SCP Foundation

Group of Interest: Parawatch Wiki

Database ID: 1109

Area of Operations: North America, Europe, online sites

Threat Level: Green ●くろまる

Overview: The Parawatch Wiki is an online web forum of conspiracy theorists, paranormal enthusiasts, and amateur writers, operating with the intent of investigating and exposing anomalous phenomena. Geographically the group is disparate, its users primarily hailing from North America and Europe. No common background exists — age, careers, and other demographics vary.

The group's operations are mainly in the form of compiling stories on their forum, detailing encounters with paranormal phenomena, historical cases, and any unusual events users have experienced. While moderation has enabled a loose degree of coordination, further efforts are hindered by the sheer spread of the userbase. Any impact the site could have is limited. Several clusters of members are noted to collaborate in exploring forested regions of the United States and Canada, though they are relatively small in comparison to the full group.

Containment Approach: Minimal.

Although Parawatch is heavily invested in its investigation of the anomalous, continuous monitoring has found that the group lacks a comprehensive understanding of:

• The Foundation's existence.
• The Veil.
• The nature of anomalous phenomena.

Theories posed by the group lack context on actual circumstances, leading to inaccurate beliefs that limit the potential for an information breach. This, in combination with obscurity to the general public and doubt towards the truthfulness of their stories, prevents them from being a significant threat to the Veil's stability.

As such, Parawatch is to be left active as a disinformation measure to hinder and mislead investigations into the existence of the Veil. Any leads may be misdirected by Foundation implants at their discretion. Recognition of actual circumstances will be met with the deletion of the offending content and the progressive amnesticization of the userbase.

No direct action is to be taken at this time.

Forum » Announcements / Introductions » Why I Joined » Thread Post 9

🗿Blank_Spots 09/20/09 (Sun) 22:03:32 #12734582

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My brother used to be a fisherman.

Six in the morning he'd shift out of bed, drift into the kitchen, sift through breakfast without so much as a single clink of a utensil, and once I'd wake up the house would be empty. He'd drive to the lake a few minutes off the town outskirts and, once he was content, he'd drive home. Same hours, same timing. Always caught, always released. Always kept to the vicinity of town — the small-scale lifestyle. Liked it best that way, he told me.

I never worried about him. He was a strong guy, and even if hick flair radiated off of him with enough force to set a Geiger counter ringing, he was smart. He could find his way through a forest and trace his steps with the precision to repeat the same path a day later. Knew better than to go out fishing when it was night — it's when the weird things start to swim — but even the few times he did he'd turn back safe and sound.

It was why he was the only person people trusted with finding me when I went missing.

Here is what I remember of it myself: At four in the morning I left bed, unable to sleep, and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. I left a set of plates and utensils on the table, pulled my brother's fishing gear from the closet, and, without a single clink, stumbled out of the house. From what I hear, several people saw me treading the path my brother normally drove along to the lake.

I'd never gone that way before. All I was thinking of was the dull, warm wind and a pinching pain at the roof of my mouth. No one intervened. They all thought I was heading to see my brother.

I blacked out.

Here is what other people have told me:

At six in the morning my brother found blood in the kitchen. It trailed straight through the woods and stopped three feet from the lake edge. Footprints halted too. He knocked from door to door, asking anyone if they'd seen me, and soon after cop cars pulled in around our house. They told him to stay put, that they could handle a search and rescue operation, but, while they scoured the lake, he went off on his own. My neighbors wished him luck.

At nine in the morning he came back, my neighbors asking if he found any signs of me. My brother stepped past them and locked the front door shut. Every blind was dragged down, every curtain closed. The people who saw him go in said he had a thousand-yard stare. He didn't come out for hours.

At six in the afternoon, just as storm weather rolled into the region, my brother unlocked the front door. He told my neighbors he was going fishing. He carried a loaded shotgun with him to the car.

No one intervened. All the police noted was that his car was parked by the lake.

