My biggest feedback is that this is far too long and needs a lot of wordcount cut. Like, drastic amounts. This is twice as long as SCP-2000 and you just don't have enough story to warrant that space. SCP-217 is 900 words, SCP-2962 is 1500. I'm puting some examples in collapsible below.
One big point: think about the most exciting storytelling method and location for each element. For example, you could put gross body horror examples in the description, interview logs, or an autopsy report, but 1) only one is going to be the most suited for it and 2) you definitely don't need it in all three. Don't make me read the same stuff over and over. If something is in a log, it shouldn't be something we've already seen in the description. Ditto recounting previous dialogue.
Big example of this: One of your key story elements is the discovery that they spread via spores, which you currently tell in every single section including the conprocs. That is a narrative event or turn, and you are telling us a story. Figure out where in the article you want to reveal that, and make the turn there and there alone.
One last big note, I didn't even see the story element of the cheap brick mixing? I could've missed it among all the other detail. I really don't need very much space/detail to grasp "gross brick Zombies" as an idea and there's only a limited extent to which I will care about that idea, which you've well exhausted. Other narrative threads are important.
Examples:
Containment Procedures:
The entire first clause about standard containment possible is completely moot because you then describe how to contain it. Building a big guarded wall around something isn't exactly new to the Foundation.
(Check this throughout the text: If you see text that is describing actual factual information that is about to come or is providing some kind of commentary/speculation about something that was just said, it is probably poor clinical tone and a waste of space.)
Going past that, almost nothing in your containment procedures was interesting or made me care. The conprocs in an SCP are not like an actual document, they serve a narrative purpose. That could be:
- Setting up key information that will be part of the narrative of the SCP later. Arguably, briefly mentioning the towers and research outpost would do this.
- Foreshadowing, which your persistent mention of infection countermeasures accomplishes, but you've gone was way overkill for what was needed to make that point.
- Setting up expectations about the SCP to come. (One of these expectations is "it's dangerous." You don't need five paragraphs of very mundane if aggressive procedures to tell me that, and more dangerous =/= more interesting.)
- The least important reason would be things that look cool (arguably the cardiac monitors even though I don't really understand what they're for) and versimilitude, or looking enough like a real document. Verisimilitude is a very easy bar you meet and you've gone waaaay past it. There is just so much space wasted on mundane cheap before you even get to the good stuff.
IMO cut it to two paragraphs. Again, 217 is just as dangerous as this if not more.
Description:
You've got a ton of space dedicated to little side points and diversions that aren't necessary to creating a solid mental image or advancing the narrative.
- One very clear example is the paragraph about absorbing worn items, which I would call answering a question nobody was asking. Is that are all important to the story here? Most likely not.
- You also have a bunch of text about possible theories that haven't yet been been proven. Telling me you don't know something is a waste of space/my time.
Try to decide exactly what elements you want the reader to see. IMO, this is enough of a description for people to get a mental image and understand the story plus any body horror details that would actually produce a feeling of revulsion. Cut the rest.
Other notes there:
- Don't start the description with the discovery. Describe it first, put discovery in a log or something. There's no way I'm going to care about something's origins before I know what it is.
Logs:
This is a big example of too much text describing other text or commenting on itself. All the little questions and framing statements in both the interview and O5 logs are massively inflating the length and putting space between me and the story. Maybe try to think of a bullet-point summary of the exact events or concepts you want to portray, and they try to cut it down to that. Also cut mundane detail. I don't need to hear about the fuzz five times and how the sample was taken.
Also, I'm sure the autopsy log had some interesting detail, but honestly I had checked out halfway into the description and barely even skimmed it. I only read the dialogue because you had asked for it.
The note after the O5 was heavy-handed and unnecessary, and, again, it being dangerous doesn't make me care.
