First SCP idea, seeking feedback

Summary:

I'm think of calling it "the renewable crewman" or "D-SCP" but I'm not sure yet

First SCP idea, seeking feedback

Raaor 20 Sep 2020 00:53

I'm thinking of calling it "the renewable crewman" or "D-SCP" but I'm not sure yet. Please let me know what you think, and don't be afraid to be harsh. :)

Seeking Greenlights: Yes (0/2)

Page Type: SCP Article

Genre: Comedy/Mystery

Elevator Pitch: The concept is a D-class personnel who is discovered to have the ability to recover fully from fatal injuries after surviving what should have been an instantly lethal blow to the head from another SCP while working for the foundation. I have chosen to have the SCP represent D-class not by making them a generic and completely average person, but by making them varied and giving them a wide range of knowledge and interests in order to show how diverse D-class must be in order to provide all the different types of test subjects needed for the foundations experiments.

Central Narrative: After discovering a foundation employee among D-class personnel with abnormal properties of recovery, the foundation scientists have to determine if the instance itself is an anomaly, or if it's possible that they got the abilities from another SCP in the foundation, meaning it would be possible for other foundation employees to develop anomalous properties. The discovery of an anomaly which went undetected within the foundation for years despite all their testing and resources causes unease among the foundation, so the SCP is put under lockdown to prevent contamination, and a research team is tasked with discovering the origins of the new SCP's abilities by combing through employee and experimentation records and by conducting interviews with the SCP itself.

Hook/Attention-Grabber: I just thought it would be kind of funny if one of the expendable crewman of SCP Foundation turned out to be immortal, and the concept kind of snowballed from there. I have since realized that the real hook probably isn’t the SCP itself as much as it is that the SCP was discovered already in the foundation, rather than discovered and brought to the foundation. As well as the character of the SCP being a unique representation of the most human/personalized aspects of D-class personnel.

Additional Notes: It's already written, and I've re-written and modified several parts based on feedback given in this phase, so I'm waiting on greenlights, so I can move on to the article critique phase.

Last edited on 04 Oct 2020 23:25 by Raaor Show more

Re: First SCP idea, seeking feedback

Cerastes 20 Sep 2020 02:25

Placeholder, will respond within 24 hours. Apologies for the late reply.

---

I can't find any particular flaws with the anomaly right now, though it does feel a bit barebones. But some ideas are naturally simple of course.

My largest issue would be with the narrative, which feels kind of… hum-drum, I suppose. It doesn't really spark any particular interest, it just kind of describes how a Foundation scientist would go about their job if they encountered an issue like that in their daily life.

I'd advise expanding and possibly revising your narrative to something with a bit more intrigue, I suppose? Obviously not everything needs to be a high-stakes action thriller like The Way It Ends, but a conundrum like this deserves a little more suspense, I feel.

Last edited on 21 Sep 2020 19:25 by Cerastes Show more

Re: First SCP idea, seeking feedback

Raaor 21 Sep 2020 21:35

I see. Thank you.

I have a tendency to overwrite and I was worried about going over the word count, which probably accounts for the “bare bones” feeling. I pretty much only wrote the the bare bones of this idea for the elevator pitch, but I get where you’re coming from. By doing that I left out quite a bit.

+ proposed solutions?

I’m not sure what I can do about the narrative. An SCP article isn’t a tale so the narrative focus is always about how the foundation does their jobs to the best of their ability, usually by trying to understand the anomaly to the best of their ability and/or addressing issues that come with its containment. At least that’s the trend I’ve noticed, but I’m certainly open to suggestions if you have any. In response to some other feedback I got, I’m reworking the article to be a little more narrative focused and giving more attention to the “how” of what’s going on, rather than just the “what” and the “why”. I’m still open to further suggestions if you have them. I’d really love to hear what you have to say.

