"aged" in this manner. In fact, 87% of those who were aged to above 
500 years old survived the full 24 hours, although were physically 
weakened in their aged state as expected. When the 24 hours are 
up, the subject immediately reverts to the original age (within a span 
of 20 microseconds), and retains full memory of the period where 
the age was altered 


If SCP-559 is "used" in the above manner, or if a slice is cut from it, 
its current "host" item will lose its unique properties and green icing, 
and the nearest intact baked item will gain them instead. It has been 
observed to "travel" in this fashion over twenty-five kilometres 
(25km) of sea, and this property thus led to difficulties during 
location and retrieval of the object. 


Retrieval Log: An item containing SCP-559 emerged from a bakery 
in [DATA EXPUNGED]. It was bought by a family, and when used to 
celebrate an 82-year-old's birthday, 8 big candles and 2 small 
candles were placed on the cake. The act of blowing out the candles 
transformed the birthdayer into a 10-year old, and the alarmed 
family contacted 911 as a first instinct. Routine monitoring of the 911 
call centres alerted the Foundation to SCP-559's presence, and 
after making suitable negotiations with the family for secrecy, the 
spent cake was secured. However, after testing was done it was 
realised that SCP-559 was still in the public domain, and this 
sparked a hunt for all baked goods similar to the original cake. It was 
eventually located after it took on the form of a puff pastry, the green 
icing betraying its unnatural properties, and has since been secured. 


Addendum 559-01: A/though we appreciate test subjects 
attempting to gather data for us, seeing as birthdays are only once a 
year, | would like to remind everyone that there should always be at 
least one failsafe baked item nearby to contain 559 after usage. 
Recently there was one usage which had no backup item; 
fortunately the staff canteen was serving cupcakes that day. 
Consider yourselves warned. 


- Dr. Reg 


« SCP-558 | SCP-559 | SCP-560 » 


The High School Science 
Dropout 


Why can't we just use an antimatter-powered titanium 
magnet to keep it contained? 


Not every member of this community is a renowned rocket scientist 
or biologist. However, most of us are college students or college 
graduates, and are therefore fairly intelligent. Most importantly, 
those of us who write here have a pretty good grasp of basic 
mathematics, scientific process, and how to do research on a topic 
when we don't fully understand it. The Dropout is someone who is 
not only determined to write a speculative science based SCP 
despite being horribly unqualified, but has not done any of the 
homework either. The following are fairly good indications that you 
may have stumbled onto a half-baked abomination left behind by 
such an author: 


¢ Using Imperial units 

¢ Having a horrible grasp of SI units, such as obviously 
converted Imperial values or nonsensical measurements 

¢ Having a poor understanding of basic science or completely 
false assumptions about how certain things function 

¢ Using excessive amounts of technobabble and/or not 

understanding that "clinical tone" doesn't mean "use as many 

big words as you can" 

Presenting pseudoscience as true 

¢ Not understanding how Intelligence Quotient (IQ) works 

¢ In the case of biology, not understanding that Mother Nature 
got there first, and she's a much better horror writer than 
you'll ever be. 


As a corollary, a Dropout may also be someone who believes that 
domain knowledge is somehow genetic: 


My father is a physicist, so | obviously know what I'm 
talking about. 


Empathy Level: 2/10 - While sometimes honest mistakes slip 


through, most of the things on the list that qualify you for true 
Dropout status are completely mindbogglingly inexcusable. 
Annoyance Level: 9/10 - Few things shatter suspension of disbelief 
more reliably or completely than bad science. 

Redeemability: 2/10 - Very, very rarely these kids can be taught 
some real science, but more often the only solution is to wait until 
they actually graduate from school. 


The Kamikaze 


Hey guys, | just got accepted to the site 15 minutes ago, 
so here's my first SCP. 


We here who are major contributors to the SCP Foundation 
understand and enjoy the fact that people get really excited about 
the Foundation. After all, for some of us here, this is practically our 
major obsession and we love that other people love it. We love to 
see people speculate, and we love to see people come up with more 
ideas on how the site and the community can be contributed to or 
improved. 


What worries us, however, is when a fresh newbie barrels down on 
our site, heedless of advice, and slams into the community with a 
poorly conceived, poorly written and usually error-filled piece of 
writing that looks like it fell out of the Tree of Bad Ideas and hit every 
branch on the way down. If you are imagining a bullet-ridden Zero 
with its pilot screaming "BANZAI!" at the top of his lungs at this 
point, then you are getting the right idea. 


