The Backrooms

Okay, so first up, thanks a lot for reading this page! It actually took lots of efforts to create, and I'm quite happy of how it turned out!

I also want to use this author post as a way to thanks once more the amazing people who gave me crits for this page:

• CamaradeAlbabar for his defining help about the page concept. This wouldn't be as great if he didn't give me feedback about the initial concept.
• Nikuchan for her vital first crit on both SPAG and concept. It helped me a lot in deciding how I wanted the page to be.
• Aether48 for their help in the execution of the concept. Some parts were quite clunky at first, using ideas in the wrong way. Thanks to Aether, some elements of the page got changed to better serve the purpose of the article
• BlueSignet for her massive help on the narrative execution. Between lackluster paragraphs and weird sentences, it was through her help that the parts were developed well.
• C-Graph for his massive narration expertise. Some parts really needed some important tweaks to really immerse the reader in the story. Not only this, but Graph also helped A LOT on the SPAG part. If the page feels immersive to you, that is thanks to him.

Now, I want to talk a bit about the elephant in the room. This article is a narrative format screw. Why did I choose this, even though this form of writing was discouraged (but not forbidden)? It's simple. Classicon is not a contest about a format. It was not supposed to be a clinical contest, but instead one about the use of the old feelings of the wiki. Liminality, dread, survival, insanity, human insecurities. The Backrooms, from the beginning, have been a world where we could write about the fears of mankind. Disconcerting nostalgia. The dread of the unknown. The fear of one's own weakness. All of this can be found in a particular image that was rather popular in the early years of the wiki.

This always has been fascinating to me. The clash between the nostalgia of the empty room, compared to the fear of the unknown, the scare of what existed beyond the door. Beyond the threshold, into the darkness. Unfortunately, it seemed that the early writers of the Backrooms just didn't use this image to its full potential. As much as this sounds like a liminal purist talking… the use of entities… quite disrespected the image in itself. Yet another bland concept where a person is attacked by creatures that came from the void ahead. So original. But this image does not need scary monsters to create a feeling of uneasiness. It is already, without any presence, giving the watcher a sense of dread, as they witness the unknown ahead of them. there is a feeling of something waiting for your end, yet you don't know what it truly is. You feel trapped in this room, and your attention is driven only by the vast expanse of darkness. You can't go anywhere else. yet you are scared of what will happen beyond that threshold. This feeling is what I wanted this image to be used for in a Backrooms writing. Sometimes, you don't need scary creatures or even lethal environmental dangers. Sometimes, the fear just comes from yourself, from the realiztion you will not escape, and from the madness of your own despair.

This is what I wanted to develop for this image. Obviously, the original image isn't CC-compliant, as it was used and popularized through Fandom. But I found a great replacement over on Creepystock, a really great website hosting really great liminal CC-compliant images. I actually prefer this image over the first iteration, at least for my narrative. It is taken at the moment when the wanderer notices a potential exit from this place. But they don't know what lies beyond. Unlike the original images, this one doesn't show what exists beyond the door, yet the feeling of the unknown persists, even if it's not a feeling of creep yet.

Now that I talked about the image, let's speak of the writing. As I said, I wanted, with this article, to use the potential of the original You Cheated image that I felt was wasted over bland concepts. But the original concept was about the idea of cheating in the Backrooms, so let's talk about this a little. If you have been active on Fandom, or just read their lore occasionally, you may have seen a rewrite of level You Cheated named The Game (a rewrite I wasn't aware of back when I wrote the first draft of this contest entry). But I'm bringing that up because it is using a key part of the original level concept (or at least in the designated room section): the idea of cheating. Both in the original page and rewrite, the cheating aspect has been used in a videogame way, showcasing a more digital idea of the Backrooms.

But that's not how I saw the concept. Let's talk a bit about the Backrooms overall. A massive ecosystem where humans aren't supposed to be. But, with time, humans started to noclip from the Frontrooms into the Backrooms. But they were never supposed to take part in its ecosystem. The Backrooms were a world of twisted reflection, copying Earth in a disturbing way. But every creature, every landscape, served a purpose in the overall Backrooms ecosystem. It didn't make sense to the human mind, but this place was self-sufficient. However, humans started to change this world, just like they did on Earth. Instead of entering into the ecosystem, they used it for their own gains. That's what cheating in the Backrooms is to me. A species that, instead of blending in and contributing to a virtuous yet strange cycle, instead exploits those unknown shores for themselves.

• They abused phenomenons regulating this world to disrupt the following of events, cheating death by escaping from situations where they should have perished. Without the fear of death, they developped themselves far more than they were supposed to. Humans became a parasitic species of the Backrooms.
• They industrialized resources from the Backrooms. Mass-producing items like Warpberries. We saw in the object page that those fruits were never supposed to be created on such an immense scale. By doing so, humanity majorly disrupted the local environment of Level 10. Yet again, they are cheating by using items they were not supposed to, which creates a negative impact on the universe.
• They used their knowledge to create twisted contraptions like the Hermes Devices. Those tools are very controversial even amongst mankind. They are an immoral way of getting the upper hand over traveling in the Backrooms. By horrible means, humans are disturbing how core properties of the Backrooms work, by exploiting and forcing them. Again, they never were supposed to do this, and this cheating aspect is yet again disrupting this universe.

I won't tell the identity of who or what was behind the level, and to be honest, even I don't know. But something grew bored of a species that was parasitizing the Backrooms, and endangering it for their own gain. Humans felt too… confident. Too superior. And the person you just read about, in particular, was one of them. Someone who thought with pride and overconfidence. Someone who cheated, using unstable contraptions, mass-produced food, and phenomena of the Backrooms for themselves. This person, by their feeling of superiority, represents really well how mankind in general behaves in the Backrooms. Prideful, arrogant even. They cheated and did not deserve their lives. And cheaters deserve to be punished. And while they are punished, something will gorge over their distress, feeding on how their prideful mind quickly turns into fear, then despair, as they understand they are nothing more than simple creatures that, by cheating, thought to be gods. But they aren't powerful at all, and this level is here as a way to remind them how weak and pitiful they actually are, destroying them little by little.

And everything I said, the context, the feelings… everything has to be felt by the reader. it is a story, based on emotions. And clinical tone can't give any of those. This kind of writing has pros, for writing descriptions about landscapes, groups, creatures… but it can't convey feelings enough. Narration exists to show a feeling, to translate emotions to the reader. It is an incredible tool to use when talking about nostalgic, scary feelings. And those feelings were the true theme of the contest. They were the old vibes that failed to be used well by the lackluster clinical tone of 2020. And where clinical tone fails, narration shines.

I very much hope this story succeded in conveying those feelings to you. A classic concept with a classic image and classic emotions, but revisited with new eyes and new ways to write. That's what I wanted to achieve for classicon. And I hope I did.