Base Breaking Character / SCP Foundation

• Groups Of Interest will have wildly differing opinions.
  • Are We Cool Yet?: People tend to either despise them as jerkish hipster warlocks who plaster their inane catchphrase on everything or love them as a new and fresh (although they've now been around a very long time) Group of Interest with a disorganized, guerrilla art mentality that allows for plenty of possibility. The tendency of some authors to needlessly shoehorn in an AWCY reference into random articles hasn't helped.
    • The catch phrase itself is supposed to be ominous and frightening in spite of its innocuous or absurd appearance at first glance. Some readers insist that you can't make a phrase like that frightening or ominous no matter how it is presented, and that any attempt to make it Fridge Horror instead turn it into Nightmare Retardant, or even Faux Horrific through the sheer lengths that writers make to insist that the phrase is indeed supposed to be horrifying in its implications.
  • Gamers Against Weed, a GOI created in 2016 and centred on "ironically quirky millennial" characters, is controversial for several reasons. Some people think this is what Are We Cool Yet? should have been, another camp thinks that they're lukewarm ripoffs of AWCY? while a 3rd camp is concerned that this can be used as an avenue to have forced memes pushed onto the site and finally there are people who just ignore it because they think it's too silly.
  • The Shark Punching Center, especially when it's treated as a real, serious group, on mainlist articles is inevitably viewed as a too on the nose a concept to be anything but a complete joke, and that treating it seriously is too similar to the "lolfoundation" era.
  • dado articles have a broken base, and it grows whenever a lot of articles about him get posted in a small period of time. Two instances were when 17 articles were launched in the 3800's to 4600's series, and again when he experienced a second wave of popularity in the 5000 series. This happens because a lot of dado articles are based on a single central conceit, which is that dado has trouble understanding what people are asking of him, and will instead create a horrifying Lame Pun Reaction SCP, which gets boring because you can see the joke coming a mile away. Another is that his way of conversing can be seen as a kind of Eastern European immigrant Ethnic Scrappy.
• SCP-076-2 "Able" starts out the trio of "extremely popular in the early days, backlash when the site started formalizing" characters as seen with both 105 and 239 below, due to his overall "badass forum OC" demeanor, a perceived lack of actually scary or unnerving traits, and showing up very often in early material. Like Iris, he got rewritten a fair bit, changing his characterization from a gruff anti-hero who often worked for the Foundation to an inhuman murderer who can never be truly reasoned with, which most on-site fans find to be at least acceptable. Still, it says quite a lot for his that the site's writing guidelines admit that, were his article submitted today, it'd probably get deleted.
• SCP-105, "Iris": Once beloved by contributors, the skip was once railed on to a perceived lack of any flaws or meaningful writing to the skip. Whether or not this applies remains to debate, but it got so bad that the article was even under threat of deletion due to low ratings. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your view), it remained popular enough to evade that fate, instead getting a rewrite to downplay her "ability".
• Everything stated about SCP-105 applies to SCP-239. However, she also has one tale that's really well-received, and opinion around her seems to have generally become more favorable due to her and SCP-343 having been the primary inspirations for Type Greens, who are now an important part of site lore.
• SCP-682 is disliked by some for being excessively overused and being a fairly simple Absolute Xenophobe without much beyond this, but others find its absolute and irrational obsession towards the destruction of all life to allow for potentially interesting explorations and appreciate it for its iconic status.
• SCP-2721-LYRE is criticized for being a Self-Insert despite the writer stating otherwise, with a story that makes references to Tumblr and Homestuck, years after they were widespread and popular. On the other hand, some people find the SCP to be a cute specimen with an interesting story, and point to similar works that include LGBT topics to show that it has a place on the site. The fact its comment section and even off-site commentary quickly filled with irate readers, many of whom brigaded the article with downvotes, only made things worse. This led to the admins locking the article from editing. The anti-2721 crowd proceeded to accuse the article of therefore being a Creator's Pet. Eventually, even the discussion page for the article had to be locked after 773 posts consisting primarily of flame wars and misgendering. Not only that, but the site had to remove the voting system for it, something no other page on the wiki has gotten. Naturally, this also sparked controversy over the moderators of the wiki that they refuse to remove, in the opposing group's opinion, a terrible SCP that merely exists to be a Self-Insert, and that it was receiving favoritism where other SCPs similar to it would be removed. All in all, SCP-2721 is definitely the most controversial thing to ever be posted on the site.
• SCP-7373 (alternatively known as Screamy.aic or simply Screamy) is somewhat divisive in the community. While some members enjoy Screamy and find it endearing and funny, some find the character annoying, and think that its antics are tiring.
• The former version of SCP-4911 was based on an anomalous event occurring during the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center. While it was lauded on release, a few vocal critics blasted it as exploiting the tragedy and being insensitive towards those who actually died. It was taken down and replaced with a new SCP with similar thematic components, because the author was 'sick of dealing with it'.
• SCP-2212, to some, is a clever article whose use of puzzles is a precursor to other interactive articles that have popped up on the site. Its detractors are quick to call it overly obtuse and point out that it was technically never finished, and has been in this unfinished state for almost a decade at this point. The fact that it was marred by technical issues that made it not work on Chromium browsers for over a year doesn't help matters either.
• SCP-2137 was highly rated when it was first posted, due in no small part to the fact that it was written by screenwriter and director Max Landis; however, it's fallen out of favor since then, partly due to the fact that Landis had several credible allegations of sexual misconduct come out against him, which resulted in staff electing to ban him... a ban which he then circumvented due to a loophole in the Site's rules, allowing edits to be made to the article years after his ban. Several comments have since popped up pointing out how it doesn't make sense that the ghost of Tupac Shakur would help the police, as his murder has been unsolved for decades, and 'Fuck the Police' is such a common sentiment among rappers that it is literally the title of one of N.W.A's most famous songs.
• The Chinese branch's gods and the Alpha Foundation fall into this for related reasons — namely, the part where they allegedly have control over all narratives and can even manipulate or harm the authors. Either they're an interesting spin on pataphysics that takes a more cosmological approach to the subject, or a pissing contest against the other branches in terms of raw power that has irreparably poisoned the well for off-site discussion of the franchise as a whole. Not helping matters is that information on them sans SCP-CN-2510/Metanormalcy is limited to machine translation, likely distorting any messaging or symbolism present in their respective articles, and even CN-2510 openly contradicts the intent of the EN branch's SCP-2165 (where the whole point of the article is that it is never stated what makes it irredeemable) by defining it as a mere weapon for a Greater-Scope Villain.

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