The moral of the story is that the Foundation values quality over all 
else. Please take the time to read through all of the required and 
relevant guides and essays that relate to your idea. Bounce your 
ideas and drafts off of the community first, and above all take their 
advice when given, especially from established authors. We are 
more than willing to help you get off the ground, but you have to help 
yourself as well. 


Note: As | like to say in the discussion threads of failed articles, 
"When you post to the main series you are asking for summary 


judgment, not feedback." Feedback is what happens before you 
post a final draft. 


Empathy Level: 1/10 - Before you were accepted to the 
Foundation, you should have read all of the guides first. This level of 
haphazard writing is inexcusable. 

Annoyance Level: 6/10 - Thankfully, people who fly their work into 
the site at top speed rarely come back for a second round. 
Redeemability: 3/10 - Once in a blue moon you can calm one of 
these kids down, but the degree to which their asses are on fire 
usually causes them to either burn out or crash hard. 


The Non-Sequitur 


Hey everyone. I'm a fantasy writer and | think that SCP 
would be so much cooler if we changed the format and 
tone around a bit. 


An interesting twist or unique hook is one of the best ways to make 
your writing stand out and give it the best chance of sticking. Being 
different in this regard is anything but bad. 


However, that doesn't mean that there aren't universal, inviolable 
rules when it comes to writing SCPs. Writing completely out of 
format (when there isn't a legitimate reason for doing so), implying a 
completely different organizational structure for the Foundation 
(such as Class-Ds being something other than death row convicts 
who are used as cannon fodder), or completely failing to follow the 
clinical tone and technical writing that is the trademark of the 
Foundation is a sure sign that someone simply does not know where 
and when to conform to the collaborative project. When someone 
does this, this breaks the tone of an article (and subsequently the 
reader's suspension of disbelief). 


A Type | Non-Sequitur is someone who is a victim of simple naivete, 
and doesn't know any better. A Type II Non-Sequitur is someone 
who knows the difference and where they went wrong and simply 
does not care; they want to "reform" the site for the "better" and 
doesn't seem to care what anyone else thinks. 


Empathy Level: 5/10 - This is apparently surprisingly easy to do 
when you have looked at hundreds of failed submissions. The best 
solution to the problem is to simply read more of the site before 
trying your hand at contributing. 

Annoyance Level: 4/10 - Most people who make mistakes like this 
are simply ignorant of the standards, and are usually pretty civil 
when informed and corrected. 

Redeemability: 6/10 - A Type | can be redeemed with a decent 
amount of work, but Type IIs are generally completely unrepentant 
and their short career with the SCP Foundation will generally end 
when they quit out of frustration or are summarily banned. 


The Special Snowflake 


Everyone | know says I'm a great writer. 


A close relative to the Emo Teen, the Special Snowflake has been 
told by everyone that they are an awesome author. This includes 
their teachers, their parents, their friends, all their followers on 
DeviantArt... Does anyone else see the problem here? 


The best kind of feedback is the kind you get from people who are 
not invested in you. Your friends and teachers are there to support 
you, do you really honestly think they'll be brutally honest when 
something you write is truly terrible? Coupled with the 
aforementioned high standards of the Foundation community, this is 
a disaster waiting to happen that usually ends with this: 


Why are you guys being so mean? This is good stuff, it's 
just a little different. 


You may also see gems like this once in a while: 


My [high school] teacher says | write at a college level. | 
can do just fine without your help. 


Finally, when confronted with the reality that their SCP has tanked 
well below -30, we get to see the Rage State of the Special 
Snowflake: 


[expletive] you all! I'm going back to [insert amateur art/ 
writing gallery here] where they aren't assholes. 


Empathy Level: 4/10 - When you're young and you haven't taken 
hard hits yet, it's not easy to know the difference between friendly 
sympathy and true feedback. 

Annoyance Level: 7/10 - Unfortunately, these kids tend to stray just 
shy of the line at which actual administrative action can be taken 
against them. Thankfully, these kids tend to not come back unless 
they are malicious at heart, thus making them a one-time problem. 
Redeemability: 3/10 - Sometimes you can convince a Snowflake to 
take a deep breath and learn to take honest feedback, but they 
usually wander back to the holes they crawled out of. On the plus 
side, Snowflake Rage States are hilarious to watch. 


Minor Stereotypes 


These stereotypes aren't significant enough to warrant their own 
heading, but still merit mention. 


The Bender 


Yeah, well... I’m gonna go build my own theme park, 
with blackjack and hookers. 

— Bender, Futurama episode #2, "The Series Has 
Landed" 


Named for the character from Futurama, a Bender is 
someone who, after failing repeatedly to successfully contribute to 
the SCP Wiki, decides to create their own offshoot site (with or 
without blackjack and hookers) and invites everyone else to join and 
contribute to it. 


