Welcome to my latest scip concept, the dark side of our true selves that has power over our collective consciousness. See relevant block of text below.
Animus – The dark aspect of the collective unconsciousness of mankind. (Takes its name from the Jungian philosophy. Has more in common with the Shadow/Id)
Animus’ goal is to cause the total collapse of complex human society by manipulating them into embracing their darkest fears – (Life is meaningless, the answer to life isn’t real, et al) Although its initial impact will be small, minor and meaningless, it will soon expand beyond minor inconveniences to humanity towards the collapse of society.
Animus wants to toy with the Foundation because that’s chaotic and unstable, and that’s all Animus wants. It manipulates events across history since its existed since humans have been alive. Animus IS NOT EVIL. I can’t stress that enough, it doesn’t have morality. It simply behaves as it understands.
It does this by creating a physical form with which to interact with the world. Animus cannot interact with baseline reality (Ours) nor with the Sea of Souls (Collective unconsciousness). This is because it is both part of, and not part of both realities.
This physical form takes the form of a medieval court jester that wears a masquerade mask upon its face. It is capable of detaching humans from the Sea of Souls making them unable to comprehend reality. This causes them to become functionally braindead. It uses dreams to spread itself as social media is an analogue to the collective unconsciousness. This is done by getting humans to contact it in a very “Bloody Mary” style, stuff like repeating Jester three times in a mirror at midnight and such. (Discussed that this doesn't really suit the approach so will no longer be considered) It doesn’t matter what, just as long as they believe it as that transcends it to the collective unconsciousness.
It explains that its embedded itself into the human psyche already, it’s a meme. People know it exists and therefore it has spread through word of mouth, this has caused it to be able to manifest itself more frequently. It is perfectly fine with the Foundation trying to locate it since that just further propagates its reach into the collective consciousness and fuels its love for chaos and instability.
Narratively, the scip will be explored by two separate iterations of the SCP document. The first will detail their investigation into SCP-XXXX including an interview with a survivor of the SCP, an attempted containment by instigating an SCP-XXXX event and finally an interview with Animus itself through its Id - its physical body that it has created.
The second iteration of the article will be a more traditional document detailing the actual details of what Animus is, how to contain its spread and limit its damage to society whilst also understanding that there truly is no way to win against something like this but that they do indeed have hope in limiting and restraining the entity including the Anima Project, an attempt to create a counterpart to
Animus using the collective unconsciousness. – (Cough, cough, Anima already does exist since humanity can think of it so it must exist)
It will be hinted to the reader that Animus hasn’t died by the format break of I AM YOU, AND YOU ARE I at the bottom of the second iteration.
Animus is the dark aspect of the collective unconscious of mankind. It takes its name from Jungian analytical psychology which is pretty much the cornerstone that this article is written upon. Anomalous analytical psychology.
Animus wants to make itself a real idea within the minds of the humans. At present it can be best described as the unconscious evil thoughts we have. That is why it most presently appears within dreams when our unconscious is at work.
Its physical appearance manifests as a medieval court jester of the same sex as the subject. This is to further link it to Jungian psychology where we have a physical representation of our unconscious mind, the Shadow as Jung called it.
The shadow always manifests as our sex and confronts us during our dreams. The choice of a jester was to link it to the idea that it is a genuine, unintentional corruption of human unconsciousness. It isn't evil so it appears as a fool, although it might be somewhat terrifying to have a masked fool confront you in your dreams about your "sins".
Animus' aim is to place itself in the thoughts of individuals, spreading akin to a "meme" and therefore becoming part of the human collective conscious. An idea. Which in turn puts it into our noosphere where it can bring about the downfall of human society.
WHOA CYVSTVI! Where'd the downfall of human society-esque anime arc come from? I decided that it should want to bring about the downfall of human society since it is the amplification of our worst unconscious desires: madness, apathy, destruction, guilt. The whole schbang.
However, the Foundation quickly comes to understand that Animus isn't containable in a traditional sense. It is part of humanity as much as we are part of it and as such it needs to be contained through a very different mean.
