retcon: SCP-140, a book describing the history of a horrifically evil civilization. And any time it gets anywhere near ink, shed human blood, or other fluids suitable for writing, it grows, and new artifacts and traces of the new material show up in archaeological digs.
Not to mention that if you give it enough ink, it extends the history of the Daevites. Original version: Daevites were squished by Qin Kai in the 3rd century BCE. Now? They were squished by Genghis Khan... (Did the book itself retroactively create the Daevites?)
Crap Saccharine World: Several SCP's are towns, locations, or areas where things are good thing to be true for any that inhabit it.
Creepy Changing Painting: SCP-173 is the most prominent example, but there are quite a few SCPs that only demonstrate their true nature when nobody is watching.
Creepy Child: Quite a few SCPs either are children (SCP-053, look like children (SCP-1003), or cause children to become creepy (SCP-097).
Crossover: These are generally frowned upon; there used to be a lot of joke SCPs which were nothing more than "It's that thing from that show, and here's how the SCP foundation would describe it!", and they got eventually deleted. However, Clef's "Project Crossover" is a challenge to write a good crossover story—or, a good bad crossover story.
Cult: Many are known enemies of The Foundation and many worship/created different objects.
Examples include:
Church of the Broken God: A cross of Clockpunk and Machine Worship, as the name implies they worship a broken mechanical god. They claim that SCP-882 is the "heart" of their god. They also show interest in SCP-217 and SCP-271. The implications of a union between these objects is disturbing.
The Serpent's Hand: This group considers The Foundation to be unenlightened, they embrace the use of Paranormal objects and hold humanoid SCP in high esteem. The note in this security breach references "Black Surtr" as well.
The group responsible for the creation/impregnation of SCP-231, "The Children Of The Scarlet King".
[It is determined that this is the point where Dr. Clef accidentally fell out of his chair and struck his head nine times against the corner of the desk, fracturing his skull and snapping his neck between the second and third vertebrae.]
Darker and Edgier - The Never Hungry Man was changed from an SCP who was released back into the general public when his condition posed no threat to a man with worms that have faces in his stomach that leap out at people. In fact, this is typically the fate of many SCP drafts whom are said to be either too bland or not have a good hook. Then again, sometimes there's too much senseless edginess, and some needs to be Dummied Out.
SCP-299 is "an arboriform organism" that makes plants hard, black, pointy, and covered in prehensile vines; it also releases chemicals that make humans paranoid and aggressive.
Dark Is Not Evil: SCP-738-1 (appearing to anyone using an app by the name of "MalO" for a sufficient amount of time), a large humanoid mass of shaggy black hair with a canine skull for a face, makes no attempt to actively harm anyone. Mostly it just wants to hang out. The problem comes from the fact that it won't leave you alone.
Delivery Stork: Horrifically inverted by SCP-918, a group of storks that spirit away newborn children to be harvested and turned into cosmetic products.
Depending on the Writer: Regarding the SCP Foundation itself. Although there is a general set of guidelines that everyone should follow for writing articles, the specifics are less well defined and each author has to decide for themselves how to handle them.
Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Eldritch Application, where the Foundation director refuses to take Zalgo in as SCP since it's too vaguely defined, all-encompassing and hasn't ever done anything worth containing, which causes it to admit defeat and leave in shame. The ending hints that Cthulhu will get similar threatment as well.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Any time a Keter class gets detained effectively (which is very, very rare) or even detained at all, it's this. Special mention goes to the Agent who managed to murder Able several times (gaining Able's respect) before an airstrike killed him, and an Agent who managed to contain SCP-058 after its rampage by squashing it under a tank. Decommissions are often this, except when done by Clef.
Divide by Zero: SCP-033 is a complex math problem whose answer is a previously unknown number that destroys any piece of paper that it is written on that isn't a very specific shape, destroys all computer systems, and can jump to any paper or computer system within 30 meters.
Doing in the Wizard : Averted. For a site that prides itself on clinical detachment and scientific inquiry, it is almost impossible to discover how nearly all of the SCPs actually work, where they came from, or why anyone would want to make some of them. They give it a good try, but it's not as important as knowing how to keep them safe and under control. If they ever came across a real wizard, they'd measure his staff, subject him to "stress" tests to determine destructibility, and finally have some very strong words with him over the creation of Eldritch Abominations. And, of course, they'd want to see if his magic could kill SCP-682.
Writers are pretty much encouraged to make sure that whatever SCP entity they write either hard to comprehend or flat out incomprehensible.
Dream World: SCP-1230, a book where the subject can live out their fantasies. Their guide, the Bookkeeper, is friendly and the dreamworld can't harm them. Unfortunately when the subject works at the Nightmare Fuel Factory known as the SCP, well, see the next item.
Driven to Suicide: Commonly happens among Researchers, Agents, and D-Class personnel.
A research team hypothesized that rollerblades are, technically, vehicles. We tested their hypothesis by having Gerald skate into the ORIA's headquarters in Tehran. They were right.note The building went up in a giant explosion.
Drinking Contest: SCP-1212 is a bar stool that mentally transports the sitter into various drinking establishments and forces them to enter a drinking contest that only ends after one hour has passed or the sitter dies (if they go unconscious SCP-1212 forces them to keep drinking).
Entity/entities in SCP-1212's "bars": "You must drink with me, in memory of those who sat where you sit and lacked the strength to understand their limits," and "We must curse those who were weak, and honor those who were strong."
Drop the Hammer: One Doctor's reaction to SCP-354-3. He was severely wounded in the ensuing explosion, but made a full recovery and was commended for his actions.
E - F
Early Installment Weirdness: The earliest SCPs written, like 173 and 004, are very different in tone and format than what the writers later adopted as the site's definite style.
Eldritch Abomination: The SCP Foundation's job is to contain or neutralize hundreds of them. The Church of the Broken God is attempting to resurrect one.
Elemental Shapeshifter: One of the SCPs could turn into earth, fire, water, wind, and lightning.
Emo Teen: SCP-1699 which is a sentient active volcano with this personality. It's depressed because it feel it doesn't measure up to other natural disasters.
Here are just a few: SCP-008 can cause a Zombie Apocalypse. SCP-682 is an Omnicidal Maniac that can't be killed by any known means and rapidly adapts new abilities in response to anything it's introduced to — more than one End of the World scenario involves it getting its hands on something that eliminates its ability to be temporarily incapacitated through massive injury. SCP-217 and SCP-253 are The Virus. SCP-231-7 is strongly believed to potentially bring one of these about if the Fetus Terrible inside her is born, which means that she must be constantly and violently [DATA EXPUNGED] (Reading this may make you physically ill). SCP-093 operates as a gateway into a parallel world After the End - with the implication that the threat that destroyed that world could make its way into other universes.
This short story explores the consequences of SCP-173 reproducing.
While the above all hold true, a variety of Judeo-Christian figures like SCP-343 and proposed SCP-001 seem to show that canonically, Earth is doomed to end sometime in the 22nd century during Armageddon, as long as something other SCP doesn't get to it first
SCP-1985 is a woman, who after dying, is teleported to an alternate universe undergoing an end of the world scenario.
The K Class Scenarios are each a specific version of the end of the world (remember that there is no canon, and some scenarios may be duplicated, different in some way, have different class letters or be an idea of what the K-Class scenario is about without anyone actually using it in an SCP article):
AK-class Madness scenario: When humanity suffers a mental block on normal activity on a scale massive enough to totally disrupt the lives of those affected.SCP-1101 has the potential to create such a runaway scenario if a containment breach allows a chain-reaction of people to become exposed to the anomaly, join the debate, and begin to draw other people into the anomaly. SCP-571 and the viral memetic property that gives affected people a compulsive need to spread the meme. Or the entire planet thinking they are a toaster.
CK-class Restructuring scenario: Mentioned by Dr. Clef in relation to SCP-239. It doesn't end the world outright, but the world is so different that it might as well be gone. Another example of a CK is SCP-140. The longer the book grows, the longer the gruesome civilisation in the book survives in real life. Making it long enough would change modern society beyond recognition.
IK-class Global Civilisation Collapse scenario. One story has a (perfectly normal, non-anomalous) asteroid that would kill 3 billion people over the next 10 years when it hit Earth being called an IK-Class natural disaster.
GK-class Hostile Greenhouse scenario: When plant life would severely disrupt the planet. Used in SCP-540 where anomalous weapons cause plants to bloom. It contains an modified Tsar Bomba, a 75 megaton nuclear weapon that would cause a forest to break out over one third of the planet.
LK-class Species Transmutation: The species involved is transformed so much and so thoroughly that the original version no longer exists. Examples are the clockwork virus or a full scale Zombie Apocalypse.
NK-class Replication scenario: An object that is self-replicating or able to create matter out of nothing spirals out of control, and Earth becomes uninhabitable because it's completely covered in ink or cakes or what have you.
RK-class Replacement scenario: Where all life is replaced by some other form of life or self replicating robots.
SK-class Dominance Shift scenario: The dominant species being made extinct or forced into subjugation by another species. This could happen if a currently contained species becomes aware of then began direct competition with humanity, when a replicating human is unable to be contained and it takes over the planet, or when humanity rose up against a dominant sapient species during our pre-history and took control over the planet..
