Good old boogeyman concept changed around a bit. hope it still is an interesting read. First attempt at a fully humanoid scp. Picture made and distorted by me
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I didn't expect to like this as much as I do! Humanoids are difficult, and in general I don't much care for real-world mythological monster SCPs, but you avoided going hokey or too schmaltzy with it. Great job!
I took the liberty of cleaning up your scientific names (lowercased specific names, deleted extraneous apostrophes). Hope that's okay!
I think this article has some strong imagery and a good start going for it, but by the third interview it felt as though it was somewhat of a slog. The dialogue was- alright? There were smatterings of poor writing here and there, but nothing inexcusable on a log-to-log basis. The issue was when it became consistent throughout every interview, and that's when I got a little sick of this article.
I'll tentatively no-vote, because the concept and delivery of the description have significant merit. However- I'm afraid all of those huge interview paragraphs just weren't to my taste.
One more thing, actually- the image bugs me slightly. Maybe it's just me, but I personally had to look for a good few seconds to figure out what it even was. I'd suggest toning back the filter just a smidge, but it's by no means offensively bad.
Seconding bittermixin in that, while the description vas vivid, the interview portions never coalesce into anything noteworthy.
-B's initial interview could use a ton of work. I'm not really getting the sense that she really cares about -A. Her account doesn't feel authentic. It might be because it was very surface-level and brisk. Perhaps you could consider slowing down here a bit, and provide some more detail?
She turns her back on her own people for this girl. Surely she could be a bit more impassioned, be able to emphasize the difficulty in making this choice, or show how/why this one person in particular was so important.
It also may be due to her sounding like an annoyed teenager at times (with lines like "…Ok, weird." and "Well, yeah, duh!"), which made me feel like I couldn't take her seriously.
The third interview comes across as a bit expository. -A's statement starting here "Her body. But yes, I guess so." where she gets into the rest of -B's features, in particular. Overall for this point, it's really only describing superficial things about -B's operation. I care less about what makes her tick as an anomaly, and more about what makes her tick as a character. If you're really concerned on getting this (why she may look the way she does) across to the reader, do so in the Description, where it will carry the same level of imotional impact it does here (very little).
The final one in particular (and the incident preceding it) reads as particularly extraneous - it has littlle to do with the overall story and is distracting from the point of the piece: the history and interaction of -A and -B. Their relationship doesn't feel as strongly characterized as it could be.
If you're married to that particular scene (you really want to show the inside of the boogey-dimension) why not have the experience be something -A had? It could very well be the point in which, as a child, she realized -B was actually benevolent despite her wicked appearance. It could also tie back into -B's character arc and her exile? Maybe she could was supposed to drag -A down and consume her, but for some reason could not, and fought her hunger/broke the rules of her people.
Definite downvote as-is. I feel like there's a much stronger story to be told. This concept has a lot of potential.
I think there's potential in expanding on the contradictory perspectives of A and B. A clearly describes that B takes on characteristics that she fears, implying that her mind formulated its appearance. However, B notes that they come from a Monsters Inc. kind of setting… but they think it's weird that the doctor didn't have a boogeyman. Could be an interesting "chicken or the egg" scenario.
I was also reminded of Monsters Inc., but in a very appealing way. The tone was less … Disney? It was lighter than a lot of SCPs, but still didn't feel like fluff to me. Also, as Accelerando noted, left a nice chicken and egg question.
Two questions that occurred to me while reading:
- What's the 3887-B nutrition plan moving forward? The Foundation has an abundance of fear, much of it from VERY nasty people. The main concern would be interSCP contamination…
- The Foundation has plenty of phobivorous entities, but this is the first I remember seeing that suggests a possible uniting origin or ecology. 3887-B says she's a rule-breaking outlier. What about the old man?
I'm not necessarily suggesting you answer them in the article, but touching on them subtly might give the piece a bit more depth. Too much dark could easily ruin this SCP, but just enough to contextualize it in the Foundation could make it better. Regardless, a +1 from me.
I took the liberty to fix the (as far as I can tell) last XXXX in the article. Otherwise, I am as yet undecided. I like the idea, but I will have to read it again to find out how I like the execution.
EDIT: Reread and upvoted. Turned out I did like it after all.
When I saw the title for this SCP, I thought it was going to be pretty generic, but I was pleasantly surprised. I like how you took an old concept and reversed it, but did so in a way that makes it better. Definitely one of my favorites!
I was waiting for the bad ending where Foundation will constantly inflict fear on 3887-A (torture?), or constantly let 3887-B kill D-classes in front of -A for fear factor.
Turns out it doesn't have to be 3887-A's fear, and feeding doesn't even involve death. We can send in a ton of scared D-classes at her easy, right?
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page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