There are other narrative elements that I elected not to mention in the elevator pitch that might interest you. Most notably the character of the SCP which, at least in my likely biased opinion, adds a second layer of interest. I chose to represent D-class not by making an exceptionally generic character but by making a character who represented the diversity the class must have in order to provide proper test subjects for all the experiments. Specifically by learning a multitude of skills from all the other D-class personnel she met over the years, so she’s extremely curious and inquisitive and has developed a wide range of knowledge and skills from working in D-class because she took every spare moment to ask people about their interests. There are other things that come along with that, but I’m afraid I’m being overly wordy again, so I’ll elaborate if you ask.

I’d really like to create the best article I can, so I hope to hear back from you!

Last edited on 23 Sep 2020 03:05 by Raaor Show more

Re: First SCP idea, seeking feedback

Cerastes 23 Sep 2020 22:13

Hmm. I think one aspect that could work well alongside the D-Class having been there for years is leaning into the paranoia/general unease surrounding the anomaly. Despite all their resources, all their testing and general safety, somehow an anomaly made it into their facility, or made someone anomalous and nobody noticed for ages. That could be an interesting trend to follow, though you'd have to find some way of following up the initial premise with an ending that delivers well on the reader's expectations.

Re: First SCP idea, seeking feedback

Raaor 26 Sep 2020 00:21

Sorry for the late reply, I was taking some time away to give myself a fresh perspective on this idea. That is a fantastic idea that I can't believe I didn't think of, thank you! I've incorporated that into my article and edited my original proposal to include that, as well as some feedback I got from the other person critiquing.

If there's anything else you can think of, I'd be more than happy to hear it! I hope I can live up to those expectations.

Re: First SCP idea, seeking feedback

Pedagon 20 Sep 2020 02:53

Hey!

Pedagon here from the Team of the Oinks! I'm here to be your critter!!

+ Roses and Thorns

The roses of this idea are in that it is interesting and could be engaging to a wide range of readers! I think this is an idea that many authors have had at some point but said “nah” so it isn’t on the site yet.

However, it is off the site in a big way. The Confinement series on YouTube has the main character as a d-class that can survive everything. If you haven’t seen it I strongly recommend it as a fun SCP creation! What this means for you in writing this is that I want to know what you would do with this idea and what narrative you would tell in your article beyond it just being a person that can’t die that interacts with other SCPs.

the foundation scientists have to determine if the instance itself is an anomaly, or if it's possible that D-181 got the abilities from another SCP in the foundation, meaning it would be possible for other foundation employees to develop anomalous properties.

This is your strongest part of your proposal and I want to know more about it! What will this exploration look like in your article?

+ Advice of Readings

I advise reading some other articles where the anomaly is used as a d-class like SCP-1680 or other humanoid entities that help the Foundation like SCP-172. Humanoids, unless suuuper creative, usually come with a commentary or narrative on something bigger than the entity itself. Consider what yours is trying to say about the Foundation or the world?

Welcome to the site! I'm looking forward to hearing back from you! :)

-Brian

Last edited on 22 Sep 2020 01:37 by Pedagon Show more

Re: First SCP idea, seeking feedback

Raaor 20 Sep 2020 07:25

Thank you! I had sort of expected to hear the first part. It definitely felt from the beginning like an idea a lot of people would have come up with and written off, but that’s all the more reason to act on it, I think.

I really appreciate the suggestions for what I should read/watch that’s super helpful. There’s just so much on this site so it’s hard to find specific things like that which relate to my own ideas.

+ strongest part?

I have to say I was a little surprised at what you pointed to as the strongest part of this proposal but after considering it, it makes sense. It just felt like the natural progression of the idea to me, so I didn’t think of it as anything remarkable. I’m glad I decided to make that the narrative focus, though.

What that means for the article that I'm writing is that rather than testing the limits of the SCP's abilities themselves, the focus is on where the abilities came from, which I've noticed doesn't seem to be common among SCP articles, so I though it might be an interesting route. In the case of my article, the SCP already worked as a D-class for several years, notably longer than the expected life span of a D-class, before they were discovered to be an anomaly, so the researchers have to consider time as a factor.

