SCP-4552 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-4552.

cybersqyd 19 May 2019 20:09

this is a nice attempt at an SCP and it does a bunch of interesting stuff but it feels, a little off? the historical context is fascinating, and the hallucinations are a fine anomalous effect but the two don't really mesh together and neither really feels like it has any payoff? like the journal entries tell an implied dark little story but there's not any clear relation of that to anything else? and the test logs are all, so minimal that they feel very forgettable. like none of what you have is bad, it's all very competently written, it just, doesn't quite manage to hit "interesting" and i'm sorry that i don't really have any suggestions on how to make this better.

+ minor stuff

Containment:

• "SCP-4552 is to be surrounded by a chain-link fence 2 meters high and watched by at least two armed guards at all times." how big an area is surrounded by this fence? two feels like it could be small here considering the implication that a reasonable number of people might be visiting
• "Tourists of the area" should be "Tourists visiting the area"; and i feel like "civilians" or something should be used in place of it
• "if they so please," should be removed

Description:

• "Dingle, County Kerry, Ireland" feels overly precise; the "County Kerry" can probably be removed
• "The ruins consist mainly": what else is there? is the other stuff anomalous?
  • this whole section of the description up to the mention of the diary entries feels like you've copied it from a tourist brochure for the location; i can't really pinpoint exactly what's wrong but it's phrasing like "although many believe there was once a fourth story" and "The lives of those that inhabited the castle"; and just, the general, wordiness of it? I'd recommend editing these two paragraphs down to a couple of sentences summarising the information
• "Before the hallucination ends, it often delivers the following verse": how often is often? is it nearly every time? half the time?
• what happens if someone who hasn't lost an acquaintance enters SCP-4552?

Addendum 4552.2:

• "Notes:" and "Hallucination:" feel like slightly unclear labels; i'd suggest perhaps leaving notes unlabelled; and changing "Hallucination" to "Relation"
• the Test 3 note feels very, tonally weird? the other messages are very, sad and kinda touching and then that one just feels, really out of place with the rest
• why would the ethics committee redact one of these tests? like i can see why a test might be redacted in general but specifically the ethics committee? i'm also not entirely sure that having a whole redacted test without hinting at why it was redacted adds anything?
• what's the purpose of specifying the ethnicity of the subject? it's only touched on loosely in test 5 and the additional note is sufficient there without having to also specify their ethnicity, so it feels slightly weird

SupremeLemonBread 19 May 2019 21:26

Hello, thank you for your feedback!

This was my first "real" attempt at an SCP, so I was expecting more than a few flaws in it. I understand that this is not a super original case of spectral haunting, but I'm still quite new to the site and horror in general. It can be a little hard to understand what I was going for, so I'll try to explain as best as I can.

+ Spoilers, I guess?

Aurnia murdered Hannah, plain and simple. I didn't want to say this outright as I'm not huge on treating the reading like a complete numskull. I do now understand how this might've been confusing to grasp. She, a pure soul suddenly turned evil, was left to linger the earth rather than go to Heaven or Hell. She felt guilty after a few decades, and instead of being a prick to visitors of the ruins, tries to empathize with them, giving them a vision of a deceased loved one.

I've addressed most of your minor things, other than:

• The area inside the chain link fence. Personally, I don't see the specifics of this as a very big deal, we don't need to be down to the exact square meter. Just enough room so the fence doesn't get in the way of pictures.
• The "County Kerry" in the location. Dingle isn't that big of a city. I believe the location of an anomaly is more important than the specifics of it's fencing, especially if it poses no physical threat.
• The description. It doesn't hurt to describe the castle in detail, and I believe it's history adds context in the diary entries for those unfamiliar with it.

As for the test logs, I wanted them to be as short as possible. While the hallucinations only last for a minute or so, there's only ten seconds of dialogue. If you met up with a deceased loved one for only a minute I'm sure time would pass in the blink of an eye.

Thank you once again for your feedback and your time.

Last edited on 20 May 2019 01:15 by SupremeLemonBread Show more

cybersqyd 20 May 2019 06:32

yeah, idk, the link might be clear enough? it's very subtle tho which, isn't necessarily bad

my issue with the description isn't so much "length" as "stylistic"; it feels, wrong overall for something that's meant to be very clinical in tone? i suggested cutting it down as a way to force a more clinical tone but *shrugs* the actual content isn't, bad per se?

and yeah i get what you mean about the test logs, but at the same time, they feel a little lacking? they add emotional impact but they don't really reveal anything interesting about the scp or the d-class subjected to them? *shrugs* they're probably fine as is

SupremeLemonBread 20 May 2019 13:32

Alright, I'll see if I can change the description to capture a more clinical tone. Thanks

BlueBerryHunter 23 May 2019 17:01

The Photo link is broken.

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BlueBerryHunter

SupremeLemonBread 23 May 2019 20:13

Thank you for letting me know. Flickr's site is down at the moment, so I'm afraid the link will stay broken until the site is up and running again.

DoodleBaldiBFB 24 May 2019 09:00

what about you get a replacement?

Junior Staff Post

Elenee FishTruck 24 May 2019 17:13

The image used in this article is non-compliant with the SCP wiki's license (CC-BY-SA 3.0) as the image license is All Rights Reserved. Thus, the image has been taken down from this article.

EDIT: The image’s license has been changed to public domain, and thus has been put back up. The source can be found here.

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Mm Mm Good

Last edited on 18 Aug 2019 02:38 by Elenee FishTruck Show more

Re: Junior Staff Post

SupremeLemonBread 24 May 2019 23:58

Sorry, didn't realize I had the image set to all rights reserved. I'm putting it back, as I took that image myself.

Connor MacWarren 03 Oct 2019 15:41

Everything here is too condensed for me to enjoy reading this. All that information is packed into superlarge paragraphs that make me tired with each passing sentence. Not too mention that the logs just feel very bland in terms of pathos. The setup for all of this just gets tangled up into one big discordant mess.