[REDACTED]: What did you see between the two gallows?
SAUNDERS: There was a monster behind me. The one with a body the length of two Manhattans, and a mouth on each end. The one you see behind yourself when it breathes.
[Silence.]
SAUNDERS: It ate me. It didn't hurt. I fell through its throat and got lost in its stomach. And there was a worm in its belly. Long enough to speak, so it did.
[[REDACTED] chokes. A pump beeps.]
SAUNDERS: It told me about a labyrinth. One laid out under a mile of concrete and ruin.
[REDACTED]: Gamma. Un– unseelie. Spectral. Calamities.
SAUNDERS: It was hidden in there, and it dreamed of fractals of numbers and flesh and of upside-down cathedrals and of bladders pumped full of chemicals, and a descending, descending, falling, falling, pit, where you chase yourself through a million mirrors and hallways, down, down, down until you wake up– someone else.
SEMIOTICS
Or, the Inevitable Demise:
Site-196 always falls
"So, we ended up with it, after all?"
SCP-7419 sits unceremoniously in its new storage locker, having just been re-assigned to Site-196's purview. The machine, once kept amongst the crowded ranks of Site-19, deals in language. So too does Site-196 deal in language. It's old now, some twenty years after its discovery- rusted, jittery, and decrepit- but even still, it spits out its queries with diligence: fodder for those with overactive minds and paranoid sensibilities.
"It would seem so. Funny how a little thing like this can cause such a fuss."
"I still don't quite understand why it belongs to us now."
"Well, it talks to us a lot. We've used it as a somewhat reliable source of information on loan, since its 'True or False's' seem to be particularly great with paratech shenanigans. But really, it's the way it talks. 'Marianne Simmons Will Buy A Bagel At Wynnsbury's'. Doesn't get more us than that."
"As if it actually means anything. It was the 80s. This thing's just a shitty gag."
"And yet you still wanted it here, Janette."
"Maybe I was wrong. Or I will be wrong. When you look for higher meaning everywhere like we do, everything seems like the end of the world, doesn't it?"
One may like to think of reality as a large, uncaring, and constant force. A monolithic institution beyond our concepts of order. Humanity has studied our world for thousands of years to try and understand- what, exactly -makes up this web we find ourselves in?
For as long as humans have learned and taught, so too have they created words and ideas and meanings to understand the world around them. These meanings- powerful tokens of belief that spread and shape that which receives them, they are what we have decided our universe is and encompasses.
But reality,
"Dr. Jules Lazaret, Fmr. Research Lead for Site-14 (1963-1968), Fmr. Research & Development Manager at Site-196 (1968-1987), Director, Site-196 (1987-1992). Under Ethics Committee Investigation in pertinence to historical research projects, unspecified…"
"There's something behind me. It's always behind me. I can't ever see it, but to me it's a snake. It sunk its teeth into me so long ago, and didn't even have the good grace to poison me. If I stop I can feel it wrapped around me, my body, and it squeezes. I wish it would let me go, but if it did I might forget it's there."
"Dr. River Cories: One Month- Total biological and physical abstraction. Emergence of immature PASC subversive and strengthened pareidolic influence, most prevalent in the immediate vicinity of the disassociated fruiting body."
"Despite the occurrence of Incident-8155-A, Site-196 is still shown to be continually active and operational, and still operating under the Foundation's name. To prevent ignominy, a unanimous vote across all Foundation personnel was made in order to officially disown Site-196 and recognize it as Exclusionary Site-196."
"Skin pulled tighter than mine. When he takes a drink, you can see his clammy grey throat slide up and down, agape. Sharp enough to form a shape, a shape someone can remember. He goes missing, his lovers and loveds can pick out a shape on a silhouette, they can identify it. I sag and seep, shapeless and unformed."
"The doors and windows of the house were not found. The brick facade surrounding where the door once stood was found cleanly extended across the doorframe. The windows and air vents were found to be covered in a similar fashion. Carbon monoxide levels within the home were found to be dangerously high. At the time of discovery, the smoke alarms filled the house with the sound of incessant beeping. They have since been deactivated."
"Editor's Note: A link to the Fifth Church was initially hypothesized, but remains relegated to popularity amongst the low-performing and poor of mind."
"Goodman was shown a variety of paraphernalia depicting or related to SCP-3169, including photographs, drawings, fragments taken from the corpus, and sentence fragments produced by those who had seen the door. In addition, Goodman was allowed to view an SCP-3169 instance for two seconds. Goodman was again asked to imagine entering SCP-3169. The result remained the same. However, upon being asked to imagine entering the door, Goodman spontaneously melted and died."
"We strongly encourage all staff to regularly ask themselves: 'Does it make sense for me to have achieved what’s been attributed to me?'
If the answer is no, you may be eligible for semiotic compensation."
"Marianne Simmons Will Buy A Bagel At Wynnsbury's Soon - TRUE"
"There's something you can't remember to remember."
