SCP-4231 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-4231.

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thefriendlyvandal 23 Aug 2018 04:09

Love was all that it could give
But it died so other towns could live
They don't bury bodies from the drowned
But they drowned our little town

We're like the lambs to its slaughter
Buried in water
Buried in water
Buried in water
-Buried in Water by Dead Man's Bones

hi im van ive been worldbuilding this universe for a year now. it took me a TON of research and hard work like haha you have no fucking idea man

this is….a VERY non-traditional article, too. i wanted to write like, prose. its….really quite something. so now that i've posted it after a YEAR of work i've decided to do what any responsible adult would and go to bed

special thanks to:
-everyone i interviewed about their experiences with trauma and sexual assault
-everyone who helped me not have a mental breakdown…u know who u are….my great bitches, my fine dudes
-DrClef, who saw my terrible first draft of this on ao3 literally a year ago (please dont look it up its Not Good) and encouraged me to keep going with it. this is…based off of his universe and headcanons. obviously i took some liberties and threw some shit out the window, but yeah man

edit 9/24/2018: hello my lads, dudes, and fellas. if a softer, more explicitly fanfiction-esque series taking place in this same universe is of any interest to you, i may be able to offer my services elsewhere as well. not even close to being as visceral, but it deals more with the explicit reverberations of this that i felt were better suited to offsite tastes.

edit 10/18/2018: lads i have no idea how i thought i could do another chapter of this and i also have no idea where i was going with this…….like i was obsessing over this way more then i thought i was when i was writing it, and look. some people love this thing and think its one of the best things on the wiki. some people think its literally unreadable, and that it's laughably bad. to me, this was a wild year-long experiment, and it taught me a lot and i'm free. i don't consider this the best thing ive ever written, though it's definitely the longest so far, and i'm working towards writing things of this length that are 100% more coherent and effective then this piece (original stuff that will hopefully be published on other platforms).

so to those who love this: great! i'm glad.

to those who hate this: this is not the best thing I've ever written and was purely a big experiment in pushing myself in terms of my writing, and i appreciate you reading regardless. I'm still young and growing as a writer, and I'll have better, more coherent stories in the future.

overall, i'll probably not be expanding on this anymore (on this platform, at least). between my feelings about it looking back at it a couple months later, addressing and working through some mental stuff that i was dealing with when i wrote it, and a various assortment of harassment i've received on other platforms about the visceral content of it, it's probably better if i leave it be for a while, or forever, or maybe rewrite/edit it when i'm older and better at writing.

that's not to say i won't write other pieces on the wiki, obviously. to my own jargon and to the dismay of many people displeased with seeing senior researcher content in general, i am ever determined by my unending crusade towards expanding the genre of angsty, artistic, dark ass character pieces, as well as working on some non-scp projects of my own, and i have to reassert that not everything i write will be like this.

thanks for reading!

UPDATE 12/8/2018: so user Monidrake translated this to the Japanese branch and like……are you okay…..this is literally 20,000 words…..literally novella length…..how????? like i've had my shit translated before, but this is unprecedented tbh. fantastic work, dude. holy fuck.

UPDATE 4/8/2019: yes, i know, another update. wild. anyway, this article now has a lovely scp declassified analysis by GentleGifts. i'm not sure if it'll be posted to the declassified wiki, but it's split into two parts on the reddit. putting it in giant links here so nobody misses it:

SCP Declassified article part 1

SCP Declassified article part 2

UPDATE 7/25/2019:
Some minor edits. Trigger warning at the top edited for clarity. 'Rituals: Chapter One' deleted from the bottom after nearly a year of popular consensus against it.

Last edited on 25 Jul 2019 19:43 by thefriendlyvandal Show more

Drblackbox 23 Aug 2018 21:18

Is it weird there still seem to be some heavy fanfic vibes in this?

thefriendlyvandal 24 Aug 2018 17:15

…So?

GentleGifts 08 Apr 2019 14:47

For those that are having difficulty making sense of everything they just read, there is now a Declassification that explains pretty much everything.

Part One

Part Two

thefriendlyvandal 08 Apr 2019 18:25

Oh fucc you already linked it. well, now it's linked a second time in a larger font slightly father up the page.