XK-class End Of The World scenario: Was originally used in relation to religious based ends of the world, but shifted to an 'all purpose' of the end of the world scenario that could be anything from 'humans died' right up to 'the death of all life on the planet' or even 'the entire planet is exploded'. It's bad news, whatever the end result is. Dr. Clef's proposed SCP-001 if moved in confluence with a breach in SCP-995 and the opening of SCP-616 is just one example.
YK-class Vacuum Decay: Causing the physical universe to be destroyed and overwritten in a 'scientific' means, as opposed to a CK-class or a metaphysical ZK-class reality failure. SCP-319 is described as causing a ZK-class Reality Failure, although it would be more accurately labelled (if there was real consistency in regards to the K-classes) as a YK-class because the universe would still exist, just not under our laws, as opposed to reality itself ceasing to exist.
Enemy Mine: The SCP foundation and Global Occult Coalition have been known to occasionally work together to stop a creator of SCP's. As seen in SCP 191
Even Evil Has Standards: Every once in a while members of the Foundation demonstrate that there are a very few lines they will not cross, at least not without very good reason. Examples include:
Human experimentation with SCP-439 was immediately terminated on discovering that its victims remain alive and possibly conscious.
SCP-231's page indicates that the Foundation is terribly, terribly guilt-ridden about it, and more than once have had to deal with agents who have tried to rescue the girls.
It's also worth pointing out that any D-class personnel who tries to "prolong" Procedure 110-Montauk is immediately executed.
To give the new reader an idea of how great an extent of this trope this example is, Dr. Clef's identity is not known. The most popular theory? He's Satan.
05-█ denied the undertaking of a ritual that would produce a weapon capable of neutralizing SCP-682, stating "Nothing can be worth that."
SCP-107 normally generates a rainstorm from any liquid poured into it (including water, orange juice, human blood, and super glue), but it didn't work when the Foundation tested it with elemental mercury.
The story behind SCP-811's origin made the attending research assistant vomit.
The Foundation does have an Ethics Committee. They may seem ineffectual, but actually take their job very seriously.
Their treatment of SCP-661, a Jerk Ass salesman with a Compelling Voice. Upon finding out that some personnel were provoking or outright abusing him, they really weren't happy.
There's an old woman SCP who has lived hundreds of years. It's due to a potion she makes that can extend someone's life indefinitely, and heal any wounds or ailments. It can be reproduced. However, it's Powered by a Forsaken Child (and by "powered by" we mean "used as one of the ingredients." She is hinted to be the inspiration the witch in Hansel And Gretel.note She likes the nickname Totenkinder, and has the right accent to from the general area of Germany, at least.) Not just making more, but even using the amount that is already made, is considered not to be an option even in the case of an emergency. (However, she is allowed to drink the existing brew she already has because her information is considered invaluable. They have standards, but don't think they're going soft.)
Everythings Worse With Bees: Inverted and invoked by SCP-1256. It's a pamphlet that uses Insane Troll Logic to make you think that bees are smarter than you think. It also has the effect of making anyone who reads it in full to love and care for bees and other similar species such as wasps unconditionally, even if it harms the insects and makes them hostile.
The data extracted from SCP-328. To avoid Don't Explain the Joke, spoilered: the data describes an ordinary human laptop computer, as described by members of a decidedly alien species who might exist in a different universe with slightly different physical laws. The aliens describing the laptop seem to belong to the alien equivalent of the SCP Foundation. To complete the joke, SCP-328 seems to be the alien's version of a laptop computer, and if the Foundation's description of it was to make its way back to the aliens they'd consider it to be an Expospeak Gag description of their laptop.
And they seem to be truly Starfish Alien types, as the mere act of a laptop emitting light manages to kill 4 researchers.
SCP-1960-J is a free-floating sphere made of white stone which moves in a continuous circular path, despite lacking any visible means of support or propulsion. It appears to absorb or suppress sound, changes color as one gets closer to it, has extreme temperature variations despite having no internal heat source, one needs to wear an environmental suit to touch it without dying, and it draws objects towards it. Fortunately, it is located a safe distance from anyone that it could harm, but a change in its circular motion could cause an XK-class end-of-the-world scenario. It is Earth's moon.
A D-class who was known amongst the other Ds as "Goat" for being able to stomach the horrible food the Foundation gave them also became a true Extreme Omnivore capable of digesting rock, metal, etc. after drinking a mixture of water and SCP-1049-J.
Mr. Hungry is a humanoid SCP with an extremely fast metabolism that requires an intake of 2000 calories every two hours. If the condition is not met, he will enter a trance state and eat anything solid on sight, whether it is living or not, for a period of time.
Eye Scream: gouging out own eyes in madness is a fairy normal practice. In addition, the page for SCP-212 includes a graphic picture of eye surgery.
Two SCPs infect victims, usually by tearing out their eyeball and using it as a host, or melting their eye away and replacing it with fungi-strands (that oddly still allow you to see).
SCP-750 is a pair of contact lenses. They can't be removed by the wearer; only someone else. Oh yeah, and they make you see everything in a twisted Silent Hill-esque filter. Humans? Humans are seen as twisted abominations. Have fun getting those out!
Fantastic Racism: SCP-1171 is some sort of otherworldly creature located apparently in an alternate universe who is quite (passively) racist against humans. Apparently "gamete" is a racial slur against humans where he comes from. At least he's pretty nice to them up front.
Flat World: SCP-1372 appears to be the edge of the earth. The problem isn't ships and people going over the edge, it's when they come back and try to get others to follow:
Log of F███████ R███████: The captain… was only after a fashion onboard. The same goes for the crew… they are gone now, the flames took them. Today is mostly a blur. All I know is that the moment I heard the men onboard that ship speak, I didn't want to understandtheir far-off words. [...] Forgive me, Captain, but I no longer want to know what you saw beyond the edge of the Earth.
Subverted. The phenomenon only exists in one small area of the Pacific.
Fighting from the Inside: SCP-239 is frightened of Dr. Clef and fears he will kill her for secretly using her "spells", so her reality-warping powers make him obsessed with killing her. Later, a deleted email is found on his computer, urging the Foundation to secure her and lock-down the site before he acts on it, then changes his mind and junks the message.
Document 143-A: We'll have to pick up the remains when the wind dies down in a couple days.
SCP-1818, 400+ abnormally sharp, tough, tiny, objects that resemble snowflakes.
Fling A Light Into The Future: Inverted with SCP-304, amongst others. 304 appears to be a listing of the names of all world leaders, including American Presidents, Chinese Presidents, and... SCP O5s. Specifically, they list 63 American presidents, a redacted number of SCP O5s, and 7 names in an encoding style that hasn't been invented yet... then abruptly stops. What happens in roughly 100 years to abruptly stop the list of human leadership is unknown.
For Inconvenience, Press "1": SCP-361 is an Etruscan artifact resembling a divining liver. If you put an actual sheep liver on it you get the following message:
"Welcome to HarusCo! Your sacrifice is very important to us! For Tinia the Thunderer, please perform a horizontal incision on the offering. For Aita of the Underworld, please perform a vertical incision. For Maris, lightly cover your offering with the ash of a dead warrior related to you by blood."
Fun with Acronyms: The Foundation's front companies, such SecureCorp Professionals, Soap from Corpses Products, South Cheyenne Point, and Skeptics of Conspiracy and the Paranormal.
Few more appear in UIU Orientation, Soap and Care Products, Superior Consumer Produce, Sudden Career Possibilities, Security for Corporate Profiteers, and Spicy Crust Pizzeria.
G - H
Gaia's Vengeance: SCP-1100 AKA "Gaia's Blood" mutates living things in order to kill humans. It was thought to have been created by an Animal Wrongs Group but it seems to be literally Gaia's blood and she's extremely pissed.
Gender Bender - SCP-113 is a piece of red jasper that can do this upon contact with flesh of a gendered organism. SCP-040 can do this too, if 'exposed' to the right desire.
Also, the Abrahamic faiths seem to be right. A number of SCPs require containment procedures be performed by individuals with good standing in one of the three monotheistic religions. There is no mention of similar circumstances for Hindus or any other religion. Then there is the entry for Dr. Clef's proposal for SCP-001.
Of course it could just be that most, if not all, of the writers for the site are from the three religions and don't want to make a Theme Park Version of any of the other religions.
Clef suggests that SCP-239 might be God, but he's likely to be lying. (That she's now being kept in an induced coma is reminiscent of the plot of Dogma.)
A God Am I: SCP-1832: "[And I knew it.] That I had the power. To heal or to not, to judge the wicked, to deny a man love and mercy when he needs it most. What I knew then was what it's like to be God." And when he gets that powerful feeling he can heal more effectively... for a while.
God Is Evil: Depending on which account is true, the God of the world accessible through SCP-093 is either a Jerkass who started a wholly unnecessary war for the hell of it, the methods of which caused The End of the World as We Know It as it created grotesque undead monsters... or is an Eldritch Abomination who invaded that world and used the pretense of being God to enslave humanity, the method used and technology it granted in the process creating the aforementioned grotesque undead monsters.
Golem: SCP-1030 is pretty clearly either a reference to, or even the original Golem from Jewish folklore.
Food out. Suit can’t make any more water. Saw a hall with ten thousand doors. Ran down it, smashed a bunch, then kept climbing. Lost my boots. Floor looked like carpet. Made of super-sharp stone. Cut suit to ribbons. Feet too. Blood all over the shaft. Hope it appreciates it. Going to crush this thing. Feel it shatter in my hand. Hate this place. Keep hearing Henry. Keep telling him he’s dead. Won’t listen.