Poufy's Proposal: Three Little Piggies
"Where did SCP-001 take them… this is what I want to know. Like an archaeologist uncovering some roman ruins, but I used to be among the ruins, too. I was human with them too. Now, I am somewhat less than human. Overseer… the last O5 member left. The only O5. Funny, that. Such a powerful little title."
Personnel Associated Sapient Concepts (PASC's)
PASC's are Foundation-aligned entities, usually associated with Site-196, that have experienced processes that sever their sapience from any biological tethering, They instead exist as memetic or psychological influences that cause individuals in their propagative vicinity to experience semiotic interferences that are interpretable as communication.
Fifthism
Fifthism within Semiotics is treated as a pervasive, virulent influence that, even when severed from its spiritual memetics, appears to corrupt or severely alter the semantic relationships that form baseline reality, such as in SCP-8031. SPHERE may or may not be interpreted as a facet of Fifthism, or merely yet another competing malignant force on reality.
Pattern Screamers
Pattern Screamers and/or Pattern Screamer adjacent entities are featured throughout Semiotics as stated or implied adversaries to the Foundation & Site-196's efforts. Pattern Screamers within Semiotics are not to be treated as characters, but rather vague presences alluded to via their influence on anomalous phenomena or procedures. Entities such as those implied in SCP-7419 or SCP-8995 are subject to extensive linguistic workarounds as a key feature.
Selective Thought Blockers
STBs are referenced in Semiotics, and are a staple of Site-196 containment efforts. Derived from Class-C Amnestics, these medications constrain depth of thought, useful for mitigating certain anomalous phenomena that propagate through speculative or perceptive thought such as SCP-7783.
The Thinker
An almost exclusively allusive or subtextual force that dictates or processes meaning on a universal scale. One of the core conceits of the Semioticsverse is that there appear to be objective meanings, and that these meanings are crucial to the continued functioning of reality as we understand it. The Thinker (possibly in the form of SCP-001 in Poufy's Proposal or the Serpent-Worm in SCP-8995/SCP-7794) may be a singular entity, or merely a dictating force. The chief goal of Site-196 is to understand these rules, at the cost of inevitable catastrophe during the events of SPHERE.
Janette Goodman - Site-196 Director (present)
Formerly human, currently exists in a puréed amorphous biological form following the events of SCP-3169, but otherwise still maintains duties. Cynical, cryptic, and frequently obtuse in reasoning. Can be presented as similarly otherworld in personality to her slime-like physical presence.
Jules Lazaret - Site Director (former, disgraced)
Under posthumous Ethics Committee investigation for alleged human & anomaly rights violations during experimentation. If explicitly depicted, disarmingly affectionate towards children despite & due to his moral shortcomings.
Jason Stepham - Containment Specialist for SCP-7793 [SPHERE]
Lead the containment team for SPHERE following acquisition. Former colleague of Winston Middelberg. Periodically disappears from the site for unclear reasons.
Winston Middelberg - Junior Researcher
Protagonist of SPHERE. Flighty, anxious, incompetent, somewhat emotionally stunted.
Kaiden Powell - SCP-7783 Research Lead
The pre-eminent authority on PASCs and other non-biological consciousnesses within Site-196. Deeply depressed following the loss of River Cories. Has difficulty socializing with those outside of his circle.
River Cories - PASC-01
Formerly human conceptual sapience, former colleague and partner of Kaiden Powell. Discoverer of SCP-7783. Loud, vivacious, intensely extroverted. "Class Clown"
Dr. James Hilbre - Site-196 Medical Staff
Sleazy, seedy, gross. Always gets away with it.
Semiotics is a Surrealist-Absurdist Horror SCP-centric canon primarily focusing on the inevitable failure of the Foundation & Site-196 to prevent reality-restructuring forces and anomalies, eventually concluding in the events of SPHERE.
Articles within the setting of Semiotics primarily take place either within Site-196's ranks, other Foundation sites prior to Site-196 acquisition, or in post-meaning post-apocalyptic scenarios Documentation usually takes the form of hyperclinical and dense verbiage, with occasional stylistic tone breaks if necessary. This is usually in contrast to human narratives within the universe largely tackling loss, burnout, and especially alienation & abandonment. Characters within Site-196 and Semiotics as a whole are portrayed as steadfast and hopeless agents in the way of larger forces, often far beyond their comprehension. Leadership ethos within Site-196 is generally ambitious and hubristic, trying and often failing to transcend human limitations in dealing with the otherworldly threats it voluntarily takes on. Despite this, the Foundation is generally unaware of the true extent of most the anomalies under its purview in Site-196, as best illustrated in SCP-7419 and SCP-7575, and to catastrophic effect in the events of SPHERE.
Highly personal subject matter is strongly encouraged. Semiotics articles generally tackle personal themes and subject matter, abstracted extrensively through these surrealist sci-fi anomalies that represent exaggerations of how these subject matters feel to the author. While it isn't strictly necessary for the themes to be personal, subtext is important to the universe's overall themes of burnout and personal collapse.
Further questions about the universe can be answered by 
PoufyPoufson via wikidot PM or discord message on the official SCP Wiki Discord.
