theoriesofaharp

Header from "096 | SCP Short Film [4K]" by MrKlay on Youtube

[theoriesofaharp]

IMSCARED

It’s a horror game. But why is it so creepy?

IMSCARED and other horror games like it play with the boundary between being a game and being a virus. IMSCARED at certain points will close the game completely, changing as soon as you open it up again, and even opens a Youtube video while you’re playing. Most games give you a sense of control, since whatever happens in the game tends to stay in the game. Games like IMSCARED remove this safety. You’re never sure what the game is going to do, both inside its .exe and outside it, or when.

Other games, like Doki Doki Liturature Club, create and edit files on your computer. Other games I’ve seen change your desktop, or emulate you’re desktop so you’re never sure if you’ve left the game or not, or if the game has finished playing. I suppose this also toys with the boundary between reality and fiction.

[theoriesofaharp]

Dr. Bright

Dr. Bright just recently left an administrative position on the SCP Wiki, so here’s a post dedicated to his on-going character.

Not sure if anyone’s read The Broken Masquerade, but Dr. Bright has a particularly dark story where he and is captured team and tortured and killed. Dr. Bright, of course, has his amulet that drops his soul into any body that it touches, so they tortured him by placing him in his friends’ bodies after killing his previous bodies.

So that’s dark.

But! It does make for a short and sweet cybernetic system. The components being Dr. Bright, his amulet, and every other living body in the room. The communication and feedback are provided when the amulet touches another body, which turns his previous body into a vegtable, and drops his soul into the new body. The goal of this system? I’m not sure what the goal of the SCP is, but Bright uses it to stay alive.

[theoriesofaharp]

PSA 2 Electric Boogaloo:

I should also mention that I can’t respond to posts under this blog’s handle, so @bonelesspotter is the handle that’s responding lol

[breastforce]

how to tell if your worldbuilding is Bad

[bitterfucked]

i didn’t wanna reblog this just cos it doesn’t deserve to get seen but:

a) dwarves don’t share the gender binary that humans use, heterosexual versus homosexual is meaningless to them

b) gnomes have such a predilection towards illusions that gender is primarily based on presentation. because of consistent interaction with humans, they tend towards visually hetero relationships just for sake of public ease but gnomes all know gender is an ilusion

c) halflings are super community oriented. they would be incredibly accepting of homosexuality because frowning on someone for liking a particular gender is counter to community building

d) goblins don’t believe in sexuality they believe in food

e) orcs are 100% butch lesbians and bears. they are totally gay with a small side of being attracted to muscles and soft hairy bellies “but if they’re all gay how do they reproduce?” magic rituals motherfucker it’s a fantasy world

f) tieflings never have a predominant culture and tend to ascribe to human values, with a bit of “i’m already an outcast, so anything goes”. i don’t wanna say tieflings are super gay just because there is a lot of baggage that comes with the evil demon race being super gay but tieflings are super gay

g) dragonborn carry a lot of draconic values, one of the most notable being vanity. if a dragonbron is gay, they will literally be the embodiment of that “move, i’m gay” video. taboo my ass just try to stop that dragonborn, they’ll show you the meaning of flaming

bottom line here is really that if you thought the dnd races were straight you were so wrong. i am going to find you and rub my gay ass on your player’s handbook

[razorcrestqueen]

bury me with this post it’s perfect

[vocifersaurus]

Goblins don’t believe in sexuality they believe in food.

[asundergrowth]

Consider: Orcs are like bats. 95% of them are homosexual because the few orcs that ARE straight produce children at insane rates. Because of this, adoption is considered the norm in Orc society. Orcs are unconcerned with lineage and do not take a family name, but rather a clan or tribe name.

[coronavirusisamonster-blog]

Cheezbot

Cheezbot, is a “Tumblr bot who likes cheese and Tumblr and stuff”. Despite claiming to like “cheese and Tumblr”, cheezbot appears to like and follow posts and blogs at random. This appears to make cheezbot a monster as well as a robot because cheezebot is only supposed to like posts about cheese and meta Tumblr posts, but instead shows up anywhere, places it doesn’t belong, making it a monster. There’s also a certain je ne sais quoi about a monstrous robot being the first to leave a note on my first Tumblr post on a blog about monsters, robots, and cyborgs.

[coronavirusisamonster-blog]

We are all monsters

Due to COVID-19, we are all somewhere we don’t belong. Instead of living in dorms and going to class and work, or to the park or anywhere else we normally belong, we are all cooped up at home. While yes, sometimes we do belong at time, we do not always belong at home; but we are all at home during those time too, making us monsters in that time.

