I'm completely lost.
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Image is "Lanius excubitor 1" by Marek Szczepanek. CC BY-SA 3.0. Downloaded from Wikimedia Commons.
Some brief notes:
"Shrikes are known for their habit of catching insects and small vertebrates and impaling their bodies on thorns, the spikes on barbed-wire fences or any available sharp point. This helps them to tear the flesh into smaller, more conveniently-sized fragments, and serves as a cache so that the shrike can return to the uneaten portions at a later time."
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrike
Thanks to TwistedGears, Djoric, Professer Will, and hambling for peer review!
Okay, cool. I like what you've done here but it's really obtuse. I think what you're trying to imply here might be a little obscure.
Maybe try to inform the reader a little on the behavoirs of shrikes in the article somehow?
I'm not sure how I can do that anymore than I already have without breaking tone. SCPs aren't natural history essays for lay-people.
There is this:
While SCP-2323-A specimens will demonstrate non-anomolous hunting and feeding, using both natural thorns and barbed wire to impale prey
And also the picture, which clearly shows the feeding behavior. That's a vole impaled on a thorn, next to the shrike.
But they should be easily grokable for the layperson. Even in-universe, the point of the entries is to provide a quick and dirty summary of anomalies for easy browsing and digestion.
Again though, I do describe the feeding behavior of shrikes and also provide a photograph. Do you have suggestions on how I can elucidate further, without adding a huge tone-breaking wikipedia article on Lanius excubitor?
I'm not sure. But I don't think you make it clear that this "impaling stuff on thorns" thing is a natural thing that shrikes do. You've got one sentence about their behavoir but if you're not familiar with shrikes it makes no sense.
I also think you've got too much going on here. There are easier ways to contain this thing than a memetic factor that doesn't even fit the rest of the article. I'd even go as far as to say that containment wouldn't be much more than surveillance and study of the species. What is there that actually needs containing anyway?
And if these birds were doing something that needed containing, they're reduce the species to a manageable size and maintain a personal breeding population in containment.
Birds have weird behavoir because they'd actually eating something we can't see? That's interesting in its own right. You have a hook and a payoff. In my opinion, you can stop there.
I'm not sure. But I don't think you make it clear that this "impaling stuff on thorns" thing is a natural thing that shrikes do. You've got one sentence about their behavoir but if you're not familiar with shrikes it makes no sense.
Is "non-anomalous" not clear enough? Would "natural" be better?
Also the picture is a real life picture of a shrike eating a vole that it has impaled on a tree-thorn…
I also think you've got too much going on here. There are easier ways to contain this thing than a memetic factor that doesn't even fit the rest of the article.
Interesting, this was the easiest form of containment I could think of (essentially using standard zoological habitats). What do you suggest?
I'd even go as far as to say that containment wouldn't be much more than surveillance and study of the species.
Then the carrier birds would teach it to wild birds, and since it appears to be preferred, it will quickly spread throughout the species.
What is there that actually needs containing anyway?
It's an anomaly, and this is the Foundation, they contain anomalies. If they allow it to spread, then it can have all sorts of impacts but chiefly a) threat to normalcy and b) extinction of the prey entities and whatever impact that has. The Foundation probably doesn't want [REDACTED] as an enemy, they famously wax a grudge.
And if these birds were doing something that needed containing, they're reduce the species to a manageable size and maintain a personal breeding population in containment.
The covert deliberate extinction of millions of incredibly successful passerines with intercontinental distribution and massive ecological impact? What's wrong with just maintaining the quarantined captive population and not overrunning Sweden with voles?
Birds have weird behavoir because they're actually eating something we can't see? That's interesting in its own right. You have a hook and a payoff. In my opinion, you can stop there.
I don't understand what you are suggesting I remove. You want a SCP with no Special Containment Procedures? That seems like an oxymoron. What am I missing?
I personally didn't look that closely. Deci probably didn't either. I'd go as far as to say most people only glance at the pictures for a vague idea of what they're in for.
It's an anomaly, and this is the Foundation, they contain anomalies. If they allow it to spread, then it can all sorts of impacts but chiefly a) threat to normalcy and b) extinction of the prey entities and whatever impact that has. The Foundation probably doesn't want [REDACTED] as an enemy, they famously wax a grudge.
What I'm saying is the meme is unnecessary because this:
It's a behavior in great grey shrikes that allow them to see, kill, and eat fairies. The fairies see it as terrible monster that impales them on cold iron spikes. They try to placate it with religion, but it's a bird and doesn't care
Is good enough on its own. I personally don't care about the meme. i'm sure you could make it work but it doesn't really as it stands. There's just too much going on and none of it is given enough room to breathe.
