SCP Foundation

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Name: SCP Foundation
Abbreviation(s): SCP
Creator: (Collaborative)
Date(s): 2007-ongoing
Medium: Website
Country of Origin: International
External Links: http://www.scp-wiki.net/
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

SCP Foundation is a collaborative original fiction project hosted on Wikidot. The canon revolves around the titular Foundation, which is tasked with containing, researching, and documenting thousands of anomalous objects, entities, and phenomena.

The two meanings created for the initialism "SCP" are "Secure, Contain, Protect", and "Special Containment Procedures".

SCP as a concept began with a post to 4chan's /x/ (board for paranormal/creepypasta content) on June 22 2007,[1] about a statue designated "SCP-173", which fatally attacks people if they do not maintain constant eye contact with it, which bears a close resemblance of a certain character from Doctor Who.

The initial appearance of SCP-173 was something really different to the /x/ community. Instead of being a basic story with a jump scare punchline, or a thing that made you feel squicked and scared, it was designed to make you wonder, and draw fear from that. You can imagine the reaction of many internet dwellers as they first scrolled down to see that thread.

It was popular. The original thread stuck around for a couple days, as many people marveled at the creepiness of the writing and the implication that there were more things just like it somewhere else. But as some were thinking of what could be out there, others wanted to know how they could get their piece of the SCP pie. Over the following 6 months, there were multiple reposts of 173 as well as a handful of low quality attempts at creating original SCPs.

In January of 2008, the SCP concept experienced a huge surge in popularity. In five large threads created between January 17th and January 19th, a number of original SCPs were created. They became the very first entries to what was then known as "The SCP Series."

Although many users embraced the SCP Series and used the idea well, some were unsatisfied with the limits of merely posting in forum threads. In addition, many denizens of /b/ and /x/ were beginning to grow weary of repeated threads being created. So on January 19th, 2008, the SCP Series wiki was created on the EditThis wikifarm.[2]

Fanworks are numerous, and consist of fic, art, fangames, podcasts, and roleplay.

Formats

The most well-known works within SCP canon are the SCP articles themselves. These articles are in-universe descriptions of anomalies, with their known histories, physical properties, etc. being documented alongside instructions on how to contain them. With the exception of intentional format screws, each article is written to sound as scientific and dry as possible, while still telling an interesting story.

The SCP canon has also been fleshed out by "Tales", stories set within the SCP universe that are usually written in a more traditional format.

On Canon

Due to the inherently collaborative nature of the project, the line between fan work and canon is blurry - it is generally agreed that "there is no canon". While some things are consistent throughout almost all SCP stories (the secretive nature of the Foundation, the use of D-Class, etc.), the SCP universe means something different, and includes different sets of stories, to each reader.

Several semi-official "canons" do exist, them being collections of related stories that are all canon in relation to each other; however, there is no one cohesive official canon for fans to claim as legitimate. Some canons could be considered alternate universes, in that they change the status quo or standard assumptions of what canon is like. An example is the Broken Veil canon, where the Foundation is not a secret.

Fandom

A distinction can be drawn between works posted to the official SCP Wiki, and works posted elsewhere. For example, as of January 2022, there are over 2,260 fanworks in the SCP Foundation fandom on Archive of Our Own, and 292 stories on Fanfiction.net under "SCP Foundation Mythos" subsection at the Misc section page.

TikTok has also become a great refuge for fandom, where various artists create videos, POV and the like showing their own characters or canons entering the Foundation or meeting with the creatures cataloged there.

A wide variety of adaptations of SCP stories can be found online. These range from verbatim readings of articles, to short films based on those articles. However, some fanworks add original characters (both humans and anomalies) and tell original stories within the SCP universe.

Example Fan Works

Art

Readings

Fan Films

  • 096; a short film by MrKlay, adapted from SCP-096 and Incident 096-1-A by Dr Dan.
  • SCP: Overlord; a short film by Evan Royalty. It is set within the SCP universe, but is an original story.
  • SCP: UNREMARKABLE; a short film by Nevan Dove, adapted from SCP-1504 by MayD.
  • Confinement; an animated series by Lord Bung featuring an original story and characters, set within the SCP universe and featuring multiple preexisting anomalies.

External links

References

  1. ^ https://lostmediawiki.com/SCP-173_(found_4chan_post;_2007)
  2. ^ Roget (2013). "History Of The Universe: Part One". SCP Foundation. Archived from the original on 2020-07-16. Retrieved 14 April 2019.