 Guys and dolls, welcome to Sherm's Declassified Skip Survival Guide. Today we're going to be exploring SCP-3043 by The Great Hippo. This skip is one of my favorites, and making the audio adaptation of it is what inspired me to start making more complex skips with music, sound effects, and guest voices. And that led to this series, so if you like this channel, thank The Great Hippo. For my research, I would also like to thank The Great Hippo for basically writing this episode by talking to me via private message on the wiki, as well as TV tropes for being that beautiful hell, I mean, well of information. Now let's get started. The short version, SCP-3043 is a 1937 Olympia Elite typewriter, formerly stored in a secure locker at Site-95. Its anomalous property was that it had the ability to rewrite any story that contained it. This included the thoughts you had about the object in your head. Arriving in Foundation custody, it started rewriting its own documentation and the thoughts of containment personnel who were used to write it into other SCPs documentation with a goal of overrunning the entire Foundation database. A containment breach occurred causing Site-95 to drop out of contact for three hours. After contact was restored, all skips in their documentation were contained and accounted for correctly except SCP-3043, which is found in Dr. Lewis' office neutralized by two .44 caliber bullets. All copies of its special containment procedures were anomalously altered into the movie script format that you see throughout the skipped story. Murphy Law, the main character of that script, seems to be another anomalous entity completely unrelated to SCP-3043 and unregistered in the Foundation SCP database. But enough foreplay, it's time to go into the deep dive. You don't need to understand all the tropes of the Film Noir genre to understand the Skip It Vase value, but to get it at CD underbelly, here's a crash course of the essentials. Film noir is a dark and cynical genre. Our heroes aren't necessarily good guys, and even though they are honorable, they're usually ready to get their hands a little dirty for a job that was too much trouble in the first place. Also, being a nominally good guy in a cramped sack world, the end of most noirs don't end too well for the protagonist. A good example of a modern day noir character would be Rorschach from Watchmen. This skip story is only really a pseudo noir. We get a lot of the window dressing like whiskey, driving in the rain, fisticuffs with goons who outnumber the protagonist, and a trademark hat-coat revolver combo for our gruff anti-hero. But in the end, it's definitely a much more happy ending than your typical noir. That was purposeful, meant to give the reader a rip-roaring good time adventure rather than an existential crisis at the end, which, let's face it, the SCP Wiki has existential doom and gloom for days. Alright, time to run and gun through the plot. We open with an email from Site Director August, explaining that everything is mostly back to normal. But something went down, and they all woke up with what I'm going to call a Film Noir hangover. He identifies that SCP-3043 has been rubbed out, and that its documentation has been altered. No one remembers this Murphy Law Guy that the Procedures mentioned, but either he helped save the day, or he wants the Foundation to think he saved the day. Investigations pending, let's move on to our first collapsible. The item number collapsible is meant to introduce our main character and the start of our conflict through our favorite noir trope, gratuitous inner monologue. Like any noir worth its salt, the catalyst is a dame walking into our Intrepid Detective's office. She's even got amnesia to boot. We get some quality banter. Don't call me toots, I've got a fucking doctorate. Showing the Dr. Lewis has some self-awareness outside of what's happening with this noir stuff, and after a round of questions, we find out at the very least that Murphy knows of the Foundation and has a dislike for their protocols. He reluctantly accepts the case anyways, don't they always? And we get our title drop. Fun fact that I didn't catch after reading this dozens of times, but each collapsible ends with a stinger line with the information it is supposed to contain. So the item number collapsible's last line contains the item number inside. Murphy Law in Type 3043 for Murder. We're going to see that happen for the next two longs as well, and I think we can all appreciate the cleverness. Also, let's double those cleverness points for the reference to Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder. Also, also, sidebar. How the hell did we get nearly a hundred years from the beginnings of the film noir genre