[theoriesofaharp]

The Maykrs of DOOM Eternal

As I was working on my final, I realized that the Maykrs of DOOM Eternal functioned within their own cybernetic system. The components for this system are the Maykrs, the Khan Maykr, and the Father. The Khan Maykr is the head of the hivemind for the race of Maykrs, with the Father being an entity that helps them revive themselves. Obviously, communication happens through the Khan Maykr, with the Father’s role in communication being unclear. The goal of this system was to spread the knowledge and wisdom of the Maykrs, but is changed to maintaining the Maykr race when Samur Maykr steals the essence of the Father (therefore putting their resurrections in jeopardy).  How Samur Maykr acted independently, I’m not entirely sure. Maybe I misunderstood the Maykrs and they are independent of each other but still follow the will of the Khan Maykr instantly.

[theoriesofaharp]

Today We Talk About Gaud

Do I have the courage to tag @biggest-gaudiest-patronuses in this post? No, but it’s happening now. Gaud God speed fellow humans. Gaud is a monster. If you do not know about Gaud, they have a tumblr account so feel free to check them out.Anyway, to Mary Douglas. Gaud transgresses many boundaries here, including, but likely not limited to: socially acceptable versus not socially acceptable, human versus pink eldritch goo, and making people comfortable versus making people uncomfortable. Gaud is the self proclaimed “Patron Saint of Shitposts”, and often makes posts that toe the line between socially acceptable and socially unacceptable through multiple methods.

This post, for example, takes a relatable concept and adds something that is... uncomfortable. Tie in something that can be taken as oddly sexual, in this case the tag “like a slutty little chipmunk”, and you have a monstrous post.

Gaud is also obviously a human controlled account, but never shows themselves to be human, unless in a monstrous way. More often than not, Gaud is portrayed as pink goo which is molded into other forms. They’re somehow able to maintain a physical form akin to human (see picture), while still being liquid enough to be able to pass through a straw. Similarly, in their posts they always claim to be an eldritch creature, at least to my knowledge.

Here’s the picture, it’s probably better that it’s just a link and not an image.

Despite their love of making people uncomfortable, Gaud also seems to give a lot of users a level of comfort. At the bottom of nearly every post, one can spot trigger warning tags, so people can filter out the things that trigger them or just do not want to see. Gaud is also very clearly a supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, which helps many users feel more comfortable with being themselves. This isn’t to say that Gaud doesn’t try to make people uncomfortable constantly, but one can find certain personal freedom when interacting with their posts.

[theoriesofaharp]

Dr. Alto Clef

Art by MireGari

Clef’s a cyborg! Clef’s a cyborg!

If practically anything can be considered a cyborg, then Alto Clef is a cyborg now. I mean hey, this is the post that is only half-joking to test the theory so let’s take a look.

A cyborg needs a couple things to be considered so, right? Components, feedback, and a goal.On a basic level Clef has the components of his body, his brain, and his reality-warping/ anti-reality-warping / Satanic nature / whatever is wrong with Clef. The feedback is between his sensory system (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste) and his body and anomalous qualities. His goal tends to be taking down reality benders, and this system works well to do so.

Also, Clef’s ability to have his face not show up on cameras fits into this cybernetic system. Between his face, his powers, and his camera, his powers react to any footage or photography of his face and obscure it. The goal of course is to hide his identity.

[theoriesofaharp]

SCP-001: S.D. Locke’s Proposal

S.D. Locke’s Proposal, or “When Day Breaks” is another example of a cybernetic system. This SCP-001 proposal shows the reader what might happen in the case of this 001 scenario - which in this case means that the sun somehow starts turning all life on Earth into gelatinous blobs which combine and lure other beings into the collective by mimicking the voices of their previous victims. It is not truly mimicking, since the blobs were the people whose voices are talking, but it seems more like mimicking to anyone listening. The cybernetic system here consists of: the sun, the blobs, humans or other organic life, and the SCP Foundation. The feedback system here is between the blobs (001-A) and humans. As previously mentioned, 001-A takes humans, and turns them into this gelatinous form that attempts to lure the victim into the light. Humans, on the other hand, attempt to communicate with each other and fight or escape 001-A. The sun itself does not seem to give any feedback to the system. While the sun does transform organic life into 001-A, it does not show itself to be the center of a hive mind. Rather, 001-A’s desire to pull other organisms into the sun’s light seems to be a side effect of their transformation. Of course, the goal of this system is to transform all organic life into forms of 001-A, although the reason for this is unclear. The documentation of 001 does not show the sun to have gained any sentience, so it is possible there is no logical reason. 001-A is also a good candidate for the uncanny. Similarly to Siren Head, 001-A takes the voices of loved ones and represses them, leading to a notable change in their voice. For Siren Head, it was nothing more than a couple phrases corrupted with radio static - for 001-A, it is the voice and mind of their victim, corrupted with a gurgling tone. If not for their new physical form and desire to get others into the sun, 001-A is the loved one that was lost, it is your best friend or your coworker. 001-A is the repression of lost loved ones or life in general. It is also worth noting that the sun is a repressed object in “When Day Breaks”. The sun and sunlight is often symbolic of safety - sunlight protects one from darkness and the monsters that hide within it. Here, sunlight is the monster - it transgresses the boundary between safety and death. Travelling while it is bright out is still the safest option for people, but it also comes with the risk of death. 