Go Through Me: Kondraki, Gears, Kain, and several SCPs turn out to protect SCP-239 from Clef's attempt to kill her.
The SCP include:
SCP-408: A swarm of butterflies, able to turn objects invisible. Aids in turning Dr. Kondraki invisible.
SCP-091-ARC: A sentient tree with infectious pollen. Infects Dr. Clef, causing random plant growth to sprout from him.
SCP-336: A human-like SCP with the ability force people to do whatever she says. (Dr. Clef counters this by shooting his ears)
SCP-244-ARC: Extremely advanced fighting machine.
SCP-547: Human-like SCP with thermokinesis. Engages Dr. Clef, and causes second and third degree burns on 50% of Dr. Clef's body.
SCP 776: A non-sentient die. When rolled, the die acts accordingly to the side facing up. Dr. Clef rolled the die three times. The first two times, the water droplets side came up, completely flooding the hallway. He then rolled the snowflake, causing the water to quickly freeze and barricade him from SCP-239.
All posted within a two-day period by different authors:
SCP-1284, young girls whose limbs detach and become carnivorous rabbits if exposed to moonlight apparently the doing of their "king", who "consummates" their marriage by killing them when they have their periods. SCP-1282, rabbits who turn into human hunters who hunt rabbits during the full moon. SCP-1818, a manifestation of a living-dead rabbit on a certain company's airplanes (no moonlight necessary) and whatever's doing it is forgetting how its "thing" is supposed to go.
In fact, this may have already happened in SCP-231's case. Fridge Logic dictates that as she will die of old age or otherwise and unleash the world-endingEldritch Abomination she's pregnant with, they had better come up with something fast. The higher-ups deciding not to do anything and thereby endangering the world, and not wanting to do anything anyway, is very uncomfortably indicative of this trope.
Subverted; the article says they are indeed searching for an alternative, and the repeated [DATA EXPUNGED] they keep doing to her is an attempt to buy time. Double Subverted by some extremely fine print hidden in Addendum 231-B: "Don't believe it when they say they're trying to save her. Why would they bother? They've got exactly what they want exactly where they want it."
An unintentional meta example occurred before the Mass Edit. The site was filled with far too many Marty StuReality Warpers and self-inserted superheroes. As a creative way to deal with this, the writers started killing off SCPs in Termination Logs. A big part of these was to try to find the most over-the-top, insanely awesome way to kill an SCP. Around the time that Dr. Kondrakirode SCP-682 like a rodeo bull, they realized that their own Author Avatars had become the very thing they were trying to destroy. invoked
Historical In-Joke - Several. Such as Kitty Genovese's murder weapon being an SCP, to all recorded instances of Spontaneous Combustion caused by a viral SCP.
The explosion of Mt. St. Helens was caused by an SCP-076 containment breach.
SCP-627 is a more obvious example than most. Look at the blacked out names and the corresponding dates.
This is the ultimate goal of SCP-035. It's an Evil Mask that secretes a highly corrosive liquid that prevents it from keeping a host. It wants to take over SCP-682. Obviously, the Foundation doesn't want this, so it's taken to Mind Raping the personnel assigned to it.
A benevolent example: One of the short fiction pieces has the Foundation attempt to use SCP-963 to overwrite SCP-682's mind with that of Dr. Bright. It fails. Considering what Dr. Bright is, this might be for the best.
Honorable Elephants: SCP-1495 is a herd of very intelligent elephants. Using a special fluid the males excrete during mating season they are able to influence other animals into attacking people they somehow know are rapists and murderers.
According to the Competitive Eschatology story group:
SCP-231-7 is Conquest she renounced her position to protest 343/God not doing anything about her situation (she doesn't blame the researchers for something they didn't know) and she chose the Atmospheric Jellyfish as her steed, the White Horse. Bobble the Clown is War and (I think) the airwaves is his steed, the Red Horse. SCP-27, The Vermin God is Pestilence and his steed has been disguised as a researcher for decades, the Black Horse. The little Hate Plague girl is Death and 682 is her steed, the Pale Horse.
Hulk Speak: SCP-173, strangely enough. Many people used to think it was simply a statue that would kill you if you looked away from it or blinked. The Oh Crap sets in once you realize that this proves that it is sentient.
Humanoid Abomination: Some of the upper ranking researchers are this due to exposure to SCPs. For instance, Dr. Bright is more or less a Lich that replicates himself whenever someone touches his soul jar .
Humans Are Special: Somewhat darker variation: in many cases, humans are the only things affected by SCPs.
As well as a Brand X "Bouncy Ball" that was processed through SCP-914 on higher and higher settings (turning into "Extra Bouncy" to "Super-Duper Bouncy"), until being output on the "Very Fine" setting. After being dropped by the researcher conducting the tests, it resulted in 45 casualties and was believed to be orbiting Mars.
Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: Many different varieties. SCP-616's original form (and the door in the new 616) is a portal to a Fire and Brimstone Hell and could have been taken straight out of Event Horizon ...merely looking at anything taken from beyond the door will make you instantly homicidal, suicidal, insane, dead, or all four. Oh, and rather counter-intuitively, allowing that door to close is the worst thing you could do.
I - K - L
I Did What I Had to Do: Practically every article is an example of this. Among the most stark and disturbing examples are the fates of SCP-231-2 to SCP-231-7. It got to the point where one security guard was angry enough to try and get SCP-231-4 out of the facility and still causes controversy to this day.
The Ethics Committee makes sure that they do what they need to do and not an inch beyond it.
"Although SCP-507 has an already-established name due to its unremarkable upbringing, it seems to find entertainment in forcing those it meets to give it a nickname in lieu of divulging this information. Thus SCP-507 will now respond to the names Tommy, Steve, Bruto, Guy, Houdini, and Grabnok the Destroyer."
Somewhat less humorously, it's because of multiverse versions of him occasionally popping up in his place.
I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: SCP-890, a master surgeon who only operates on machines, refuses to treat humans because he's "a surgeon, not a veterinarian".
This is discussed at length in its comments section. Everyone seems to have forgot about it though.
Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Not only did the demonic SCP-4357-J technically capture itself (it drew a arcane sigil on the floor then proceeded to step onto it to demonstrate), not only is it a master of Tempting Fate, it took over a month for it to figure out it could just fly out of its containment circle using its wings.
Indy Ploy: Dr. Kondraki is a master of this; one of his colleagues actually describes him as "A master of the Indy Ploy." When assigned the termination of a highly dangerous insufficiently different vampire SCP...well:
Interviewer:I have here a copy of Dr. Kondraki's termination procedure proposal. Step one is his plan to use cat urine and a pistol loaded with silver bullets. Backup plans two, three, four, and five are listed as, and I quote, 'Wing It,' 'Make Something Up,' 'Cross That Bridge When I Come To It,' and 'Put My Head Between My Knees And Kiss My Ass Goodbye.' Clef:[EXPLETIVE REDACTED]
To be fair, this was a "Plan" to terminate the then SCP-083; It involved breaching containment of many SCP, including several Keter class, not the least of which was 682, which Dr. Kondraki rode like a bucking bronco. [EXPLETIVE REDACTED].
Infernal Retaliation: One attempt to destroy SCP-682 consisted of using SCP-1543-J (a catapult with an absurdly long range) to launch it into the sun. It later "came back on fire".
Infinite Supplies: The enormous costs that are implied are at least partially explained with SCP-294 being able to produce six hundred ounces of gold every two hours or so.
Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: SCP-682 has been called a "tarasque" in the Lord Blackwood and Bellerverse tales; SCP-1420 seem to be working towards a viable dragon; SCP-1013 is a cockatrice; SCP-1779 are tiny dragons that eat change (actually they're real dragons, which apparently feed on items of monetary value rather than nutritional value).
The Internet Is for Porn: SCP-335 is 150 3.5" floppy disks with "effectively infinite" storage space, which contain everything on the Internet. The first twelve are all the porn.
Note from Dr. ██████████: I believe I know where all our bandwidth is going at night. Agent ████'s computer privileges should be limited until he either finds a girlfriend or learns some self control.
From Bad to Worse: A feature of many articles. Often indicated by strikethrough text showing the old containment procedure, followed by the incident that made it inadequate.
Also how recovery reports tend to go.
It's Been Done: Given that there are at least a thousand SCP's listed on the site, and more constantly added, it's a rare thing for an author to have an idea that hasn't been done before in any shape or form. Members are recommended that they run their ideas past other people in the chat or forums, in order to avoid having their work downvoted and deleted because it was too similar to an existing article.
Katanas Are Just Better: Amusingly parodied with SCP-572, which makes the user suicidally overconfident of their warrior skills.
Kicked Upstairs: The Foundation used to be known to assign especially moronic personnel (such as a researcher who proposed that SCP-447 be used to take out SCP-682) to Keter duty. Almost all actual instances of "Keter duty" (and the related "demoted to D-class") have since been purged in an effort to Shoo Out the Clowns.
Kick the Dog: The Foundation does more than a few things that are, simply put, quite horrible.
Kick the Son of a Bitch: The Foundation's usage of D-Class is appalling, but when they mention said D-Class's crimes, especially if they're sex offenders, no one in the fanbase minds them getting especially gruesome deaths.
When a guest researcher was killed by 682, everyone was fine with it in and out of universe due to the man having used children in his experiments prior.