Some time early in the next day, a mile from town, surrounded by nothing but tree after tree after tree, I woke up. There was a hole in the roof of my mouth. My brother's shotgun, blood-smeared and unloaded, laying in my hands. Lake water soaked my clothes.

I couldn't remember what happened that night. I couldn't remember where my brother went. I couldn't remember why half of him was dripping on the dirt next to me.

The paramedics who found me said there was a fishhook in my mouth.

- - -

I left town for good. I settled into an urban apartment, one in a city where the streetlights never fail to shield you from the shadows, where I've stayed ever since. But that night clings to me. Whether it's the numbness I feel, or the blank spots I recall, what happened out there has left a permanent scar on me. Having to hear people go through similar experiences to mine — some having even less resolution than mine — makes it worse.

This is why I joined Parawatch. I want to document all of the unnatural events myself and others have experienced, to inform people on what lurks just out of our sight, to help anyone who has the misfortune to encounter it. I want to bring people the resolution they need.

For those of you who are passing by, I hope you take the time to read what we've compiled, to better avoid the circumstances people like myself have fallen victim to. And for those of you who are in it for the long haul, welcome to the Watch.

We aren't in this darkness alone.

== AUTHOR ADVICE ==

Advice from NatVoltaic

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Parawatch is, at its core, a vehicle for horror. The group is grounded in that old-school creepypasta flair, stumbling upon forgotten web forums and old posts in the dead of night, chest tightening from sense of wrongness you feel, mind jumping at the faintest sound because the possibility that what you are reading could be real terrifies you.

This is the ultimate style all Parawatch articles should strive for. There are some key things to keep in mind as you write, though:

• Parawatch lacks influence. Nothing they do has a tangible impact on the Veil or the goings on under it. As far as the public is concerned, they're a bunch of crackpots — assuming the public even recognizes their existence.

• They have no connections to anomalous communities. Their forum is a virtual island. It's not going to reach land.

• They aren't stupid. They're people. Bewildered, disoriented people who lack the truth, yes, but still people with competence.

• The setting can shift. Backwoods horror, urban disquiet, online mysteries, oceanic terror — if it feels creepypasta it feels Parawatch.
  • Just don't go overboard. Suspension of disbelief is key.

• Membership is scattered. Parawatch users are spread across different backgrounds and different motives, some banding together in person to investigate or running solo to catalogue what they do. Many do neither of those. They may operate on the same website, but that doesn't mean they'll act the same as each other.

• They never get the full picture. Parawatch has no clue what the Veil, or the Foundation, or anomalies are, and they never will. If they knew the truth the Foundation would've mass amnesticized them a long time ago. To maintain the realism of your story, why the Foundation would let a group like this exist, you can't let that be the case.

• The anomalies are open-ended. Extending from the above, the individual anomalies encountered are going to have missing pieces that prevent a full understanding of what's afoot. If it's a Parawatch tale, this'll be them missing the full details, either on the mechanics of the anomaly or any lore behind it. If it's an SCP, either the Foundation knows something Parawatch doesn't and keeps the details hidden from the reader, or they are just as in the dark.

Advice from The Great Hippo

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If anyone wants to write for this, here's some basic things you might want to consider.

Keep in mind, this is entirely my own interpretation (and represents only what I and I alone am trying to do with this). There is no canon, etc etc:

• Think of Parawatch as the Velma Dinkleys of the SCP-verse. They are spooky ghost-nerds who swap creepy camp-fire stories on the internet while remaining utterly oblivious to the Foundation's existence. In short, they are us.

• Seriously, imagine Ghost Hunters. These are the people who clock a hundred hours into studying a "haunted house" on account of once seeing a "spooky face" in a window. If they were ever to meet a Foundation agent, this is how it would go down.

