hello, wanderers!

it's once again time for the biweekly discussion thread, but rather than pull something from the (still open to new posts!) suggestion thread as we usually do, we are using it to solicit feedback about our most recent event, the 2026 commentchamp contest.

what did you think about the event? what pieces/comments were your favorites? what worked, and what didn't? what would you want to see done differently if we run another such event in the future? leave all such thoughts below. as always, keep all discussion civil, and happy posting!

Continued from our previous thread, we're chatting about all things Library, in and out of universe- including the setting, the site, and our writers.

This week, our prompt is:

What are some of your favorite examples of xenofiction in the WL? In various media off-site? What do or don't you like about this kind of speculative fiction?

—submitted by floridapologia

Let us know what you think below, and please keep conversation civil. And as always- if you have your own idea for a discussion prompt, leave it in this thread and it may be chosen in the future!

Continuing to roll with the topics touching on the Library in-universe, the following prompt is:

Should we replace the lore's current Head Archivist, Rounderpede, with another character?

—submitted by Vishardsh

In an effort to promote further thought and extend the longevity and depth of discourse, we have chosen to add these follow up questions. Feel free to answer as much or as little as you like.

What do you think makes a good Head Archivist?
Should formal education or work experience be a requirement for the position? If so, what would it look like?

Would the Library be better off with peer elected/appointed selection for its high leadership?
Should the Library have hard term limits for its leadership, in lieu of serving for life?
If you had to create the successor to the Rounderpede, who would they be like and what is their story? Any existing and original characters are welcome.

Let us know what you think below, and please keep conversation civil. And as always- if you have your own idea for a discussion prompt, leave it in this thread and it may be chosen in the future!

Continued from our previous thread, we're chatting about all things Library, in and out of universe- including the setting, the site, and our writers.

This week, our prompt is:

What do you think the purposes of canons and series are on this site? How do you approach the difference between them, both as a reader and as a writer? Do you think this is different to the distinctions on the SCP wiki?

—submitted by Vishardsh

Let us know what you think below, and please keep conversation civil. And as always- if you have your own idea for a discussion prompt, leave it in this thread and it may be chosen in the future!

Hello, Wanderers!

It’s that time of the week again! Here we have the prompt chosen from our previous thread.

This week, our prompt is:

What's the relationship between the Library and our human concept of libraries? Are they convergent evolutions of the same idea or is there a clear descent one way or another? Or is the Library a name that obscures as much as it reveals?

—submitted by Gaffsey

Please keep the discussion civil and let us know any and all thoughts you have. Just sitting a friendly reminder here to leave any and all prompts you think of within the thread, it helps us a lot, and it’s free!

hello, wanderers!

we've made it to two bi-weekly discussion threads since the project was revived! hooray for us. this week's prompt once again comes from our suggestions thread:

What is the scariest story you've read on the Wanderer's Library? What do you think are the most frightening aspects of the Library itself as a setting?

—submitted by vvvolt

as always, leave any thoughts you have on this subject below, and please keep discussion civil. if you have any ideas for discussion threads that you do not see represented in the suggestion thread, it remains open for new submissions; we will continue pulling from it for future threads.

happy posting!

Hello, Wanderers!

Kicking off the revival of our discussions, we are pleased to reveal the prompt we have chosen from our previous thread.

This week, out prompt is:

What do you see as the worst, and best, ways to use worldbuilding and lore? What piece(s) on the site do you think use worldbuilding to the greatest effect?

—submitted by Vishardsh

Please keep the discussion civil and let us know any and all thoughts you have. Happy talking! If you have any more prompt ideas, please leave them in the thread mentioned above.

Hello, Wanderers!

In an effort to revitalize the bi-weekly discussion posts, we have decided to seek user suggestions to prompt their return. These will be discussions aiming to highlight the Library, on-site stories, and the wonderful authors and artists in our creative space. If you have an idea for a Library-centered discussion prompt, please leave it below and it may be used in the future. Thank you!

Our topic for today is….. drumroll please………..

