Little Johnny's Breakfast Honey

Summary:

Because Children are the sweetest thing.

Little Johnny's Breakfast Honey

Dr Sage Evergreen 17 Feb 2020 19:31

Description:

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SCP-XXXX is the designation for an anomalous hive of Apis Mellifera (common honeybee). Unlike their ordinary counterparts, these bees consume children younger than 18, rather than nectar.

The exact process of how SCP-XXXX consumes children is unknown. Only a handful of cases have ever been documented. Eyewitnesses report seeing a swarm of SCP-XXXX instances approach a child before surrounding them. After approximately 30 seconds, the swarm of bees will disperse, leaving no trace of the child.

SCP-XXXX-01 is the designation for children "consumed" by the SCP-XXXX swarm.
SCP-XXXX-02 is The honey produced by the bees. It tastes extremely sweet, although it contains traces of human blood. Thus far, no anomalous properties have been found from consuming it.

SCP-XXXX-03 is a beehive-like structure surrounding an abandoned schoolhouse, where most SCP-XXXX instances reside.

SCP-XXXX-03 is the designation for the entity assumed to be the Queen of the hive: a young female, dressed in the attire of a 1940s-era school teacher.

Explanation+Narrative

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When a SCP-XXXX swarm “consumes” a child, they actually assimilate the child’s mind into the hive. The child’s body becomes the bees in the SCP-XXXX swarm. These children are able to alternate between human and bee form, and are often seen in large groups when playing outside the hive.

There would be two journal logs.

One belongs to the Queen: Following the start of WWII, the Queen was a reality-bender who suppressed her ability, and took the form of a schoolteacher in a small German village. As the war progresses, the schoolteacher attempts to hide a number of the students in the schoolhouse, although they soon run short on supplies. The teacher soon begins to hallucinate from starvation, she begins to visualize her students as bees. Her suppressed powers turn her hallucinations into reality, hence the formation of the SCP-XXXX swarm and hive.

The second Journal deals with "Little Johnny," one of the schoolteacher's students, and his experience being in the SCP-XXXX Swarm.

The third Addendum is the transcription of a video log, where two foundation agents sent towards SCP-XXXX-03 are captured by the teacher, force-fed honey, and subsequently join the swarm.

Thanks for the greenlight! One more needed!

Last edited on 21 Feb 2020 23:53 by Dr Sage Evergreen Show more

Forum Criticism Team - Captain Post

Zyn 17 Feb 2020 19:54

Dr Sage Evergreen, as per the Ideas Critique forum guidelines: http://www.scp-wiki.net/forum/t-12808866/how-to-use-this-forum-ideas

Please don't just link or excerpt a sandbox draft. Give us a quick explanation of the concept. We don't need to see all the complicated details that would be present in a draft; we're helping out with the core idea. Link a sandbox ONLY IF A REVIEWER ASKS.

If you're unsure of what a concept summary looks like, take a look at other threads in this forum.

Also, please note that the maximum wordcount for concept summaries is 500 words. What you have here is almost 900. Please trim accordingly so as to not overload reviewers with unnecessary fluff text.

Last edited on 17 Feb 2020 19:55 by Zyn Show more

Re: Forum Criticism Team - Captain Post

Dr Sage Evergreen 17 Feb 2020 20:08

Alright, I just cut it down to 500 words.

Re: Forum Criticism Team - Captain Post

Zyn 17 Feb 2020 20:22

According to this site: https://wordcounter.net/ you're still over by 30 words. It's not that much, admittedly, but it might still make reviewers hesitant about whether their feedback will be followed.

At this point, feel free to reach out to a reviewer on the Butterfly Squad Roster or the IRC chatrooms for your critique.

Re: Forum Criticism Team - Captain Post

Dr Sage Evergreen 17 Feb 2020 20:29

Sorry! I didn't highlight the whole thing when I was word counting it. But I Just cut it down to 498 words, which I think should be good.

Re: Little Johnny's Breakfast Honey

gee0765 19 Feb 2020 23:13

Summoned by PM

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The actual anomaly at play here seems both overcomplicated and not especially interesting. Stealing people isn't really anything that interesting, having existed in basically all forms for ages. Adding the anomalous effects of the honey doesn't change this issue, and just adds another not especially interesting anomalous effect. The ageing backwards doesn't seem to have any thematic connection, even after knowing the twist, and the addiction really isn't that intriguing. Anomalous addiction is generally a fairly lazy way to get characters to do whatever you want them to, and this is no different.

