SCP-7958 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-7958.

Author post

Sound Chaser 28 Jun 2023 21:56

Take two.

This has had a fair few iterations; it started as an attempt to imitate Brecht without ever having seen or read Brecht, had a brief stint as a poem about a car, and now it's this. It took quite a while of on-and-off work, and I very much hope you enjoy it. For the record, the linked articles aren't necessary to understand this, but they're both excellent and highly recommended.

So many people read this that I can't remember everyone, so I'll just say thank you very much to all of you, I do appreciate it. Special thanks go to Cydhra, who read this in various iterations no fewer than three times, explained to me in painstaking detail how fiction works and very much functioned as the Ezra Pound to my TS Eliot here.¹ Also very grateful to FlyPurgatorio, who helped me cut the fluff, bring out some of the themes better and tell me when I was horrendously misquoting a seminal work of literature.

Picture is this, licensed under CC 2.0.

Footnotes

1. Minus the anti-semitism. Or, uh, earthshattering literature, but y'know, no metaphor's perfect.

Last edited on 02 Jul 2023 21:27 by Sound Chaser Show more

Re: Author post

Cydhra 28 Jun 2023 22:39

Finally! This certainly took ages :D

Re: Author post

FlyPurgatorio 14 Jul 2023 21:47

I love correcting people's literary quotes.
Glad it's up and I finally got around to rereading it. I like it when my upvote dings it to a round number :D

+1

PoufyPoufson 28 Jun 2023 23:30

Anticapitalist brilliance

+1

Rab333 29 Jun 2023 19:49

Good shit. Read this one as a draft, liked it then. Read it now, and I like it more.

Also, > Hayes: A sofa! That's what we have, a sofa! And it's a better deal than you/ll

You'll, minor mistake

Last edited on 29 Jun 2023 19:50 by Rab333 Show more

+1

Esperion 30 Jun 2023 02:44

Excellent work. Grotesquely gripping, just like the Home Shopping Network.

gingerayyle 02 Jul 2023 09:09

What the fuuuuuuck. +1

+ guesses (spoilers)

• Hayes' first name is Ruby
• The decay is a direct representation of employees being overworked and uncared for (?)
• The caduceus on the door is a symbol of commerce/goods and is associated with the god Hermes (Hermes delivery) but what does Hermes have to do with this? Is he controlling everything or is this just company branding?
• Is this 1) a metaphor for being stuck in a job and choosing not to leave because of self-sabotage and the dialogue with the ruby is internal conflict?
• Or 2) is this about Hayes being forced to work a job, promised she can leave if she sells the ruby, but ultimately the Foundation gets a fake ruby, and she's manipulated because she's still there once the ruby is sold?
• Long shot guess if 2): Hayes is the powerful woman in her story and made a deal with Hermes to get herself on TV and this is the cost
• What did she mean by "No mystery"?
• What's throwing me off is whether she's actually alone or not, and at some points it seems like she wants to work this job and at others she doesn't
• What changed when the ruby got sold?

+ minor fix

• Last sentence should contain "at which point the feed cuts out"

Sound Chaser 02 Jul 2023 19:55

Error is fixed, thank you.

As for your guesses...

It's always a mixed blessing when someone actually tries to figure out what you're going for; on the one hand, it's a delight that they've taken the time to think about it, but you're always nervous that their ideas are more interesting than what you had in mind… I'll take them point by point:

• Correct! Surprisingly only one person got that in crit.
• Honestly? The anticapitalist reading, though heartily endorsed, isn't what I had in mind while writing it. I do see it, it's the most common interpretation I've had, and I do like it, but it was only semi-intentional.
• Hit the post here; the first version of this I posted was heavily influenced by alchemical symbolism, and that's what they're in reference to. Most of it was cut out because it became, as one reviewer put it, "symbolism hell" and lost all the atmosphere in exchange for being an unsolveable puzzle, but there's some elements that made it the whole way, particularly the bits you spotted and the ruby.
• I'll merge these two points into one: your first interpretation is bang on, more-or-less (edit: to be clear, the "stuck in your job" is a metaphor in of itself, but you're basically right).
• I like that, but it's not what I was thinking of. I don't think of Ruby as being particularly powerful.
• It's a reference to an earlier line from the telly bit, "you can cross between the poles, for you there'll be no mystery." Which is a reference to a song, which in turn is a reference to a poem, which I think might be a reference to something else. One of those pretty much explains what this article as a whole is about, but I'll leave that to anyone who can be bothered digging.
• It's just her. Sometimes it seems like someone's keeping her there, but it really is just her. She wants to be good at her job, and I think she wants to want to have that job, but her heart's not in it, and she could only fake it so long.
• I'm not 100% sure what you mean by this, but assuming you mean "why did she seem to go back to normal," selling it was… a sort of reset? Not a perfect one, but she had a goal she needed to accomplish in selling the ruby before she could be free, but once she'd accomplished it she lost her nerve and shifted the goalposts. She's just trying to cover up the damage and convince everyone she's okay.

Hope that cleared some stuff up without being too disappointing. Thank you so much for reading and commenting!

Last edited on 02 Jul 2023 23:29 by Sound Chaser Show more

gingerayyle 03 Jul 2023 05:07

Not disappointed at all! You did an excellent job communicating what you intended through a brilliant story—thanks for the detailed response, and best of luck!

+1

Kachowie 01 Dec 2023 02:05

This brought me to tears, reminds me very much of the most miserable time of my life. God I hate how much I can relate to Hayes.

Re: +1

Sound Chaser 01 Dec 2023 02:23

This is a lovely comment to receive, thank you. I'm very sorry you can relate to her (and I didn't mean to upset you, sorry <.<), but if I'm reading it right, the fact that it only reminds you means you've passed the worst of it at least. Hope you have a good day.