This is a fucking incredible literary analysis btw. Seriously, I'm honored. You got, like, everything. Like all my occasionally-chaotically-placed theming and obscure references and character moments, like…everything. A proper write up makes me feel like it's a little less of a chaotic crazed scrawl on a prison cell wall. If you told 15 year old newbie author me that I would be getting my works analyzed at this caliber like I was doing to other shit in my high school english classes, I wouldn't have believed you.

Like not to bring f*elings into the SCP discussion thread, but you did a really great job here, dude. like wow

GentleGifts 09 Apr 2019 15:41

*squees in appreciation*

Aw shucks.

Doctor Twpsyn 06 Feb 2020 16:40

Okay I dunno if you're reading this, but I'm so intrigued. Are you implying that reality anchors are made from type greens? I dunno if I'm grossly misinterpreting it, but if so that is interesting.

Koshet Starr 08 Jun 2020 07:11

I hope this question has not already been asked, but exactly how visceral is the sexual assault that is included?

As a child I experience sexual abuse and can stand a little but not a lot, normally I would avoid this entirely to be safe but the other comments and praise excite me.

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For more info contact Dr. Starr via private message.

A Random Day 23 Aug 2018 04:24

I still need to actually read the article, but just off of the table of contents I hope this survives, if for no other reason than it will continue to blur the lines between tale and SCP and open the door to continually more fascinating means of storytelling.

FilaYoung 23 Aug 2018 07:28

Greatly appreciate the warning at the top. Greatly.

Taffeta 23 Aug 2018 08:57

The ace representation is much appreciated. As is the warning at the top.

There's almost nothing that gets me quite as weary as grand-scale world-enders. Of course, there's almost nothing that reminds me why I fell in love with the site as much as your takes on the old guard, so I think that more than makes up for it. Your eye for emotional colour, run-on sentences and lived-in prose continues to sing as always, and the fact that you chose the Cornwall Incident as your subject of choice makes the tiny fanbie in me squeal. The end result of this is a stunning montage of the monstrous machinery behind the Veil at one of its moments of crisis, seen through a series of personal lenses that ensures for all its grandeur it never loses its connection with the reader.

Congratulations on making Montauk mean something again, and thank you for posting this.

TL333s 23 Aug 2018 12:36

I have things I need to do today. @_@ I can't read all this!

That said, I looked at the actual SCP part of this, and you've got the people's heights in feet and inches.

Rituals Chapter 1

Also, this is frightening.

EDIT: And I forgot to add, starting off your article with "proceed with Class 2 precautions"… That comes off as some kind of joke. It really seems like something you'd find in an over-the-top -J, not a serious article trying to portray sexual assault with gravitas. Why not just "Proceed with caution"?

Last edited on 23 Aug 2018 13:55 by TL333s Show more

Connor MacWarren 23 Aug 2018 13:15

Three reasons why I downvoted:

+ Show critique

1. This acts way too much like a tale for me to look at this as an SCP. This article feels like it's trying to emulate the writing prowess of Michael Atreus' 2718 and djkaktus' 1730. But what made those articles great on their own despite their length was how it hooked us from the start with something that makes sense in-universe. I feel like just immediately jumping into the article and outright saying that "This article is so graphic, that we made it a memetic hazard" is just- really not doing it for me at all.

2. I get that this is a format-break, but I can't really focus on the SCP if it doesn't have at least a few parts of the traditional format.

3. Finally, this just drags on for way too long for me to care. I would usually try to finish long articles if it tries to hook me with something interesting, but it's really on the nose when it tells you at the top that, sexual assault is a memetic hazard? I don't know how to say it but, I just find it kind of dumb when it says that.

I know that this took an unimaginably long-ass time to make, and I know that when I critique something as touchy of a subject as sexual assault, it's probably bound to be misunderstood or interpreted as something else. Regardless, I couldn't finish it.

Eta: if this was a tale? I'd upvote the shit out of it and read through it. But alas, this is not the case here.

Last edited on 23 Aug 2018 13:38 by Connor MacWarren Show more

mlister 23 Aug 2018 17:13

Eta: if this was a tale? I'd upvote the shit out of it and read through it. But alas, this is not the case here.

I continue to find people's obsessive delineation of Tale vs. SCP to be absurd.

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(account deleted) 23 Aug 2018 21:50

+ show block

I continue to find people's obsessive delineation of Tale vs. SCP to be absurd.

The 'hook' of this site is that the format of most of our fiction is that of a scientific document. Wanting the scientific documents to remain looking like scientific documents because traditional prose has a place in tales is not absurd.

