BRC-Cast 243: A Nice Content Farm Upstate - SCP Foundation

BRC Podcast Episode 243

A Nice Content Farm Upstate

[Intro Bumper: Clockwork Moons by Shattered Deus]

W: Welcome… to the Black Rabbit Podcast! A terrible idea, but we’re doing it anyway! In the tacnet with me tonight we have Hana!

H: “what fresh furry weeaboo bullshit is this"

W: Boss!

B: “Women emoji, x emoji, thumbs down emoji”

W: Tomi!

T: “you should put one of them in 682s chamber and let the others watch that will get them to talk”

W: She’s your enemy and mine on the internet, Nanami!

N: "scp was better before they started adding politics to everything this sort of fetish-bait would have never happened in Series 1"

W: The one and only Momoko!

M: “DO YUO THINK THAT THIS SPC IS RELATED TO THE SHY GUY I THINK THAT HE THE SHY GUY AND THE PLAUGE DOCTOR HAVE SOME THING IN COMMON QUESTION MARK EXCLAMATION POINT QUESTION MARK?”

W: [sudden snorting laughter] Fuck me, I wasn’t expecting you to go that hard out of the gate.

B: I’ve heard that she dies if she ever drops below a certain volume.

M: It’s true!

N: Jesus Christ what have we gotten ourselves into.

W: And Wizard, I guess! “i am once again requesting that you make a video about 173 in the Backrooms”

[End Intro Bumper]

W: So, how are we doing tonight, BRC?

H: Oh, you know. The Everything.

N: Every day I curse the demiurge for trapping us in this prison of flesh and matter.

T: I slept for 22 hours and then screamed until Hana brought me food.

M: Tom Cardy won Eurovision!

B: I continue my efforts to escape to the one place not yet corrupted by capitalism.

W: All right, all right, how do you all feel about Youtube?

N: The same way I feel about Thatcher.

H: Nanami you can’t just threaten to piss on the entirety of Youtube.

N: [opens can loudly] Fucking try me.

T: Please refer to my nine-hour video essay “My Thoughts on Youtube: Act 1, Part 1; ASMR; Lo-Fi Beats to Chill and Study To; Circle and Arrow in Thumbnail; Excited Face?!”

M: [singing] Welcome to the Piss Olympics…

B: Never before has a podcast gone this far off the rails this fast.

H: I don’t think we had rails to begin with.

T: Choo choo.

W: No, no we do not. Anyway! Our document tonight was provided by Djoric…dee-zhor-ik? Duh-jor-ik? How the hell do you pronounce that, Hana?

H: It might be a truncated form of Djordjevic?

N: I think it’s pronounced Dork.

M: No no, It’s Dyork, like the singer.

H: Do we know if they’re Serbian? It’d make mo- wait, no, it’d make less sense if they’re Serbian.

W: Anyway, Dork has provided us with tonight’s document, thank you Dork-”

M: Thanks, Dyork.

H: What the hell are your phonotactics up to, my guy.

W: And this document contains the script and selected comments from a Youtube video titled “Is There Anything These Killer Kitties Won’t Do? - SCP-2085 - The Black Rabbit Company”, by ‘SCP Explained - Story & Animation’.

M: Aw man, they did Jennsosaurus dirty.

H: Right? Just copied right off the hub.

T: Wow, they managed to draw you without your tits out. Such restraint.

B: Major issues here. One: I’d never use such bad form for an unarmed takedown. Two: No outward signs of augmentation or epicanthic folds. I know our appearances are variable but I would expect at least one of those.

N: Wait was… did The Rubber actually do a good job with our designs?

H: Shit, I think you’re right.

N: Like they weren’t accurate to the text but they were in the spirit of the assignment. Like they gave Boss the Major’s hair and Momoko Starfire’s color scheme, that’s vibe-appropriate.

B: The Black Rabbit Company and its allies do not support The Rubber in any of its endeavors.

N: I feel like I need to take a fucking shower.

W: Dyork left us a comment saying “I am terribly sorry for this, and also for my unpronounceable username. None of this is canon, except for the parts that are extremely canon.”

N: You can stick that cannon directly up your ass and play 1812 Overture.

T: Doot doot.

W: This is going to be fun. Let’s get started…

We’ve covered a lot here on this channel, and what you might have noticed about the nature of our discoveries is that knowledge is best broken down before digested. Which is to say, if you are to learn how to assemble a computer, it may benefit you also to see one taken apart.

When you do so, you’ll notice in front of you not a computer at all, but a collection of individual parts. It’s in understanding these distinctive parts in isolation that helps us shape our awareness of their marriage, and how they cooperate with one another to become their collective self.

T: Weird opener but okay.

Sure, this may be good practice, but then tell me: how do we comprehend a whole that is composed of parts unwilling to isolate themselves from the rest?

B: And I asked Master Ultan “Is it not true that there is a certain analeptic of the many-voiced alzabo that contains the entirety of the whole within a single part?”

N: Nerd.

