(referring to a single instance)
Why is this here?
You have a ton of -XXXX in there. This feels unedited.
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You have a ton of -XXXX in there.
Have I? Christ. Thank you sir. I must be tired.
I have to admit, I didn't expect this article to end like this when I started writing. Anyway, I hope it meant something to you.
Huge thanks to Ihp,
Mendelssohn,
DrZinc,
SpectralDragon and
not_a_seagull for critique (and anyone else I may have forgotten - apologies if I have).
The concept is something I've thought about for a while, which is this: what if people could (if they had the means to do so) cut-out parts of their emotion that they disliked. What if they could, say, remove fear?
The skip is called the 'self-performed brain editing manual'. In this sense, the drug acts as a 'manual', giving the addict who has overdosed (otherwise committed) in the drug the means to 'edit' themselves. The actual body-horror of this skip is merely something to keep people attached to the story, and create a real (yet distant) sense of what people like this would do.
The concept of a person who simply cannot feel negative emotion has often disturbed me. How would you ever argue with them? They could not even possess the ability to hate you. I tried to include some interviews, but they felt broken and unnatural, and I feel that my idea of this person would not fit the imagination of everyone, so I left it empty.
Anyway, I this is just my belief about the story as the writer, and I don't mean to infringe upon any headcannon. I just felt the need to justify this as something other than another shameless violent skip.
A lot of Keter class SCPs are giant monsters or infectious diseases or horrifying abominations. Those are scary because, well, they're horrifying, and that makes them good. This one is scary because it almost feels like it could be real. An important part of horror is having the fear follow you past whatever media you indulged in. Neck snapping statues scare me in the moment, but they just aren't real. Super addictive pain killing drugs that drive people to hurt themselves? That is real, and it could happen to anyone. There is probably some other more technical problems and advanced stuff I don't really know about, but I appreciated this. If it gets down voted into oblivion, keep working on it.
I love the core idea of this item. It really feels unique and horrifying. However the tone is completely off for me. If you can tighten up the writing and focus it a bit more on the actual physical changes inside the brain, I could see this being an easy +1 from me. As for now, no vote.
You did foreshadow that something bigger was going on with how every victim was self-inflicting brain trauma, but I feel like you did nothing with that buildup. The final note didn't really add anything to the story, other than going "Got that, audience?" for the story you were trying to imply.
The foreshadowing is left to the reader, about how these people will eventually no longer feel any negative emotion as they have cut-away everything they dislike feeling. It doesn't need a description, and any attempts I could make at describing such a person (which I have tried) never seem to create the same sense of the idea.
I agree however. The final note is just to make sure everyone understands the story. I don't expect people to have to search the comments to understand what is going on.
I guess this whole story is an implication of another story. A story I find more horrific imagining more than anything else.
The anomalous effect isn't nearly interesting enough to justify the length of this piece, given that it hardly seems anomalous to begin with -excluding the almost-compulsive level of self-harm.
I was able to stick around for two collapsibles - the first of which contained unbelievable dialogue (which house is theirs in relation to the caller??? what kind of question is that vs 'what's the address'?), and the second contained just plain weak redundancy in the prose ("advised to repeatedly take SCP-3273 once every five hours."'repeatedly' is wholly extraneous here.) - and I wasn't much interested in reading further, as I wasn't enjoying it to begin with. This could use some trimming and another look-over for concise language.
The problem I have with this isn't the anomaly or the presentation, but rather the premise. Namely, that one could simply 'remove' fear or other negative emotions just by obliterating the amygdala. Simply put, it's not true. The fact of the matter is that emotion is an extremely complex and nebulous thing that has not been localized to any one particular brain location. Some might make claims, but having spent a good decade in psychology and in particular in the study of emotional response, I will tell you they're talking out their ass. If we knew this, our lives would be SO much easier. (Really, this is partly the reason I'm no longer in psychology - actual answers are virtually impossible to come by, and I found I didn't do well with all the maybes and conflicting results.)
The role of the amygdala is still not understood completely, but many leading experts (particularly THE amygdala guy, Joseph LeDoux) believe the evidence suggests the amygdala is part of threat detection. Damage the amygdala, you won't be as good at responding to something that other people would naturally be inclined to find threatening. These people can still feel fear, disgust, and all the other negative emotions - they just aren't as good at recognizing what should cause it.
Coming from that standpoint, this anomaly's story falls completely flat. Its anomalous effect basically amounts to a cognitohazard causing self-mutilation, which tends to be bland as far as SCPs go.
Nope. The idea isn't bad, but damn, that last couple of notes not only feel forced tone-wise, but add nothing but especulation.
'if they manage it, they'll be a monster!!!!!!!!'
No, they clearly will just die from brain damage as this gives them no supernatural resistance.
This was decent before the overexplaining… even if doesnt feel that paranormal.
This one has a great hook, but it's missing that last yank of the line to set it. It wouldn't take much, just one little twist to open it up into something more than just a weird drug.
Some polish wouldn't hurt either, but it's that missing spark that keeps me from upvoting.
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page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
