The Seven Anti-Gods (Seeking Greenlight)
Seeking Greenlights: Yes
Page Type: SCP-Article
Genre: Spiritual/Mystery.
Elevator Pitch:
Central Narrative:
Hook/Attention-Grabber:
The Seven Anti-Gods (Seeking Greenlight)
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» Writing Help / Help: Ideas Critique
» The Seven Anti-Gods (Seeking Greenlight)
Summoned from the dark depths of IRC
I think the initial concept works as a starting ground for a deeper narrative. The problem is, there isn't a deeper narrative. Having the boy and all that is fine, it sets up some pieces for later emotional stakes, but there doesn't end up being any. Foundation discovers anomaly, Foundation determines how to contain anomaly, anomaly is contained. It's very straightforward, which, and I mean no offense, makes it quite bland. Somewhere in that timeline of events, you need to move the pieces. You have to run a story. It doesn't have to be particularly deep, or grandiose, but it has to be entertaining and touch on some emotion, strike a chord with the reader. Otherwise, it's just a document. The description both describes the object and sets up the narrative, and then the addendums take it from point A to B, B to C, C to D, and so forth until it hits a conclusion. Right now, it's just point A.
Thank you very much! I really appreciate your response. I am really thankful!
Hello! I'm Flight Officer Impperatrix and that's one of my last reviews as an Officer!
Remember that when you're writing an idea here, it's like you're selling a product. You're not telling me anything of what's really happening in the narrative. I know that there are seven angels that gave the Foundation seven items to contain seven Anti-Gods, but you're not telling me anything about the real story here.
I mean, the real story is how or what are these seven men, how the items are to be used to contain them, and what happens when the Foundation goes after them. Your idea is full of holes that you have to explain for the crits that come here to read them. What are the items? Where are the men? Are they together? Do they know what they are?
Another little thing: if you're already creating a connection mental connection between your skip and another one that already exists, there's a problem here. You need to be cautious so your skip doesn't become a rip-off of another article.
However, I feel that you have a narrative and character development in your head. The true problem here is that you're not selling them to us. Try to update and improve your text, I know you have something here.
Good luck and good writing!
Woah! Thank you very much, I'll be fixing it.
Answers:
Through your curiosity, if you don't understand why the angels made the items like this but not other things you expected it was to be, then it was because the items represents for the Anti-Gods personalities/characteristics.
Where are the men?
As I said, they will be contained in a separate Site specially design for them, which the Site was to be kept a secret for all personnel under the level Clearance of 5. The Site is very far away from the human population and is located in an area where only those above Level 4 can know. As I said, they will be contained in a separate Site specially design for them, which the Site was to be kept a secret for all personnel under the level Clearance of 5. The Site is very far away from the human population and is located in an area where only those above Level 4 can know.
Are they together?
Absolutely no, the interview conducted with the angels have proven that these entities here was strong enough to pose out dangerous threats to not only the world but other worlds also.
Do they know what they are?
They already know who they are, I said they only had their powers revoked not losing all of their memories, for reason it was because their power rival against those who have defeated them, the angels can't affect their consciousness because it is immortal, and it protects the males from being affected by mental corruption or any other mind affecting abilities. The fact is that the angels might be able to defeat them, but they can't destroy the Anti-Gods consciousness.
please collapse long posts for the sake of mobile users ~cybersqyd
I second Immperatrix's sentiments. Something that can help is to think of the emotional reaction you want the reader to have. I think you might be going for "curiosity" generated by a mystery, but that means you want to have a reader buy-in first: why should we care about the mystery you create? ("Curiosity" doesn't necessarily need a mystery, it just seems like yours is set up that way).
Additionally, be careful of the Foundation acting counter to expectation — why aren't the agents trying to contain the angels? For that matter, why are the angels going to the Foundation instead of, say, the Global Occult Coalition (GOC)? (Mind, the Foundation could still be the one's that the angels meet with — it's just a matter of motivation).
Good luck!
Hello there! Thanks alot for crittng my thread.
Answers:
Why aren't the agents trying to contain the angels? For that matter, why are the angels going to the Foundation instead of, say, the Global Occult Coalition (GOC)?