H: “lol. lmao, even,” said Master Ultan. “You absolute dumbass, Severian. You utter buffoon.”

N: NERD.

W: “I, Severian, who forgets nothing, did not hear him, as I was thinking about my cool dog, who had three legs, and also Valeria, of whom I have already said too much.”

N: NEEEEEEEEEEEEERD.

M: “I, Severian, journeyman torturer of the Order of the Seekers of Truth and Penitence, just can’t stop talking about Valeria.”

T: “I, Severian, certified public accountant and forensic certified public accountant, [DATA EXPUNGED] and [DATA EXPUNGED] my [DATA EXPUNGED]. [REDACTED].”

N: Nerds. NERDS! All of you are nerds! NONE OF YOU ARE FREE FROM SIN.

Because let’s face it, not all things, let alone SCPs, can be torn apart for the convenience of our study.

W: If you can’t study something without destroying it, you’re probably doing it wrong.

M: If you can’t help but destroy the subjects of your study, call a doctor immediately! You may be the British Museum.

No matter the subject we seek to understand, it may choose to resist our deconstruction, by one way or another. Landmarks like the Temples of Malta and the Pyramid of Djoser are held together by our respect. Monuments like the Statue of Liberty are held together by copper. The Family was held together by Charles Manson.

H: Whoa whoa whoa ease up on the gas.

But it’s not always the preservation of history or elements of the periodic table or psychopaths that reject humans' wishes to disassemble. Far stronger than forces of nuts and bolts are that of character and loyalty, and SCP-2085 is welded together by exactly that.

T: Is this a video about us or the prelude to a recipe for pork chops or some shit.

SCP-2085 is a militant anarchist organization consisting of six cybernetically-enhanced individuals (A-1 through A-5 and B) operating under the name Kuroi Usagi Shidan, or more commonly known as the “Black Rabbit Company.”

M: Sadly abandoned working title: “Space Wizard and the Commando Catgirls”.

SCP-2085-A subjects are five adult female augmented humans, designated SCP-2085-A-1 through SCP-2085-A-5.

H: We have names. In order to rip off Jennsosaurus’ art you would have had to have read the hub, which has our names right there.

Subjects are genetic chimeras, each with an estimated 6-10 different gene donors. They are fluent in Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Korean, Russian, and English, with additional languages varying by individual.

T: He’s just reading the article. Can we fast forward?

W: Yeah, hold on.

SubjectsdisplayanarrayofgeneticandcyberneticenhancementsincludinggeneticsplicesofFeliscatusphysiologyhavingcatlikeearstailsandhairThesetailsareprehensileandcapableofholdingsmallobjects,soifyoureaccusingoneofthemofstealingyourpendontjustgosearchingtheirpocketsTheyalsohavegrippadsontheirhandsandfeetincasetheyeverdiddecidetoretirefromanarchyandtakeupsurfingTheirimpressivefeaturesdon’tstopthereIftheyhaventalreadyputJamesBondsgadgetstoshameyetjustwaitDanielCraigisabouttolooklikeDoratheExplorerSCP2085A1throughA5allhaveocularimplantswiththermalvision,headsupdisplayandrecordingfunctionalityAlsonotedarecarbonnanoweavemusclefiberaugmentationreinforcedendoskeletonandbraincomputerinterfacewithinternalharddriveThelistgoesoneachetceteramoreelaboratethanthenextYetwhatstandsoutmostaboutthemisnotaweaponbutanattitude.

These six members, although now held in isolation from one another, do not show any signs of splitting up, not even when under the heavy pressure of The Foundation’s interrogation. Agents spend their hours looking for cracks to dig their fingers into, trying to get one to betray the other and reveal sensitive information. But when asked to spill the beans-

M: Oh no my beans!

SCP-2085 screws the lid on tighter. They remain as a whole, resistant to our deconstruction. The agents get nowhere with their investigation. And with each minute wasted, it’s another victory for SCP-2085.

B: It’s our forbidden bloodline technique -

M: A kekkai genkai, if you will.

B: -called “Don’t Talk to Cops”.

The hours go on and they keep stacking up W’s, building momentum day after day, growing stronger and stronger as a unit. As the Foundation tries to tear the group apart, they respond with even greater resistance. And this style of resistance is unique to each member. Imagine you are confronting SCP 2085-A-2.

H: Wait, did they skip Boss?

B: It might be a pacing thing.

T: He also left out how we were captured, which is pretty important.

She is talkative, and so you think you might get somewhere. You are all ears. But what SCP 2085-A-2 sees isn’t ears, but troughs. And she is happy to feed you her slop. She talks and talks and you listen closer and closer, but all you are getting is misinformation.

M: Slop? SLOP!?

False names, inaccurate stories, dates that don’t add up. You focus and follow along, only to find yourself having run a marathon all the way to a dead end.

H: And he’s…not going to include any of the stories?

T: We have to establish what keeps large objects together, Hana, get with the program.

M: I gave you hours of entirely truthful entertainment, and you slander me like this?

