SCP-3661 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-3661.

Author Post

fieldstone 07 Sep 2017 05:15

This my first SCP. It's cold and black and bitter, like delicious coffee. I don't think everyone will like it, but if it fails, it won't fail for lack of trying.

Thanks Zer0_Consistency for all the help with drafting! Edit — and Shaggydredlocks for all the help making this better after I posted it.

Edit - The new image is also from wikimedia commons: Image credit: Author unlisted; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Smilie_Kissen.jpg#globalusage

Edit again - I see that I went overboard with the gimmicks and have cut them back — simplified the approach to redaction and scrapped the blue text. I feel like it's better now. This has been a good learning experience. Thanks everyone who read this, regardless of your reaction.

Last edited on 12 Sep 2017 02:32 by fieldstone Show more

OthellotheCat 07 Sep 2017 06:22

While this skip might not have a narrative per se, the lack of one adds enough mystery as to what the narrative COULD be. What are the toys doing? Are they helpful or harmful? Were they always mechanical or was the developed after they came in contact with the child? So many questions, and left juuuust unanswered enough to make in mysterious and fascinating to read. Great job! +1

Also, wires going up a child's urethra… eugh… haunting

fieldstone 07 Sep 2017 12:26

I'm glad it's provoking questions for you, and this was really about the emotion first and the story second, but there is a story I was trying to tell:

+spoilers

The dolls are scientific probes, taking little bits of tissue out of the kids and sending it somewhere (the future). The probes were actually placed by the foundation itself, who sent them back in time to monitor/assassinate these babies. (That's why some of them become inert; those babies just turned out not to be whatever the future foundation is looking for.)

So that's what the researchers discover when they do their special project, and that's why the O5s update the procedures and start letting the machines have the babies instead of keeping them separated. The unanswered question is why they were sent back in the first place, but it must be really important, or we'd never do something so terrible…

I'm happy to hear I created the atmosphere that I did with the story, and love the idea that maybe it's deep enough for people to have their own interpretations (rather than just too poorly written to understand). Thanks for reading!

Last edited on 07 Sep 2017 12:27 by fieldstone Show more

Shaggydredlocks 07 Sep 2017 06:55

Could have been disturbing, but the way the redactions were handled were disorienting and distracting, and seemed both arbitrarily placed and lazy. The SCProcedures are constructed in an odd way that makes them unnecessarily difficult to parse.

Last edited on 07 Sep 2017 06:58 by Shaggydredlocks Show more

fieldstone 07 Sep 2017 12:17

I changed the redactions to be more normal, and put an addendum at the end that reveals the uncensored information — I might be a lot of things, but a lazy redactor isn't one of them ;).

I think the addition makes the whole story a lot more clear actually.

Tuice Tayna 07 Sep 2017 10:23

I like it alot actually the idea behind it is so freaky, my one criticism is the tech info redacted bits, they just seems to ruin the mood of it for me. I would suggest just having normal redacteds or make them sound more technical.

TL333s 07 Sep 2017 12:20

You see "tech info redacted" enough times and it starts to come off as lazy writing. It certainly lacks any kind of punch, and not just because it's not in all caps.

I feel like that image has already been used for an SCP, though I can't begin to think of which. Regardless, the upgrade in containment procedures, "these things are more dangerous than we thought" opening made me think of Builder Bear, and nothing in the description really made me think we needed another secretly-more-harmful-than-it-seems teddy bear. -1

fieldstone 07 Sep 2017 12:51

If the image has already been used, let me know and I can easily find another one - any toy or doll would work fine.

I tried something fancy with the redactions, but it didn't go over well, so that's out (and I capitalized them, TY). They were placed very deliberately though — I actually wrote the whole thing out and then censored it the way I thought RAISA would in the story. So I put in an addendum to show the information, which I think hope helps the thing come together.

The idea itself definitely isn't going to blow any doors off, but I wanted to get a formatted article under my belt to see how hard it is (extremely) before going back to tales, where I belong :D

Last edited on 07 Sep 2017 13:50 by fieldstone Show more

ratking666 07 Sep 2017 13:52

I have seen this image used before in the Japanese Branch, I donno if this means you need to change it or not tho.

---

pastarasta1 is quick-talking and often scheming

fieldstone 07 Sep 2017 14:03

Yikes, thanks for pointing that out — I'll find a new one as soon as I get to my computer.

Shaggydredlocks 07 Sep 2017 20:08

I'd still say that this has some touching up needed, and I'm going to recommend a rewrite.

+ show block

The SCProcedures could use a bit of work. I'm personally against strike throughs as used here, because it is still clunky to have so much back and forth, and it really takes the impact out of what could be a decent hook.

It could be restructured separately, and simply relabeled "former/current procedures". I think giving each element (the perceived danger imposed to the -2s vs the mandate to allow -1s to operate) some space to breath would give this line:

SCP-3661-1 activation events are not to be interrupted under any circumstance.

A lot more weight than it currently has, doubly so if it could be more strongly implied that the -2s are infants in the 'former' procedures. A good way to do that would be to change 'humanoid containment cells' to something like 'nursery'.

