SCP-5462 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-5462.

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Cerastes 01 Aug 2020 21:20

Song of my soul, my voice is dead,
Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed
Shall dry and die in
Lost Carcosa.

Yes riemann, i stole your reference

A draft I've been working on for a little over three months about inspiration, wherever it may come from. Thank you to everyone who helped make this what is is today.

+ Licensing

First image is from 1824, thus public domain.

Second image is by Vicente López Portaña in 1826, also public domain.

The biography section has largely been taken straight from wikipedia and edited slightly.

Last edited on 01 Aug 2020 23:43 by Cerastes Show more

Liryn 01 Aug 2020 21:25

cool, good, and epic. +1

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And I live by that.

Riemann 01 Aug 2020 21:50

Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies,
But stranger still is
Lost Carcosa.

This is very well executed. It is also a combination of "The Yellow Sign" and "The Mask" from Robert Chambers' The King in Yellow, adapted to the (admittedly also from Chambers) Hanged King.

J Dune 02 Aug 2020 16:05

The premise? Extremely creepy. The journal entries? Well-written. My problems with this lie with the "anomalous" connections in the journals. The dream/vision sequence felt particularly uninspired, and while the City All Of Blood connection was nice, you introduce more and more elements (Algadda, Hanged King, 035) in such a surface-level, referential way that the entire piece becomes unfocused. Goya having a connection to all of these anomalies in a short span of time took me out of the story. The final AWCY? mentioned borders on ridiculous, and felt more forced than anything else in the article.

Last edited on 02 Aug 2020 16:08 by J Dune Show more

Cerastes 02 Aug 2020 19:10

Goya having a connection to all of these anomalies in a short span of time took me out of the story.

My intention wasn't for him to have a connection to it, but rather more of a spiritual journey. His mind was opened to higher things, and it took a bit of time for him to find his way back to Alagadda.

weizhong 02 Aug 2020 19:30

I have to agree with the sentiments expressed here. The references feel unnecessary to me for the most part, and don't go further into any kind of connection that would deepen the intrigue of the story beyond "this is a thing."

Additionally, while I did quite enjoy the logs at first, the sheer number of them and the more or less redundancy of their message made them become a bit of a drag over time. There's very little sense of rising tension across them, making some of the later entries a bit harder to read because they communicate the same message that we've already received: Goya is losing his mind.

Ultimately though, the central premise is very good, and the writing is solid. I just think that this could probably be pared down a bit and better focused.

WhiteGuard 14 Aug 2020 03:45

I happen to agree with Dune and weiz on this one. I felt the references didn't actually contribute all that much and it seemed like you could have accomplished a better effect if you trimmed the number of logs here. Otherwise, the concept seemed alright and the article itself was well-written. But unfortunately, I wasn't a big fan of the result.

Marceline_Raynes 04 Aug 2020 05:37

While I was initially apprehensive of the biology section, I did find it rather enjoyable. (I am not a big fan of history, you see. I find it can be either hit or miss, but you definitely hit the mark here.)

The Hanged King and 035 references were cool, but they didn't seem wholly necessary to the story IMO. They more felt like "here's a thing that's related to this other thing" rather than actually enhancing the plot or creating drama. I think the article could have done without them.

Given the last line, I would have to assume that Goya started AWCY?, which is a pretty radical idea that I really like truthfully.

Overall I liked this. Easy +1

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~ M.D.R.

Foxchalk 06 Aug 2020 18:35

Not My "type" of SCP at all, however despite that I greatly enjoyed the way you wrote the journals and for that it's a +1

Last edited on 06 Aug 2020 18:37 by Foxchalk Show more

Rioghail 24 Aug 2020 19:55

I'm afraid I can't say I'm much of a fan of this one. I generally agree with J Dune and Weizhong: the logs seem to me like a lot of references which don't do much themselves and pad the article out unnecessarily. On top of that, it doesn't do enough with Goya or the Black Paintings to justify invoking them as the core of the article for me. I feel like the article should really be about -B, with this material used to contextualise it, but at the moment it feels like a lot of references to other articles orbiting an extended reference to a real artist.

LiterallyMechanical 31 Aug 2020 02:55

A little too heavy on the crosslinking for my taste, but the punchline was more than solid enough to carry the piece in the end. I'm a fan! +1.

Last edited on 31 Aug 2020 02:55 by LiterallyMechanical Show more

minmin 21 Sep 2020 08:53

nnnnnnnnnnot the biggest fan of the crosslinks here. it's a shame, because the journal entries display a command of the language that stands entirely well on its own, building towards a horror of its own accord, without the need to lean on the legacies of 701/035 (and awcy???? like what do you even see in the champagne anarchy of AWCY that even suggests baroque Alagadda???????) and the Goya reference is just the cheap whipped cream on top of this cake - the Black Paintings already have so much traumatic weight to them (history! the decrepitude of the body! war!) that to 'enhance' the images with anomalous explanations is to cheapen a lot of their inherent power. what's next - edvard munch was inspired by a certain neck-cracking pissboy??? van Gogh was depressed because of aliens????????????

I feel that a lot more could have been done with this. The power of the language in the journal entries is evident, and the language that the author is so capable of using can very well stand for itself, had it wanted to try, instead of crutching itself with mass references that do nothing to enhance the source materials or the work itself.

+1

Seraphannim 09 Feb 2022 11:44

Though the criticism about the cross-linking and the punchline being a little weak are valid and I get where they're coming from, I still really enjoyed this. The language and descriptions used in the journal entries were my favourite bit, I could picture the city of Alaggada in the artstyle of the paintings.

I might be viased due to the (very much needed) spanish rep, I admit, but anything Goya and his Pinturas Negras are always a yes in my book. Thank you for this!

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