N: As rightful queen of Thailand I object to this characterization of one of my subjects.

Now you are faced with SCP 2085-A-5, who takes a different, more nonsensical approach. You are happy to no longer have to sift through inaccuracies to decipher truths, but now there are no truths at all. All that you are given are absurdities.

T: What.

She speaks in ways that make you scratch your head.

T: Did you read the interview? I just said “no” a lot. I admitted that I was fucking with them because it was fun.

Once saying, for no apparent reason, “I take a hammer and I break my legs, I break ‘em for the better.”

T: …

T: It’s Mother Mother.

After so many scratches you swear you’ve dug an inch into your skin.

T: It’s the first line of “All Gone” by Mother Mother. Fuck’s sake.

And so you move on to SCP 2085-A-4 hoping for better luck.

T: No. No we don’t, we stop right here. Fuck you, it’s Mother Mother. I was quoting Mother Mother because it’s creepy out of context and I wanted to fuck with people but it’s also an expression of radical bodily autonomy. I take a hammer and I break my legs for the better.

T: Would you like me to be less subtle? “Take my eyes / take them aside / take my face and desecra-ate my arms and legs / they get in the way.”

[Pause]

T: I was trying to imply that I’m trans, dipshit. Whatever the hell that means when I can pop my brain out like a fucking hard drive and just stick it in a new body.

[Pause]

N: So, uh, we gonna go around the table in solidarity?

H: Yeah, I think we should. Boss?

B: Sure. Ace-aro.

H: Demi.

M: Captain Harkness Rules, baby.

N: Chronic masturbator viscerally repulsed by the idea of intimate physical contact with another human being.

W: And I’m technically a eunuch.

H: This part is canon. It’s a bit of a later development to our characters but you know, we had other things to worry about at the time.

T: No flags, please.

M: Nothing against people who like them, we just think they’re ugly.

N: Fucking Americans putting stripes on everything. Too many divisions of the field!

W: Japan’s got the States beat in the flag department, no contest.

B: Acceptable flags for the Company are a field sanguine, party per bend sinister sable.

H: Sanguine, sable hare rampant wielding mallet, countercharged per bend sinister.

M: Sanguine, a disc argent, sable hare rampant wielding mallet.

B: The above, with a field vert.

N: And sable, a skull and crossbones with cat ears.

W: Though if you come up with some other cool ones, we’d love to see them. Anyway, let’s get back to it.

She is straightforward with you. That much you like. But she’s hostile and doesn’t cooperate. When you ask her name, she raises her middle finger. She tucks it back in to create a first. And then that fist punches the divider between you. No amount of reinforced glass could make you feel safe at that moment. Cracks spread. It looks like a web spun by a spider, and you feel as small as one.

B: Known Shelob impersonator, Nanami.

N: Nah, I’m definitely a Portia.

M: I get to be Bianca!

W: I’ll take Fabian.

T: One of the Octopi, I guess.

H: Viola!

B: We are going on an adventure.

Thankfully, a protective shutter is lowered. Aerosol sedatives are pumped into the containment unit.

H: I’m surprised he’s not mentioned any of the cover names yet.

W: Eh, the other video did and the comments are mostly just asking if this is a JoJo reference.

N: Shoulda fucking gone with Jolyne…

H: But they’re an important part of establishing our characters!

T: Why would he bother? Do you think the target audience of this video knows what Dorohedoro is?

H: No…

M: [stage whisper] For those of you keeping track at home: I’m Joseph, Nanami’s Jolyne, Wizard’s Jonathan, Tomi is Jotaro, Hana’s Josuke, and Boss is Giorno.

B: Our Stands are, pending revision and in interview order, [L'INTERNATIONALE], [BRICK HOUSE], [MAKE THIS RIGHT], [NOOSPHERE], [WHERE THE GUNS AT], and [PLAY THE HERO].

She continues to try to escape, yelling profanities even harsh for someone locked behind bars.

Your ears have taken a beating from curse words, nonsensical rambles, and heaps of misinformation. You want to lower your head into a toilet bowl and hear nothing but water. Yes, that is where these women have driven you. Your head to the bottom of a toilet bowl.

You have put in so many hours, and yet you have learned nothing new. And if you can’t learn anything new, you might have to rely more on what you already know.

M: He totally skipped Boss and Hana.

N: What the fuck.

H: …

H: Skipping over the part where I’m begging for death because of the psychological strain of solitary confinement is a choice that says a lot about your priorities.

But what do you know? Well, you know this: their track record is quite impressive. Verified operations include smuggling, theft, assault, vandalism, kidnapping, extortion, property damage, possession of fissile materials, corporate sabotage, embezzlement, identity theft, fraud, copyright infringement, piracy, possession transport and sale of anomalous items, and tax evasion.

W: The comments section does have a good number of people congratulating us on the last one.

Yet, when grilled under the heat of investigation, they do not reveal any details about the nature of these operations. You just know that they happened. All that is told is that SCP-2085 navigates in such a way as to minimize the chance of civilian casualties and maximize material and morale damage to their target.

