I found myself really liking the surrealness intermixed with the foundation reacting. It seems dreamlike until those moments.
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*picks up this SCP* *mooshes it directly into my face* yes good
So Buffy Summers killed the Antichrist and saved the world. Very cool. The use of found footage to convey the story reminds me of Project Almanac except good.
I think that some spellchecking is needed (toilet boil instead of toilet bowl), but overall, I'll upvote.
A young woman holding a garbage can lid and a machete bends into view to pick it up.
Weird coincidence; I have a character on a roleplaying site that's pretty much this exact description, garbage can lid and everything.
I like when a mundane character overcomes something that's hopeless.
Seems to be an interesting extrapolation of an EE, beyond the basic summaries we usually get. As an SCP-3000 entry, I will not entirely set on it at the moment. But as an article in general, I will definitely onboard with it.
The descriptions of the videos reminded me of the video from The Ring.
I consider this a good thing.
Grainy footage showing a brick wall. Graffiti reading "+1" materializes on the wall over the course of thirty seconds.
It's poor form to talk about an author in a critique, but I'd be amiss if I didn't, so here we go.
There's something evident here that is representative of something that Faminepulse does indescribably well. Dream logic isn't just the surreal; it has to follow a certain internal narrative throughout. Nightmares, specifically, have elements of plot woven into them, where the abstract and horrific parts coil around the narrative as it descends further and further into discomfort, and you're left trying to deal with the stark contrast between the story you feel is being told, and the absurdity that is apparent around you.
Something about the way Faminepulse describes these seemingly random elements fills me with an apprehension I can only liken to the nightmares of my youth, when I desperately fought to find some sense of realism within the torrent of uncanny and frightening imagery. You can see a narrative in there, and you might try to reach out and hold onto it, but the narrative just proves to pull you even further under.
Is it the best representation of what I think SCP-3000 should be? Frankly, I don't care. I'd upvote it either way.
This is also something I see in your stories, kaktus, because while your plots are more front-and-center, you also weave that dreamlike feel tightly around it and pull me further into the story.
Also:
This is indescribably creepy, between the connections to the Tabula Rasa mythos, dialogue, format variation, and strands of spooky narratove, this is my favorite thing in the contest so far.
I don't like the videotapes. I only liked the one 'born into a cemetery' part, I thought that was cool, but Scorpion451 is correct. It IS like the Ring videotape. I consider this a bad thing.
But something about this… the fact that it's an event rather than an scp, the great first picture… Augh, take your neutral vote.
Huh. That was weird. And unsettling.
This article definitely uses surreal imagery in a manner that I haven't seen in the contest so far, and to great effect, as I got chills from the imagery that was described the further down the rabbit hole I went.
+1. Neat stuff.
The dream-logic is excellent, the imagery is vivid, and there is a story and everything, but I can't help but be disappointed with this. I feel like it sticks too close to the related skips, without either a strong new revelation or image to push things forward. For me, the fact that this operates as a closed loop also lessened the horror, despite the whole thing being a warning.
The opening - everything before the items - is extremely confusingly written. At no stage is there any attempt to explain what EE-3000 *actually was*, which is quite a fundamental problem.
As an aside, I'm not sure why an Extranormal Event would be placed, in-universe, in the Containment Procedures database. This is especially obvious when the first two words of the article acknowledges that there is a separate register for Extranormal Events. And why wouldn't the (clearly anomalous) corpse be categorised for containment (presumably "Neutralised"), or perhaps the non-existent town that now exists? All of this stuff broke my immersion with the story at an early stage of reading.
There are also a ton of errors and odd phrasing (from stuff that the Foundation is meant to have written) which are probably worth correcting:
No objects or evidence of their existence save for this strong secondhand evidence, and a number of coincidences are currently known to exist.
The first part of this sentence has no verb. Do you mean to say: "The only evidence that EE-3000 occurred at all is the strong secondhand evidence set out below, together with a number of related coincidences known to the Foundation."