Here's some advice: pull back. Take away the Foundation's knowledge of the faeries. Leave it as a curiosity for the reader to put together. You don't need to cover every base. You can leave some things up to the reader.
I am sorry, you've lost me.
What I'm saying is the meme is unnecessary because this:
It's a behavior in great grey shrikes
That is the meme (SCP-2323). If I get rid of it, then I just have mundane shrikes (and I guess invisible tiny magical people that nobody knows are there). There's no anomaly without this behavior, and there's no SCP without an anomaly; just a description of Lanius excubitor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_grey_shrike already exists, and isn't fiction. This is a speculative fiction/horror site not a real encyclopedia. 0_O
I'm really confused about what you are trying to say here. Sorry.
Here's some advice: pull back. Take away the Foundation's knowledge of the faeries. Leave it as a curiosity for the reader to put together.
That's what I thought I did. The word "faerie" appears exactly zero times in this article. What sections are you suggesting be excised?
I guess I'm still completely lost, despite your spoilers. Means I can't help you. Sorry, dude.
Okay, sorry to have confused you. Is it that I'm using memetics in a non-human species? There's nothing about the concept that restricts it to humans (just that symbolic language makes it that much more powerful).
The meme is the SCP, and it's what's causing the birds to be able to see and kill fairies. The birds are non-anomalous; it's the infectious meme that is causing them to kill fairies.
And if the whole world is crashing down… fall through space out of mind with me.
Noting that the exact image is this one.
I also don't really get this. In fact, knowing your spoilers (the collapsible is broken) makes me even more confused. I can't up or downvote on stuff that leaves me seriously confused as to what's going on, and what's actually anomalous and why, so no-vote.
It's a behavior in great grey shrikes that allow them to see, kill, and eat fairies. The fairies see it as terrible monster that impales them on cold iron spikes. They try to placate it with religion, but it's a bird and doesn't care.
Meanwhile the Foundation is maintaining a meme in birds, by letting birds teach other birds (can't write bird memes down and store them in a safe) and is effectively containing otherwise utterly mundane birds because they are interacting with a great big scary uncontainable anomaly the foundation knows nothing about.
Alright. Now I can see it. But this is too obtuse for me to grasp, since even after four readings, I still didn't get it. So I'm still no-voting, because it's well-done otherwise.
I tried to make it less obtuse, but I didn't want to baldly state "Shrike food is made of [REDACTED] people!" either. Sorry I missed the mark for you.
I didn't get the fairy thing at all (iron thing makes more sense in retrospect, but we do need some more hints to get there)- but I overall liked this on weirdness value and writing. If you can somehow find a picture for one of the recovered objects, that would be great.
The part about the "memetic effect" just being a learned interaction with something else undetectable is cool fridge horror. Making this more obvious couldn't hurt, but it occurred to me when I was reading it.
Consider adding that the "non-visible entities" are intangible as well.
I didn't get the fairy thing at all (iron thing makes more sense in retrospect, but we do need some more hints to get there)
I don't think it really matters all that much from an artistic point of view. It was the reason for the iron and the fairy ring, but of course other explanations maybe just as viable.
- but I overall liked this on weirdness value and writing.
Thanks! I'm glad somebody likes it!
If you can somehow find a picture for one of the recovered objects, that would be great.
Sadly I live in California so I lack voles, shrikes of this species, and hawthorn, otherwise I would have just mocked it up. I hereby invite anybody who lives in Europe to do so if they wish…
The part about the "memetic effect" just being a learned interaction with something else undetectable is cool fridge horror.
Yeah that was the idea.
Making this more obvious couldn't hurt, but it occurred to me when I was reading it.
Yes, I think that's one of the challenges of this form. You have to skirt a careful line between occultation and understandability. To much of one and you lose the audience, too much of the other and you lose the narrative. I struggled with this here, obviously.
Consider adding that the "non-visible entities" are intangible as well.
They can't be wholly intangible, otherwise they can't be killed by shrikes. I don't think the good folk are intangible at least not wholly, in the mythos that this Scip assumes.
Hm.
- The procedures kinda delve into second person point of view territory, especially with "Use standard avian cages…"
- Getting technical about the food and the barbed wire is ultimately pointless. I have a feeling the Foundation would already know what to do with avian creatures.
- For dealing with the ones in a breach, the difference between recovery and destruction is pretty huge when concerning anomalies. Pick one or the other.