• Think of it as a chance to write classic creepypasta from a POV that doesn't know about the Foundation. My aim here is to reproduce that pre-2000 "I run this website out of my cousin's garage" energy that creepypasta used to have. Think Killswitch. Think Lenentine Cards. Think Dionaea House. Heck, think the wiki's own Manistique Broadcast. In short: Think small. Think low-key. Think subtle. For just one moment, get the reader to wonder: "wait — is this for real?"

• Lore is the enemy. I do not know who these people are — and I do not care to find out. They are a thinly disguised delivery mechanism for creepypastas in the SCP-verse. The less we know about them, the better this works.

• Most importantly: I shouldn't have to know anything about the SCP-verse to enjoy it. That's my primary aim here — to write something in the SCP-verse that is fun and spooky, but doesn't require even a baseline understanding of the SCP-verse to enjoy.

== WRITING WITH A CREEPYPASTA FLAIR ==

From The Great Hippo

There are a lot of ways to make an effective, slow-burn creepypasta — but here's one tried-and-true method:

Start with something real and kind-of-creepy. A historical event. A weird phenomenon. A strange occupation. Something that's both intriguing and maybe a bit spooky. Introduce the reader to it in a way that's compelling and fun.

This is your hook. It being real is what establishes the article as existing in the real world; it sets tone and atmosphere.

Now, turn up your heat and simmer: Expand on that hook. A similar or related thing, or maybe the hook itself. Spice it with strange, unusual, slightly-impossible things — but only gingerly. Reinforce it with actual people, events, or things. Make the spooky indistinguishable from what is real. Every step of the way, the reader should think: "Well, that's a little strange, but…" You're wedging your way into their heads, prying open their minds to make room. Start small. Build your way up.

The end is the crucial component: This is where you've pushed the reader's willingness to accept the supernatural as far as it will go. Now, with the space you've made, squeeze in something absolutely dreadful. An idea, an event, a conclusion — anything. Whatever it is, it can't be too strange, but it has to be strange enough — it has to fit precisely into that space you've created.

This works best when you can establish the conclusion by providing a tiny detail that lets the reader fill that space themselves.

The most common formatting used with Parawatch has been a forum post style, created using wikidot quoteblocks:

username Month/Day/Year (Day) Hour:Minute:Second #8digitnumber

---

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum…

Examples include Abwesenheit and Tower-B. Username colors can be changed, and moderators can be denoted with 🗿 placed in front of the name. The code:

> ##green|**username**## Month/Day/Year (Day) Hour:Minute:Second #8digitnumber
> ------
> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum...

Alternative code that foregoes the standard quoteblock code is also usable:

[[div class="parapost"]]
Standard forum post text goes here
[[/div]]

Replies can be formatted similarly: (Please note, however, that this method does not support nesting greater than five levels smaller the normal post reply5.)

[[div class="parapost"]]
##green|**username**## Month/Day/Year (Day) Hour:Minute:Second #8digitnumber
------
blah
[[/div]]
[[div class="parapost reply1"]]
##green|**username**## Month/Day/Year (Day) Hour:Minute:Second #8digitnumber
------
blah blah blah
[[/div]]
[[div class="parapost reply2"]]
##green|**username**## Month/Day/Year (Day) Hour:Minute:Second #8digitnumber
------
boo
[[/div]]

The Creepypasta Theme used for the group can be added by including this piece of code at the top of your article:

[[include :scp-wiki:theme:creepypasta]]

To use a variation on the Creepypasta Theme, called the Parawatch Anon Theme, please instead copy this code onto the top of your page:

[[include :scp-wiki:theme:creepypasta]]
[[include :scp-wiki:theme:anon]]

Important to note is that this is not the only formatting you can use.

More important than adhering to the format is whether you can convey the tone and themes of the story you want to tell. If the forum style isn't cutting it for you, then by all means make a new one! Parawatch isn't meant to be restrictive in its storytelling mediums — it's meant to be flexible. Further formats people use will be added to this tab as they arrive.