Scarfolk Council
is a Web Original horror/comedy blog created by writer Richard Littler detailing the titular Town with a Dark Secret: Scarfolk, England.
Scarfolk is a dreary, ugly place filled with misery and paranoia.
Did I say that? I meant a cheery, beautiful place filled with vigilant and well behaved citizens.
Scarfolk is trapped in the '70s. Not trapped in the '70s, but trapped in the '70s. The entire decade just loops ad infinitum. Modern day events seem to reverberate in Scarfolk, penetrating the Timey-Wimey Ball it's trapped in to some extent, but the hapless citizens are stuck there with the oppressive, Orwellian Town Council, the nightmarish flora and fauna, and the occasional rogue Owlchild. It's the '70s of terrifying Public Service Announcements, Doomwatch and The Stone Tape. Only worse.
Discovering Scarfolk, a book by Littler on the blog's universe which tells the story of a family trapped in the town, was published in October 2014 by Ebury Press. The Scarfolk Annual was published in 2019.
For more tropes, please reread this page
- Agony of the Feet: Apparently, one of the tortures used by the police or security services.
- Black Comedy: Scarfolk's stuck in a constantly repeating loop from 1970-1979, is under constant threat from surreal paranormal and paranoid conspiracies, and is still determined to keep a stiff upper lip about it all.
- Crapsack World: Scarfolk is a totalitarian, heavily polluted town, its citizens kept in a constant state of paranoia by an intrusive government, constantly bombarded by paranormal and supernatural threats.
- Creepy Child:
- The 'Infant Liberation Front ', seeking to create a 'paedocracy', and to gain the 'freedom to eradicate all grownups'.
- According to this page, children can even bite grownups. Or so was feared. The concern may just be used to silence children. Naturally, the children developed telepathic abilities to lour the dentists and orthodontists into 'boarding a mysterious black bus, which was never seen again.'
- The 'Infant Liberation Front
- Department of Child Disservices: All social services are under the control of the Council, and as a result, children frequently go missing.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The 1970s. The whole decade. Or, as they're known in Britain, the Dark Ages.
- Media Scaremongering: Nearly every publication is commissioned by Scarfolk Council for the sole purpose of instilling fear in the populace, though some of the threats definitely seem to be real.
- Memory-Wiping Crew: Though Scarfolk calls them "Social Workers"...
- Nightmare Face: Crops up every now and then.
- Nothing Is Scarier: These blank posters were supposedly put up without any reason.
- Oop North: Exactly where Scarfolk is placed in England is left somewhat ambiguous, but it is somewhere up north.
- Stiff Upper Lip: The only thing keeping Scarfolk going from day to day. However, it's a dark version, fostered by the totalitarian regime controlling the lives and thoughts of the citizens.
- Surreal Horror: The order of the day!
- Roy the Owlchild is an owl with a human face made from breeding barn owls with abandoned infants. He observes every family's behaviors and punishes them for arbitrary violations. Such punishments may be a scolding tut, or may be powerful telekinetic attacks.
- NO.
- Don't takes a similar stance.
- Roy the Owlchild
- Surreal Humor: Thanks to Black Comedy related to the above Surreal Horror.
