Needs some editing for tone and punctuation. Not ready to vote on this one yet.
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This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-544.
Feel free to suggest ideas for tone; this one was VERY hard to get clinical and still keep it brief. I was trying for a concise tone with this one.
hours and 34 minutes into observation, Subject #436364 begins 'speaking' through SCP-544 the following phrases: [DATA EXPUNGED].
This is an excellent and shining example of shitty use of data expunged. Expand on that bit, please, as I really want to like this SCP.
Well… *pulls on collar* the problem I had with actually writing what the thing is saying was that I didn't exactly know what it would say.
And thats a problem. Most people have at least SOME idea as to what is actually expunged.
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Don't get me wrong, I had some concept of what was being said (short, broken up phases, like something is talking in its sleep but it isn't the bearer) but exactly what to write was eluding me. I figured that keeping the lines blank was better than making this SCP a generic "Oh, its housing the spirit of Cthulhu" or something. I'll sleep on it, or something.
Small fix. You can't be adverse to doing something.
After 2 days of bearing SCP-544 and ten more instances similar to the ones noted above, separation was ordered. A minor conflict resulted in the loss of a security officer. Through pantomime, he was able to convey that he was unable to speak. After eight hours, #436364 was finally able to speak.
Too many pronouns. Who was bearing 544? Why was there a conflict? Who conveyed his muteness? This bit needs an edit.
Other than that, though, I rather like this thing!
Before that, it does mention that whoever holds onto 544 really doesn't want to give it up. And since its a metal thing the person is already holding onto it, whoever holds it tends to be a bit metal-microphone-to-your-head when you try and take it. If you hold onto 544 for long enough, there's a period of time where you aren't able to speak. You want to, but you can't.
I don't see any reason why this should be Euclid. Lock it up and everything's fine, right? That would make it Safe.
I think it's inferred that the SCP bestows knowledge of sensitive Foundation-related data, and until the mechanism for how it obtains that information is understood, it cannot be classified as Safe.
I've been here along enough that I've established a defacto "how many upvotes an SCP needs before I put it on my user page". 544, one of my earliest (if not the first), fell well short of that.
Since the stuff in my pipeline is interesting but isn't grabbing me to work on it, I decided to rewrite this one, hopefully to expand the concept a little bit.
At the core, I wanted to keep the idea of a object that people talk into suddenly speaking on its own. At the same time, I wanted to keep the hint that just maybe this thing isn't just speaking for someone else, but also speaking for itself. The idea came to me that, as time progresses, its user starts speaking through 544 more and more.
Someone disliked the compulsion aspect of the SCP in chat, and to be honest, it's only there to ensure that its users fall prey to the effects-over-time. If someone didn't want to keep the thing around, it wouldn't fuck with anyone.
One thing I don't like is that the D-class's voice — by which I mean his vocabulary, grammar, dialect, choice of words — is inconsistent.
Also, I don't like the method you've chosen to represent the microphone speaking for the D-class.
I'd truncate [RACIAL INSULT REDACTED] to just [RACIAL INSULT], and also redact all the [EXPLETIVE]s.
"Those stupid [EXPLETIVE] [RACIAL INSULT]s."
I went ahead and did some minor work on the interview as you suggested, but I don't understand the inconsistent criticism. I wrote it 'complete' and then went into it and did this to it in bits and pieces, precisely so I didn't accidentally write the D-Class and the Microphone in different ways.
As for doing this to represent the microphone, I'm all ears. I chose the superscript because, in my mind, the Microphone Voice is a bit higher, vaguely cartoon-like, and it seemed to work well. Maybe use this instead? A COMBINATION OF CODING? Or something else I'm not thinking about? I'm genuinely all ears.
maybe the monospaced thing instead, yeah.
As for inconsistent - he switches from really formal to really informal, up and down the scale from polished speech to rough and back again.
"So-called reflection"? "Have they forgotten that we are in jail" ? That's too formal.
Agree on the tone, now that I think about it.
I need a fresh set of eyes, so I put the updated interview, with different coding options, to define the Regular Voice and the New Voice. Feel free, one and all, to give suggestions or alternatives. I'm seriously beginning to think that superscript or subscript may be needed.
I am officially calling for a review of this article. Please read this and, if you are so inclined, vote on it and post your thoughts here.
The tone in the Separation Event paragraph feels off, and I don't like it randomly knowing classified shit. Also, the [RACIAL INSULT] tags aren't really necessary — if you don't feel comfortable typing racial slurs (which is perfectly understandable, in my opinion), then don't have a character in an SCP use them.
if your reading this your gay
I hadn't noticed this post, since it's one of my earlier ones, and while I have limited time, I'll explain a few things.
I used [RACIAL SLUR] not because I was uncomfortable, but because I figured that quasi-governmentalish agencies would want to gloss over the details of certain swears. I liken it to a newspaper report blacking out the swears in an otherwise-dispassionate article. For some reason, I wanted the current bearer to be a unintelligent racist bastard, basing some of what's going on on racist beliefs.
As for what it knows, the Core Idea of why it's kept so contained is because the Foundation is pretty scared that it does know. Why does it know? This sounds like a tease, but I'm running short on time to post this and I'd like to do write about it more when I have time.
Quick edit: Looking at it with fresher eyes, I do agree that I expunged too many things. I'll likely take a gander at this and reveal more data when I get off work.
Meh. Meh.
1. In █ separate test cases, subjects bearing SCP-544 were noted as rarely saying the following words normally, if weakly: [EXPUNGED], [EXPUNGED], and [EXPUNGED]. The latter has been said the most.
This is what thoroughly earned the downvote. The article isn't interesting enough as it is, and then we get stuff like this implying something that was expunged for… I guess… being too interesting? Well then. I call bullshit, sorry. -1'ed.
Also, Scantron is right.
/forum/t-228136/scp-544#post-
page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