Kraken and Leviathan: SCP-169 is an aquatic arthropod so massive that, even with their seemingly unlimited resources, the Foundation can't think of a better way to deal with it than hiding that it exists, and hoping that it doesn't wake up. It's quite possibly bigger than the entirety of Europe.
Language Of Truth: SCP-1206 causes people to speak a language that expresses exactly what they are thinking in a word. It is impossible to lie while speaking it, which often drives a wedge between people who speak it.
Laser-Guided Karma: SCP-1142 hails from another reality where an Alien Invasion and massive plague strike one country in particular. The country? Nazi Germany.
Life Drinker: SCP-545 is a recipe that can bottle someone's life essence and make the drinker effectively immortal (but not immortally young).
SCP-776 is a ritual that can make the practitioners de-age almost 40 years, although lately there's been some weird side-effects like birth defects ("too many eyes and not enough skin") and...:
Dr. █████: What was it that your daughter said?
276 (776 practitioner): …She said, "Papa, why did you do that to me? Why did you [DATA EXPUNGED]. I…I didn't even notice how much she looked like my fourth daughter up until that moment…
Lighter and Softer: SCP-650 is basically a Lighter and Softer version of SCP-173. Instead of killing you when you break eye contact with it, it just moves behind you and startles you.
SCP-810 also applies, even though there isn't an actual genie. It tells the user "Ask what you will, and you shall never want for it." Whatever you ask for, you'll never have a desire for it ever again. Don't ask for food, because you'll starve without even realizing you're hungry.
Be sure to use the word "coffee" when asking SCP-294 for a cup of coffee. Requesting a "cup of Joe" results in something...less than pleasant.note When asked to give a "cup of joe", SCP-294 filled a small paper cup with 12 ounces of blood, skin, and other bodily fluids. DNA testing revealed that the skin, blood, and bodily fluids belonged to Agent Joseph ██████, who was recently hospitalized for profuse sweating and dizziness.
SCP-738 will, when a contract is drawn up, follow it to the letter and no further. A D-class who wanted freedom (and was granted it, at the cost of his best friend's life) was captured five hours later.
Little Bit Beastly: SCP-1575 can turn non-human mammals that drink water from it into human beings. They retain at least one pre-mutation characteristic about 40% of the time, and possibilities include retaining a tail or animal ears.
The Lost Woods: SCP-416 is an infinite one that you can't leave on foot. SCP-1660 is a portal to one that is enclosed by a barrier of an unknown material.
M
Machine Worship: The Church of the Broken God, one of the organisations that opposes the SCP.
Mad Artist: Are We Cool Yet? is an entire collective of these. Ever wonder what it's like to give a bunch of sociopathic art students magic? Nowyouknow.
Malaproper: SCP-586 is a green metabolic pipe that causes this to anyone who tries to write about it. It's even populous enough to give the wrong image.
SCP-808. An incomplete robotic musician constructed by the Church of the Broken God.
The Men in Black: A standard tactic for certain infiltration procedures, particularly retrieving items from the UIU. Also the standard dress for agents when interviewing or interrogating civilians in the field.
Mercy Kill: Several of these were attempted for the victims of SCP-145. They all failed.
SCP-343 is omnipotent and claims to be God. He's also mischievous and people like him a lot, though he's pissed off a doctor by deleting his orders.
What doctor?
SCP-999 is a strange example of this. It's a Blob Monster, but it's also possibly the most benevolent entity in the entire Foundation. One example was putting it's own life in danger to save others from SCP-682, the creature that not even 343 would confront. Thats right, in this universe, an orange blob is more morally righteous than God himself.
343 was more upset with the fact that they where trying to get him to deal with "Something that wasn't his", and refused out of moral compunction. So apparently GOD had nothing to do with the creation of 682...
Meta Origin: Several proposals for SCP-001 are for the source of all SCPs.
The Metric System Is Here To Stay: The official policy of the site is to use SI units, precisely to invoke the "future/science" feel of this trope (for American visitors, anyway). Apparently, this rubbed some editors the wrong way, and you can find a little Bothering by the Book: Entries that were obviously written using round numbers in the American Customary System, then blindly translated into the exact metric equivalent. Thus, for instance, one particularBigger on the InsideEldritch Location has a corridor that extends 182.88 meters (600.00 feet) past where the edge of the structure should be.
Another one automatically converts any descriptions of its dimensions to American customary measurements.
A Million is a Statistic: Used in the file on SCP 1123: touching the skull gets you possessed by the spirit of a victim of political movements. "██% of imprints come from Communist China’s Great Leap Forward between 1958 and 1961, ██% of imprints come from Nazi Germany’s extermination efforts between 1939 and 1945, while only █% come from events such as the Armenian Genocide or the Iraqi Anfal campaign where deaths are only estimated in the 1 to 2 million range."
Mind Screw: It is to be expected, considering that the setting is filled with Reality Warpers, alternate dimensions with differing rules from our own, and all other sorts of strange things. But even under that framework, SCP-1782 ("Tabula Rasa") manages to be an outstandingly bizarre SCP. Helps that it was Based on a Dream.
Mind Virus: These are usually classified as "Memetic Hazards".
Mirror Chemistry: SCP-739, a small closet with mirrored interiors. Closing a person in the booth once will flip all their amino-chains. Closing them in twice will switch them back, but repeating the experiment too many times with the same subject leads to something else emerging. As a fun side benefit, locking sugar packets in the closet will flip them as well. The scientist specifically notes that they would make excellent diet sweeteners.
Mobile Maze: SCP-432 is a maze located inside a cabinet. The maze is stationary as long as the door is open, but if you close the door, the whole thing moves.
Mood Whiplash: SCP-387's experiment logs, specifically the last two. In the second-to-last, Dr. Arch writes about the "improved morale and attitude" as a result of playing with the SCP (Animated Legos, for those who can't be bothered to look) and requests all staff are allowed access, which is approved. The immediate next experiment involves placing Megablocks (A knockoff brand of Legos) near SCP-387. The result? "everything constructed of 387 stopped moving, turned slowly towards the Megablocks and [EXPUNGED]."
Addendum 387-6: Jesus fucking Christ. - Dr. Arch
Said result might be justified in a Noodle Incident mentioned as the following:
119) As funny as Incident 387/682-██ was, Dr. Bright is not allowed unsupervised access to SCP-387. Agents are still trying to figure out how an animate model of 682 was so invulnerable, despite being made of just plastic blocks.
Mook Maker: SCP-068, a little wire figure in the shape of a person, will search out objects made of metal, tear off strips of it, and proceed to make a copy of itself. This copy, along with the original, then makes copies of itself and so on, until there is about 102 separate copies. The copies will then come together to create one "super-copy", and the process will begin again. While the original SCP-068 is indestructible, the copies it makes, thankfully, have the same durability of whatever metal it was made from.
More Dakka: Referenced on the "the-things-dr-bright-is-not-allowed-to-do-at-the-foundation" page- one of the phrases the SCP's motto is not is "We always need more Dakka!" Additionally, one of the rules on that page is that Dr. Bright is no longer allowed to offer the solution of "Use more guns" to any problem.
There's an SCP that is a bottomless magazine (or clip, or mag clip, or speedloader, or...) that fits into any weapon, and there's a chance that a shot coming from it does something odd (freezes targets, fires Magic Bullets, randomly explodes a body part not aimed at, et cetera).
Multiple-Choice Past: Dr. Clef gets at least one new origin every time he's in a story. Previous claims have included Satan, Adam, and a Reality Warper who blew up the space shuttle Challenger in childhood by casually wondering what would happen, all in the same story.
Notable in that these are all relayed by Clef himself, who is a self-admitted liar. Although the first one actually has some evidence to support it. Murky, potentially deceptive evidence, but evidence nonetheless.
Bear in mind, though - Kondraki didn't believe the third possibility, but did immediately believe the first despite that one being somewhat less plausible. Why would that be? Was it his emotional state at the time? Did he just learn to take Clef's words as automatically false? Or did Consummate Liar Clef just pull a Sarcastic Confession?
Also the case with SCP-001. There are several articles with that number. None of them may be true, some of them may be decoys for the real SCP-001, or all of them may be true.
"It has come to the attention of the higher level personnel that someone has been stealing SCP-283 for use as a paperweight." "It has come to my attention that several personnel have used SCP-041 as a ad-hoc 'she likes me/she likes me not' detector. This is one of the most appalling things I've ever heard. Are we safeguarding potentially world-destroying objects or are we in third grade?" "I would like to remind all personnel that SCP-038 is not, I repeat, not a toy. It should not be used for cloning car keys, movies, music or items from the vending machines." If I see you one more time using SCP-105 as a device to punch or stab people over the Internet, I will personally make sure you spend the rest of your days at SCP in Keter duty. (mind you SCP-670 would arguably do a better job.) Note to all male staff: any attempts to place genitalia in the small end [of SCP-786] will result in termination and loss of employment. — Dr. Clef Note from Dr. Klein - SCP personnel below Level 3 are now banned from handling SCP-500. This is not to be used to cure a hangover. Get AIDS and then ask permission. ** Sometimes the organization actually does it themselves, like moving SCP-294 to the break room to save money on drinksnote This inevitably lead to a requirement for security clearance.
SCP-458 can be found...in the break room in Site 17, sitting on the counter. To be fair, it's simply a bottomless pizza box that always has the favourite kind of pizza of whoever opens it inside it. Employee morale has improved significantly since it was approved for open use, however, so there's that.