The GOC mainly focuses on destroying anomalies instead of containing them. The possibility is that either the angels and the Caucasian males will be terminated when they attempt to interact with the GOC. Yet, the angels shouldn't come to the Global Occult Coalition because their goal was to make sure that the Anti-Gods are to be kept in the state of powerless humans with only anomalous properties that turned them into absolutely unkillable. And second of all, these aren't angels, their cosmic entities from a place known as the "Metempiric Space" that takes their physical forms as angels. Third, the Anti-Gods must never be killed because if they die, their consciousness remains alive. The Anti-Gods have immortal consciousness that can penetrate anyone's soul, allowing them to acquire new bodies. Fourth, containing the angels isn't a good idea, because the Anti-Gods were formerly boundless reality-warpers, meaning that they have no limits in bending reality to their own will, what makes you think the Foundation would even attempt to contain Seven "angels" that rivals their powers. Yet, the angels would just leave the universe of the SCP-Foundation afterward, since their job is to balance the meta/omni-universes.
is forced to become powerless humans with nothing other than having a decisive regenerative healing factor, superior adaptation ability, immortality, and unlimited Acausality to ensure they do not die.
um the 'immortality' here feels like they have a pretty good lock on not dying here but also… if this is them stripped of powers i shudder to think how wildly overly powered this scp would be with their full powers.
Beyond this: the core of my issue with the pitch is the entire narrative summarises to "the angels bring the anti-gods to the foundation and then the foundation effortlessly locks all of them up, the end". Like… what are you planning on doing with this? Are you intending exploring the whole big huge battle thing that caused the loss of their powers? Is there some kind of exploration of who they are in the logs/addendums in the database?
I just, don't think there's anywhere near enough narrative meat to sustain this; and it doesn't help that, very bluntly: the anomaly is wildly overpowered and not particularly interesting. That second thing isn't like, a fatal flaw per se as long as you do something interesting with the anomaly, you just uh, don't.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR CRITTING ME!!! YES, I'LL COME UP WITH AN EXPLANATION!!!
Hiya! I was summoned via PM so I'm going to crit this! Let's see what you got.
Coming here from IRC.
It seems like you have received quite a bit of feedback already, so i'll try not to repeat too much of what has already been said. Also, apologies in advance if I miss any answers to my concerns hidden among your replies to others. Also also, i'm a little confused by some of the other feedback so not sure if you edited or i'm missing something.
Overall, its not bad. I really like the idea of spirit of revenge with a child-like grasp on the world, probably a bad analogy, but feels very peter pan and the lost boys to me. I think one of my big concern, which may be nitpicky, but I feel like there is just too much going on in the bullet points. He's got "too many powers". Once again, not a major sin. Honestly, I think the other biggest issue which has been addressed by the others is that the narrative seems a little vague. I wish I had more to provide, but I think there are those wiser than me who have said all I have to say. Sorry
Yes, thank you, friend!
PM request acknowledged.
T.L. at your service!
- I honestly don’t find anything really interesting about the anomaly. From the backstory to the anomalies properties, there’s nothing that sticks out as unique. The concept of omnipresence is already commonly known and used throughout popular media, especially when it comes to Christian related beliefs. Plus, the backstory on cults and sacrifices is quite a cliche at this point. Honestly, whenever I see the word cult, I’m gonna think “sacrifices, sacrifices, sacrifices”. It’s getting way too predictable.
- There’s very little context on the interactions between the boy and the seven primordial entities. Like, what are those demons getting out of granting the boy any power he wanted? I just feel like the demons would have some kind of sinister reason or deal behind their actions, but there is no reason present.
- There’s also not a lot of context on the boy before he was sacrificed. Like, who was he? What life events lead him to pick the power of omnipresence? What happened to him that caused him to do what he does with his anomalous properties after him being sacrificed? What exactly are his motives when he received his powers?
- Getting onto the specifics of what the anomaly does, anomalies that induce violence is another common Wiki cliche you should try to be warier about. Plus, it seems like it just triggers traumatic flashbacks in people and asks to mind control them. When you break it down, there’s really not much originality or uniqueness put into it. You might also want to give the boy/anomaly a reason why it’s tracking down targets to assault them because it’s just another cliche when an anomaly exhibits violent behavior for no reason.
- I feel a little unsure about going into detail on the Junior Researcher since the SCP article would mainly be focused on the SCP itself. I just feel like the researcher isn’t a very significant character and that the amount of information you’ve given on him seems unnecessary and redundant.
- I also feel unsure about the discovery of the anomaly. Like, how did it jump from outbursts of violence to the Foundation getting involved? There have been many violent outbursts throughout history, and there could be many reasons why those violent outbursts are happening (like, say a mental illness due to disease or some kind of hysteria). How was the event regarded as noticeably anomalous enough for the Foundation to step in and say, “Yup, this is the type of work for the Foundation” and not medical experts?