D-class also gets transferred around a lot, I've noticed (if I'm interpreting what I've read correctly), and I noticed in another article I read that D-class personnel don't keep the same number for the duration, they get changed, so the foundation has to track down every SCP this person has come in contact with to rule out the possibility of a transferrable anomaly, which is made all the more difficult by their own systems put in place to dehumanize their lab rats.

I haven't decided yet whether the anomaly actually was transferred to the SCP somehow, or if the foundation just accidentally hired an anomalous person because neither they, nor the anomalous person knew of their anomalous nature. I'm leaning toward the latter, but I could still go either way at this point, I just think since the concept started with "wouldn't it be funny" it might work better to finish it with "wouldn't it be funny if the foundation did all that work and it turned out the whole this was just an accident after all." I'm not glued to that though, and I could easily be persuaded otherwise, but I'd have to read a lot more SCPs to make an official connection.

Since this is an SCP and not a tale, a lot of the narrative stuff is mentioned but not really explored As much as it could be. I'm pretty sure all of it is there, though. It wouldn't be too hard to create a tale for this too, but as I mentioned, I'd have to read a lot more SCPs to write it myself, so I might sit back and hope someone who's been here longer than I have has a good idea for it.

+ trying to say

And to your last point about what the character is trying to say, I have this sort of notion of this character immortalizing the rest of the D-Class personnel as well, not in a literal way of course. The idea for the SCP came from “well wouldn’t it be funny” but the idea for the character actually came when I realized how diverse a group D-class must be in order to provide test subjects for all these thousands of experiments, because as I was reading articles I noticed that some of the experiments had really specific criteria for test subjects ranging from IQ, to mental or physical health, to origin, and I thought such a diverse group would also have diverse skills and interests, so the character I developed is one who realized this as well, and as a result made an effort to learn new things from all the other D-class personnel that she likely wouldn't have been able to learn if she hadn't become D-class personnel herself.

I tried to make a character that represented the entirety of D-class, not by being completely generic, but by showing the incredible diversity of the group. By learning from other class Ds and talking with them over an extended period of time, she has taken on what little these people had left after the foundation took away even their names and immortalized them within herself. That’s the idea anyway. The point of the character is that she forces the foundation to see the most human aspect of class-D while they’re focused on making sure her and especially her anomaly stay contained.

This is much longer than I meant it to be, sorry. At least I figured out how to do collapsible text before I posted.

Last edited on 21 Sep 2020 10:22 by Raaor Show more

Re: First SCP idea, seeking feedback

Pedagon 22 Sep 2020 02:42

Hey Raaor!!

Glad to see some response! Thanks for the pm on IRC! Love seeing the notification!

+ Informal Response

It definitely felt from the beginning like an idea a lot of people would have come up with and written off, but that’s all the more reason to act on it, I think.

More just that it comes with some pressure just like the 001 proposals. People feel like they can’t contribute to the lore until they’ve built up some credentials but you can do anything you want! It’s about your story. But also do take feedback but don’t feel like you need to take every piece of advice.

There’s just so much on this site so it’s hard to find specific things like that which relate to my own ideas.

You’ll get there eventually :) and once you start getting draft feedback you’ll get told more of what to read.

+ Roses

it makes sense. It just felt like the natural progression of the idea to me

This gives me confidence in you as a writer. Let the story tell itself and don’t try to force things that don’t feel right.

rather than testing the limits of the SCP's abilities themselves, the focus is on where the abilities came from

LOVE IT!! Only thing keeping me from giving greenlight is that you don’t really tell me how you would explore this aspect in your article. I love everything you’ve said about what your anomaly is and what your article will have in it but I need to know how you plan on doing it.