Couple nitpicks:

contaminated by

I feel as though this should be 'containing'? There's no mention of this spreading from one stuffed toy to the next, which this seems to imply.

SCP-3661-1A, SCP-3661-1B, and so on.

Once there is a certain number of them, we're going to have to append extra numbers after the letters anyways…I'd maybe designate the toys 'SCP-3661-A1', A2, A65, etc for ease of reference.

by making small incisions on the face, neck, or limbs and [REDACTED]2.

Based off how this was previously written (being a tech-redaction), is the information relating to their operation/function? As it reads right now, it looks like you're redacting the areas where it makes incisions and I'm not sure that's the intent.

If so, it could be rewritten as "by making small incisions on the face, neck, or limbs and proceeding to [REDACTED]2."

…and I just read the new collapsible; it could still stand to be slightly reworded to make it clearer (at this point) that the redaction is covering their action, not their entry point.

Also, having read the hidden content, I can't say the level of redaction is necessary; aside from perhaps the final one revealing it to be Foundation tech.

That's pretty much it for my nitpicks. Beyond that though, I think the reveal is poorly handled. I can't sustain my disbelief enough. The justification for allowing this is incredibly flimsy, there's simply not enough context to show how they arrived at this conclusion. I don't know what GOI is being referenced (Serpents Hand, I assume, due to the inclusion of the Librarians), or how a temporal paradox factors into the overall picture.

Just because it's Foundation tech doesn't instantly mean there's temporal fuckery afoot - this technology could have been stolen/recreated by spies, for starters. It could have been technology developed concurrently to the SCPF's equipment from another group, or any number of alternate interpretations. The temporal aspect is glossed over instead of cohesively incorporated into the overall narrative, making the entire thing come across as an exercise in shock over substance.

While the recent edits have improved this slightly, it's not at the point where I'd consider reversing my -1.

fieldstone 07 Sep 2017 23:16

Thank you so much for such detailed and thoughtful feedback! I want to leave this up for now — it's my first one, as long as it's over -10 I'm chalking this up as a win — but I think there are two stages of rewrite to take it through, one for now, one for later:

+ the two stages

First, a quick one to put in the revisions to the procedures and other nitpicks you suggested, all of which I think will be improvements. I'll probably do that tonight.

Second, a more thorough one to expand the time travel narrative into more than an afterthought. There's validity to the criticism of shock over substance; for what it's worth, I started at an idea I wanted to realize and ended up at shock value, not the other way around, but at the end of the day this is a skip about dolls that cut up babies, and people's mileage is going to vary on that.

I'm not ashamed of using a thin plot if it accomplishes the gut-wrenching feeling I was going for, but having put in this much work, I'd like to nourish it up to its full potential. That's going to take some kind of perspective or idea I don't have right now, so I think I'm going to work on something else for a while and come back to this then. If I do come up with a direction for the big rewrite, can I message you to see what you think about it?

Either way, thanks again for taking the time to read this again and write up all these suggestions.

Shaggydredlocks 07 Sep 2017 23:59

I've got a kind of odd idea about where to take this involving perspective-based format screw that might make for a novel experience; I'll try to catch you in chat.

ETA: couple of reading suggestions to give a vague idea of what I mean regarding 'perspective-based format screw': SCP-2254, SCP-2284 (probably the most relevant), SCP-2204, S.D. Locke Proposal, SCP-2926

Last edited on 08 Sep 2017 02:19 by Shaggydredlocks Show more

fieldstone 12 Sep 2017 18:30

I overhauled the containment procedures and put in the other nitpicks you suggested — all big improvements, thanks again. I changed the wording a little bit at the end to say which specific GoI the O5 is worried about (the Librarians was the nickname of the high-clearance research task force I made up, but I see how that's confusing, so I came up with a new name for them that I like even more). I thought about un-redacting most of the technical information, but left it because it speaks to the kind of risk-averse, paranoid SCPF I was trying to portray.

I decided this version deserves to stay up as long as it's voted OK, but I still plan to do a complete rewrite eventually — I think I can do a lot better.

Monteparnas 05 Jun 2018 17:22

Though not my kind of read, the concept itself isn't bad. But I'm with Shaggydredlocks on this.

First, only the last redaction is warranted. The rest isn't helping with the sense of a paranoid Foundation. Instead, they are creating the sense of a Foundation that wants to seed paranoia among its own ranks, because it creates too many questions and, at the end, it is simply technical details easy to guess from what is already given.

Also, the conclusion is forced and the new SCProcedures seem to be for shock value. The Foundation have no reason whatsoever to conclude time travel, there is still an infinite array of other possibilities, ranging from spies to other dimensions. IF the time travel theory had any evidence behind it, it would still be unlikely for they to fear a paradox. Several anomalies deal with time in some fashion, and each is so unique that you can't reach standard conclusions about consequences that way. What, after all, would a paradox cause?

Even if the Time Travel was confirmed, it isn't very like them to simply let an anomaly have it its way. They would, instead, keep the first procedures and set more thorough surveillance over the -Bs. You could, instead, set the first SCProcedures to include freeing the children after they are confirmed non-anomalous, and then the second one is to keep them contained indefinitely. Or you can simply drop the change in containment altogether.