T: Opsec, motherfucker.

They are proud of this. It seems as if SCP-2085 perceives themselves on the side of good.

M: My body is a machine that kills fascists.

B: Considering that you cut the part wherein I explain our motivations in explicit terms, it seems like this confusion is self-inflicted.

While their list of operations on paper looks like crimes, they stand proudly behind them, pleading guilty with a grin. But behind every smile is more teeth. Teeth that go beyond saying cheese. Teeth hiding in the dark caves of a sealed mouth. And you are determined to play dentist and find your way in.

N: What the fuck is this metaphor?

But SCP-2085 doesn’t say ah for just anyone.

T: You have to buy me dinner first.

So, how are you to understand a group that resists our preferred methods of learning? How are you to properly assess the pieces of a puzzle when the puzzle is glued tightly together?

W: I have seen some weird framing narratives and this is extremely weird.

It starts at the top. Before you can decipher the motives of a nation, you’d be smart to study their leader.

M: Boss! He remembered you!

And if you want to extrapolate the schemes of a football team, you’d interview the coach. And to truly know the moral of a television show, you’d be better off asking the creator than the actors.

B: The intent of the artist is merely one factor of many that goes into the interpretation of a text and should not be treated as a correct reading of a text.

T: We are aware of the irony.

All of this is just to say, if you are to ever understand the complexities of SCP-2085, it is necessary you begin with SCP-2085-B, the person pulling the string of the entire operation for all of these years.

N: [slams fist on table] BULLSHIT!

W: Oh god he doesn’t know.

T: My expectations are subterranean and they have still not been met.

Now, you might be imagining a man of many muscles.

M: Sir, have you seen these guns I’m packing?

Someone able to fight a bear with an arm tied behind his back. Someone who kicks through saloon doors, tilts back his liquor, and walks out with a woman in each arm. But you’d be dead wrong.

T: I do not think anyone was thinking this.

SCP-2085-B, also known as Wizard, does not look like an imposing lead at first glance, or even, at the hundredth glance. He is generally in very poor health and his face shows it.

W: Back-alley chemotherapy does that to you.

He suffers from a variety of illnesses, most notably a vitamin D deficiency, acute radiation syndrome, and has unmanageable scarring from severe and repeated skin ulceration. He doesn’t wear a cape and glamorous spandex often found hanging in superheroes’ closets, but instead he wears an Advanced Crew Escape Suit accompanied by a cheap bathrobe and flimsy red felt wizard's hat.

He looks, with no elegant way of putting it, like a dork.

B: Correct.

A goofball.

N: Checks out.

A doofus.

M: Got you dead to rights, Wiz.

A…well, you get the point.

T: No no, keep going, drag it out further. We’re already not having a good time, why not make it a long time?

Furthermore, he is an adult male human with certain cybernetic and genetic enhancements. He has an adaptation of the gastrointestinal tract to allow for an all-liquid diet. Within his suit, an esophageal input port and waste output port are integrated.

W: In case this didn’t get across in the original text, I shit in a bag.

It is equipped with modifications to regulate sweat, reduce abrasion damage from extended usage, and aid in skin regeneration. His genetic enhancements include the replacement of 11 previously missing digits on hands and feet, and also has an internal drug pump, typically used for painkillers, because as we are about to learn, SCP-2085-B is most often on the wrong end of pain.

H: None of those are genetic.

Notice, these modifications are not those you would find in a science-fiction novel-

B: You are either woefully under-read or purposefully telling lies on the internet.

W: Do you really think someone would do that?

M: Just go on the internet and tell lies?

N: I would simply not believe them.

-but more likely behind the trench coat of a suspicious man in a dark alley. And we all know nothing good is ever concealed behind a trench coat… but have you ever wondered if that truth also extends to robes? Because when we pull open SCP-2085’s what we find is truly terrifying…

T: I like how they are framing this as habitual public indecency. What a cool, normal thing to say.

SCP-2085-1!

M: Wait, is that Boss?

SCP-2085-1 is a fibrous mass of self-replicating carbon nanomaterials within SCP-2085-B’s

M: Aw…

W: It would be so much easier if they just used names.

B: Artifact of the format.

-chest cavity, with growths protruding into the liver, pancreas, gallbladder, spinal cord, and left lung.

The growth of the SCP-2085-1 and its consumption of SCP-2085-B’s body tissues has been impeded through the addition of various containment implants used to sever communication between growth sections and control nodes and counter the replication process. SCP-2085-1’s rate of replication without the influence of these containment implants is unknown. SCP-2085-1’s periods of activity occur, on average, once every three months. The process lasts for up to fifteen minutes and causes SCP-2085-B intense pain.

W: Yeah, it’s not great.

Imagine a heart attack. Imagine Mike Tyson using your sternum like a punching bag. Imagine a cactus strapped to your front. This is the pain and torture SCP-2085 wears daily.

N: Again, very cool and normal thing to say.

There’s no S logo printed on his chest like Superman. No symmetrically slick symbol like Batman.

