Thanks to greebo, ralliston, lord, stormbreath, and nico for looking this one over. Image was commissioned by me from @thatoccultcat on Twitter, and has been released under the wiki's license. Very happy with how it came out, and I can't thank them enough!
SCP-7853 / Discussion
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This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-7853.
This is one helluva banger, great job on it!
silly shrimple
This is pretty nice. I like the building sense of dread; a stereotypical Slow Murder Monster executed very well. I didn’t like the use of the compound quite so much, though. Felt a bit too much like a Magic Plot Convenience Coupon. Ending was decent, though I think most readers are going to assume that his friend and the Site director are in on things. Overall I’m on a no-vote leaning toward an upvote.
Dune you are on fire my dude. This ROCKs, with one of the most engaging framing devices I've seen on site in a hot minute. I did skim a bit with the logs of the different hits, but the primary narrative is excellent here.
I agree with Ori here, such a well made article with excellent storytelling. +1
I'm sorry I couldn't get to this before you posted it but this is fucking phenomenal. I love how the texts were initially framed as being diegetic, before eventually revealing that they aren't.
Forum signatures were a mistake.
I'm gonna have to be contrarian, this one just doesn't do it for me.
First, what I like: the base concept is cool, as a sort of mobster version of Mr. Gray from original Antimemetics Div. Series as a smokescreen for more mundane Foundation corruption is a neat concept. The worldvuilding is done very well and cleanly too. Like, I do want more of the Segretos already lol. Theres also some really innovative narrative devices here, for example the texts are one of the best parts of this.
Obviously more than a bit of a format screw, but one that makes sense assuming the reader sort of assumes the perspective of the friend. This is also where it starts to get to the issues with it though, becuase that holds up until the main character is shot with X-908 and their colleague forgets them; a point where the article just seems to abandon any pretense of making sense in universe by finishing with the ending being effectively a straight up tale with no justification or obvious reasoning (in or out of universe).
This kind of jarring eclectic shifts of format kind of fit with the mystery/thriller type theme to a point, but it strikes me as a little overdone IMO, though I'll admit that's probably more of a personal preference thing. What else doesn't fit so well to me though is the overly direct face exposition as Joey figures out whats going on doesn't have enough build up to really make it satisfying anyway. Only part of texts I didn't much care for.
Overall, I like the bones of the story here and the lore crafting, which is very cleanly done. So while it feel like this could be a really good article, I think it's really held back by the overall formatting and structure issues. So yeah, gonna no-vote it as it is
Going to have to parrot some of what realsurreal said when it comes to the end and the reveal. The way the narrative is portrayed captures you quickly and rarely lets you go. The back fourth text messages combined with the info given after each one really make this feels like a chase. However, the ending is where it started to lose me.
The ending, as surreal said, felt unearned and hammy in its execution. The reveal that they are traitors/collaborators left me unsatisfied. It's what I expected from stories from this genre (mob) that the mc allies/friends were actually the backstabbers. The inclusion of prose was also jarring as I felt it didn't earn the agency to break the format even more than the text messages did. It really comes out of nowhere. This, combined with the ending, left the conclusion for me a bit unsavory.
Overall great. I was confused by the text messages immediately showing up at first but it quickly made sense and complemented the rest of the article loads. The file of 7853 slowly being revealed spliced in with a chase involving the entity was a brilliant way to build tension and curiosity at the same time.
Nice worldbuilding too. I definitely find myself wanting more info about this crime family (and hoping they get some amount of justice).
One thing is the prose element. This may exist in other SCP articles that I'm unaware of, but I was confused what narrative prose was doing there. I suppose there's no other way to communicate Wren's last moments due to the memory thing, but it was slightly immersion breaking. Minor thing though.
+1
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page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