- What exactly do you plan to include in the interviews? Could you provide a small summary of your plans?
- I personally feel like the MTF portion on finding the cult’s hideout to be redundant because I don’t really see how it adds to the overall story. The MTF just goes in to retrieve “an object” that was given no description. What are they even going to do with the object?
- I am questioning why the boy is only targeting Viet Nam when he can literally be present everywhere else due to his omnipresence. Is he from Viet Nam? Does he have some angst against his fellow Vietnamese? Maybe you could do a bit of research on the Vietnamese culture and add some of it to your concept. A Vietnamese cult is something I’ve never heard of living in America, and I personally think you’d have more room to make things interesting than just your average cult if you explored culture.
Overall, I don’t really see a huge connection with a lot of the aspects mentioned in this concept. There’s also a lot of things holding this concept down like the lack of originality and uniqueness, the gaps of information, and some logical inconsistency. However, I do see some potential if you tried exploring Viet Nam’s culture and implement it into the concept for some kind of unique spark. I’d personally love to know a bit more about Viet Nam as a Vietnamese born in the USA, but that’s just my opinion.
If you have any questions regarding my critique, please let me know. You are welcome to PM me for another look, or you may follow up with someone from the Butterfly Squad Roster or IRC Chat rooms.
Yes, thank you very much! But I was shock from hearing the fact you were born from the USA with the name of a Vietnam civilian. How is that possible, if you were born in USA shouldn't your name at-least includes an English name? And, actually, I'm a person who's from Vietnam also. Although I haven't experienced a lot of their culture yet.
I am questioning why the boy is only targeting Viet Nam when he can literally be present everywhere else due to his omnipresence. Is he from Viet Nam? Does he have some angst against his fellow Vietnamese? Maybe you could do a bit of research on the Vietnamese culture and add some of it to your concept. A Vietnamese cult is something I’ve never heard of living in America, and I personally think you’d have more room to make things interesting than just your average cult if you explored culture.
No, he has no angst against Vietnamese fellows. As you know, despite being an Omnipresent phenomenon, the SCP can only be a presence in the country where the source of its existence is being held. SCP-XXXX-2 is the source of SCP-XXXX's very existence. It is initially a medium-size crown-like boulder that looks like that mixed it between a ruby stone and a tiara. In-short, SCP-XXXX doesn't have an urge against Vietnamese or humanity. It was because it can't leave the country to go to different countries and has the mind that led it down a good and bad path. You know, like a feral mind that misjudge parent's scoldings and their harsh advice and warnings.
What exactly do you plan to include in the interviews? Could you provide a small summary of your plans?
The interview includes with the individuals being affected by SCP-XXXX, which are children from the age from 6 to 15. As the interview moves on, the individuals who accepts SCP-XXXX's offer would claimed that they start to feel aggressive for unknown reasons, their aggression just kept on increased every minute passes by, but they just don't know why. Once when the anger has reached to its limits, the individuals would gain enhanced physical abilities capable of overpowering at-least 5 fully grown human. But if they declined the offer of SCP-XXXX, their entire five senses would automatically be disabled for intervals of 24-hours.
In the second interview is with SCP-XXXX who has yet to de-manifest. It has express its feelings of what does it feel in its former-life, when the researcher attempts to gather some basic information of his relatives. He discovered that the boy is somewhat, kind of childish.
I personally feel like the MTF portion on finding the cult’s hideout to be redundant because I don’t really see how it adds to the overall story. The MTF just goes in to retrieve “an object” that was given no description. What are they even going to do with the object?
The Foundation runs some test and discovered that it is the source of SCP-XXXX, it yet invulnerable towards all kinds of threats, and it is actually a cosmic prison, trapping seven demonic-entities, and if it breaks, considering and XK-Class scenario would occur.
There’s also not a lot of context on the boy before he was sacrificed. Like, who was he? What life events lead him to pick the power of omnipresence? What happened to him that caused him to do what he does with his anomalous properties after him being sacrificed? What exactly are his motives when he received his powers?
The boy is a Vietnamese civilian who lived a life that he was the one who made it became more hardship for him. A boy is a person who, due to lack of physical built and intelligence, including talents, his parents have signed up for him multiple classes, mostly every day and week.
He never gets to have any blank free times, always goes to work, and has stress because he has taken over two and sometimes 3 hours. This causes strong stress upon the boy, which he blames the peoples who do this to him. The boy desires to know when there are physically abused, bullying, cyber-bullying, and "unfair" things (Which are children being stress due to being scolded hardly by their parents and had to complain about words they don't want to.