EE-3000 has no containment protocols, and is not a designated object, but its designation as an object is maintained for such an event.
This sentence contradicts itself - it is not a designated object, but it is a designated object. I suspect that this is intended to be the sentence justifying why an Extranormal Event is on the main Containment Procedures database. If you don't switch it to a Neutralised SCP, I would rephrase to: "EE-3000 does not currently require containment, but it is included in the SCP database in case the need for containment arises [and due to its relationship to several other anomalies listed on the database]."
This compilation is presented to as evidence and warning in real time.
"presented to serve as evidence"? I would also suggest "record" rather than "compilation".
Minutes have been prepared as to how to prevent such a thing from happening again, and where it may happen, and what may have caused it.
"Minutes" sounds like the record of a meeting - "Contingency plans" might be better. This sentence is not in clinical tone, but I understand that this might be for effect. Happy to suggest amendments if that is not deliberate. At a minimum I'd delete "as to how" and "such a thing", so it reads "Contingency plans have been prepared to prevent EE-3000…"
Preceding Events:
As noted above, you don't say what EE-3000 actually is. Is it the (presumed) sudden appearance of the church and the corpse where there was nothing before? If so, I strongly encourage you to include at least a sentence or two setting out what the event is before giving the backstory. It's exactly the same reason that we tell mainlist writers to say what their anomaly is before explaining how it was recovered.
Evidence of EE-3000 was first considered based on further investigation into urban legends in Sakha, Russia …
Why "further investigation" - there is nothing to indicate what the initial investigation was. And unless you mean that the urban legends were considered to be evidence of EE-3000 (ie that the Foundation knew about EE-3000, and then decided that urban legends may be related to it), then I think you should change "considered" to something like "discovered".
"Volodin" may have been discovered in a region nearby matching the description.
I really don't understand the logic of these paragraphs. Did the Foundation hear urban legends, investigate them, then suddenly find a church in the middle of nowhere? If so, I think that it would help to amend this sentence to something like: "Foundation investigation of these urban legends led to the discovery of a nearby valley (not present on any local maps) matching the description of "Volodin"."
Located in … Located within … located on
These occur very close together - I'd suggest replacing two uses with synonyms.
The altar, when discovered, was covered
I think you can delete ", when discovered,". Especially as you use the same sentence construction in the very next sentence (", when tested,").
The blood, when tested, belonged to a human fetus.
"Belonged" is an odd word to use. "Was consistent with that of a human fetus"?
The blood has congealed in such a way that would suggest the object bled out there.
"has" should be "had" to conform with your use of past tense in preceding sentences. "in such a way that would suggest" should be "in a manner suggesting that" for tone purposes. "the object bled out there" should be "the fetus bled out on the altar".
matched dental records and DNA of the corpse but otherwise showed no other signs of relation to it.
I don't really understand what "no other signs of relation" means here. What other signs of relationship would override/contradict DNA and dental records? Especially for a skeleton - there presumably is no hair/skin etc to compare (and different coloured hair/skin would presumably have a different DNA result, or be worth noting from an anomalous perspective).
The VHS tapes were secured in the altar cabinet within the church. This space was nailed in and secured with duct tape. The tapes contain images of a town that is not currently known to exist. It is not known if the tapes were compiled to arrange a narrative. Due to damage of these tapes it is not known which order these events occurred in, if these events occurred.
This information shouldn't really be under the heading of "Item 1". I'd move it either up into the "Preceding Events" / "Discovery" section, or immediately above the "Item 1" heading.
Paid promotional advertisement for a can opener, 4 seconds.
Should this be italicised? The time indicators are a mix of italicised and unitalicised throughout, but the action indicators are always italicised.
Lyrics set to video.
Does this mean that the lyrics are shown on the screen?
Tape is unusable after it is initially recorded.
Do you mean "after its first playback"? Presumably if it was unusable after it was recorded, then the Foundation could not have watched it.
An entity is visible on each of the tapes, inter-cutting itself into the footage sporadically.