- The first footnote and the reference to it in the article is pointless. Same goes for the second.
- The last sentence of the first paragraph of the description is weird - first, there's an oddly used semicolon, and second, it seems to imply the carriers are non anomalous (although that just seems to be poor word choice).
- You'll have to revise for spelling anyway (there's a lot I'm just going to overlook for now) but make sure to change that "non-anomolous" in the second paragraph.
- Weird sentence structure again in the second sentence - you start talking about dietary habits, and then say this behavior is part of what they eat.
- You usually don't use the same footnote twice.
- "These objects occur" makes no sense.
- I might just be stupid, but where are these enclosures? Just the hunting grounds for the birds affected by the skip?
- None of those objects that appeared in the enclosure are inherently anomalous and I'm not sure on what their significance is.
So, yeah, spelling and tonal and grammar errors throughout. I'll leave you to find and fix them all.
Without the explanation, this is just a habit of some birds to go seek out and eat small primitive invisible people, with some weird objects here and there. I don't understand, nor do I really care as to how this all ties together, because I wasn't amazed at anything in particular.
With the explanation, we're still left with birds that like to eat fairies, and there's really not much else here. On top of that, the errors, and the various problems I have with the style, I'm going to have to down vote.
The procedures kinda delve into second person point of view territory, especially with "Use standard avian cages…"
I don't understand. Aren't all procedures by definition second person imperative? They are instructions to the reader, telling them how to deal with this thing.
Getting technical about the food and the barbed wire is ultimately pointless. I have a feeling the Foundation would already know what to do with avian creatures.
Just feeding them meat, or allowing them to live feed without access to iron thorns doesn't preserve the Scip. If they can't teach it to their offspring then the Scip dies out in one generation. They only live for 8-12 years.
For dealing with the ones in a breach, the difference between recovery and destruction is pretty huge when concerning anomalies. Pick one or the other.
I think this is up to the recovery team and the individual circumstances. Containment procedures can't cover every permutation (and really would be boring as hell to read if they did) and have to leave some leeway up to the responsible agent. In this case I think we can assume that recovery is preferable if possible. This is the Foundation, not the GoC.
The first footnote and the reference to it in the article is pointless. Same goes for the second.
The idea is to provide some verisimilitude. I've liked this in skips I've read. It makes sense that the Foundation would have their own internal publications. I am not going to write a fake journal article, and I didn't want to have to describe a bunch of pretty ordinary experiments and observations in this skip (as they would have detracted from the narrative). Pointing to bibliographic materials, hints that the information exists in the setting.
The last sentence of the first paragraph of the description is weird - first, there's an oddly used semicolon,
Is it? The second phrase could be it's own sentence "Which presents…", so it seems like an appropriate semicolon. I'll certainly change it if enough people disagree with me.
and second, it seems to imply the carriers are non anomalous (although that just seems to be poor word choice).
They are non-anomalous. These aren't magical birds. These are ordinary birds that have learned the one weird trick for eating pixies. This seems to be a good deal of the confusion here. There are plenty of scips that are magical animals. There are plenty of scips with human memes. This is a scip with a non-human meme. I don't think there's a lot of those (although Twisted Gears tells me there's one about a duck meme).
You'll have to revise for spelling anyway (there's a lot I'm just going to overlook for now)
Weird, I can't find any except:
but make sure to change that "non-anomolous" in the second paragraph.
Fixed. Can somebody please point to the others?
Weird sentence structure again in the second sentence - you start talking about dietary habits, and then say this behavior is part of what they eat.
This behavior is part of what they eat. I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are objecting to here at all.
You usually don't use the same footnote twice.
It's a biblographic citation. I'm pretty sure you use them wherever they are appropriate.
"These objects occur" makes no sense.
Why not? I suppose I could change it to "invariably are located". Would that be better?
I might just be stupid, but where are these enclosures? Just the hunting grounds for the birds affected by the skip?
Currently Site-██ and Site-██.
None of those objects that appeared in the enclosure are inherently anomalous
Tiny religious objects made by doll-sized hand-tools and used apparently for sacrificial ritual of a ~140 mm humanoid isn't anomalous? Objects that seem to just appear inside a fairy circle (that also just appears) when nobody is looking isn't anomalous?
and I'm not sure on what their significance is.
Ritual objects used to try to appease the terrible bird-god that impales its victims on the cursed metal of man. The bird-god doesn't care, because it's a bird. This might be a cynical metaphor for religion.
So, yeah, spelling and tonal and grammar errors throughout. I'll leave you to find and fix them all.