Now don't get me wrong. Books are great! I read many books^{[citation needed]}! I just think… we can do better than (bound, printed, western-style) books for something as grand, mystical, and eternal as the ol' Wanderers' Library. Obligatory I am speaking about my personal headcanon - feel free to imagine the library however you like

Why do I say such heretical words? Because books don't last. Not well, at least. We live in the beautiful age of the printing press where a ruined book can be easily replaced by going to the local Barnes n' Noble. But while the bound page is excellent for densely storing lots of information at once, it has a tendency to, well, wither to dust and blow away given enough time.

True story: my grandma has a copy of a (nearly lost media) autobiography from 1922. It's an incredible work of art, with great narrative style and hand-drawn illustrations…. that is almost completely inaccessible because it disintegrates at the slightest touch. I broke the spine by bumping it one time. If I were to go to a restorationist now, the only hope of salvaging it's pages would probably be to dissect it, scan every withered spread and then view it on my computer's photo app.

Now, there's an incredible amount of variation in each incarnation of the Wanderers' Library. It may be malevolent, it may be sapient, it may be infinite or fractal or what-have-you, but an overwhelming majority of presentations make the 'books,' well, books. Exactly the way we happen to make them. A big part of this is probably the familiarity and coziness of a local bookstore, of course. But I dare say it runs into some hypothetical flaws when we expand the scope to an entire, multiversal Library filled entirely with them.

If the Library is older than half a century, many of their tomes would be too frail to touch without gloves. Older than a few centuries, most would be unrecognizable and/or dust piles. Then take into account that these are meant to be checked out and read by a variety of people. What happens when someone dog-ears a page and the corner rips off? Or spills their juice? Paper can be so fragile that I've torn pages out by accident simply by flipping them too hard.

Imagine the logistical nightmare replacing old books would be. How many Pages would it take to comb through every shelf for books that are bent or spoilt? Would they have to print a new copy every time? That'd take a lot of industrial machinery and ink jams. It'd be like printing out every page of the latest revision of Wikipedia, if you get that reference— the WL would be stuck in an endless cycle of wheeling out new books and replacing unreadable ones to the point that little else would happen.

Of course, all of this could be solved by inexplicable magic. Maybe the books are super-duper immortal, indestructible things that never age or yellow or get weird sticky gunk between the pages. Putting aside that that'd negate plotlines like the Searing or Bookworms, there are other critiques to be had of universal books-as-default beyond logistics. What about cultures that don't traditionally have pagebound novels, for example? Many people have debated how books being held as the superior form of information capture can be a kind of cultural imperialism when dealing with groups that perhaps didn't write, or encoded knowledge in other mediums.

And as my final point:: I just think the Library would be even weirder (in a cool way) and cooler (in a weird way) if it didn't conform to our expectations of how a modern library looks and behaves.

So. Like. If not books, how else would the Library work?

Here's where my brain starts shutting down from sleep deprivation! But I think there are a crazy amount of possibilities for dense information storage that are both A. more indestructible than paper and/or B. cool as hell. I encourage y'all to come up with our own, ofc! or don't! you can do whatever you want forever :D

1. MASSIVE ENGRAVED STONE COLUMNS. There's a reason the Rosetta Stone aged well while contemporary papyrus fared worse. Stone is notorious for lasting an extremely long time through the elements. I can envision a dense, glyphic script (perhaps akin to Braille) that is carved into the sides of titanic stone pillars. Many books can coexist on a single column, given enough height and a good ladder, and and it'd also be more accessible to the denizens of the multiverse who don't see the way able-bodied humans do. Maybe the columns hold up something big and important too!!!
2. SCANNED ONTO ROLLS OF FILM. The original source material is left in it's home universe, but every page is meticulously transferred onto a durable film. I actually read somewhere that a particular type of film is the strongest for long-term information storage, but I can't find that factoid anymore. Instead of storing physical books, each shelf is actually a drawer of neatly packaged film cartridges that are loaded into a projector and flipped through, page-by-page.
3. WEIRDER SHIT. Maybe each word is laser engraved into quartz crystals that must be held at a certain angle to project the words into their shadow. Maybe each book is a foamy layer in a multilayered liquid that must be coaxed to the surface. Maybe it's just a cloud-based Super-Wikipedia (but that's kinda boring). There's a lotta possibilities once you factor in magic and alternate physics into the mix!!!

I'm about to conk out now, so my parting words shall be….