W: I’m more of a Hellboy guy, anyway.

Instead, just cancerous growth. Kryptonite worn like a tie. The knot never to be loosened.

But to SCP-2085-B, this anomaly is not just a number to be studied, but more so a being to be understood. It is more personal than a medical condition. It is something he wakes up with each and every day.

H: It’s a bird!

T: It’s a plane!

N: It’s chronic pain!

He calls it Red.

B: No spurious connection to the Scarlet King? I’m impressed.

H: Ssshh, that link only exists on the thematic level.

T: Themes don’t exist, Boss, get with the program.

M: I know writers who use subtext and they are cowards!

N: Hiding in metal boxes, the fools!

At first, The Foundation saw SCP-2085’s close connection with Red to be childish and silly, as if a small boy who names his freckles out of boredom and loneliness.

W: They actually were pretty reasonable about it. Grading on a curve, but still. ‘Not as Big a Jerk as You Could Have Been’ award.

But as you are about to see, how they met was more memorable than first finding a freckle in the mirror.

A meteor struck down, and SCP-2085-B was the only person at the scene. Red was inside. As Wizard approached the meteor, Red leapt onto him and buried a home into his chest cavity.

W: I would like to point out that there is zero corroborating evidence for this story. There is significant room for reader interpretation.

Far from a freckle on the skin, Red is a cancer. It grows and grows, leeching to what it can. It can’t be removed with surgery. It can’t be covered by a Band-Aid. It has no empathy or mercy. It leeches on and eats away at its host. But it’s more than pain that it causes.

H: And you’re probably not going to do any sort of thematic analysis of that other thing, are you?

W: What, and give any voice to how Red is a personified stand-in for the everyday agony of being trapped inside a machine that is bleeding to death? Psssh.

Falling off a swing set and busting open your leg hurts, sure, but at least both you and your injury are on the same team. Cuts try to heal. When left alone, injuries make effort to find homeostasis.

But Red is a different breed. It hates us in a way that injuries are incapable of doing. It has a deep disdain for humanity. It tears Wizard down, reveling in his degradation. Its sole purpose is to eat him whole.

B: I see they’ve also cut Wizard’s von-neumann probe theory.

Wizard can only take this personally, as he doesn’t just feel the universally understood sensation of pain, but also the unique passion of its purpose.

SCP-2085-B’s adventure’s with Red seem to be where our story begins, and what ultimately keeps it moving.

In fact, it was while SCP-2085-B was running around trying to fix his chest with implants when he eventually met who we refer to as SCP-2085-A-1 through A-5. He was at the clinic to get some new parts, and when he was going through the installation process there was an explosion. One of the five girls barged out of a building, guns blazing. He started running alongside them with his chest half open. The women embraced him immediately, and he reciprocated.

H: I stitched him up first, then there we hugs.

Knowing nothing of the situation, he instinctively knew to take their side.

W: Look, sometimes you just know, right? I was in a sketchy off-the-books chop shop, when the people who are clearly action heroes kick down the door, you know what side your bread is buttered on.

There were bullets coming from both directions, but he intuitively understood which side was good and which side was bad – a distinction SCP-2085 believes the world needs help clarifying.

W: You ever get the feeling someone is trying to throw shade by portraying what you say in a way that implies you’re nefarious, but lacks the guts to actually say it? No? Just me?

But it is hard to see a reason for a war when our eyes are focused on the casualties. Beliefs are less clear when tucked behind bullets. The sounds of gunfire muffle their message.

B: Our message is very clear.

N: But let me spell it out, since you’re still not getting it. We were frankensteined together in tanks. We had to steal our own fucking bodies because the shitstains who made us think that a human being is something you can fucking own. Think about this, for two fucking seconds: what do you think the person who buys a custom-made woman is like? Do you think that he’s a good person? Do you think that the people who let him get away with it are good people? I had to jailbreak our brains so they wouldn’t get fucking bricked by an automatic firmware update!

N: Those motherfuckers go home every day and sleep soundly in their beds because we’re not people and what happens to us doesn’t matter. Fuck them and fuck you. They wouldn’t let us have autonomy over our own bodies so we fucking took it for ourselves.

T: Brrrat brrrrrat clicka-clack boom boom

N: From day fucking one we were forced into a world that refuses to recognize us as human beings.

H: It’s on-sight for PAMWAC.

T: see em shoot em skin em wear em mount em onna wall

W: Actually, that makes a great segue! In the years since we first came on to the scene, there have been quite a few new Groups of Interest that we have beef with.

B: PAMWAC, as aforementioned, is on-sight.

M: And those clowns at Valravn.

H: Obskura and all associates, obviously.

T: I have a bullet personally reserved for KeeLee.

N: There are forty-three different Wandsmen already on the list and I will add more. Fucking wizards.

W: Not the bird journalists, they’re different.

H: We haven’t fought Three Moons yet, but we would if we got the chance.

M: We’ve got a real good frenemy situation going on with the 12 Lords of San Kowloon.