Which the parents did that for their sake.) And since he lived his life with a family with a short-tempered father, hates those who repeat mistake two or three times. He somewhat inhabits his father's tough-manners but not brave enough to express it to the world because of his fear of provoking himself into troublesome situations where he would have more complaining. The boy is very sensitive in having to receive bad complaints, scoldings, and insults. He just couldn't understand. And thought that all of those are violent and types of abuse. The boy prefers peoples to at-least speak in formal.
But nobody accepts that. Which is why after being sacrificed, the boy's biggest desire wants to become something that'll teach those peoples a lesson, which of course, he became "Violent Embodiment". In-short, he wants to be those peoples who are described to have the personality of a no-nonsense tough-guy who wants to "beat the shit out of your senses". Which he targets those who only scolds, grounded, or hit their children for their sake.
I feel a little unsure about going into detail on the Junior Researcher since the SCP article would mainly be focused on the SCP itself. I just feel like the researcher isn’t a very significant character and that the amount of information you’ve given on him seems unnecessary and redundant.
If you say so, then okay.
I also feel unsure about the discovery of the anomaly. Like, how did it jump from outbursts of violence to the Foundation getting involved? There have been many violent outbursts throughout history, and there could be many reasons why those violent outbursts are happening (like, say a mental illness due to disease or some kind of hysteria). How was the event regarded as noticeably anomalous enough for the Foundation to step in and say, “Yup, this is the type of work for the Foundation” and not medical experts?
It was clear. The phenomenon itself targets those who caused misery, heart-broken, or suffering towards others. Which in one ocassion, the Foundation would received numerous reports of violent children beginning to increase slowly nowadays.
Summoned via PM.
Alright, let's do this.
I have to say, at a first glance, this isn't all that interesting. You have some kind of "justice-seeking" SCP that the Foundation negotiates with for some reason? The idea of the Foundation isn't "We do things for the good of humanity". All the actions taken by the Foundation are in service of protecting normalcy, not humanity. It doesn't matter whether this SCP is doing good things or not, the Foundation is going to stop it simply because it's causing normalcy to break down.
Next, the story isn't engaging. You have a couple parts of the three core components needed:
Character
Conflict
Conclusion
Who or what is the protagonist? What are their goals?
What are the obstacles in the path of the protagonist? Why does the protagonist's goals need to be fulfilled? What happens if they are not fulfilled?
How is the conflict resolved? Does the protagonist succeed? Fail?
Ultimately, I don't like this idea. It's a god-like entity that does what it wants and the Foundation can't stop it, so what's the point? Remember, you may have an emotional attachment to this character, but nobody else does. So ask yourself, how do you want the readers to feel when they finish reading?
But that's all from me for now. Hope it helps.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!! YOUR CRIT IS AMAZING!
Following what Zoobeeny has said, I've decided to revise some of the descriptions.
About the interviews with the instances and SCP-XXXX:
Well, SCP-XXXX instances would say that they couldn't resist, forget, or ignore the recall memory events. And when they decided to accept the offer of SCP-XXXX, they would become aggressive. SCP-XXXX would slowly increase the aggression they have every minute. Once when anger has reached, the person would enter a state where they would faint. SCP-XXXX would take control of them, which it will track a certain target that gave the affected subjects bad experiences and will go to lengths or perform extremely reckless feats, which of course, they would either break the target's bones or leave behind scars on them.
What incident occurs? And why does it had to have such Containment procedures?
This was thoughted to be a medium-level problem. However, it later turned into an absolute extreme level. SCP-XXXX was one day defeated by a delinquent at a public school who is messing with a weak boy, which the instance wasn't able to get their revenge, as a result, in the next day, SCP-XXXX re-manifest into the body of the boy who unsuccessfully got his revenge. Still, this time, the instance was observed to have greater physical abilities. Yet, Mark discovered another property from SCP-XXXX whenever an SCP-XXXX-1 lost in a battle, when SCP-XXXX re-manifest into the minds of the former affected subject, the physical built would be more advanced. SCP-XXXX-1 this time gains physical abilities powerful enough to overpower a human being with peak-human level physical abilities. As a result, it caused the delinquents to all end up in hospital after leaving behind many wounds that would take over years to be healed. The Foundation has taken responsibility, gave each of the individuals that are present.