A large portion of the anomalous items recovered that have not been destroyed are either in use at various sites or in the offices of various researchers.
Murder Is the Best Solution: Distressingly common, and considering what the Foundation deals with, distressingly justifiednote The SCP Foundation casually murders so many of its own guys that one wonders how they manage to remain fully staffed. The Foundation takes no chances. The Foundation (both in-universe and meta) is trying to stop needless "civilians terminated" for Safe objects, though.
Names to Run Away From Really Fast: A group calling itself "The Chaos Insurgency" cannot possibly be up to any good. Neither can the Church of the Broken God.
Subject: A static recording of a tennis ball placed on a table. Narration:As noon approaches, it grows increasingly confused, as the creatures around it show no sign of using it for its intended purpose. Struggling to attract their attention, it becomes ever more distressed as it finds itself completely immobile.
It may also be psychic (or at least very observant):
Subject: An incidental recording of Dr. ██████ made by Dr. ████████ during unrelated experimentation. Narration:Despite the male's calm facade, his lust for his female companion is extraordinary. The degree to which his obsession reaches has become nearly unhealthy, dominating his thoughts at every turn. Wild fantasies course through his mind when he watches her when she doesn't notice. Researcher Note: Dr. ██████ was treated for a broken nose after being attacked by Dr. ████████ and both researchers have been placed on administrative leave for a period of no less than two (2) weeks pending disciplinary action and transfer to another site.
Necessarily Evil: The SCP Foundation recognizes that it does very bad things, for the greater good of humanity.
Never Heard That One Before: SCP-294 can take any liquid (or anything that can become a liquid) within its unknown range and pour it into a plastic cup. One request was so common that it lead to a special note:
** Addendum [SCP-294ad]: ** In order to stem the daily tide of attempts, it is now officially noted that keying in "two girls" gives the standard "OUT OF RANGE" error message. Come up with something more original next time.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: A number of SCPs were either benign or dormant until the Foundation got their hands on them. It's only after some ill-conceived test is performed on it that it begins to become "uncooperative". And, when you're containing a minor deity, you do NOT want to make him uncooperative.
A particularly memorable one is SCP-1322. It's a portal to an alternate dimension. The inhabitants were friendly at first, until the Foundation offered to help them synthesize a vaccine to a viral epidemic on their side. Turns out the vaccine also acted as a Depopulation Bomb. They are pissed.
SCP-1777: Researchers accidentally kill a man who was given a weapon by an SCP. Nice job killing King Arthur's heir.
SCP-687: A test subject used it to escape through time and become The Cleveland Torso Killer and Black Dahlia Murderer.
SCP-1970: Just an old TV that used tiny glowing humanoids for pixels until researchers opened the glass and accidentally killed them.
SCP-1122: On a less deadly note, the family living in The House of Tomorrow isn't adjusting to the present very well:
Each new item has, without fail, had a negative effect on the house’s inhabitants. SCP-1122-1 [dad] has frequently been seen drinking, lamenting how "things should be better," while SCP-1122-3 [daughter] and SCP-1122-4 [son] have become more introverted and are rarely seen outside their rooms.
The potential for this to occur due to gratuitous usage of Class-Ds (which, let's face it, is most of the time) is brought up on one talk page:
"It always bugs me when they send in the D-Class before the drones or lowered cameras or whatever. Good thing these dimensions always just contain a monster that eats D-Class personnel rather than, say, a button that makes the first person who presses it turn into a living God or something."
The Global Occult Coalition, which aims to destroy all anomalous items regardless of their actual threat, is all about this: They turned a helpful chair into a very defensive pile of splinters, and wiped out a village just because they were "infected" with harmless, "imaginary" (or were they?) flightless birds.
SCP-425: A television set which broadcast weird vision by itself on the 8th, 16th, and 24th day of each month, even when unplugged. It's harmless, but if you born on days of the month that are multiples of 8 (e.g. 8, 16, and 24), then the vison will include moving through a black hole, and experience "a crushing sense of oblivion". Then you will have recurring nightmares for weeks, and even extensive psychotherapy only reduced the nightmare to once a month.
30% of SCP-1881-B players report lasting psychological effects afterwards, in the form of nightmares related to its contents (and occasional visual/auditory hallucinations).
90% of Your Brain : SCP-1475 can use 100% of his brain because he needs to regulate everything his body would normally do automatically. The author wrote this specifically because they hated the "__% of your brain" trope.
Any time experiments are cancelled on SCPs that violate common sense or would possibly replicate something nasty.
No Name Given: The O5. Most of the time, even their identification numbers are blanked out. Often, researchers have their blanked out. D-Class, being expendable, don't have names, just numerical designations.
Averted with O5-12, the father of SCP 321, whose first name is Adam in a nod to the long tradition of meaningful names and nods towards The Bible in the Foundationnote Assume that O5s are still normal humans, Adam was in the Federation since 18██, then the current O5-12 play this trope straight.
Non-Indicative Name: This tends to come up a lot when discussing the Foundation's means of categorizing SCPs, mainly because when a Foundation operative says an object is "safe", they mean "nothing will happen if it's left alone in a locked room". A hydrogen bomb is "safe" by those standards.
Noodle Implements: Some of the SCP objects become this, when SCP numbers are listed in incident reports or other articles; occasionally the SCP with that designation will appear completely irrelevant to the context in which it was referenced.
That's often due to the original SCP being removed, and a new one filed under that number.
Also, the FAQ's tongue-in-cheek explanation of what Procedure 110-Montauk is consists of a bunch of [DATA REDACTED]s interspersed with mentions of an elephant, a bed of live cobras, Barbara Streisand's Greatest Hits, something that is over seventeen feet long, a staple remover, a feather boa that absolutely must be black (and not dark blue), and "plutonium splitting the atom."
Updated to "An amateur shadowcast of the Rocky Horror Picture Show."
Noodle Incident: Every single time you see "[DATA EXPUNGED]" or "[REDACTED]"; it seems like the whole idea is to have at least one such incident per SCP. The unspecified reason why SCP-447 must never come into contact with dead bodies is especially noodly and is occasionally referred to elsewhere (as seen below, it scares O5-2 shitless).
invokedSCP-231 is essentially a Noodle Incident played for Squick and horror rather than laughs.
The uncensored reports of SCP-835 demonstrate exactly what could be behind every Noodle Incident, and why you really don't want to know.
On the other hand, it also demonstrates how important a [DATA EXPUNGED] can be for an article, as many people found the uncensored 835 reports to be quite disappointing.
According to SCP-963 and its implications, "just one guy" isn't an accurate term.
The first thumbnail in SCP-1231 is redacted, which is odd, considering that whatever you think the thumbnail contains is then created as a new thumbnail, and that the thousands of other thumbnails all derived from the first perception of the original.
SCP-579.
No OSHA Compliance: Played straight, subverted and averted in different sections of the site. In the SCP articles themselves, the containment procedures are designed to minimize danger, risk, and loss of life, even of the utterly expendable D-Class. In the testing logs, the prison-recruited D-class personnel are regularly treated to definitely unethical and probably lethal experimentation, often in cases where little useful information is likely to result, and are often subjected to the machinations of some of the more diabolical SCPs purely for the amusement of the ranking research staff. Finally, anyone who works at the Foundation willingly is expected to follow reasonable safety procedures, although considering the nature of some SCPs they still have a short life expectancy; neglecting these can result in being put on Keter duty, working with the most potentially dangerous SCPs. That's if they don't deem you worthless and shoot you if they decide it's not worth it to administer amnesiacs.
No Sell: Former SCP-151-D exhibited this along with other Marty Stu traits, shrugging off effects of other SCPs just because. His termination log consists much of the same, until he's finally destroyed... rather messily. invoked
No Sense of Direction: SCP-920, also known as Mr. Lost. Try to take him somewhere, or just walk with him for a while, and you will get lost. (However, apparently because all the super-deadly gets old if everything is super-deadly, the description has a notice that lost means "lost" as in "misplaced" and not some horrible fate. However, you can be lost to pretty much anywhere in the world.
Not-So-Harmless Villain: Many of the SCPs. In particular is SCP-387, a set of sentient Legos. Ordinarily they're benign, and even kind of cute. But put a knockoff set of Legos nearby, and they will do something Redactable.
Nothing Is Scarier: The guidelines for writing new SCP reports encourage vagueness so that the reader fills in the horror for themselves, which is more effective than detailing something that may just fall flat.
Judging by the details of one uncensored article, everything behind those [DATA EXPUNGED] is worse than you think.
SCP-579. What is it? We don't know. Whatever it is, the SCP Administration felt it was so dangerous that even the description of it is gone. They even killed all the people working on it, save 7 agents that act as advisers in case it ever gets loose. It's so bad that it's currently stored in an alternate universe — after having destroyed at least 4 other containment sites, with a very specific containment procedure, and if it ever fails, even for a minute, policy is to destroy the alternate universe to contain it. And if that fails?
In the event of an unsuccessful Action 10-Israfil-B, no further action will be necessary. [DATA EXPUNGED]
Nuclear Option: Most (if not all) Sites have on-site nuclear warheads, to be detonated in the event of a breach by a Keter-class SCP or Site failure.
But they are actually afraid to try it on SCP-682 because it might not only survive, it could become even stronger.
Number of the Beast: While SCP-666 is not overtly Satanic, SCP-616 is decidedly more hellish, and has clergy on staff when necessary. The actual religious requirements are invented, though.