N: I can’t find it in myself to be mean to GAW, it’s like bullying a one-legged pug.

H: We tried reaching out to them before, but it turns out that one killsat they have is some kind of bullshit eigenweapon instead of a mass driver.

M: Are we sure? I was really unclear on that.

H: It’s there in the technobabble, I totally missed it the first time through. It’s just some damn eigenweapon.

M: Damn, that’s disappointing.

H: Right?

[H: Hi all, Future Hana here: we received a few emails asking why I was so hung up on the fact that LYRIS/LORD isn’t a mass driver. Basically, a mass driver in L2 orbit opens up the rest of the solar system to exploration at drastically-reduced delta-V cost. All we need to do is get some payloads up there and we’re several steps closer to fully automated luxury gay space communism. We’ve got a whole plan drawn up and everything. Ask Boss about the Shopping List sometime. I had originally just heard “hey, did you know Games and Whatever have a planet-destroying killsat” through the grapevine and thought “sick, they have a mass driver!” because I could see no reason for it to be anything else. My bad on that. Still disappointing, though.]

B: Regardless of whether or not it is actually a mass driver, it is operated by an individual whose mental health has been steadily deteriorating for almost a decade due to social isolation and lack of psychiatric support.

N: Building your entire identity around a weird webcomic and the weird parasocial relationship you have with it is not a good long-term life strategy. You gotta touch grass once in a while.

B: Regardless, we do not associate with Games and Whatever in any meaningful material fashion.

W: However, we are absolutely down to party with the Confederación Internacional.

B: Or whatever your local Insurgency-based faction is.

T: Can we keep going? I hate how much more of this is left.

Morality, while a complex subject, SCP-2085 believes is simplified by the masses.

B: If “human beings are not possessions” is too complex, my good friend John Brown has some very convincing arguments for you.

N: “The Solidarity warps to a universe where it’s three days before Harper’s Ferry” is free real estate, people.

H: His soul goes marching on.

Events are deemed good or bad based on the term used for them in a court of law.

N: Legalism is a hell of a drug.

When we see the words: smuggling, theft, assault, vandalism, corporate sabotage, embezzlement, identity theft, fraud, copyright infringement, piracy, and tax evasion, it is our impulse to label those as morally bad.

W: I too was once in an Intro to Philosophy course.

But SCP-2085 desperately wants you to look beyond the language.

H: Yes, actually, we would love it if you read anything beyond the literal text.

They want the words to dissipate off the paper, letter by letter, until all you have is a blank page.

H: No! That’s the exact opposite of what we want here!

Now, look at the pencil and the hand that holds it. Watch how it moves. That is what matters. Whether it draws weapons or mermaids is irrelevant. Both can be used for good. Both can be used for evil. Intent is everything. And SCP-2085 intends on making the world a better place, or so they like to claim.

H: Do you understand what “antifascist” means?

M: There are objectively fewer nazis in the world because we exist.

T: gun from my sock pop pop pop pop pop

But maybe there is more to it.

After SCP-2085-B and the five women escaped the gunfire, they went on to steal a boat and high tail it out of Japan. They spent their nights out there on the ocean, stargazing and stuffing themselves with instant ramen and cheap beer.

N: Some real Misato-approved pisswater.

And, surprisingly, between all the crazy adventures SCP-2085-B had been on, this is what Wizard spoke about most. The time spent on the boat out at sea.

For the first time in ages, he was finally somewhere where he was happy.

It was this moment that actually meant the most to him.

It wasn’t the children they apparently saved from imperialism.

B: Imperialism is a complex systematic set of interlocking social, political, military and economic policies that uphold the violent extraction of wealth from conquered territories for the enrichment of the imperial core. Directed violence alone cannot undo it.

It wasn’t the wealth they apparently redistributed to the poor.

W: Note how all the stories Momoko told were just wacky things we had already done and finished, and she never said a word about what we were actually doing with the money and goods.

B: The importance of good opsec cannot be overstated. if we look at-

N: Great, now you’ve set her off…

T: If any of you listening thought Boss was the normal one, you’re wrong.

M: She’s very good at masking but when she gets going, you just gotta let her go.

B: - leading to the inevitable failure of Games And Whatever’s Camp Kenowhere project -

W: The central pillar of our team is a woman whose autistic hyperfixation is covert wetwork.

N: And leftist theory.

T: And Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

M: And we love her for it.

B: -paradoxically low-tech methods can offer greater security in the short term, while-

H: [interrupting] As we were saying, we did not provide any actionable intelligence to the enemy with regards to our bases of operation, allies, or assets.

N: We’re fools and dreamers, not idiots.

It wasn’t any good deed at all.

It was the selfish, almost shallow, sensation of being happy on a boat.

W: Life is suffering and then you die. Better to do it with friends.

This singular moment meant so much to SCP-2085-B. He reflected on it as if it were a wedding day or a memorable vacation.

Which makes you wonder…

T: Will this guy will ever get to the point.