without someone having done the phrase, I'm Murphy Law. I'm the guy you call when everything that could go wrong, did. That's genius. I will fight anyone who says otherwise. The object class collapsible starts with another out of character moment for Dr. Lewis who recognizes the time jump between scenes. They fill us in with a little more exposition using that old, oh, my memory is gone, but I remember this detail that's definitely important to the plot, trope. And we turn Murphy Law towards Site 95 proper. Right before he walks in the door, we get the object class stinger. It isn't safe, Mr. Law. It's Ketter. Sidebar Part 2. Fun fact, Murphy isn't wearing his seatbelt in this scene specifically as a shout out to Rick Sanchez, who is apparently a quintessential noir protagonist. Cut to me in an alternate dimension doing a deep dive explaining that. The special containment procedures collapsible is our midpoint and fittingly, we have a confrontation with a no good son of a gun in a position of power over our downtrodden antihero. August is the upper class kind of villain who sends in goons because he doesn't like to get his hands dirty. The perfect foil for Murphy. Lots of card metaphors later, we get our fist fight and a classic plot twist slash red herring of SCP-3043 is you, Mr. Law. Finally, the special containment procedure stinger foreshadows what is ultimately going to contain slash technically neutralize SCP-3043 when Murphy says if the foundation can't contain it, I'll have to contain it myself. The description collapsible is definitely our climactic showdown. We get the big reveal of our true villain, SCP-3043. Hilariously, it seems like the narrative anomalies used by our combatants cancel each other out, so neither is affected by the other. SCP-3043 tries to use Dr. Lewis to take out Murphy, but that's exactly how a femme fatale would act in a noir film, so Murphy is able to keep his cool. We end the action with Murphy taking 3043 out instead of sparing him, because as he says, he's no hero. We get two great moments from 3043 that I'd like to highlight. The first is the metatextual cleverness in the line, this is supposed to be my story, not yours, in the way that it's both in narrative having its plans foiled, and in the meta, Murphy Law has straight up jacked 3043's main list entry and made it all about himself. The second is, how the fuck are you rewriting my story into your own fucking stupid Humphrey Bogart fanfic nonsense? Because come on, that's comedy right there. The description collapsible deviates from our set pattern in that the stinger doesn't match, but I'm willing to easily forgive that for two reasons. A, we definitely did get our first description of the object, it was our goddamn typewriter. In this section, and two, the stinger pulling the paper out of the typewriter and it says, the end, was way too perfect to pass up. The revised collapsible is the new official containment procedures for the neutralized 3043. It brings us back to Wiki format since we spent so much time in these crazy updated documents that Murphy left behind. But if you look inside the formerly secret final collapsible, we get a scene of 055 smoking a cigarette with Murphy, not trying to contain him, but to enlist his aid. He brushes off giving her a solid answer, but offers that he'll be around, as he wanders off into his murky gray world. 055 drops one of the most cherished lines in film noir history, and we get a guest appearance by Fred because I needed another reason to love this article too much. The credits roll and we end with one more reference, this time to The Postman Always Rings Twice, another seminal work of noir. The funny thing about the film noir genre is that it wasn't exactly high-class filmmaking. Back then, the pulpy detective story was what we'd call B-movies today. Style over substance was par for the course, and a lot of questions would be left unanswered. At the end of this, we still have more mysteries than we do answers. Why did Dr. Lewis go to Murphy Law in the first place? How could Dr. Lewis almost resist his powers while nobody except SCP-3043 could? Is Murphy Law even a physical entity? Or is he a character inside fictional narratives similar to Fred? So many questions left to answer. All I can say is, sequel perhaps? Six seasons in a movie? Only time will tell. Whew, we made it! Thanks again to the great hippo for this punching, running and Tommy-gunning ride of a skip, and for doing most of my research for me. And of course, thank you for watching. If you liked this explanation and want to see more, do that like, share, and subscribe Mumbojumbo, pay our Patreon a visit, and finally, let us know what skips you'd like declassified in the comments. See you next time!