I like this, but in the picture it shows the phrase "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" and the log files state that the subject was unable to write the phase down due to being affected by "South Dixie Drive".
Dammit. You're absolutely right. Now I have to redo the picture. Thanks.
I don't know what to think about this one. The horror's there, I guess, but something just seems off. I'm on the fence. I kind of want to downvote, but I won't because I don't know why I want to downvote.
I tried to go for as simple of an SCP as possible. I've found that shooting for the stars with some articles ends up just having them crash brilliantly. Still, I'm completely open to any ideas to help improve upon the article.
Memetics is not a thing that grasps you in a hold. Cognitohazard would be a better term.
Still I like it.
Thanks. If you see anything else that needs changing, by all means you're welcome to poke around at it. :)
Only being able to say one phrase for the rest of your life isn't horrifying?
Not really, it's distressing at the most.
Like a painting that blinds you. Congratz, your are now suddenly unable to see stuff. Now dry your now vegestal eyes.
Completely inappropriate. Don't do this again.
- Raven
Personal insults are not allowed on this site. Do it again, and it's a ban.
-Bright
Damn, dude. I think I got a tan from that burn.
Seriously, though, straight up making insulting personal comments about other users like that is not okay. Play nice.
That means you too, kiddo. -yoric
Actually I'm not sure why you'd teach sign language to Class D that were effected. Don't they have a 30 day life span?
Now, if regular people/researchers are afflicted…
I thought that as well at first, but from a purely scientific point of view, I'd try to converse with the people affect by this SCP using any manner possible. Especially if it leads to discoveries of effects not readily apparent due to the nature of SCP-546. Perhaps after 2 months of being affected, the phrase you've written down starts visually appearing in things you read as well? We'd never know if the D-Class in the experiment was terminated after just a month.
I bet there's like a thousand SCP's that activate after a month and the Fondation only has one (The mirror) because they keep killing D-class after a month all the time.
The thought of that is hilarious if one or two are XK causing SCP's.
The scientist in me wonders if the test subjects can use PART of the phrase. If they can, what would happen if they copied down the 200 or so most common English words.
Sou….
5 minutes later
thDix….
1 hour later
ieDrive.
Haha. It's a good question, and I didn't really reference it, but I had intended that you couldn't really cut it up into pieces and just jump around. You would just repeat the 200 words in the order you had written them down.
Even with that limitation, you could still enable some degree of communication, especially if the subject has the ability to pause mid-phrase. Just have them raise their hand or somesuch when the word(s) they want come(s) up.
"The subject was calmed down, and then asked to continue singing the song, except this time in English. This time, the phrase did not occur until after 2 hours have passed. A written test phase later did not produce the same anomaly."
The last sentence isn't clicking in my brain. What anomaly didn't occur? Maybe just me.
Either way, I think this SCP is excellent. It definitely passes the "knowledge this object is in your house makes you want to jump out the window" test. If I were affected by it, I'd be jumping off the nearest bridge.
There's part of me that really wants to dislike this because it has no real 'cool' factor - many many SCPs on the site are horrifying, but are still 'cool'; they'd be entertaining in a short story or movie. This isn't cool, just simple, ordinary, and awful. Upvoted.
What Dr Grim said.
There is always room for improvement in both tone and grammar. Let me know if there's any way I can clean it up while maintaining the tone and I'll be glad to edit it.
SCP-546 is to be contained in a secured lock box.
…
At no point should SCP-546 or any of the sheets leave the quarantine room.
There's no mention of a quarantine room prior to the statement that the item isn't to leave it. Is the lock box in the quarantine room? Does it need to be taken there before being unlocked? Could do with a spot of clarification.
Besides the anomalous effects of the item, the SCP has no other outstanding characteristics.
This is saying, "Aside from what isn't normal, it's normal." You can cut this sentence and lose nothing.
The frequency of the phrase will continue to rise over the course of time.
This sentence is wonky, I'd revise it to something like, "The prevalence of the phrase increases over time." You could also combine this sentence and the one which follows.
unable to write and speak anything else other than
"Else" is entirely superfluous here.
Although there is serious mental distress from losing the ability to communicate with others, affected subjects have been shown to be able to continue living on with their new disability.
Could condense that to, "Aside from distress due to inability to communicate, affected subjects have displayed no further detrimental effects."
I'm indifferent toward this. Doesn't grab me at all.
"Besides the anomalous effects of the item, the SCP has no other outstanding characteristics."
"This is saying, "Aside from what isn't normal, it's normal." You can cut this sentence and lose nothing."
Except that then, someone would need to know what happens if a page is cut, torn out, burned, etc. This sentence forestalls all that - we've run the simple tests, and both paper and notebook are entirely unremarkable, except that when you write something in there, you have to say it over and over and over and…
Except that then, someone would need to know what happens if a page is cut, torn out, burned, etc.
No, they wouldn't, because they already do. If the thing displayed anomalous physical properties, they would be explicitly mentioned. That's the entire point of these reports.
I like this, and upvoted it. One very minor thing I want to mention. The picture seems to imply the tests were done sequentially, with no other tests in between. Strictly speaking then, they really shouldn't be using different phrases in the third and fourth test. Controlling variables is very important when doing science-y things, and you shouldn't just randomly change the phrase unless you wanted to test what happens with a different phrase. It could be different phrases would produce different results (I don't know if sign language has a sign for '-', but if not it could be conceivable that's why that test didn't affect signing). Not saying I think the article would be improved by changing it; the picture would kind of be boring with the same phrase written out over and over. But the inner scientist in me just felt like posting this.