SCP-2085 has been investigated and interrogated, and all that they preach is that they are doing the world a favor with their antics. Their tales are captivating, sure. But is it actually story telling or is it just virtue signaling?

H: There we go! Blow that whistle a little louder for the dogs in the back, why don’t you?

N: If he’s going to throw that horseshit around, let’s give him some concrete examples to chew on.

M: Strictly semicanonically, of course.

N: Yeah, you all can keep a secret. Boss?

B: For the purposes of informing those who want to write about our misadventures, yes.

N: Sick. I am personally responsible for why Emerald Mine Failson is bankrupt and why the site formerly known as Chi is now called shitho.le.

W: We do a lot of work for the Confed, like I mentioned before. Mostly supporting cells that are deep in Foundation or GOC territory.

B: On that note, one of our primary goals is aiding the Confederation in establishing a foothold in Earth orbit and the solar system at large, which has put us in close collaboration with New Green Earth and the Jupiter Development Group.

W: [Aside] They’re groups of interest operating out of the East African Federation.

H: I work with revitalization programs for moribund and sleeping languages. Ainu, currently. Did you know that the Japanese government did not legally recognize the Ainu as an indigenous people until 1997?

M: We’ve got the Shopping List, which is all the stuff worth stealing from the documents Nanami swiped from the Foundation’s database on our way out.

T: I’m a lazy piece of shit who does nothing with her life.

H: And if you want to be a lazy piece of shit who does nothing with your life, you should come on down to shiiiiiiiithole! That’s ʃɪθo dot ell ee.

There is an emotional depth to SCP-2085 unique to any other militant anarchist group.

W: I’m pretty sure most militant anarchist groups are also made out of human beings with internality.

While they are genetically designed to most efficiently complete missions, they are not at all robots fixed on the high of task completion.

B: We were initially designed as combat-rated paracoitas for personal protective use.

N: Nerd-speak translation: some rich shitstains were looking for the venn diagram sweetspot between “robot you can fuck”, “someone to shoot the people who rightfully want me dead” and “a human being I can own as property.”

H: Just read between the lines, I’m begging you.

Each and every one of them wants more. They want a group. They want a group not just to have the numbers to overthrow a government, but to have the numbers to fill a room, or boat, with companionship.

When they refuse to cooperate with you and leak information about their operation, maybe what you are witnessing isn’t the strength of their loyalty, but also the weakness of their codependence.

T: Foundation scientists blown away by discovery of friendship.

M: This one weird trick has the Men in Black stumped!

And so, you decide this is the new angle you’re going to take with your interrogation. You enter the room with a new focus. You feel like an earthquake, eager to make cracks in their core. You isolate SCP 2085-A-4.

You are met, expectantly, with hostility. You fight back with psychology. You cross your legs and put on your glasses as if to say, “Let’s talk about that anger. Where does it stem from?”

N: Oh that’s easy, it stems from the fact that I was grown in a fucking tube so that some fucking corpo failson could own human property.

She strengthens her emotional guard. But you keep prying. You say that it sounds like she is lonely. You say it sounds like her loyalty doesn’t come from good character but rather insecurity and self-doubt.

T: You leave her insecurity and self-doubt out of this.

M: Yeah! Only we get to talk shit about Nanami’s insecurity and self-doubt!

You ask her if completing missions with her crew was actually a way to improve the world-

B: Yes. You would know this if you kept my interview in.

-or was it just an elaborate way to build a close friend group bound together by common goals.

W: LOCAL MAN BAFFLED BY EXISTENCE OF FRIENDSHIP.

Did new missions sprout from necessity or were they fabricated by fears of being alone with nothing to do?

H: What is he talking about? We can’t just shit money.

B: Not yet, anyway.

N: I promise I’m still working on that nanofab printer.

Were end of operation high-fives to celebrate good overcoming evil or were they just excuses to feel the touch of another human, skin to skin.

T: Wow, way to make it weird.

You stop there and let silence do the rest. SCP 2085-A-4 sits with her thoughts.

N: This is dangerous for me and everyone around me.

She is ready to break…and finally she does. She says she’s willing to provide video logs of the group’s former operations. She’s ready to cooperate. She’s ready to abandon loyalty to groupthink and focus instead on self-improvement.

N: This entire conversation never happened, but if it did happen, I want you to imagine me putting on the grossest shrinking violet wallflower bullshit act possible and using those exact words. You could use the dripping sarcasm as industrial lubricant.

T: As well as other kinds of lubricant.

In exchange, she kindly asks that she be reciprocated and that the sanctions placed on her be lifted. You come to an agreement, and with that you feel like your work is done. But is it?

B: Rhetorical questions in headlines should always be answered with “no”.

You’re feeling cocky and accomplished. You forward the video logs to an isolated network for D-class personnel to review and you sit back and enjoy a celebratory drink.

You have infiltrated and broken the mind of a genetically modified radical designed for anarchy.

M: Fucked up that you’re saying that like it’s a good thing.

N: Fucking designed?

