The SCP Foundation, just like any group, has it's own inside jokes. If you have worked at the Foundation for longer than a week, then you have definitely experienced the most common one: you're new, and somebody asks you to look at a file. You open the link, and then you see it. The image we all recognize, the one they taught us to be terrified of; you see a picture of SCP-096, and panic. Of course, it's not really the image, as your laughing coworkers are quick to assure you, but, for many researchers, that is the last thing they think about SCP-096.
If you look at SCP-096, the mechanics of the anomaly itself are simple to understand - if you see its face, it will find and kill you. Simple, right? It has a single trigger, and does a single thing. We can test this over and over again, and no matter who looks, they end up dead. We all think we know SCP-096, but do we really? It's so simple, what else is there to it?
Just one thing is unanswered; What's in a face?
Let's start by defining our terms. Face is understood as "The front part of the head of a human or other animal, featuring the eyes, nose and mouth, and the surrounding area.".
A face is an inmediately recognizable body-part,
Meanwhile seeing is "To perceive or detect someone or something with the eyes".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/face#Noun
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/see#Verb
Seeing is an action that affects only the individual enaging in sight, nor the sighted objects, animals or persons, thus we start to percieve how old 096 is stranger than we might have initially imagined.
I will now bring attention to an small part of the main file. "Note: This reaction does not occur when viewing artistic depictions." This often ignored
In universe essay about 096 "the shy guy".
topics to handle:
what counts as looking in a face, why art doesnt trigger 096 but stuff like photographs does
What is art vs. what is representative of the face. See queer's comments on greek visions of art.
Propagnosia: Inability to recognise faces
Pareidolia: Seeing faces where there are none.