In another incident, SCP-XXXX was helping a pair of male siblings from another group of delinquents in the middle of the night. As a result, the instance of SCP-XXXX was all tied up and was beat until faint, the teenagers all went home. On the next day, SCP-XXXX re-manifest itself back into the teenager's mind, and this time it has developed another property. The teenagers responsible for him and his brother's beat down were later murdered by SCP-XXXX-1 themselves. As a result, they did survive the battle, but the severe wounds and scars left on them never healed. Even when weeks and months pass by, the wounds didn't heal either. The boys have all died due to blood loss. Following this incident, the Foundation feared that many lives would-be falsely accused. The Foundation decided to have taken matters upon hand by installing the devices to track down the instance of SCP-XXXX, of course, a violent measuring device that measures the capacity of a person's violent tendencies, since those who have been manifest by SCP-XXXX would have the highest violent tendencies of them all.
To find a way to control the reactive-adaptation abilities of SCP-XXXX, Mark started a protocol/project with the approval of the O5-Council, which is to design a special device that could restrain the adaptation ability of SCP-XXXX-1. As when Mark finished the project, Mark eventually equipped the device with SCP-XXXX-2 as the source of SCP-XXXX and SCP-XXXX-1's existence, which the device also restrained the superhuman physical abilities and reverted it to peak-human physical abilities. SCP-XXXX was displeased of knowing this. However, it was warned by the Foundation to not to do any murder or else they may turn his inhuman physical abilities back to weak human physical abilities. Because of this, SCP-XXXX has no other option.
Why can't SCP-XXXX-2 be destroyed by the Foundation for the sake of keeping normalcy and humanity safe?
One, it has absolute-invulnerability. Two, it is initially a cosmic prison of the seven primordial demonic-beings, if it gets destroyed, an XK-Class scenario would occur.
Placeholder
Hello, sorry it took so long to get back to you, and I do apologise, but I change my mind on deciding to look at this.
Nah, its not big deal, I get it. But thanks anyways.
Noting that there's a lot of stuff in this thread and, since the main body of the post has been recently edited, I've not read it all, so I may have missed answers to questions.
a magician, taxi driver, toy store manager, gym owner, salaryman, bartender, and a civilian somewhere around 35.
'civilian' feels out of place here: like everyone else has a relatively specific job (except 'salaryman'), and then you just have 'not army', which like, so is everyone else here?
From much information that Dr. Franklin had collected, there were a few that mentions the supernatural. He concludes that the seven men are anomalies.
So like, what is this kinda deduction stuff like in the article? My, concern is that the style of SCP articles makes it really hard to have someone figure stuff out via like, prose or w/e; so like, what's your plan for doing this? Are you putting in Franklins personal notes where he figures it out? Just showing the information he uses to make the deduction and then relying on us making the same one? Something else?
Later on, he dispatched a group of MTF to the location where the seven anomalies usually gather to do their nighttime "jobs."
The anomalies were later contained and brought into the Foundation
This reads as if the MTF going to the location is not the same as the thing that brings the anomalies into containment: is this actually the case? If so, why?
where Dr. Franklin had interrogated them for answers before forcing them to bring back his dead brother.
This feels like a really weird jump: like, why does Franklin think this is something they can do? How can he force them to do this?
The demonic beings shall resurrect his dead brother if he promises to join and win a game of survival.
what's the 'game of survival'?
My, central concern with this pitch is that it feels a little all over the place: you have this doctor spending ages investigating the disappearance of his brother; then you have this interview where he decides to get his brother reanimated, and then you uh, have some kinda challenge scene I guess where Franklin has to do something to succeed; and then the story just kinda, ends when he does and everything goes away?
More to the point: Franklin has an extremely obvious conflict of interest here; like, the anomalies having abducted/killed his brother is an extremely good reason to immediately take him off the case as soon as there's any indication that the Foundation are going to get involved as a whole here. There's not really any reason for the Foundation to let Franklin interview the SCP, and there's really no reason for the Foundation to let Franklin enter this deal with the anomalies.
I think having seven different anomalies here might be a misstep too: it means you have to write stuff in the ConProcs and the Description relating to all 7 of 'em, and then come up with different feeling characters for them all and balance them all having space to talk in interviews with Franklin saying things to move the narrative forwards and stuff; and it feels like they're overcomplicating this: there's not really much of a narrative reason that there can't just be say, one here. Like, they're all found at the same time, they all appear to agree to the deal, they all are involved in the disappearance of the brother; so like, why even have 7?
Also what are they even doing here: you mention that they leave after Frankin wins, which implies that they've finished their job but I uh, really don't see why that's the case? Why are they even abducting folk?
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page revision: 1, last edited: 02 Apr 2021 15:16