Please critique this whole mess of a Ted Talk! If you know a way to make books immortal tell me!! or just say "this makes no sense lmao" that's good too!! I am very tired and sleepy now ok goodnite

Continuing from last time's thread, we're doing biweekly (lol) discussions on the Library, her stories, authors, artists, and everything in between!

This week, out prompt is:

What was your favorite entry to the Debate Club Contest? Pieces that were underread or underrated? Any thoughts about the contest overrall?

Discuss! And remember: if you have an idea for a discussion prompt, submit it here and it may be used in future threads!

It's been a while, but we're jumping right back into it. A continuation of our last thread, we're doing biweekly discussions on the Library, her stories, authors, artists, and everything in between!

This week, our prompt is:

How do you interpret your own work? Do you find it useful to analyze your own stories, or not? Why? Do you ever find yourself discovering something new about your past writing, either through someone else's interpretation, or through your own realization?

—submitted by LAN 2D

Discuss! And remember: if you have an idea for a discussion prompt, submit it here and it may be used in future threads!

A continuation of last week's thread, we're doing biweekly discussions on the Library, her stories, authors, artists, and everything inbetween!

For this week, we're doing something slightly different - let's talk about our latest contest, the Picturepalooza!

What was your favorite entry to the contest? Which entry do you think was underread? How about underrated? Or maybe just really, really good entries you'd like to highlight one last time before the contest closes?

Have fun discussing below! And if you have any suggestions for future prompts, be sure to share them in our form here.

Continued from our last thread, we're doing biweekly discussions on anything and everything related to the Library and the authors that comprise it (that's you guys!). This week, our prompt is:

What are you some of your favorite characters on the site? This could be for characters that have been written about just once or ones with whole series. Why are they your favorites? Have these characters inspired you in your own writings?

—submitted by Snapdragon133

Discuss! And remember: if you have an idea for a discussion prompt, submit it here and it may be used in future threads!

Continued from our last thread, we're doing biweekly discussions on anything and everything related to the Library and the authors that comprise it (that's you guys!). This week, our prompt is:

What writing tropes just butter your biscuit? Or, what clichés find themselves on your list of guilty pleasures?

—submitted by NotAnOligarch

Discuss! And remember: if you have an idea for a discussion prompt, submit it here and it may be used in future threads!

Continued from our last thread, we're doing biweekly discussions on anything and everything related to the Library and the authors that comprise it (that's you guys!). This week, our prompt is:

What do you imagine the Library looks like? Is it traditional, all wood paneling and grand high shelves, with fancy furniture? Or do you go in a different direction, maybe of a postmodern minimalist library? A 70s basement microfilm archive of a Library? Something else entirely?

Discuss! And remember: if you have an idea for a discussion prompt, submit it here and it may be used in future threads!

Continued from our last thread, we're doing biweekly discussions on anything and everything related to the Library and the authors that comprise it (that's you guys!). This week, our prompt is:

How do you get into the mood for writing? Are you fueled by raw emotion or cold discipline? Do you have to read beforehand, or perhaps listen to the same song on loop? Do your habits change depending on what you're writing?

—submitted by LAN 2D

Discuss! And remember: if you have an idea for a discussion prompt, submit it here and it may be used in future threads!

Continued from our last thread, we're doing biweekly discussions on anything and everything related to the Library and the authors that comprise it (that's you guys!). This week, our prompt is pulled from one of the old discussion threads:

The Library contains every story ever written, that will be written, and most that won't, but what constitutes a story? Paperbacks and leatherbound grimoires only? Digital content like web fiction (har-har) and comics? Maybe even more abstract, the backs of shampoo bottles and the instructions on your packet of Ramen? Stories are everywhere - what does your Library count worthy of a place in its shelves?

Discuss! And remember: if you have an idea for a discussion prompt, submit it here and it may be used in future threads!

As some of you might remember, last year we tried a thing with some weekly discussion threads for people to discuss anything from Library lore to their writing styles, with a fresh prompt every week. Unfortunately due to various reasons (read: I disappeared for a bit lol) that petered out, but based off a recent poll it seems like there's still quite some interest in something like that! So I've decided to restart it, on a more manageable biweekly basis. For our first round, our prompt is:

What themes do you love including in your work, and what do you find yourself unable to write?

—submitted by Stygian Blue

Discuss! And remember: if you have an idea for a discussion prompt, submit it here and it may be used in future threads!