T: No one can possibly be a leftist out of their own volition and beliefs, Nanami, get with the program.

You give yourself a pat on the back, and you’re feeling so great that the pat might even turn into a massage, but before you can indulge in that deep tissue level of self-admiration, the phone rings. Can it be a call from the president telling you that you’re the greatest investigator of all time?

M: “Sir, it’s the President: he says you need to cut down on the self-congratulatory celebration.”

Can it be that they need you to pose in front of a world-renowned artist so that they can erect a statue of you in the center of town square?

T: How are you still only half-mast after this long?

But the panic on the other side of the phone halts your daydream. Your stomach drops, as if a sudden plummet from a perfectly vertical roller-coaster. You have fallen into a trap. The video log at the center of your negotiation was not at all what it was promised to be.

The file, titled backup.avi, consisted of a two-hour long video of a feces-filled toilet, presumably recorded from SCP-2085-A-4’s point of view, accompanied by an audio loop of the folk song “Korobeiniki”, as performed by the Red Army Choir.

N: In light of recent geopolitical currents, I must admit that the commissar character was childish and stupid, and I will be segueing to a persona that contains no questionable or problematic elements at all, a machine cleric of the Maschmeptus Adcamicus.

M: Names have been changed to protect the innocent copyright lawyers of Wames Gorkshop.

N: I just want to transcend the flesh and live eternal among the machine spirits is that too much to fucking ask.

Its absurdity feels like an art project. Like a short film you are assigned to watch in a community college class.

N: Oh come the fuck on, it’s not like I had anything else on hand! Were you expecting fucking George Clooney?

M: Yes I would, thank you.

But instead of putting you to sleep…it does a whole lot more. The contained audio-visual cognitohazard induced anaphylaxis and exudative diarrhea in the observing D-Class subject.

N: You fuckers.

The D-Class subject died four minutes after initial access of the file from blood loss and oxygen deprivation.

N: YOU FUCKERS

SCP-2085-A-4 sits in containment laughing, while you sit there on your couch, dethroned-

N: THAT WAS FOR YOU. Of fucking course, of fucking course you’d stick one of your slave laborers in front of it first. Fuck me I guess, for thinking you’d do anything else.

- back where you started, having thought you tore SCP-2085 apart with your mind, only to learn that your efforts only reinforced it with more glue.

N: Do you think I wanted to kill the poor bastard? That was for you.

B: Breathe, Nanami. Breathe.

Now go check out “SCP-247 - A Harmless Kitten” and “SCP-577 - Bullet Cat” for more SCPs.

M: Wait, that’s it?

W: That’s it.

T: I am profoundly disappointed and my day is ruined.

H: There’s nothing there! He wasted half of it on non sequiturs and then spent the rest of it deliberately mischaracterizing us!

B: That is, when he deemed to characterize us at all.

T: Can we pass on the comment section? This isn’t really fun anymore.

N: Agreed.

W: Yeah, there wasn’t that much interesting anyway down there anyway.

M: What a bummer.

W: So. What did we learn tonight, team?

T: I still can’t believe that he didn’t draw Boss with her tits out in the thumbnail.

M: Yeah that’s also my takeaway. They didn’t even draw me with my tits out, and that’s much more in character.

N: They are simply too intimidated by your impressive size.

M: It’s true! In my quest to become huge I have achieved a terrible power. The power of being huge. Cowards flee from my enormity.

N: Fun fact for all of you at home: Momoko is, to the centimeter, exactly as tall as Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson.

H: I learned that some people just decide that making stick figure animations with barely-disguised reactionary subtext for children is something they want to do with their lives.

W: Yeah, like…it’s both incredibly lazy and weirdly high-effort. He went out of his way to make the presentation worse than if he had just read the article verbatim, but didn’t put any of that extra effort into making it good or accurate. Which, considering the parts he left out, is pretty gross. And if I could get on my soapbox for a little bit…

M: Ooh, Irish Spring!

W: Look. Mr. Explained. Those guys we killed before the Foundation caught us were human traffickers. Our article features the Foundation black-vanning undocumented migrants for use as D-Class; that's not subtext, that's the text. You can engage with that text however you want, do all your hand-wringing about "muffled messages" and "claims to do good" and whatever, but to pretend it's not there is at best willful media illiteracy.

B: Some people simply have no moral compunctions about the method by which they extract wealth from children.

N: I learned that there is a fundamental and unbridgeable disconnect between how we are written and how we are portrayed by other parties, and that it both sucks and is unavoidable. Also I looked at the comments and apparently loads of people still can't accurately identify furries.

H: It's the faces, people! Does the character have a human face or an animal face? We have human faces!

T: I learned that if you ever suggest doing this again I will shove you in a locker and dump you in a river.

W: Ah well. It was a terrible idea, but we did it anyway and isn’t that how life is sometimes? Have a good night, all!

H: Bye everyone!

T: G’night.

M: I’m hungry, let’s go get sushi.

N: Already ordered.

B: Solidarity forever.

[End Bumper: Stella Signalis by House of Spades]