SCP-2375 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-2375.

Dr Solo 19 Jul 2016 18:19

Click this for line-by-line critique

Special Containment Procedures:

Not finding any serious issues with the containment section, so good job!

SCP-2375 is a necrotic skin condition in its beginning stages

I suggest moving the "in its beginning stages" to the beginning of the sentence. I just think it reads a little clearer that way.

a necrotic skin condition

Bacterial? Viral? Fungal? Might want to specify.

appearing to suffer only physical decay

Might want to add something like "of the skin" in there.

the individual's limbs (if available)

I'm not sure that the qualifier is really necessary.

Access Granted. Welcome, Site Director.

This isn't a problem, in and of itself, but would this info really only be restricted to Directors? I'd imagine they don't actually do a lot of the experimenting themselves.

With the approval of five members of the O5 Council

Again, that seems like a major overestimate of security needs.

before audio feel cuts out

I'm assuming you meant "feed", so I fixed that.

I said I would get you back

Is this supposed to say "I said I would get back to you"?

Alright, so let me just start by saying I think you have a pretty well put together article here. It's written pretty well, dialogue actually sounds like something a real person would say, and all the notes and observations feel natural and tonally sound.

That being said: I'm not a huge fan of the actual anomaly. It's a skin condition that helps sad people be happy, and seems to have a vaguely malevolent way of propagating. Normally I'd suggest trying to build a story around your scip, but you have done that pretty well. I don't know, it's just not grabbing me. Tentative neutral vote for now, but I may come around upon reread

Genshed 19 Jul 2016 18:58

I do like the fact that it doesn't just kill people.

It makes them happy, THEN kills them. It reminds me of the parasites that alter the host's behavior to facilitate the parasite getting to a new host. Also, I wondered how accurate the D class's description was; is it really like a little shanty town, or a pit full of debris that the hosts perceive as a town?

RJB_R 20 Jul 2016 05:07

Feels like pretty plain body horror, and the culty angle doesn't work with its current presentation. Not badly written, but not terribly interesting either.

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Kalinin 20 Jul 2016 18:46

I feel like there's a way that someone could write a decent article revolving around a modern-day leper colony and the social implications that would have.

This isn't a bad attempt at it, but there's elements of this that kind of feel like it's skimming the surface of the subject material. The D-Class whose perspective informs us of this phenomenon is just misunderstood, and becomes a more agreeable person simply because someone is nice to him for once; that struck me as a little facile. Additionally, the fact that what looks to be a pretty horrific skin condition doesn't cause any sort of concern among the people that have it. In some ways, it might be more interesting if you had a group of people who understood that what they had was a really, really messed up disease, and were bothered by that (as I think any rational person would be), but were glad anyway because the positive aspects of the social interaction outweighed the affliction.

ProcyonLotor 20 Jul 2016 19:12

Well, I think the point of the D-class's sudden about-face in terms of behavior and outlook is not really because he's been treated well, but because he's been infected (although I would say that that change does come a bit too quickly), and that him providing the reasoning as "that dude was so nice to me" is nothing more than rationalization of what the illness is doing to him.

Deviant Logic 03 Jun 2017 14:16

Due to the nature of SCP-2375, containment procedures have been downgraded from immediate termination to the process of sealing clusters of SCP-2375-1 instances to prevent spread of the infection. At time of this revision, downgrade of SCP-2375 to Neutralized status is pending review by the O5 council.

This alone would actually get a downvote from me. It is completely unbelievable that the Foundation would just let this be left alone when it is a potentially world-ending level of mind-altering infection. It's also nothing REMOTELY like Neutralized - the O5's would never get past the first line of a document wanting to assign this to Neutralized, even assuming anybody would submit such a document.

Apart from that, the other comments really sum it up for me. It's not badly written, but it doesn't really grab me at all.

DoctorNovakaine 18 Jun 2018 07:05

I know this has been up for two years but that makes me all the more amazed no one else caught it.

Humans with social personality disorders such as anxiety, depression or other conditions are particularly susceptible to SCP-2375-1's influence.

This is seriously incorrect. First, there is no such thing as a social personality disorder - it is neither a diagnosis nor a class of diagnoses, nor has it ever been to my knowledge. Second, anxiety and depression already belong to a disorder category - they are categorized as mood disorders. They are very much NOT personality disorders, although they can be comorbid with them. I understand that not everyone's an expert but this could have been verified quite rapidly by a quick Google search or two.

It seems that the suggestion is that those with personality disorders that lead to avoidance of people are the most strongly affected by the SCP. Therefore, I would suggest any or all of the following: paranoid personality disorder, schizoid personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, and avoidant personality disorder. These are accepted diagnoses for personality disorders that all result in a tendency to avoid people, for different underlying reasons.

Zyn 18 Jun 2018 07:15

I understand that not everyone's an expert but this could have been verified quite rapidly by a quick Google search or two.

Ia ia DSM-V fhtagn?

In all seriousness though, I agree. Have you contacted the author about this? The article was posted in 2016, so they may not be as active, but I can see about getting staff to weigh in on this since it's an issue of verifiable scientific accuracy here.

Thanks for bringing this up!

DoctorNovakaine 19 Jun 2018 20:20

No problem, it's one of those rare cases where that decade-plus of psychology education actually comes in handy. I'll drop a PM to the author, no clue whether they're active or not but it can't hurt. Thanks!

TheCriticalFrog 20 Jun 2018 05:22

I apologize for the problems caused by this article and I hear your issues with it. The writing has been changed to better fit the suggestions. Thank you for bringing this issue to my attention.

Soultear 20 Aug 2018 05:17

The idea is interesting, but I second the comments about the angle you take being iffy. The dialogues feel artificial as plastic trees and the idea that the overseers would seriously consider downgrading this to neutralized is preposterous. A mild rewrite would fix all these problems.

Downvoted.

Ruise 16 Nov 2022 15:13

I kind of like it the way it is, I just wish it were more descriptive. Like somebody said above,is it really a shabby, but homely village, or is it just a bunch of rotting zombies in a dark, barren hole who think they're in a village? How are they getting food? Or water? Or light? Do the infected individuals not need to eat? Does the disease kill them, or just leave them to live out their natural lives mangled but happy? I just think it needs more objective description, not just what D-2375-82 is telling us. If D-2375-82 is being mostly truthful, aside from the brainwashing that's making him not care about having a horrible disease and living in a cave, that the infected individuals are content to just live in peace and not 'trying to take over the world' or spread the disease (it sounds like each instance usually only spreads it to one person before going underground, and D-2375-82 was content not to spread it) and they really do somehow have a functioning village down there, I like that it's not 100% grimdark like every other SCP and the Foundation are satisfied to leave them be and not eradicate them as long as they're contained, maybe providing them with food, water and electricity.