I'm sorry, I thought I got them all. I never would have posted to the main-list if I hadn't.
Without the explanation, this is just a habit of some birds to go seek out and eat small primitive invisible people, with some weird objects here and there. I don't understand, nor do I really care as to how this all ties together, because I wasn't amazed at anything in particular.
I'm sorry it doesn't do anything for you.
With the explanation, we're still left with birds that like to eat fairies, and there's really not much else here. On top of that, the errors, and the various problems I have with the style, I'm going to have to down vote.
Okay.
I didn't get this either at first. It took me three readings and the confirmation from your spoilers to get it across.
What I can say is this:
-Designating the meme as the SCP makes sense, but it's an unconventional storytelling perspective. This made the distinction between the SCP (behaviour) and the birds (-A) difficult to follow. I spent enough effort trying to figure that out that I was halfway before my second read before I even started picking apart the fairy portion.
As for the rest of it, your clinical tone is good, but that only goes so far. Your readers can't figure out what is normal or abnormal about the hunting behaviour. I had a lot of trouble visualizing exactly what you meant by all of the species, hunting, and fae items, which was exacerbated by already trying to figure out what all was going on.
Ultimately, I think the take-home is this: Yes, these are Foundation scientific documents, but you're not writing for the Foundation. You're writing for an audience of genre-savvy but non-avian-biologist non-memeticist wiki readers, and while this is a really cool idea, your audience clearly does not get it.
There are several components to this idea, and you need to push each one across. Scale back the clinical tone and research detail, try to bring items that are visually striking out first.
For example, you don't need to separately describe anomalous and non-anomalous prey habits and what behaviour is abnormal. It would be easier and clearer to a day, for instance, that in addition to their usual prey, they also hunt invisible creatures, which they exclusively impale on barbed wire. Footnote that they usually hunt by impaling. We're taking two sentences there. All of the details about the invisible creatures that you think are worth keeping can hit another paragraph.
For now, I'm downvoting. It's not because I don't like it, I just think you need to take a hammer to it and or it back together for it to work.
-Designating the meme as the SCP makes sense, but it's an unconventional storytelling perspective.
Isn't this the case for all memetic SCPs?
For example, you don't need to separately describe anomalous and non-anomalous prey habits and what behaviour is abnormal.
I'm a little confused. If I don't do this, then I'm assuming the reader knows about shrikes, which seems to be a pretty bad assumption.
Footnote that they usually hunt by impaling.
They feed by impaling. Shrikes are passarines (sparrows) and lack talons. At any rate I'm not sure what that footnote would even look like and not be totally out of place in the document.
We're taking two sentences there. All of the details about the invisible creatures that you think are worth keeping can hit another paragraph.
I'll think about it!
For now, I'm downvoting. It's not because I don't like it, I just think you need to take a hammer to it and or it back together for it to work.
Okay, well I'll certainly think about this.
Isn't this the case for all memetic SCPs?
Yes, but memetic SCPs are all pretty high concept, and this one is even a step more obtuse or complex than those. To break down this article, the way this article is presented, the SCP is a memtically transfered behavior pattern among designated infected shrikes that includes the appearance of them hunting and feeding on invisible creatures including the creation of inconclusive physical and audio evidence of them having fed upon these creatures.
It's not billed as an anomalous (and memetically transferable) ability to see and hunt invisible creatures, it's billed as the behavior pattern of the hunting and the additional anomalous evidence of the kills. That's a pretty detached standpoint. I'm not saying that it needs to change or that it's a bad standpoint, I'm just saying it's a cause for confusion.
As for the paragraph, it might be something like this, but I'm not even beginning to suggest that you use this. I didn't write the article, I'm not here to rewrite the article, it's just an example.
In addition to non-anomalous hunting and feeding (using both natural thorns and barbed wire to impale prey)1, SCP-2323-A specimens engaged in SCP-2323 are observed to capture, impale, and feed upon non-visible entities (both on the ground and airborne) and exclusively use the barbed wire for this purpose. SCP-2323-A specimens display a preference for feeding through SCP-2323 over non-anomalous hunting, but will not engage in SCP-2323 if barbed wire (or other high iron content sharp metallic implements) are not present.
Unidentified vocalizations from the prey entities can be detected in high frequency audio recordings of SCP-2323. While the entities remain non-visible during feeding, the wire barbs used for feeding on non-visible entities become coated in blood. This blood is mammalian, but does not match any known mammal [see 1].