As this is listed under "Tape 4", I don't know whether "each of the tapes" should be just Tape 4, or this tape and all subsequent tapes.
The street in front of a local high school.
"Local" in this sentence has no context to give it meaning. Do you mean "a high school from the unknown city in Russia"?
Group of students watching the man are laughing … Black liquid pouring down the street
There are a lot of examples in the logs where you have skipped either articles or verbs (or both). I'm assuming that this is a deliberate stylistic choice - it is slightly immersion breaking for the Foundation's descriptions to be written ungrammatically, but I haven't pointed them all out as I can understand that it may be designed to be unsettling.
People are inside the liquid, and appear to be boiling, but show no sign of such damage to their bodies.
If there is no visible damage, what are the visual signs that show a person "appears" to be boiling? Is it that the liquid appears to be boiling, rather than the people?
Footage from inside a hotel bathroom shower.
Again I think this should be italicised.
View of the downtown city hall
Because we haven't seen the city hall before, I think that the definite article here is confusing. This is also true of "has formed" and "grown" - if we haven't seen the building before, how do we know that it wasn't always this way? Also, do Russian towns have city halls?
[Feed Ends]
I'm not sure why this is at the end of some sections - what is it intended to signify?
[Intercut footage of a beehive filled with human embryos] … Two reconnaissance drones are visible in the frame … Man grabs suitcase, kisses wife, and opens the front door…
These should probably be in italics. Query why the first is in square brackets. Query whether the last should establish that the shot is from inside a house (unless that is another deliberate stylistic choice).
The clerk pulls what appear to be sausage casings, most likely lamb intestine,
… out of the bucket?
The clerk is extremely distressed and falls to the ground in syncope, or what is assumed to be.
I'd suggest "falls to the ground in what appears to be syncope".
Its thorax has been bent over to such an extent the abdomen has been destroyed in what appears to be a successful attempt at piloting the small vehicle into the sunset.
Apart from the fact that this was where the videos edged into narm for me, this sentence doesn't quite parse. "Its thorax has been bent" suggests that someone else has done so, but "a successful attempt at piloting the small vehicle into the sunset" suggests that the cockroach itself is intentionally doing so. Perhaps "It has bent it thorax over to such an extent that it has destroyed its abdomen, in what appears to be a successful attempt at piloting the small vehicle into the sunset."
Discovery channel footage.
"Discovery Channel" to show that it's the brand. Although presumably either it's only labelled as such, or the Foundation has actually established that this was broadcast by the Discovery Channel?
Creature similar to a shrew, but covered on its back are reptilian scales
"covering its back are" or "its back is covered in"
It is nibbling a rotten, discarded yogurt container.
Unless the yoghurt container is made of organic material (not plastic), I think this should read "It is nibbling at a discarded container of spoiled yoghurt".
Klaxxons begin sounding. A distant voice is heard over a loud speaker.
I'm not sure why italics have been dropped for descriptive text from this point onwards.
what appear to be sort sort of explosive
"what appears to be a sort of explosive"
composed of entities and phenomenon previously seen on the tapes
"phenomena"
The camera slowly begins pulling away.
Do you mean pulling away, or zooming out?
appears to have launched itself off of it into the group
"appears to have launched itself from the camera towards the group"
(account deleted)Doing the minor edits, will touch on the rest of that stuff after the 20th when I'm allowed to. Thanks for the in-depth.
The Extranormal Event tagged as scp thing I'm pushing is kind of tentative. I was a bit more interested in the format than the article later on through the contest. I think an alternate SCP Foundation format geared toward narratives would be appreciated in a time where most SCPs just want to be stories.
will touch on the rest of that stuff after the 20th when I'm allowed to.
Just to note that you are free to make major edits through to 10 April, if you wish. As per the contest rules:
Q: How does editing work?
A: Editing is freely allowed until the posting period ends.
ENTRIES CLOSE: 11:59 PM EDT, 10 APRIL 2017
/forum/t-2189350/scp-3682#post-
page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
