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And it is finally up.
I would like to thank Reject, who's draft this article is a substantial rewrite of (under "Vlog") and gave me permission to do so. I would also like to thank Aiden Eldritch, Dr0Shadow, and WrongJohnSilver for their critique and words of support. And many thanks to C-Dive for translating this onto the Japanese branch :D
The channel that led to 2352's discovering was originally supposed to be a reference to Night Mind; sort of a reciprocation for the SCP Vault video he did. However, after feedback, I conceded that it was blatant and distracting in the original draft, so I made it less explicit.
There are some slight easter eggs in the Webcrawler designation. See if you can guess what they are.
I hope that other people become inspired by what I've included of my DIAMOND idea in this article. If any one does, feel free to PM me and I can offer my thoughts and suggestions.
Small grammar mistake in the broadcasts section
SCP-2352's obect class was updated to Euclid,
Upvoted earlier, but switched to downvote after a reread. I think you can do better than that final note directly telling the reader how -2 has changed. It'd be more satisfying to see it grow over its time in containment, which I think you could do with some extra logs. As it stands, the final note would have much more impact if it weren't so forward, and perhaps simplified should you include more logs. I'd rather see -2 naturally get to the point where it makes that decision, rather than it's 'this is what I learned' speech.
"Do you know what DIAMOND stands for, Agent?"
"Digital/Internet Assessment, Masquerade Obfuscation, and Network Development."
"And what does that mean to you?"
"Someone really wanted our name to spell 'DIAMOND'."
Kidding aside, that's a really good piece of world-building. (Also, "That Weird Part of Youtube Again" is about the funniest name for anything I've seen here.) I was all set to upvote, but that last addendum spells it out far too plainly. I was getting the sense that this was what was happening, but I'd have rather put things together for myself, while maybe seeing a small snapshot of what happens when -2 leaves and the anomaly is neutralized. It's a neat idea, but that addendum needs to go/be massively cut down.
"Do you know what DIAMOND stands for, Agent?"
"Digital/Internet Assessment, Masquerade Obfuscation, and Network Development."
"And what does that mean to you?"
"Someone really wanted our name to spell 'DIAMOND'."
I know that you said you were joking about this, but that is pretty much how it happened, yeah. The name "Diamond" came to into my head a while back, and I only made a backronym out of it sometime later.
Downsides:
- It got pretty repetitive in the video logs.
- The amount of blackboxing is fairly ridiculous. I understand that it's there for verisimilitude, but it just breaks up the reading needlessly.
- Overall it's pretty basic.
Upsides:
- Even if the last collapsible was pretty direct, I still enjoyed it.
One last thought, is that supposed to be a heart symbol in the text at the end? That's pretty silly.
One last thought, is that supposed to be a heart symbol in the text at the end? That's pretty silly.
Yeah. I realized that the name DIAMOND inadvertently set up a basis for a card suit-based thing, and I decided to go with it because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ why the hell not?
I'm going to echo the above comments that the note spells out what's going on way to plainly, but it also kind of sucks the mystery out of the entity. You've got a lot of good imagery and moments in the preceding article, but the addendum just doesn't have the life that the rest of the article has. The entity doesn't really have a very strong personality, and his monologue doesn't come across as genuine. It takes out all the mystery and tension, which is a shame because otherwise the article was very strong.
-1 for now
Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!
I want to thank you all for the thoughts and critiques that you've given me so far.
I've gotten some mixed responses towards the final addendum. I will freely admit that "show, don't tell" is an aspect that I've constantly struggled with in my writing. I felt like the implicit development between Simon and the entity in the logs1, followed by the explicit conclusion at the addenda would be a good way of going about it, but I guess it doesn't seem that way for some people.
I'm going to leave it as is for right now, however, but will consider changing it in the future.
I like what you've done with this. I agree with the others however that the note at the end takes the suspense out of the article. Personally I see no need to break the fourth wall (talking to the Foundation directly) when you already have this wonderful vlog format that made the body of the SCP so interesting. The real issue with the note though is that it says too much.
Here because I was asked to provide critique.
First, there's some minor issues laced throughout this.
+Archived Containment Procedures
I clench every time I see a collapsible in the containment procedures. 99% of the time, it's not really necessary, in-universe because these are electronic documents and presumably they would updated by the Foundation in a manner befitting that, and out-of-universe because unless you've got some extremely complex story that demands something like this (and in this case, I don't think you do), this serves as filler. We should all be focusing more these days not necessarily on shortening our narratives, but rather cutting parts that are unnecessary. I can invest myself in a long article, but if it's weighed down by filler I'm going to check out.
06/██/1█
This article has huge problems with weird and pointless redaction. What exactly is the purpose of allowing a reader to know what decade something is occurring in but not the precise year?
There are currently 1██ instances of SCP-2352 on record
And why are we allowed to know that there are between 100-199 instances, but not the specific number?
With few exceptions, all broadcasts involve SCP-2352-1's diatribes on a range of topics, from the minutiae of its life to its limited knowledge of global events.
This is a little familiar for clinical tone. "Diatribe" has connotations of a bitter and somewhat vitriolic statement, and thus carries with it subjective value judgments. As do the terms "minutiae" and "limited knowledge." The Foundation feels like it's weighing in on the quality of the videos here when there's really no call to do that.
SCP-2352-1 is the corpse of Simon M█████████.