Our Angels Are Different - Shockingly averted. The Foundation goes to extensive lengths to document the fact that Dr. Clef's proposal for SCP-001 is indeed a bona fide Judeao-Christian Angel without any major subversions. It does however play more to the descriptions in Holy texts as opposed to cultural depictions, for instance appearing to have as many as 108 wings and being made of fire.
Played Straight, though, with SCP-469. Disturbingly straight.
Panacea - SCP-500, pills that cure any disease, but there's just about fifty of them and they're impossible to replicate perfectly (though knockoffs can work if you're lucky). Later, SCP-427: the Lovecraftian Locket was developed that has eclipsed it in use, although with the possible side effect of mutating you into a squid.
Parody Sue - Several. Most notably, SCP-10101-j (a parody of overpowered wish-fulfillment self-inserts), SCP-777-j (a parody of god mode black hole sues), and SCP-496-j (a parody of Purity Sues, whose name actually references the original Mary Sue). SCP-316, later terminated with extreme enthusiasm by the resident Wonka, reads much like one but was apparently intended as a serious SCP.
Perpetual Motion Machine: So many SCPs ignore the laws of thermodynamics, being able to produce infinite amounts of matter, energy, or their constant movements could be used as a power generation tool. Sadly, most are either too valuable or dangerous to use.
Person of Mass Destruction — Pretty much every human housed by the Foundation (and maybe the researchers).
Pet the Dog - Most sentient SCPs are accomodated reasonably well, depending on their potential danger, ability to escape, and willingness to cause harm. The most (relatively) harmless are given furnished rooms and are generally given whatever they request, as long as it doesn't violate security. They are, of course, not allowed to leave the facility.
SCP-103 was the only SCP that the Foundation actually released. It says something about the Foundation's Well Intentioned Extremism that a man who's only power is that he never gets hungry is the only SCP ever let go without being terminated (and even that is, according to the comments, a controversial decision). He got retconned to having worms in his stomach that fly out and eat people and never having been released.
Admittedly, some of the SCPs are given the best care possible. Every effort is made not to upset the autistic girl, for example, and the harmless and friendly living eyeballs have free run of their site. And one of the first tests of the vending machine was "something Cassy will like," Cassy being a mentally normal young woman who exists in 2-D.
Several SC Ps which fall into a self contained microcosm, pocket universe, etc, or other SC Ps that were created by the Foundation on accident, respect or outright revere the Foundation. On the other hand, some fall into a Rage Against the Heavens.
Some SC Ps that are relatively harmless are just glad to have someone talking to / using them again, in many cases having been abandoned for years after their original owner died.
Power Perversion Potential - SCP-294 is a vending machine that can produce twelve ounces of just about anything as long as it's liquid. A security guard started using it to produce and sell heroin and meth before being caught.
Primal Fear: Many of SCP-1881's stage iterations invoke these, such as a level appearing to be upside-down without gravity being reversed to match, a shmup stage with no enemies (leaving the player floating aimlessly through empty space for several minutes before the level ended), and being trapped in a maze with an increasingly large number of deadly creatures.
Produce Pelting - SCP-504 is a breed of tomato that throws itself if someone cracks a bad joke. If the joke is bad enough, it will break the sound barrier.
Item: Three mature SCP-504 tomatoes, one for each test subject. Subject: After the introduction to the following news item, "Bomb blows hole in Lenin statue", the three following jokes were made. Test Subject 1: Ooh, that's gonna leave a Marx. Result: Tomato number one 'twitched', but did not displace from its original location. Test Subject 2: BBC is just Stalin the good news. Result: Tomato clocked at 152 mph. Chipped tooth and hairline jaw fracture. Test Subject 3: That blows. Result: Tomato clocked at [REDACTED]. Subject is hospitalized with a massive skull fracture.
And when shown a recent episode of Saturday Night Live, high-speed photography showed that the tomato changed velocity several times (including a brief jump backward), as if unable to decide whether the sketch was genuinely lame or just "bad" in an ironicsense.
Reality Retcon: The "Big Bloop, a Real Life unexplained extremely-loud underwater sound, was caused by SCP-169, an enormous undersea creature which is at least 1,000 km in length. The Foundation had a spy in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who tried to prevent the public from learning of the Bloop, but failed.
Red Shirts: The Class D's, of course. Lampshaded: Dr. Bright cannot change the standard issue D-Class uniform to black pants with a red polo shirt.
Replacement Goldfish: SCP-1976 was made by a man to be this for his family after he died of a brain tumor. He thought its powers would make his family see it as their husband and father, instead it caused his wife to think it was her father while his children weren't old enough for its powers to work. It currently causes anyone within its activation criteria who looks at it to think its their father while their real father becomes a stranger.
Research, Inc.: the Foundation benefits commercially form their research.
Retcon: The Mass Edit, which was basically the wiki admins purging some of the more dubious entries and retconning out some of the more ludicrous (and humorous) aspects of the backstory. (See below.)
Ret Gone: When Fishmonger (the writer) was banned, he demanded to have all of his characters and stories to be removed from the SCP Wiki. Some of his more famous characters were referenced in many articles. This left many gaps.
And before that, all of the SCPs deleted during the Mass Edit.
To make things even more confusing, since the numbers for Ret Gone SCPs were freed up, the wiki wound up with new SCPs under old numbers.
This is also possibly a subversion of the obvious reference, since the actual SCP-101 is relatively tame: it's a bag which eats things and is apparently mostly used for trash disposal.
On a not so funny note, that may be to KEEP you from gagging.
DO NOT allow SCP-447-2 to come into contact with dead bodies!
It eventually gets to the point that all of the researchers mention their fear of it coming into contact with dead bodies in the most unlikely of circumstances (such as dead bodies drinking milk).
And other forces seem to play on that fear, such as when SCP-914 transforms a dead body into SCP-447-2.
The real reason for this fear is that Doctor Alistair is very afraid of dead bodies and he's the one in charge. So he made up crap to get away with it and it took a life of it's own.
One (non-canon) story actually DOES describe some of the adverse effects of SCP-447 touching a dead body. In the aftermath, a dimensional rift opened up and dragged Dr. Clef into an alternate reality.
SCP-447 also seems to have an obsession with the color green and the smell of mint. Applied to the cure-anything-pill, SCP-500, the pill still cures anything, but leaves the subject with "minty-fresh breath". Applied to a subject's eyes, it improves that person's vision significantly, with the side effect of tinting that person's vision green, including coloring the eyes themselves green. It can also: harden concrete, make milk lactose-free (and give it a slight minty taste), decontaminate water to a limited degree (as well as tinting it green), and increase a car's functioning significantly (windshield wiper fluid will literally repel dirt and grime, radiator fluid will double the temperature needed to overheat the engine, and mixed into gasoline will increase fuel efficiency by 150%).
There's also how the discovery of any SCP being potentially lethal inevitably leads to someone wondering if it could be used to kill SCP-682.
And any object that produces or transforms other objects (ala the vending machine and 914) will inevitably produce something shaped like SCP-682.
Dr. King and his appleseeds
That the common typo of SCP, SPC, is an Alternate Universe version of the Foundation, the Shark Punching Center.
Some articles have either addendums or notes warning personnel to stop using them for pranks, party games, or as quick hangover remedies.
Note from Dr. ████████, dated 12/26/04: Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to tell her about "Santa Claus" and then tell her that it was just a story?! Now we have another potential SCP to deal with, but we can't catch him because he is "magic".
Apparently, they caught him and put him in containment. However, he must leave every December 24th each year to deliver presents for Christmas. Otherwise, a worldwide [DATA EXPUNGED] will happen.
Savage South: One of the non-SCP-but-still-weird-objects was "A men's Western-style hat which, when worn, causes the wearer to compulsively tell jokes that are racist or otherwise offensive to those within earshot. Incinerated with considerable enthusiasm."
Schmuck Bait: After Dr. Clef tells everyone not to let SCP-447-2 touch dead bodies, the test log doesn't last for half a dozen entries before someone tries it on a dead body. Then the researchers decide to get their revenge by throwing Clef into the bathtub. It does nothing, and he tells them that "after you clean this up you will all be missed".
Sealed Evil in a Can: SCP-076-1, amongst others, is one such can. It contained SCP-076-2, but it was easily unsealed (it was just a stone coffin), and when SCP-076-2 started working for the Foundation, it became little more that 076-2's respawn point. Later played straight during the great Mary Sue purge — 076-2 was retconned into being completely Ax Crazy after all, and after they ran out of things for him to do, he started killing all humans on sight. They had to detonate a nuclear bomb and entomb 076-1 under the bedrock under the ocean.
SCP-231 is an interesting case, as the SCP is the can that the evil is sealed inside. And the Foundation will do whatever it takes to keep said evil sealed up.
SCP-911 is a can you can easily end up sealed into.
SCP-1844 is a Hell Gate that is, miraculously, 99.6% contained. However, since this is the only (terrestrial) Hell-gate known to the Foundation at least one person wonders if this is actually a good thing:
Hector Gomez, S.J., Ass't. Site Director: All I'm saying is that before we keep patting ourselves on the back for attaining 99.6% containment efficacy over the last two months, we ought to think about the possible unintended consequences of screwing the lid on too tightly. By analogy, a boiler explosion is a hell of a bigger problem than a steam leak.