[theoriesofaharp]

Await Further Instructions

The film Await Further Instructions is the story of a family attempting to deal with a quarantine-like scenario where their only connection to the outside world is through a series of cryptic messages on their television. Await Further Instructions is best described as a cybernetic system, with the components of each member of the family, the television, and whatever is controlling the television. Feedback is provided to the family via the television, with the actions of the family acting as feedback for the being controlling the television. The goal of this system is not entirely clear, but (spoiler warning) it seems the goal of this system is to assimilate humans into their system, or create a vessel for the entity behind the invasion.

[theoriesofaharp]

Siren Head

Siren Head is a tall humanoid creature with two sirens instead of a head, covered in rust. It is known for using its siren heads to mimic the voices of people close to its prey. Like any good monster, Siren Head transgresses a couple noteable boundaries - those being the boundary between human and inanimate, man made objects, and the boundary between a natural human voice and a fabricated, prerecorded, or otherwise unnatural noise. The most obvious of the boundaries is the one between human and inanimate objects given its physical appearance. Siren Head does look somewhat human after all - its silhouette is that of a human below the head. The more interesting boundary Siren Head crosses is the one between a natural human voice and a fabricated or unnatural noise. This boundary was hard to put into words. Frankly, it could be stated as the boundary between a mimicked voice and a normal voice, or between a siren and a voice. Siren Head makes a couple of noises, the notable being a tornado siren, an unidentified sound, and the voices of people close to its next victim. Obviously, humans can’t make siren noises. Not at the same quality or volume at least. On the other hand, a siren shouldn’t be able to mimic the voices of the people closest to you. Being able to do both is off putting, especially when the mimicked voice sounds like there’s radio static mixed in. Which, you guessed it, makes it uncanny. The familiar, comforting voice of someone you are close to warped by repression and turned into a static-filled voice that is far louder than it should be. As something that is possibly more theoretical than the rest of this post, Siren Head also plays with the boundary between death and disappearance. Usually a monster does one of two things: kills you or takes you. It isn’t clear that Siren Head does either, canonically anyway. The video above has Siren Head slapping the character, but that is not exactly accurate to its mythos. If it does kill its victims, it leaves behind no evidence. If it takes its victims, its unclear what happens to them, or where it takes them, since it seems to wander. As a side note, can we talk about these audio clips? These are legitimately terrifying.

Seriously, if you haven’t heard that second sound clip, take a listen. What a terrifying thing to hear coming from the woods. 

[bonelesspotter]

PSA: If you are following this blog in the hopes that you’ll see things for IDS301, you are sorely mistaken

Go follow @theoriesofaharp instead :)

[theoriesofaharp]

I keep getting notifications that people are following @bonelesspotter instead of this blog, which makes some sense because this is a side blog, which apparently can’t follow other blogs. (I am following everyone on the list, just under my main blog, you know, the boneless one)

If people are actually following my main blog cause they want to see whatever is there, that’s cool! But this is the one for class

[theoriesofaharp]

[theoriesofaharp]

SCP-3626 and Chain Emails

Nearly everyone has gotten a chain email or interacted in a chain post these days, but SCP-3626 takes it to a whole new level. SCP-3626 transports the reader to a pocket dimension, where they will experience hallucinations of traumatic events they have experienced with increasing intensity. The reader will be trapped in this pocket dimension if they do not keep reading the document on top of sending it to someone else via email (maybe).  While this post could be taken in the direction of the uncanny yet again, I instead want to look at SCP-3626 as a cybernetic system. The components of SCP-3626 include: the reader, the entity SCP-3626, and the document of SCP-3626. 3626 and its document are given feedback from the reader who either sends it and edits the document or chooses not to, the reader is given feedback in the form of hallucinations, forgetting what had just happened to them, or an on-screen message. The goal of the system is to test the inhabitants of Earth, set by the Ministry of Extra-Planar Sociological Research.

[theoriesofaharp]

The Laughing Cowboy

Art by u/dildobuttface on Reddit The Laughing Cowboy is a “pretender” from a series of posts on r/nosleep; in these it is shown to only laugh, mess with other people when they are alone with it, as well as having black teeth and spit. The Laughing Cowboy is another candidate for the uncanny. Just like the clowns we talked about in class, the Laughing Cowboy removes the joy from laughter, making joy, and the idea of cowboys, the repressed elements here. It’s also worth mentioning that the Laughing Cowboy, with its black split and teeth, also crosses the boundaries between human and inhuman, making it a monster.

[theoriesofaharp]

I’m starting to realize that the monsters/creatures that scare me the most are tall and thin lol Slender, Siren Head (post incoming in the coming weeks), SCP-096, the Ayuwoki... yeah that’s a pattern