D-class also gets transferred around a lot, I've noticed (if I'm interpreting what I've read correctly), and I noticed in another article I read that D-class personnel don't keep the same number for the duration, they get changed, so the foundation has to track down every SCP this person has come in contact with to rule out the possibility of a transferrable anomaly, which is made all the more difficult by their own systems put in place to dehumanize their lab rats.

If this is your interpretation of D-Class then I support you!

how diverse a group D-class must be in order to provide test subjects for all these thousands of experiments, because as I was reading articles I noticed that some of the experiments had really specific criteria for test subjects ranging from IQ, to mental or physical health, to origin, and I thought such a diverse group would also have diverse skills and interests, so the character I developed is one who realized this as well, and as a result made an effort to learn new things from all the other D-class personnel that she likely wouldn't have been able to learn if she hadn't become D-class personnel herself.

This is my favourite thing you have written so far! This is a super powerful idea to explore and adds a lot to the lore of the site that I haven’t seen anywhere else. I love this so much!

I tried to make a character that represented the entirety of D-class, not by being completely generic, but by showing the incredible diversity of the group. By learning from other class Ds and talking with them over an extended period of time, she has taken on what little these people had left after the foundation took away even their names and immortalized them within herself. That’s the idea anyway. The point of the character is that she forces the foundation to see the most human aspect of class-D while they’re focused on making sure her and especially her anomaly stay contained.

Similar to above, this is phenomenal! Fantastic idea and fantastic presentation!

+ Thorns 

In the case of my article, the SCP already worked as a D-class for several years, notably longer than the expected life span of a D-class, before they were discovered to be an anomaly, so the researchers have to consider time as a factor.

Personal thorn. D-class lore has evolved a lot in the last few years and many people get annoyed by the “D-class are prisoners” or “d-class are sacrificed” trope so you might get some pushback. This doesn’t stop me from greenlighting but figured I’d mention it.

I haven't decided yet whether the anomaly actually was transferred to the SCP somehow, or if the foundation just accidentally hired an anomalous person because neither they, nor the anomalous person knew of their anomalous nature. I'm leaning toward the latter, but I could still go either way at this point, I just think since the concept started with "wouldn't it be funny" it might work better to finish it with "wouldn't it be funny if the foundation did all that work and it turned out the whole this was just an accident after all." I'm not glued to that though, and I could easily be persuaded otherwise, but I'd have to read a lot more SCPs to make an official connection.

This is good thinking and I love it! The thorn is just because this is central to your proposal and narrative. I won’t push you either way because each direction is good! You could even choose to leave that open to the reader if you want! But whatever direction you go you’ll have to make that choice now so you can work towards that (although it’s not like you are locked in and can never change direction later as you write!)

Since this is an SCP and not a tale, a lot of the narrative stuff is mentioned but not really explored

I do not recommend subduing your narrative in the article because it isn’t a tale. There are MANY story based entries that feel tale-ish but absolutely fit as an SCP article. Read some of the recent ones and ones in the current contest!

To summarize, I’m convinced at your idea and your article. You have me hooked and I’ll be your first upvote eventually probably! But I need more about how you will fit this all into an article. Definitely doable in an article rather than a tale! But how are you planning on doing it?

Let me know when you update! I really want to greenlight this for you but just need those final pieces!

-Brian

Last edited on 22 Sep 2020 02:50 by Pedagon Show more

Re: First SCP idea, seeking feedback

Raaor 23 Sep 2020 07:31

This is really helpful feedback I think, sensible and easy to understand, so thank you. After reading what you said, I've reworked some part of my article to trim down some of those thorns.

+ about those thorns

Firstly, in regards to my portrayal of D-class, when I said "several years" I meant about ten years before her abilities were discovered, which felt like a number most people wouldn't be able to argue with. Despite potential push-back, I haven't read anything yet that would suggest that D-class have very long lifespans within the foundation. Even so, I did rework the interviews somewhat to address this. I made the SCP more directly critical, and a slightly more defensive stance had to be taken by the foundation employees as a result. I also included mention of SCP-1680 which you suggested for me since that seemed like something that the character would know about, and I think it's better, but I'll still want to ask about this kind of thing during the article critiquing phase for sure.