Sealed Good in a Can: Subverted. Any attempts to seal SCP-343 are basically futile, and he's only there because he wants to be. He's also working on some scheme of his own, and outright deleted a doctor who had become wise to his manipulations from reality. Proposed SCP-001 is likewise impossible to seal.
Secret Test: In Real Life. There is a phrase hidden somewhere in the site's require reading essays. If a potential writer adds it into their Site Application it proves they've read (and more importantly comprehended) the rules.
Speaking of Moe Anthropomorphism, some of other SCPs also got same threatment. Some are mild, like Iris and 053 who simply got draw in cute style, or 191 who usually got her the missing mouth back and has less severe wound. The more bizarre case would be 682 as Cute Monster Girl.
Series Mascot: SCP-682 appears to have assumed this role, as witnessed by the protests on the site forums whenever anyone suggests killing it off for good. The original one was SCP-173.
Serious Business: The site itself maintains quality by treating each wiki edit like a live Claymore mine.
SCP-434: A table that, when there is a subject and eight chairs, causes seven correspondingly "sinful" clones of the subject to appear; if they "clones" are killed, that aspect of the subject's personality is destroyed (IE the death of Sloth destroys the ability to sleep).
SCP-1215: (Actually eight sins — Pride is divided into Vanity and Hubris) An illuminated manuscript that causes people to self-destruct with a deadly sin theme, except for Vanity where the danger is acting so irritating other people attack you.
SCP-1133: An IV stand that can extract or inject fluids pertaining to the seven sins; for instance injecting sloth makes one lazier, while extracting it makes one more productive.
Shoo Out the Clowns: Happened in several stages. It all started when one of the writers became concerned about the wiki moving away from its original creepypasta origins, so he came up with a story where his fictional counterpart tries to take down a reality warper who seemed to become popular with readers simply because she was a cute little girl. Ironically, this had the opposite effect, as it ultimately led to decommissions - in-continuity purges of badly designed, Mary Suish SCPs. Writers competed with each other over who could pull off the most over-the-top decommissions. Before long, admins got worried that they allowed things to get too far and tried to Shoo Out the Clowns the second time. While the admins ultimately decided not to disavow the over-the-top elements altogether note Both because it was good writing and because there are some bits that couldn't be removed without a Crisis of Infinite Earths style reboot, which is something the admins aren't willing to do at this time, they are making a deliberate effort to bring their fictional counterparts back down to earth, got rid of some problematic SCPs, took out the funny bits from many remaining articles and made it their official policy to avoid that sort of thing in the future. The closest thing we have to an in-story explanation is that this was a long overdue reaction to the lack of oversight created when the military elements in the Foundation leadership left. The processes are still ongoing. See this forum thread for more info.
Also, "Chowderclef" is an official Retcon of all of Dr. Clef's quirky escapades... sort of. Clef (the writer) ultimately decided to be ambiguous about it and let readers decide for themselves whether or not the escapades still count.
"Clef: Do you watch cartoons, Kondraki? You should check out this show called Gargoyles, I think you'd like it…"... which actually directed to this page.
"Following the unfortunate, and completely preventable, death of Agent Gallagher" at the hands of SCP-953, any personnel found to have current or prior ties to the "furry" or "otaku" communities are to be immediately reassigned to other projects."
026 very closely follows the plot of the Goosebumps book, The Haunted School.
354 once produced what was described as a Terminator}.
SCP-1179: Apparently the eternally-burning fire in the coal mines of Centralia was caused when miners Dug Too Deep and awoke a sleeping Fire Demon.
"UnLondon" is pretty much a Victorian Steampunk Rapture, complete with derelict vending machines and endlessly repeating phantom loudspeaker announcements.
SCP-619 Experiment Log: One of the many bizarre items that appear in SCP-619's pocket is a set of keys to the not-vehicle found by the Pennsylvania State Highway Patrol in [1].
A man is also named "Johnson" in there... and he seems to match Cave Johnson's attitudes.
The phrase "Shakes me, makes me lighter" repeated in SCP-1782 is a lyrics from "Teardrop" by Massive Attack. Doubles as a Genius Bonus considering the music video of that song and the nature of SCP-1782.
Literally with two players of SCP-286, who are He-Who-Made-Light and He-Who-Made-Dark, warring elemental brothers:
SCP-286-1 [the "Light" player] will appear agitated, movements will become jerky and imprecise, vocalizations will be quick, stuttering and aggressive. SCP-286-2 [the "Dark" player] will appear sluggish, movements halting and slow, vocalizations will be low-pitched, throaty, and tend to be monosyllabic.
SCP-1330 is a universal garbage dump. one object found is a toilet bowl full of polished diamonds.
SCP-391 looks like a normal barn owl...probably because it is a normal barn owl. Except for the fact that when it eats, its waste pellets are made of various precious metals, instead of bone and fur (like you would find in ordinary owl waste pellets). So far, the Foundation has found pellets made of gold, silver, platinum, and indium.
SCP-1618 is an Are We Cool Yet? artifact that can turn waste products into this and objects of value into refuse that includes genitalia and used nuclear rods.
The site is actually rather inconsistent regarding this trope. Several articles border on Cluster F-Bomb, but others can't so much as utter [EXPLETIVE REDACTED].
Spank the Cutie: Dr. Bright is not allowed to administer spankings to Dr. Rights as punishment, as it only causes more rules to be broken. Therefore, he's done it several times before.
Possible one: SCP-1342 is a message from an alien race destroyed by humans 40,000 years in the future. Unfortunately for them thanks to the message we know that they were on the verge of faster-than-light "time" travel before we destroyed them and they could've annihilated us but didn't because they were too grateful for our radio broadcasts enhancing their own civilization.
Stalker with a Crush: SCP-1269, a very possessive, letter-writing, ambulatory, telekinetic, and extremely violent mailbox.
To the female D-class living in "its" house: Do you sing in the shower? If so, I’ve heard you. Such a tenderly beautiful voice matches its owner.
Written on a replacement mailbox that was bashed around, tied in a trash bag, and teleported into a Dumpster: SHE'S MINE SHE'S MINE SHE'S MINE SHE'S MINE YOU CAN'T HAVE HER SHE'S MINE SHE'S MINE
Written on or near the corpse of the beaten, de-handed and de-lipped male D-class assigned to "its" house (it hasn't hurt any of "its" women): WHAT IS A MAN BUT A PILE OF SHIT THAT GETS IN THE WAY OF MY LOVE HOW CAN SHE EVER LOVE YOU WHEN YOU'RE SO EASILY BROKEN SHE NEVER EVEN LET YOU TOUCH HER I SAW THE WAY SHE LOOKED AT YOU WITH HATRED AND NOW SHE WILL LOVE ME FOREVER
Status Quo Is God: The primary reason for the Foundation's existence.
SCP-1915 is a Reality Warper that invokes this for himself within a certain radius of his presence. He is unaware of his containment and has limited control of his powers.
We don't need no more: 1. Things What Let You Fight Good, Guyz What fight good, heck, anything involved with Fightan Good. 2. Reality Bending pplz what can make the world change with their mindz. ...9. Things what are really pretty pplz whom everyone lieks.
Suspiciously Specific Denial: From Experiment Log T-98816-OC108/682: "Notes: This is the official story and we're sticking to it. The alternative, that someone tried to murder Dr. Clef by deliberately putting him in the same room as SCP-682, is completely inconceivable. O5-7"
Tailor-Made Prison: Each article has Special Containment Procedures. Many of these require that rooms are constructed in ways to counteract/nullify different objects, and can be anything from "keep it in a locker" to incredibly complex procedures.
Tank Goodness: SCP-516, a sentient T-55 main battle tank. Interestingly this is one of the more benign sentient SCPs, being unwilling to fire on unarmed or nonthreatening targets. When threatened by an armed D-class who was handcuffed to another, unarmed D-class, it even precisely aimed a shot to kill the shooter without seriously harming the unarmed target. Though apparently, it did decide to autonomously fire on a D-class who was apparently guilty of treason in the country the tank came from. Tellingly, when a camera that reveals hidden desires was used to take a picture of it, the picture showed it frolicking through a meadow, covered in flowers.
SCP-802 as well, although it's substantially less intelligent.
Taken for Granite: 409, a crystal that turns anything it touches (except, ironically, granite) into itself.
There's also 602, an invisible sculptor that supposedly turns humans into statues. At least in the story its based on.
SCP-1013, basically a cockatrice. It calcifies the outer layer of your body, then happily pecks a hole in you and eats what's inside.
Take Our Word for It: Liberal use of [DATA EXPUNGED] keeps us from being horrified (or disappointed) by the true nature of [REDACTED].
Take That: SCP-4444 is basically a Take That directed at Gaia Online's SCP Roleplay Guild. (Clef found it horribly un-clinical in tone and rife with Mary Sues.)
Tempting Fate: The designation SCP-048 appears to be "cursed"; any item given that number tends gets destroyed, stolen, lost or decommissioned, so it's been officially retired. Dr. Cortez thought this was stupid and everyone was "just being pussies", so he reassigned it. The result?
Addendum 2: SCP-048, [DATA EXPUNGED], was accidentally thrown into the trash this morning and lost. In an unrelated incident, Dr. Cortez's arms were accidentally traumatically amputated in a horrific lunchroom blender accident. SCP-048 closed. - O5-11
The Man Behind the Man: The Ethics Committee to the 05 council. While the 05 decide on something the Committee is the one that gives final approval.
