These are articles I deeply admire by other SCP authors. Many of them have had an impact on my own style, and all have stuck with me for years. Bravo!
SCP-2003 — Preferred Option, by
Kalinin
My favorite SCP??? Maybe. From the conceit of a preferred timeline and how random events bring it about, to the twist use of BigDog, to the wild and often-prophetic alternative sets for our future… This is a piece that rewards you for clicking on its collapsibles. Its scope, structure and portrayal of the Foundation have all had a lasting impact on my work.
SCP-5001 — Sacrosanct, by
Yossipossi
The other contender for my favorite SCP. Apparently I just love weird, bigass tech working in unexpected ways! The timeline of the breach is the strength of this piece: it builds tension so effectively and doesn’t waste words. A major inspiration for me as I try to write logs of my own.
SCP-1342 — To The Makers of Music, by
FlameShirt
This is a science-y skip that ends on a note written outside of the Foundationspeak voice and which is utterly heart-wrenching. I blatantly rip this off for the commentary (especially the ending note) in SCP-6002.
SCP-6355 — A Choking Grip upon the Neck of Propriety, by
UraniumEmpire and
T Rutherford
The very definition of socially-conscious horror. You will be worked to death and nobody can save you. The Fire Suppression Department is a transformative canon for the wiki, and this article is the best of them.
SCP-1555 — The Facility, by
atomicthumbs
Single-handedly cemented weird industrial locations as the scariest type of skip for me. Also my go-to example of something incomprehensibly strange. I borrowed from its suddenly-shifting randomness for SCP-6250, and I hope to do so again. Losing its images did irreparable harm and I hope they find their way back some day.
On Guard 43, by
HarryBlank and many others
If I had to pick a canon that best exemplifies “the Foundation but if it was real,” OG43 would be my choice. Harry's Canadian dug-out adds a much-needed element of relatable humanity back into a universe that often lacks it, and pushes the site to confront questions about justice, society and identity that go beyond its usual collection-of-curiosities vibe. Site-43 treats anomalies with fear and care, but also with respect; its characters are bored, curious and political just as much as they are cold geniuses; and it manages all of this without losing that classic SCP grounding in absolutely batshit, horrific anomalies that would destroy the world without containment in place.
SCP-3100 — The Reliquary, by
minmin
This is my favorite by far of the “what if the afterlife is really shitty / what if we don’t die” trope on the site. What I like is that it does just far enough with the technobabble and unexplained decisionmaking to add creepiness, but still gives me something human and terrifying to grab onto.
SCP-072 — The Foot of the Bed, by
Kate McTiriss
The reason that I haven’t been able to sleep without tucking my feet under the blankets since February 2013. Probably the skip that’s had the longest-lasting “real-world” effect on how I behave.
SCP-3091 — Temporal Funnel Trap, by
Sophia Light
The Red Room anomaly is so ominous! And the mysterious facility built at an unknown time for an unknown purpose has big 5001 vibes (I know it came earlier, of course).
I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, YOU LITERARY FUCK
-
Elenee FishTruck
The below is a collection of media—some written, some not—which I adore and recommend to fans of my work or the site.
Anything by Amy Hempel (my favorite is "Weekend")
Prose poetry
"And when the men kissed the women good night, and their weekend whiskers scratched the women's cheeks, the women did not think shave, they thought: stay."
Citizen, Claudia Rankine
Lyric
"Perhaps the most insidious and least understood form of segregation is that of the word."
Hiroshima, John Hersey
Narrative nonfiction
"There, in the tin factory, in the first moment of the atomic age, a human being was crushed by books."
"Street Haunting", Virginia Woolf
Personal essay
As the foxhunter hunts in order to preserve the breed of foxes, and the golfer plays in order that open spaces may be preserved from the builders, so when the desire comes upon us to go street rambling the pencil does for a pretext, and getting up we say: "Really I must buy a pencil.”
"Once More To The Lake", E.B. White
Personal essay
"As he buckled the swollen belt, suddenly my groin felt the chill of death."
The nonfiction of George Orwell (particularly "A Hanging" and "Such, Such Were The Joys")
"When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide."
So Long, See You Tomorrow, William Maxwell
Memoir
"Memory—meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion—is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling."
The Bartimaeus trilogy, Jonathan Stroud
Fantasy fiction
"A dozen more questions occurred to me. Not to mention twenty-two possible solutions to each one, sixteen resulting hypotheses and counter-theorems, eight abstract speculations, a quadrilateral equation, two axioms, and a limerick."
The Jeeves and Wooster series, P.G. Woodhouse
Fiction
“Psychology is admittedly odd, sir. The poet Pope…"
"Never mind about the poet Pope, Jeeves."
"No, sir."
"There are times when one wants to hear all about the poet Pope and times when one doesn't."
"Very true, sir."
Limetown, Two-Up Productions
Audio drama
"The gate to Limetown was left open. What the world discovered was the complete disappearance of every man, woman and child. Three hundred and twenty seven people."
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, ND Stevenson
Animated TV series
"I am brave, strong, loyal, and I give great hugs."
Howl’s Moving Castle, Hayao Miyazaki
Animated film
"A heart’s a heavy burden."
Disco Elysiym, Robert Kurvitz
RPG
"Every combination of words has been played out. The atoms don’t form us anymore."