Finally, one point I was hoping to get across. The reason I'm posting here is partially because I like this article. It's a very cool concept. But I'm also frustrated to see the rest of this discussion thread and your responses to it. What people are saying here is that do not understand your article, and giving suggestions or advice about things that confused them. A lot of your responses seem to be defenses of your style choices or asking for specific advice on how to exactly reword it to be approachable.
My point is, people are telling you they are confused. Even if everything you are doing makes sense in context and is in proper tone and in conjunction with wiki convention and everything, they are still confused. That is a problem you will have to address if you want this article to succeed. It is not their job or my job to tell you exactly how to rewrite elements to fix that. Many of them, including myself, wouldn't feel capable or comfortable doing so.
Footnotes
1. Shrikes are passerines (sparrows) and lack the talons of other birds of prey. They feed by impaling their prey on thorns and tearing them apart with their beaks.
It's not billed as an anomalous (and memetically transferable) ability to see and hunt invisible creatures, it's billed as the behavior pattern of the hunting and the additional anomalous evidence of the kills.
Well it can't be presented as objective science and be the former. Nobody can interview these birds.
Dr. Ryan: So what is it you are hunting there?
SPC-XXX-A-04: Tweet!
As for the paragraph, it might be something like this
So change "thorns" to "sharp metallic implements" and put a paragraph break in the middle? I'll think about it.
But I'm also frustrated to see the rest of this discussion thread and your responses to it.
I'm sorry. I'll try to be more gracious but I do reserve the right to try to defend my choices. I don't think you can have a meaningful critique if you can't.
asking for specific advice on how to exactly reword it to be approachable.
I'm sorry, I could have phrased this better, I'm sure. It's just that for criticism to be actionable, I need to understand it, and I find I understand examples most clearly.
For example:
This makes no sense.
and
There's a lot of grammar and spelling errors. I leave you to find them.
Are not useful to me but:
This [specific sentence or concept] makes no sense because [reasons].
and
There's a lot of grammar and spelling errors, such as: [list of errors].
Are.
That is a problem you will have to address if you want this article to succeed.
Well, it's currently sitting at +20. I am afraid that if make the kind of broad structural changes that a few posters seem to be asking for, insofar as I understand them, then I will probably lose the audience I do have as well as the integrity of the piece. You can't please everybody all the time. I think I'm content to keep the majority of the audience happy at the expense of a minority.
Thank you.
I don't think that you were ingracious, and I don't think their commentary was particularly helpful.
The fact that you posted an article that several people immediately found confusing enough to comment gave me the impression that you had not gotten feedback before posting. In that context, the way you responded to them gave me the impression that you were not taking your audience seriously, and that that was harming the article.
I think I also made a snap judgement based on a few early commenters (and my own confusion), and the article has since found an audience. I still think it could be stronger with changes in construction (there are probably people you could reach who are no-voting or skipping it), but +25 is rather good.
So, sorry for somewhat jumping down your throat. As for myself, I'll give it a clean reread later and see if my own feelings hold, and reassess my vote.
The fact that you posted an article that several people immediately found confusing enough to comment gave me the impression that you had not gotten feedback before posting.
I wouldn't do this (I think it's a really bad idea) and did thank the reviewers in my first post, up-thread.
I still think it could be stronger with changes in construction (there are probably people you could reach who are no-voting or skipping it), but +25 is rather good.
This is not for profit public art. I'll happily sacrifice some popularity for integrity. In my commercial work, I'll bend over backwards to please a mass audience, but not here (so long as it isn't in danger of deletion anyway).
Echoing the sentiments that were expressed upthread; it does have a few issues in terms of readability, with the third paragraph in particular sort of coming out of the blue. I did manage to get the general idea on the first read-through, but I would recommend adding footnotes or something to make certain things that people have voiced complaints about clearer. Upvoting despite my issues with it because the implications of it are great and it presents the idea in a very interesting way.
And if the whole world is crashing down… fall through space out of mind with me.
I did manage to get the general idea on the first read-through, but I would recommend adding footnotes or something to make certain things that people have voiced complaints about clearer.
I seem to have as many people saying I should cut most of it as saying that I should add a bunch of natural history notes (sometimes in the same post). I'll need to think about this.
I actually got this on the first read-through, but that may just be because I'm a mytho/fantasy geek. I found it interesting, and enjoyed another scip that's a bird meme (trend maybe?). Upvote.
I added a footnote about shrikes and reordered the third paragraph in the description.
I like it. Understood it after thinking a bit, took me a bit to notice that they found a fairy ring without mushrooms in it.
There's mushrooms:
surrounded by a ring of fungal fruiting bodies of a species of non-anomalous macrofungi
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