The SCP community is one with a long, storied history, built on the 
shoulders of administrators and staff who are not only great writers, 
but who are dedicated to keeping the site running smoothly. It takes 
a lot of effort to keep the system going, so it should go without 
saying that someone who is too impatient to meet said standards 


stands little chance of making an offshoot work. Most of these crash 
within weeks if not days, as the people involved decide it's not worth 
the effort. 


Note: The successtul off-shoots of the SCP Wiki, such as the 
Wanderer's Library and Global Occult Coalition, were all 
started and run by existing administrators of the SCP Wiki. 


The Coat-tail Rider 


Here at the SCP Foundation, being a writing website, we encourage 
newbies to be inventive and creative. If you've been here any 
amount of time, you'll have noticed that SCPs that are too similar to 
existing ones tend to be panned. We want to see new things, unique 
takes on the paranormal, and most importantly SCPs that stand on 
their own without leaning on existing canon. 


The Coat-tail Rider takes two forms. The first is the author who has 
literally never written anything on their own. They will go on for hours 
about new and inventive ways of killing SCP-682, exciting things to 
do with SCP-914, and debate endlessly about how we could 
decommission or at least make SCP-173 safer. The first type may 
even go as far as writing a tale based exclusively on a popular SCP, 
but never comes up with their own original content. 


The second form is the author who writes a mediocre SCP, then 
immediately cross-links it to no fewer than half a dozen other SCPs. 
This usually takes the form of "suggest testing against these SCPs" 
or more rarely "never let these SCPs come together". A more 
extreme version is the author that actually edits the existing popular 
SCP without permission and adds a backlink to his own article. 


The Fanboy/Fangirl 


Members and Contributors of the SCP Foundation come from all 
over the world and from all walks of life. It's not unreasonable that 
everyone has different tastes and favorite things. What is annoying, 
however, is when your major obsession is the only thing you ever 
talk about. 


Hey, did | mention that | really love [insert fandom here]? 
Is anyone else a [insert fandom here] fan? Why isn't 
there a [insert fandom here] SCP yet? Someone should 
write one. 


These newbies can range from specific fandoms to broad genres, 
but either way will eventually get on everyone's nerves with their 
incessant talk about nothing but their particular obsession. If you see 
a SCP that is a magical extradimensional phone booth or a bunch of 
spheres that can summon and unsummon monsters that fight for 
you, then you are well within your right to be suspicious. 


A sub-type of the Fanboy/Fangirl is one whose fandom is directed at 
a site member. These are the ones who think that Bright/Clef/ 
Kondraki is the most awesome person in the history of ever and who 
cannot and will not fail to brown nose their idol at every opportunity. 
While not nearly as directly annoying as a normal Fanboy/Fangirl 
(except maybe to their idol), they are still nonetheless awkward to 
deal with and leave you feeling dirty afterwards. 


Writer-Clef here, just wanted to chime in: I've 
encountered several Character-Clef fans before, and 
almost without exception, they are all incredibly 
annoying. Usually because they a. confuse me with my 
character and gush about how awesome | was in blah 
blah blah, or b. end up Draco in Leather Pantsing Clef to 
the point where | don't even recognize the character they 
are writing about. 


If you like my writing, then by all means, compliment it. If 
you want to give feedback about my writing, then by all 
means, tell me what rules and what sucks. If you just 
want to gush about how cool it was when Clef and Dmitri 
hit the road and show me your fanart of your OC and 
Clef in their love nest, then keep it to yourself, deep in 
the secret corners of your heart where true love blooms 
and | don't have to see it... unless it's really funny, then 
you can send it to my Tumblr. 


The Horror Snob 


From the page About the SCP Foundation: 
Our Goals 


¢ Observe preternatural phenomena and develop 
new theories of science based on their observable 
behavior. 

¢ Contain potentially dangerous phenomena 

¢ Develop safety procedures for dealing with all 
future phenomena 

* Observe, detain, and destroy any one or any thing 
preventing us from accomplishing the above- 
stated goals. 


One of the most obnoxious types of newbie is the one who's 
strongly opinionated and is determined to downvote anything that 
isn't "scary" or "creepy". While it's true that the ones that stick with 
you the best are the ones that make you a little nervous at night, 
there's nothing that says a SCP has to be creepy. Some of the best 
SCPs on the site are simply inexplicable; we don't understand how 
they work, and they leave you wildly speculating. Don't be the 
annoying person who automatically downvotes something just 
because it doesn't scare you. 


The Kibitzer