The twist isn't especially intriguing. Hive minds aren't really a new concept anywhere, having been present in dystopia/far future fiction multiple times. I have some concerns about how she would know about what happened to all her schoolchildren beyond just being drafted, and that reading a journal entry just consisting of her talking about children being drafted and dying would be reasonably predictable after the first event and devoid of much that's interesting. Like, we aren't actually seeing much information about the children beyond the small glimpses the teacher would get.

The other section of the story of the queen is slightly more intriguing; however, the connection to the actual formation of the anomaly comes across as fairly forced to me. The fact that she actually considers this about the bees when wanting to destroy them feels a little too much like we're having the morals forced upon us, and I don't understand quite how the death of her children would lead to the creation. Also, for a message which is preaching the negativity of humans and the goodness of bees, stealing children as a bee sorta goes against that.

Last edited on 20 Feb 2020 18:44 by gee0765 Show more

Re: Little Johnny's Breakfast Honey

Dr Sage Evergreen 20 Feb 2020 21:42

Thanks for the advice!

I have a couple of questions though:

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I see your point with the story being overcomplicated, and reading through it again, I have to agree with your point. I can see what you mean with the overuse of tropes: the hive mind, the addictive honey, the death, and so on. The base concept for this SCP was having a beehive that fed off of children rather than flowers. It was only due to the narrative aspect I put in the rest of the things about the teacher and the hive’s formation and so on.

As for the theme I had for the original storyline, it wasn’t meant to be about the evil of men. It was more aimed at the innocence of children, and the teacher’s attempts to preserve them. The loss of her student’s would’ve served as a cataclyst for the rest of the story. What she notices about bees is that they work together instead of destroying each other, unlike humans do, hence the reason she turns her students into bees. Perhaps she starts to see her students as bees? Perhaps she and the students are somehow trapped in the schoolhouse, and the teacher sees the students working together to survive? And because of the teacher’s suppressed powers, the students begin to transform into the SCP-XXXX swarm? It’s just an idea.

Also, for the honey, is there any way to make it more unique? I would’ve planned on the teacher and the swarm mass-producing the honey and distributing it to soldiers, in order to stop them from fighting and assimilate them into the hive.

Lastly, is this idea at all salvageable? Should I go back to the base concept? Should I try to build off of what I have? Or should I just move on to another concept?

Last edited on 20 Feb 2020 21:43 by Dr Sage Evergreen Show more

Re: Little Johnny's Breakfast Honey

RockTeethMothEyes 21 Feb 2020 04:13

Responding to PM request.

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Man, I really want to like this. I'm seconding Gee on this being a bit over-complicated. I can see how the pieces fit, but the puzzle itself has a lot of pieces to get there.

The queen's intentions conflict her beliefs, unfortunately, which make this a hard sell. A lot of this I can get behind, but some of it has to go for this concept to really work out. The hive should not be made from the children because that's contradictory, the honey could always transform children into bees or just be normal honey, and making the honey into an addictive substance doesn't do much for the article itself.

Overall, I do think this story has legs. The delivery is just a bit heavy-handed, but I can't really get too into that at the conceptual stage, since it seems like it would require pulling out specific details. I'm going to give this a tentative greenlight.

Last edited on 21 Feb 2020 06:35 by RockTeethMothEyes Show more

Re: Little Johnny's Breakfast Honey

Dr Sage Evergreen 22 Feb 2020 00:04

Awesome! Thank you so much!
So I've altered the concept around a little bit. I know I'm jumping around from theme to theme a lot, but I'm starting to feel like Self-preservation may fit better than childhood. The queen would turn all the children into bees as a way to protect herself and her students. The honey they make would just be for themselves, without any anomalous properties.

Also, instead of having the children be consumed, I changed it so that they physically become the bees, and are capable of shifting between human and bee form, hence giving the foundation the opportunity to interview one.

Anyways, thanks for the feedback! I'll be sure to carry through with your advice!