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Oh hey, I remember reading this as a draft.
The article itself isn't bad (I don't even mind its length, though I have to wonder what could possibly be cut or snipped here and there to make it shorter), but I am not a fan of the story or the way its presented. It's just not too interesting, and didn't justiify the length for me.
I liked it enough for an upvote, I found some parts of the interview a bit longer than it could have been, but it is just my personal taste.
I did not, though, understand the last addendum. Maybe I had a too solid, and wrong, idea of where the skip was going, or maybe I am just dumb. Mind to explain?
My read:
Mark built a mouse magnet (-1) and a rat magnet (-2) then he wanted to see if it worked on people so he tested it on himself (-3), then he thought it would be a good idea to use it to alievate his loneliness, and tried to use it on some women he was attracted to to, but he screwed up the first one that he made (-5) and it killed the subject by drawing her violently towards the magnet (like with the rats), and then he made another one (-4), which worked but he realized how unethical this was and consumed with guilt for the death of the other woman, he killed himself.
Huh, wouldn't it be easier to read if 4 was the failed one and 5 the final, working one?
Presumably the Foundation numbered them in the order they studied them, not in the chronological order of how they supposed they were built in the first place, after the testing. Also, from a narrative standpoint switching the order of the addenda would have less punch, IMO.
I wonder if this is something that I should fix, maybe by making some more significant changes to the dates. The order of events was that, after the rat magnets, Mark made a magnet for himself to test the effect, then made one for the librarian, who he'd had a crush on in high school. When that relationship didn't work out, he made one for the real estate agent (she was also a former high school crush, and he'd gotten in touch with her when he started trying to sell his parent's house), but it didn't work the same way as the others, because Mark really didn't understand how the things worked. There was some material about this that got cut, but she got really paranoid, broke into his home while he was away, and turned it on herself while she was snooping. Mark found her dead when he returned home, and, after making an initial attempt to cover it up, killed himself.
I really liked the idea and story, but I didn't quite understand it at all until I read this. I didn't get that at all. I understood he made the device for rats and then decided to use it on Gloria R. (4-prime) so he could be with her.
I didn't understand why 5-prime died at all, or how she was connected to Mark P. I also didn't know why he killed himself.
Overall it's a good SCP, but it could be far better if it explained itself better. +1
Haha, that was my read as well.
I thought it was nicely executed and, for once, I liked seeing a remorseful skip-creator.
Upvoted.
I've been waiting for the chance to upvote this. For me, this is just right in terms of length, tone, level of detail and story - and it has some glorious touches ("local wildlife" and "mass of dead organic material" are my favourites). To my mind, the hard work on this has well and truly paid off.
My reaction is mostly personal. The story just didn't interest me enough to justify the lengthy slog. One thing that I'm going to nitpick, however:
Mark P█████
What is the point of this? Why would you only censor this much? Why is it acceptable to know the first letter of the person's last name but not the rest? From an in-universe standpoint, using the information that is left unredacted, anyone could determine the real identities of the persons involved with a ten minute Google search. If it's important to have the names in the story, then I would just leave the names in. If it's unimportant, just blackbox the whole thing. I've never understood blackboxing things in this manner.
So…you're going to search for a single person named Mark in a population of 7 billion? If this "Mark" truly is located in a small town, then who says you're going to find that town? Also, don't you dare use the last name on an excuse. It's a single letter…one letter. That's it. You're saying that you will determine the real identity of "Mark"…on Google, no less. That, sir/ma'am, is finding the needle in the biggest fucking haystack ever.
This response is amazingly vehement for how wrong and baseless it is.
So…you're going to search for a single person named Mark in a population of 7 billion?
Nope. Because the article also happens to let us know that the person in question lived in "H█████, Indiana". So now our search is limited to towns that start with "H" in the US state of Indiana. That's not exactly "the biggest fucking haystack ever", as you put it.
Even if we didn't have that, we also know that this person is from the same area as where "Trudy D██████, a local real estate agent who had been reported missing on 07/22/2000" is. Real estate agents don't exactly go missing all the time, and we also have a specific date and we know most of the person's name. Oh, and there's a town council member that we can also identify in this manner. Ten minute Google search.
If you're going to be all aggro and confrontational, with the "don't you dare"s and what have you, you had best come correct.
Speaking as the author, and I hope this doesn't ruin anything, but I blacked them out because it's an inside joke. Mark's name is Mark Piper and the town is Hamlin, Indiana.
I was kindof expecting a reference like that. Looks like my patience pied off.
Where does "Mark Piper" and "Hamlin, Indiana" come from? I'm curious now.
I like this, though I needed the explanation upthread to get the purpose of the final addendum. The lengthy interview isn't bad because it sounds perfectly natural (though, again, not getting the addendum, it seemed weird that the researcher was so focused on this woman's love life).
Actually, I guess the last addendum's apparent opaqueness is what's keeping me from upvoting. It seemed like the various apparatuses all did the same thing, or at least weren't different enough from each other to warrant separate designations and descriptions. In hindsight, I can see that's not the case, but reading through the article in order is a bit sloggy, and the payout is hard to find.
I liked this enough for an upvote, although the last addendum featured one of the things I find more annoying on this site. Making the foundation staff into idiots just so you can add a bit of mystery to an article doesn't work for me, it's obvious what the cause of death was and foundation staff would realise that.
Hmm, that might be worth changing, too, at least to make the report a little more definitive, maybe by changing it to something like "the cause of death is officially unknown" or "although the incident is no longer being investigated, cause of death remains unknown." The Foundation is pretty sure what happened based on the injuries, but I assumed that from a scientific standpoint they wouldn't make assumptions in an official report.
I really like this one… You know, if you build a better mouse trap… well. We all get it.
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