Secondly, I've decided that the character was already anomalous before coming to the foundation, but they just didn't know (this may still change, but at least I have a definite end in mind, like you were saying). However, I'm going to intentionally leave it ambiguous in the article by having the bulk of the narrative take place during the research phase, before the foundation has gotten conclusive results.

Thirdly, I did explore the narrative aspects a little more, and it's not as straightforward as before, its longer and feels a little less professional to me, but I think it is more interesting than before this way. I'll be honest, I'm not a hundred percent sure how I feel about making it more narrative heavy, but I do think it'll be better to start the next phase with more narrative because it's easier for me to take out things that aren't necessary than to work in things that I didn't think I needed.

+ how's this?

Finally, you focused a lot on "how" so I re-read my rough draft and my notes, and did some more re-working, so it's more clear. Basically, when it's discovered, the SCP is put in pretty much complete isolation, just in case it is a transferrable anomaly, to minimize the risk of it spreading. A group of foundation researchers and research assistants are tasked with finding out if the source of the SCP's ability is within the foundation or not. The researchers conduct interviews with the SCP and ask her if she got her ability from another SCP, but she doesn't know since she wasn't allowed to know much about the SCPs she interacted with, however, she has an excellent memory and is able to give them a list of all her previous D-class designations (because of what I wanted for the character of the SCP, I had to give her an excellent memory, but because of the environment she's lived in for a large portion of her life, I thought it would make sense to make her bad with names but very good with numbers, thus how she's able to remember all her designations).

The researchers then use the list while searching the foundation databases to determine which SCPs she worked with and find the experiment logs which involved her. They are in the middle of this process during the time-frame of the article, and the results are not directly stated in the article (partially because I decided I wanted it left ambiguous, partially because I wanted there to be a sense of activity in the article, like it was ongoing rather than something passed and barely relevant), but eventually the researchers will be able to rule out the possibility of a transferrable anomaly, and the restrictions on her captivity will be loosened a little.

There are some parts in the description that should maybe be addendums or something like that, but I think that'll be another thing I ask about in the next phase. It's still my first article and I can't possibly expect it to be perfectly written by only the rough draft, but it meets the initial quality standards and I'm eager to improve it.

Thanks again for all your wonderful feedback!

Re: First SCP idea, seeking feedback

Pedagon 24 Sep 2020 05:58

Hey!

I swear I’m not ignoring you! I just have no access to reliable wifi until Friday. Will give more crit and feedback on Friday!!

It's Friday!

These all sound like fantastic developments and I am happy to see that you have considered the thorns and have an idea going in for things that may not even appear in the article itself. However, the idea proposal doesn't appear to have been edited to reflect these developments. Because a greenlight here would be a greenlight on the idea proposed, I would need to see it summarized and updated to fit your current direction so that I can actually see what the article currently is (since this is the idea proposal phase and not the draft phase). Can you edit and update your proposal and let me know when I can give it a look?

-Brian

Last edited on 25 Sep 2020 20:28 by Pedagon Show more

Re: First SCP idea, seeking feedback

Raaor 26 Sep 2020 00:15

Awesome! (And don't worry about taking a while to respond, I was kind of taking a break from this anyway, so I could give myself a fresh perspective, and I know that life happens even when it's inconvenient.)

I'm sorry, I didn't even think to edit the proposal as I went except when I realized I misinterpreted the hook. That's my bad. All the original stuff still applied so I just added the more specific elements that I discussed both with you and the other person who gave me critiques. If there's anything else I should have added but forgot to, please let me know. I think I got all the main things, and I know I incorporated your advice into the article, but it's entirely possible that missed something when I edited the proposal. Once again, thank you so much for helping me out with this! I feel much more confident in this idea now, and I'm excited for it!