SCP-3512 - The more you know
Relationships are difficult
Maintaining a lasting connection between yourself and another human being is never without some trouble
But the result can be a beautiful thing
Some people, however, are not interested in any lasting connections and are only interested in more immediate gratification
While that's true for many people some especially excel in this goal or are at least focused in excelling
known as pickup artists
For these individuals, it's a point of pride on how easily they can seduce
manipulate and use
women for their own satisfaction
moving from one to the next
Countless books have been written on the topic teaching men tricks and giving them the confidence to become pickup artists themselves
Today we'll be looking at one such type of book which would be disagreeable enough in its own right
But when the fifthists get involved, you know it's going to get even weirder
SCP-3512 is not a book but instead refers to a phenomenon that affects women between the ages of 18 and 40
resulting in significant changes to their personalities and
psychological stabilities
The foundation is not sure how widespread this phenomenon is
But so far have linked all confirmed cases to an outbreak in Barcelona, Spain
where they've contained nine affected women
and found one affected woman deceased in her home
Women affected by 3512 become much more open, extroverted, and agreeable
without realizing that anything has changed
They become far more sociable and lose their inhibitions
But this behavior is occasionally punctuated by prolonged bouts of uncontrollable screaming
These bouts of screaming continually decrease in frequency and duration over the course of four or five months
But the personality changes seem to be permanent
when the foundation first heard about 3512 in Barcelona
They sent agent Riley Cooper to meet up with native agent Tomàs Rey to investigate
Their cover story was performing a mental health survey for the World Health Organization and they began interviewing
affected individuals and family members
Cooper describes the victims as plastic and unreal with no awareness of their change
Which is freaking the families out more than the screaming
Cooper concludes that the families aren't involved and that it doesn't feel like a basic cognitohazard - an anomaly that alters someone's thinking
Because it doesn't seem like a superficial change
She writes that the affected individuals are so sincere in their delusion so up for it
The women continued to smile throughout the interviews while the families cry
Cooper and Rey test amnestics to try and wipe the woman's memories of whatever affected them but it fails to change them back
One of the girls younger sisters mentions the word Apagada which they find out is a nightclub in Barcelona
One of the girls mother's tried to warn her daughter about going there knowing it was trouble but it seemed the girl didn't listen
The two agents head to the club at midnight for its dark loud hot and crowded
Cooper waits at the bar where eventually a tall blond man slides in next to her and offers to buy her a drink
He then asks her what her favorite star is
Which she assumes at first to be the start of a bad pick-up line until she realizes that he's serious
She knows that the man is confident and charming but there's too much eye contact and his speech is too precise
As he's not drunk enough
Cooper he glances over to Ray and the man notices causing him to suddenly leave
Cooper tries to follow him but quickly loses him
Although she pays the doorman who tells her that he's a regular here and his name is Josep Oriol
They soon tracked down his address in Barcelona and break in
They find plenty of incriminating material but Cooper notes three things specifically
The first is a bunch of architectural plans for buildings utilities and railway tunnels
Since Josep is apparently a software developer, it certainly raises a red flag
Secondly is a book on the kitchen table seemingly used regularly with a plain cover
Cooper doesn't open it without cognitohazard screening, but she has a feeling about it
Third is a small sculpture next to the book on a dishcloth that looks like a blob of candle wax
Carved into points with what seems like legs stuck into it made of pieces of Lego and Meccano
Rose stems a crab claw a corkscrew and what she thinks was a skeleton key
The two go into the bedroom where they find boxes full of similar materials including quills
Dolls limbs wire and syringes and when they went back into the kitchen the wax sculpture was gone
Let's get to the book though, which is an advanced review copy of a text titled "The more you know: a pickup artist bible"
The author is only listed as enigma and there is no publication information
The book contains 625 pages with a foreword attributed to artist Snoop Dogg and a total of 23 chapters
Although the last 12 chapters are all numbered as chapter 12
The first chapter begins by explaining that if you're reading this book
You're probably a bit of a loser
But the point of the book is to make you stop being a loser by being more confident in social situations particularly
involving women
The author introduces himself as enigma and writes that they are going to provide surefire methods for seducing women
So that you can be a star like they are because the more you know, the more you score
chapter 4 involves the idea of ceasing to think of hot women as women, but instead as
Instruments that need to be tuned properly before they can be played
By chapter 12 the text is describing dodecahedron and how you can mention its Schläfli symbol in flirtatious
conversations to great effect
Typical fifthist concepts abound by this point
chapter 14 moves on to discussing Spain which it says you can learn many tricks from and
mentions Don Juan a name you might expect to find in a book like this and
Torquemada, a Spanish Inquisitor that you probably wouldn't expect to find
It mostly discusses Antoni gaudí
however
A Spanish architect who mainly worked in Barcelona and who is most well known for designing the Sagrada Família
an unfinished church
The author writes that Gaudi lived as a monk so that you don't have to and that he was the opposite of everything the book
Tells you to be
He was unsociable celibate never spoke to women and died by being struck by a tram while being mistaken for a beggar
the author brings gaudi up because he understood that everything has a purpose and that
Organic and anarchic forms can be used to capture beauty and fix it in place forever
Chapter 18 discusses that strange little wax-like sculpture found in Josep's home
They're not actually made up of candle wax, but instead to some form of fat
The tax dimensions you can use pork fat, but we'll have less satisfactory results
meaning that likely human fat is ideal for
The limbs attached to the fat the text says to focus on articulation
Rather than strength and the more complicated you make them the more precise your sculpting will need to be
Once you freeze the fat for six to twelve hours you're meant to carve it into a specific shape
which will grant it a degree of sapience and
Inserting the leg components will bond them to the creature