There Are No Therapists: Inverted with regard to SCP-076-2 and several higher Foundation personnel that are... less than stable. There are PLENTY of Foundation therapists. The subjects in questions just don't really want anything to do with them.
Deliberately avoided with SCP-231-7. In order to prevent a possible The End of the World as We Know It scenario, her emotional distress has to be maximized by constantly [DATA EXPUNGED]. Her memory must be wiped whenever she starts getting used to it.
And subverted in the same: containment procedures for SCP-231 require staff to undergo psychological counseling on a regular basis.
Wight: You could have, you know, opened the door like a normal person.
In a different sense, "memetic" objects can alter behavior, personality, or physical integrity just by being perceived.
This Is a Work of Fiction: They make a BIG deal out of this. Very big. It doesn't help that many people think it is real anyway - to the point that people will even send in inquiries on how they can get hired by the SCP foundation.
Troperiffic: The SCP Foundation wiki is a site devoted to deconstructing the genre. There are over a thousand objects. Each of them deconstructs or plays straight at least one trope, mainly more.
The Tunguska Event: SCP-873 acquired its anomalous properties during the event; a connection is suspected.
Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: in-universe: If anything is lethal, it will sooner or later be put against SCP-682. SCP-173 actually managed to "beat" SCP-682 but failed to kill it, and the staff have stopped repeats.
Undying Loyalty: SCP-1111, what is apparently the powerful and indestructible spirit of a dog (its dog tag even reads "Loyal") guarding what is apparently its master's body by killing everybody that gets anywhere near it. The master seems to be semi-alive through the whole thing and the only thing anybody's gotten close enough to hear him say is "No, down boy."
Unobtainium: SCP-148, an alloy capable of blocking telepathic suggestions.
Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object: SCP-225. They really don't want to find out what would happen if these two objects ever collided. They're drawing up planetary evacuation plans just in case.
Unusual Euphemism: A log of a test of SCP-447 as a sexual lubricant describes Dr. A██████ putting the condom on his [DATA EXPUNGED].
Unwilling Roboticisation: SCP-217, a slow acting virus that converts organic material into "organic metal". Extremely painful in advanced stages.
Viewers Are Goldfish: Comes into play for anyone coming into close proximity with SCP-634. As an added bonus, the SCP just happens to be an actual goldfish.
SCP-939 is a subspecies of humanity that mutates around the age of 10, up to that point being identical to human children. They start out by removing all their skin and eventually their old head detaches and falls off, whereupon they eat their old skin and head, having become a predator species reliant on cannibalism.
SCP-086 seems to be the consciousness of a former Foundation employee reincarnated as his own office supplies.
Dr. [REDACTED] was given a posthumous commendation for meritorious conduct in either reporting himself as an SCP, or in influencing the anomalous entity emulating his behavior into doing so.
Quite a few SCPs are actually former agents who've been compromised. There's even protocols for it, but typically I Cannot Self-Terminate comes up.
SCP-811:[with sweeping, demonstrative arm and hand movements] Big man. Tall. Aé small, very smaller than man. [uses hand to indicate a height of approximately one meter off the ground] [points to her own arm] Was like man. Dr. Trebuchet: What was like him? SCP-811:[pinches some of her skin between two fingers] This! Not like Aé. Like man. Like people. [...] [pointing to the inside of one elbow] Pain stick here. Cold. [...] Pain.[pantomiming something coming out of her mouth] Red. Red red red. Was… very hunger-y. Scared. Ate man.Skin… like this.
We Have Reserves: The general treatment of Class D personnel. Especially evident with testing for SCP-504, where it was discovered that recordings worked just as well as people, yet whoever was overseeing the test continued using people, apparently just because he didn't like them (although it's at least noted that he would be reprimanded for it).
For every person teleported to the moon with as much as they can carry using SCP-120 (just 37kg/82lb), five were sent to Lagrangian points in the middle of outer space. The Foundation now has a fully functioning moonbase.
Weird Moon: SCP-1812, an extra moon that you won't see unless it's pointed out to you. Once that happens, you'll be affected by it, including improved night vision from the reflected light, and drowning in nonexistent tides. The foundation doesn't even know if the thing's real.
The Foundation considers the Global Occult Coalition to be Well Intentioned Extremists, because by destroying SCP objects they are risking both destroying any chance of gaining knowledge from the objects, eliminating something humanity might really, really need in the future, and, most importantly, if they fail to do the job, there's a very good chance that even relatively harmless SCP might come back angry.
And in return, the GOC doesn't care for the SCP Foundation, because even if they're not secretly using SCPs to take over the world using the Chaos Insurgency as a proxy, they're keeping around a huge stockade of objects that do not play well with reality and can destroy entire swaths of Earth on a whim.
Indeed, just about all the major organizations of this universe who deal in SCPs think they are doing what needs to be done in this world for the greater good, with the sole exception being Marshall, Carter, and Dark, who are just in it for the money.
The Manna Charitable Foundation's stated goal is to relieve poverty in the least developed areas of the world using SCPs. A noble goal, but given that they ignore the side effects they can do harm as much as good. For example, widespread distribution of a high-calorie honey-like substance... that kills anyone not of AB+ blood type.
SCP-1892, a "haunted" doctor's chair that just wants to cure its "patients" with 50's-era prescriptions. Unfortunately, it's a psychiatrist's chair, and the 50's had a thing for lobotomies.
What Measure Is a Mook?: Canon dictates that the Foundation execute D-Class personnel monthly, but there are many arguments out-of-canon if this is canon or not. Whatever the case, several SCPs and projects have been started with the express purpose of cloning D-Classes or even making fully-grown, fully intelligent humans from scratch.
SCP-1504: He's immortal, wants to die, can't be seen, heard, or felt "properly": no one sees him leave the interview room to "borrow" a guard's gun to shoot himself; yelling and screaming is "reedited" into mild answers; when he punches the researcher interviewing him, the researcher wonders why his nose started bleeding, and in his quest to die tried to murder an entire site's staff, caused a site-wide containment breach that necessitated a nuclear detonation, and no one knows if he's dead or alive.
Winds of Destiny, Change: SCP-181, discovered as a D-class who kept surviving experiments with Keter-class anomalies by seemingly impossible good luck. Further experiments confirmed that he could influence probability. Then it was found that his influence could cause [DATA EXPUNGED], so now he's in solitary confinement.
A Wizard Did It: averted, because they don't spend a lot of time figuring out how the object became SCP, magically or not.
However, there are a lot of "SCP did it", especially when they can't explain how can the object work that way.
In an in-universe example, nine year old Reality WarperSCP-239 was told she was a witch to manage her powers. This improved her morale and "made her believe that she is unable to use her abilities outside of a pre-approved list of "spells" given to her by the Foundation." (It didn't really work out in the end, though.)
The GOC apparently employs mages.
Word of God: An entire thread on the forums, called The Leak, is dedicated to authors revealing details about their works.
The World Is Always Doomed: If you take all the SCPs as canon, the world is doomed in over a hundred different ways.
World of Silence: World Without Man has the ability to do this. The worst part is that this was the creators' intent.
You Are Number Six: Every humanoid SCP is referred to by their designated number. Most of them don't mind this, or at least demand a nickname. "Vector", in particular, kept demanding to be treated like some Marvel villain. SCP-811 is allowed to be called Aé because it "streamlines the interviewing" and it sounds like her ID number (eight-eleven).
You Cannot Grasp the True Form: SCP-055, the self-keeping secret. Everything about it is unknown, except that you can't know anything about it. The SCP will erase any memories that pertain to it from the minds of intelligent humans who observe it. Its very image, copied onto photographs or drawings, will also become impossible to remember or describe within seconds of looking at it. Any scientific readings about it will be forgotten immediately after viewing them. There's only one hitch. It will not prevent you from remembering what it is not, provided you can be reminded you ever looked at it at all. Given, well, forever, you could work out what it was by eliminating everything else. It's considered Keter-class (as a general rule, that means "stuff that could end the world" or "682") because it's just that unknown. If it was something so lethal the Eldritch Abominations look like Santa Claus by comparison, nobody would remember!
You Can't Fight Fate / Because Destiny Says So: SCP-1271 teleports children from around the world to play a game of kickball. Those players who have been found almost always have a destiny based on their positions; for instance the red team's second baseman/second kicker will die before age 18 and the blue team's second baseman/second kicker becomes head of state or a high-ranking politician. When one man tries to resist his fate of becoming addicted to drugs by age 25 and dying before age 27 everyone around him becomes a drug pusher. This includes his own parents, his teachers, anti-drug program advocates, and the Foundation doctor who was studying him. Unfortunately the doctor succeeded in injecting him, the subject was terminated, and the Foundation discovered that SCP-1271 can create mind-altering brain tumors.
You Keep Using That Word: A pair of modern-day Are We Cool Yet? artists try to appeal to an older artist by calling the current government of Germany "fascist". Since the older artist lived through actual fascism he doesn't appreciate the AWCY guys' ignorance/hyperbole and entombs them (and himself) in his "living" collage.
SCP-1372 appears to be the edge of the world... and anyone who goes over it comes back as pirate zombies trying to convince others to go over the edge with them.
SCP-610 is a particularly nasty variant of this, mixed with a healthy dose of Body Horror.
SCP-093's world suffered another similarly nasty zombie apocalypse, crossed with Instrumentality.
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