Alright. So i've talked to you on IRC, but I'll summarize points here.
This is a Tale set in a universe (or even just at a particular site) where these people happened to have a couple of D-Class who were indisposable. The ones we're concerned with had relatively okay privileges, and the named Personnel had relationships with them. D-Class, but still colleagues.
Scott made the mistake of getting to close, and paid the price in agony. This examines the fallout. It's indirect, and specialized, but most of the other characters don't even touch on the D's death. Jackass's desire to amnesiac Scott shows Jackass's disregard for the D-Class's (and other deceased's) legacy.
It still fits under contest rules, especially considering your arguments/counterpoints down below. I do admit it's more tenuous than would be ideal, but it stands.
There's a lot of good tales about SCPs on the site.
There's a lot of good tales about Foundation horror on the site.
There's not a lot of good tales about people on the site. This is one of them.
Emphatic +1 for the first believable human interaction I've read on the site in a loooong time.
I can only assume the dates are wrong in multiple places. Not to mention the timestamp on the last entry. In this kind of format that's fairly important.
Also, maybe I'm just dense, but I don't really get what's supposed to be going on. SCP incident, this guy is not doing so well, and… then it ends? There seem to be several plot threads that are more like balls of lint: tiny and fuzzy and I'm not really sure if they're supposed to be there or I'm imagining it. Overall I'm confused.
I'm going to echo what minmin said. This work is very focused on the SCPF Researcher and only dips its toes into D-Class contest content.
Granted, I like this a lot. The emails and correspondence have a lot of nice flow, and I really find them to be believable. There is good characterization here, and you can really feel the different personalities of the various hands involved.
Unfortunately, its just not really D-class focused, which is a key point for a D-class entry. No vote for now, will likely change to an upvote at the contest conclusion.
Vote has been changed to an upvote.
If 28 goddamn words focussed less on D-Class and more on lolShenanigans can make it into the contest
- An alternate title for this particular entry into the contest was "Disposable", which might hopefully come through in terms of thematic content.
- "You are strongly encouraged to avoid current Class-D cliches (such as the 'death row recruitment' cliche or 'monthly termination' cliche)." The main (i.e. non-dead) Class-D happens to be a military vet, gets communication privileges (something I've only ever seen in We Who Poke With Sticks) as well as psychological treatment.
- "Meaningful interaction of D-Class Personnel with other Foundation characters." As much emphasis is possible is laid on trying to make the D-Class a character.
- "You may be interested in discussing… the attitudes towards them held by the rest of the Foundation." In this Foundation, the D-Class is a bit more than someone you send kamikaze'ing towards their death, and D-33810 and her friend D-11938 are (ironically) both indisposable. For different reasons, obviously, but the point stands.
That being said, if you don't feel that the entry suits the contest, that's perfectly fine:
There is good characterization here, and you can really feel the different personalities of the various hands involved.
This was the main point of the tale, so I'm glad you at least enjoyed it for this.
I might just be dum but I can't really get a handle on what's happening? Normally I'd just downvote but it seems like only I'm having this problem so I'm holding off in lieu of some kind of explanation that pulls this whole thing together for me. IDK.
if your reading this your gay
8:53 PM <AidenEldritch> ok so um
8:53 PM <AidenEldritch> we got five main chars here
8:54 PM <AidenEldritch> we got Dr. Scott Fletcher, Dr. Adileh Khayyam, Sam Morgan, Andy Gerson and D-11938
8:57 PM <AidenEldritch> Dr. Scott Fletcher is the mentally fucked man at the center of it all
8:57 PM <AidenEldritch> Dr. Adileh Khayyam is the Good Gal Psychologist
8:57 PM <AidenEldritch> Sam Morgan is an arsehole
8:57 PM <AidenEldritch> Andy Gerson is the pharmacologist
8:58 PM <AidenEldritch> not D-11938 ffs
8:58 PM <AidenEldritch> D-33810
8:58 PM <AidenEldritch> yes, D-33810
8:58 PM <AidenEldritch> yes, D-33810 was a friend of the now-dead D-11938
8:59 PM <AidenEldritch> D-11938 helped neutralise some Blackboxed Bad Shit™ with Agent Bayer
8:59 PM <AidenEldritch> Bayer was Fletcher's husband, which is why he's so distraught at the start of this tale
8:59 PM <AidenEldritch> (got that so far? >.>;)
9:01 PM <AidenEldritch> now, Dr. Khayyam is responsible for Fletcher's mental health
9:01 PM <AidenEldritch> because his colleagues are twats, Fletcher's slowly going into a downhill spiral
9:02 PM <AidenEldritch> Morgan keeps asking about when he's going to come back and keeps trivialising his mental health like the DICKBAG he is
9:03 PM <AidenEldritch> as a result, it's implied Fletcher's beginning to abuse his meds
9:04 PM <AidenEldritch> after Khayyam gets word of Fletcher's Valium abuse, D-33810 gets in touch with Khayyam
9:04 PM <AidenEldritch> D-33810 feels sorry for Fletcher since she also lost someone important to her in the clusterfREDACTED
9:05 PM <AidenEldritch> Khayyam then does two things - try to arrange a meeting with 33810 and Fletcher as a sort of group therapy thing, and place Morgan under Ethics Committee watch.
9:06 PM <AidenEldritch> Before 33810 can actually reply, though, her temp. email address gets shut down (implied to be shut down by Morgan)
9:07 PM <AidenEldritch> A few days later… something… goes wrong with Fletcher in his room at the Med Bay
And that is the entire plot of the Tale.
You are now free to downvote. Carry on, comrade.
Okay, I get it now. And now that I do get it, I'm pretty neutral about it. Keeping my no-vote.
Thanks for the help though.
if your reading this your gay
I'm also going to no-vote, after confirming that this was pretty much about what I thought it was about. You spend too much time being clever and alluding to things and trying to paint a picture through elision, that you bury most of the actually interesting character drama. This kind of thing isn't that interesting when it's buried under a whole bunch of "let me sidestep the story and tell everything through ~semi-related anecdotes~" crap.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that you've chosen a format that only hinders the story and it'd be much more effectively told in regular prose form.
EDIT: More thoughts. What it basically comes down to is, you've got a whole bunch of telling-not-showing, and experiencing characters emotions and feelings through secondary and tertiary sources instead of up close and in the moment, and on top of that it's all buried under this bit of "okay now I have to go back and reread this damn thing to make sure I've got everything straight". If a story's going to make me go through it with comb to appreciate it, the pay-off needs to be a lot more interesting than it is here.
Seconding rume's pre-edit post. I was a little too confused by the whole thing to feel confident in an upvote. Not to discourage innovation, but sometimes it has to be acknowledged that new/unconventional methods of storytelling are ineffective.
Neutral voting. The deployment of the epistolary format you've chosen was done well, and given how often we've seen it in the past, this was executed in such a way that it wasn't a tiresome back-and-forth between two characters. You've clearly managed to convince people to attempt to put the pieces together, so that, in itself, was well done.
I also like the story you're trying to tell. It's human drama, which is maybe not quite as rare a thing as folks think here. That's the source of arguably all great literature, and it's something we need to develop more of. The characters feel like the beginnings of something that I would be interested in, although I think the people who are likely rightly concerned about when they'll be fully staffed are just a bit one dimensional.
Unfortunately, I feel like the format isn't a perfect fit for the story. I would be interested in some prose dialogue between these characters, and I think I agree with rumetzen that this might have been better served by a more traditional presentation. For a piece that is relying heavily on character, this isn't quite landing with the immediate impact that I'd like to see.
I like where you're headed with this, but I'm not quite on board just yet.