Then when you believe your intended target is sleeping you are to concentrate on their face
The inside of their mouth and their throat and the fatty creature will scurry off
The specifics of what happens next are not mentioned, but it's likely not pleasant
The foundation has yet to contain one of these creatures, but the largest one they've observed was 3.5 meters in diameter
with its limbs composed of human spines
tipped with gastropod feet
Chapter 19 discusses heating up a pair of scissors over a flame and
If you have parents or siblings with you to check that their bindings are tight
It warns not to be tempted to start with them first, but instead to take your right hand
Grasp the pinky finger of your left hand and pull it sharply down towards the side where you'll hear a clean snapping sound
We don't get many details in this chapter besides this but the point is that the process disfigures and warps the individual
The final chapter says that if you wish to know you must look deeper and the words as below so below
Repeated continually
The foundation looked over the architectural plans retrieved from Josep's home and found some inconsistencies with the municipal records
There is a side passage shown on the plans off of a high speed rail tunnel. That shouldn't be there with the descending spiral staircase
Cooper and Ray had to investigate hoping to find Josep and interrogate him further
Ray is reluctant to continue the investigation down underground but Cooper is persistent
They reached the bottom of the spiral staircase and find three branching tunnels
One of their body cameras picks up movement down one of the tunnels
but they don't seem to notice and
Cooper decides to head down the middle of the three passages as it's smooth floor indicates that it's used the most often
They travel down a gradual downward slope for twelve minutes as the tunnel slowly narrows
Until it finally opens up into a larger chamber with stone steps leading up to a hole in the ceiling
the walls and ceiling are carved into abstract organic shapes the melted appearance and
The two agents guessed that they're underneath the Sagrada família
They find a small alcove containing a tight bundle of amputated human fingers pointing outwards
They continue down another tunnel where a dark viscous substance coats part of the ceiling dripping onto the floor
They walked for another 15 minutes including down several steep descents and begin hearing a whirring mechanical sound
The air grows warmer and an awful smell breaks out as they find another large chamber naturally carved at this time
Hanging stalactites have been carved with shapes including orchids barnacles and rows of human teeth
In the cavern is a wide slow-moving river flowing into a low tunnel. The river is composed of congealed fat
On the other side of the river is what's causing the mechanical sound
three industrial sized book printing machines with no evident electrical connections
Cooper mentions following the river but Ray refuses to go into the small tunnel
Saying instead to get the mole rats MTF to go instead
Cooper concedes and says, she's just going to get some samples but Rey freezes pointing to something on the ceiling above her
on the ceiling is one of the fat imposed creatures
The one 3.5 meters in diameter and it drops on to agent Cooper
Cooper gets several shots off to no effect and it drags her into the river of fat
Her body cameras obscured for the next 20 minutes, but it records the sounds of wet sucking noises from the river
When the camera feed comes back it shows a very large dimly lit domed chamber
the river of fat drops into a waterfall
or fat fall in this case
And on the other side of the cavern is a fresco depicting the Virgin Mary
She is depicted pregnant chained to a star-shaped rack by her ankles wrists and neck
and at the base of her throat is a pipe emitting dark smoke
There is a layer of smoke obscuring the floor but the camera moves underneath the smoke to show hundreds of small fatty
creatures scurrying over one another
Agent Cooper is heard calling out and the camera moves over to show a person lying face down on the floor
As the camera approaches the person turns over revealing it to be agent Cooper
The person wearing her body camera now is unidentified
Cooper begins giggling saying that that was intense and then begins screaming for a short while
She then refers to the person wearing the camera as handsome asking him what his name is
The unidentified man reaches towards Cooper revealing a hand covered in large cuts
with seven additional fingers protruding from the wounds
All of the fingers appear to be mobile and they begin caressing Cooper's cheek causing her to rub her face against them
Cooper laughs calls the man funny and sweet and removes the vest holding the body camera from him
The camera is obscured by the smoke for the next seven minutes as indistinct
Grunting sounds are heard in the background then a sharp scream and the distant sound of a heavy object landing is heard
The body camera is picked up and thrown downwards landing on a pile of human corpses
Showing one woman's face in the early stages of putrefaction
Cooper is heard continuing to call out
Referring to the man as baby and asking him not to go
Several other women's voices are heard calling out as well and over the next 28 hours at least eight distinct voices are heard
consisting of laughter screaming and indistinct speech
Eventually, the cameras battery's dying and it was found later at the top of the spiral staircase
The foundation has yet to find the areas depicted in the footage. And neither of the agents have been recovered
If that was all a little too muddled for you, I'll briefly explain the
Book and the phenomenon are more fifthist related anomalies meaning in general
They're weird mind warping and ultimately pretty vague
Men that read the book learn about a process in which they can pick up any woman they desire
But in the process of doing so they must change and disfigure themselves
There's a lot of meta-commentary and pickup artists and related concepts here as I'm sure you can figure
They also create this creature of fat and other objects
The tracks down said woman and does something to affect them with the SCP-3512 phenomenon
altering their personalities permanently
Basically, they become the ideal target for a pickup artist
clueless and pliant or in other words a sex doll
in the end
This is what happened to agent Cooper and she was tossed into a pit along with plenty of other similar women
Discarded once the perpetrator was done with them
Presumably the perpetrator was this Enigma character that wrote the book and was printing plenty more copies to be handed out to
people like Josep Oriol
SCP-3512 is horrific for multiple reasons and the fact that it's based on such an inherently creepy topic only lends to
its horror
Between this SCP and the vore hole, fifthists begin to rival Sarkicism as one of the grossest groups of interest
With the added bonus of being so much more nebulous about their larger goals
Well, perhaps the more, you know would never end up being as big of a problem as star signal's was it's far more unsettling