There is no reason to strike peoples' names like this. From the rest of the article, I know this person's state of residence, the number of letters in their hometown, and the circumstances of their death. I could likely find who this is with a ten minute Google search. Either the reader is cleared to know the name, or they shouldn't be, in which case, why leave a trail of easily-followable breadcrumbs?
age 1█ at time of death
Again; why?
SCP-2352-2 is a humanoid, extradimensional entity
The term "extradimensional" gets abused constantly around here (I too am an offender in that regard), but really, what does it mean, and why is it assumed that this thing is "extradimensional"? Do we really know enough about it to make that supposition?
; no vocalizations from the entity have been recorded.
See my previous complaints on why someone managing an electronic document wouldn't leave strikethroughs and such all over the place.
The video had garnered ████ views and ███ comments
Why on earth is that classified?
branded as a ♡ (Low Risk, Non-Malevolent) priority
This seems like a weird bit to throw in, and I'm not sure why it's here. The use of non-language symbols in this context seems like a bad idea for organizational consistency.
The issues outlined above, taken together, probably would have been enough for a downvote on their own for me. But my main problem is the character at the center of this. Presumably, you have a non-human entity that is so interested in what this guy on Youtube has to say that it's checking in on his videos constantly and then goes so far as to reanimate him after he's too dead to continue.
The problem with that is that a) it presumes that this weird, crystalline, extradimensional (I guess) entity is close enough to humans in mindset and intelligence that it's capable of extracting meaningful information out of a specific guy on Youtube, and b) it presumes that the Simon character is at all interesting. And really, being the character at the center of this narrative, he's not at all interesting. Simon is a garden-variety guy what complains about predictable stuff on Youtube with the standard amounts of ignorance that can be encountered daily on the internet. This person is no different from a thousand other people I encounter every day, and so I have no idea why I should care about him, let alone why he's interesting enough for a non-human entity to play Weekend at Bernie's with him.
The path forward for this is as a character piece, but you've got no characters. And that's not an entreaty to "add backstory," because it won't be enough to simply build out any character for Simon. In order for this to work, I as the reader have to buy that there's something about this guy that warrants such strange attention. And right now, I'm definitely not buying that.
Thank you for the critique. I'll go over the minor issues you mentioned first:
I clench every time I see a collapsible in the containment procedures. 99% of the time, it's not really necessary, in-universe because these are electronic documents and presumably they would updated by the Foundation in a manner befitting that, and out-of-universe because unless you've got some extremely complex story that demands something like this (and in this case, I don't think you do), this serves as filler. We should all be focusing more these days not necessarily on shortening our narratives, but rather cutting parts that are unnecessary. I can invest myself in a long article, but if it's weighed down by filler I'm going to check out.
This is all a fair point, and something that I felt uncertain about even as I was writing this. I'm going to go ahead and remove it.
This article has huge problems with weird and pointless redaction. What exactly is the purpose of allowing a reader to know what decade something is occurring in but not the precise year?
….
And why are we allowed to know that there are between 100-199 instances, but not the specific number?
….
Again; why?
…
Why on earth is that classified?
Again, fair criticisms. I guess I've gotten so used to other articles doing these kinds of redactions, I didn't stop and think that it might annoy some people. I'll go ahead and undo these as well.
This is a little familiar for clinical tone. "Diatribe" has connotations of a bitter and somewhat vitriolic statement, and thus carries with it subjective value judgments. As do the terms "minutiae" and "limited knowledge." The Foundation feels like it's weighing in on the quality of the videos here when there's really no call to do that.
Clinical tone is something that I've constantly struggled with, on and off the site. This I've made no secret, and it's part of the reason why this article took so long to finally be put up. I might get around to re-wording this particular bit later to be more objective.
The term "extradimensional" gets abused constantly around here (I too am an offender in that regard), but really, what does it mean, and why is it assumed that this thing is "extradimensional"? Do we really know enough about it to make that supposition?
The crystal person is labeled as "extradimensional" because it can't be seen on the purely visual spectrum, only when it's being recorded by a camera.
There is no reason to strike peoples' names like this. From the rest of the article, I know this person's state of residence, the number of letters in their hometown, and the circumstances of their death. I could likely find who this is with a ten minute Google search. Either the reader is cleared to know the name, or they shouldn't be, in which case, why leave a trail of easily-followable breadcrumbs?
When it comes to explaining choices such as these, there are the options of Watsonian and Doylist. For the sake of this reply, I'll go with the Doylist (out-of-universe) approach.
…
I couldn't think of a good last name for him. Bit of a lame answer, I know but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it's the truth.
See my previous complaints on why someone managing an electronic document wouldn't leave strikethroughs and such all over the place.
Once again, fair point. I'll probably change the strikethrough into a footnote or some such.
This seems like a weird bit to throw in, and I'm not sure why it's here. The use of non-language symbols in this context seems like a bad idea for organizational consistency.
I explained this up a few replies, but I'll add that it's something that I think gives my article (and any future ones I make involving DIAMOND) that extra bit of uniqueness.
As far as the characterization of Simon and the entity go, I will concede that I didn't give as good of characterizations to either of them as I could've. I gave a reasoning for why the androgynous crystal person was so interested in him in an earlier version of the addendum, but I truncated it, and now all that's left is the implicitness in the logs. Something for me to think about in the future…
Again, I do want to thank you for your words, even if I kinda had to ask you to do so :P
(account deleted)