It's because an SCP article is something that exists in-universe in a specific format, not as a traditional narrative. These half-tale-with-no-reason-for-the-format-screw articles do not make sense in-universe and OOU they're taking up SCP slots with blatant tale format.

I don't want it to sound like I don't think things like this have a place on the site (the votes prove I'm in the minority on seeing it as that big of an issue) but our site is growing extremely quickly and format screw SCPs that have no logical, in-universe reason to be a format screw are not helping the numbers, IMO.

Seconding MacWarren on overall article opinion.

Last edited on 24 Aug 2018 03:59 by (account deleted) Show more

mlister 23 Aug 2018 23:40

I can understand someone preferring the SCP Format over free form prose. It's easily digestible, gives the wiki a trademark style, and it lends itself to a certain narrative arc that one can become accustomed to and love. The idea that every SCP slot has to be occupied by an SCP file exclusively, though, is creatively stifling, and would have neutered if not outright prevented some of the most well-written SCPs on the site.

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ModernMajorGeneral 24 Aug 2018 01:32

I don't think it's crazy talk to say that SCP slots should have SCP files in them, though if you think downvoting something otherwise good for that reason is petty, sure.

Posting unconventional things as tales instead of SCPs doesn't stifle creativity - the things still get written. The exception to this would be articles that take parts of the format and subvert them, where they need to be posted as SCPs and lose impact when posted as tales but can't strictly follow the format. It doesn't look to me like this falls in that category, and it really looks more tale-like than SCP-like (particularly due to being part one of a series, which makes me grimace somewhat in a mainlist article). I've only skimmed it, though, so I didn't vote and take this with a large grain of salt.

Last edited on 24 Aug 2018 01:33 by ModernMajorGeneral Show more

(account deleted) 24 Aug 2018 03:58

+ show block

The idea that every SCP slot has to be occupied by an SCP file exclusively, though, is creatively stifling

An SCP article is, by definition in and of itself, an SCP article. It exists in-universe. That is the point of the format. That means it either conforms to the formatting standards expected by the Foundation or if it doesn't there's a reason for it. Changing these by-the-definition parameters would be changing the entire basis of why SCPs are separate from tales: canonically, structurally significant differences.

A format screw is a challenge. It's 'how do I make this nontraditional and have the logic check out despite the limitations posed by the fact that this is a formal report document?' Articles like this don't make sense because there is no provided reason for there to be prose in this document.

There's a place for traditional narrative prose on this site, and it's tales. (They're underappreciated; putting their content in SCP slots is not going to address that.)

Edit: The gist of it is what Hippo said below: The format exists for a reason. It should only be broken with care and cunning.

Last edited on 24 Aug 2018 04:28 by (account deleted) Show more

The Great Hippo 24 Aug 2018 04:10

On one hand, I don't want to throw any shade on this; I like seeing people take risks, and I think this is a pretty big risk. I appreciate that the author posted it! On the other hand:

There's a place for traditional narrative prose on this site, and it's tales. (They're underappreciated; putting their content in SCP slots is not going to address that.)

I agree thoroughly with this sentiment. I'm wary of works like this, because it starts to feel like an attempt to fool SCP readers into reading a tale instead of an SCP.

Mind you, I don't suspect at all that this is what the author is trying to do! But that's how it starts to feel — and once it starts to feel that way, the whole contract of SCPs as a format starts to break.

The format exists for a reason. It should only be broken with care and cunning.

Connor MacWarren 24 Aug 2018 04:35

Keep in mind that I finally finished reading the whole thing and, well… I was impressed by this wonderfully well-written piece. The way Clef is characterized as a broken man really makes me not look at him in the same way.

That being said, my criticisms are still valid and apparent throughout the whole thing. There's nothing more immersion-breaking and confusing then to see the words "Rituals Chapter 1: End." In a document for the SCP.

Last edited on 24 Aug 2018 04:36 by Connor MacWarren Show more

Prof_JL 25 Aug 2018 17:55

I couldn't agree more.

Guestest 02 Oct 2018 15:38

Another seconding for MacWarren.
I know its series V and all, but come on. Just because insert author here did it doesn't mean you should make an entire article as a story. I mean, I know its been said, but we have a format for a reason.

If anything, I know you put a lot of work into this, but from the cover it made me think you were just trying to avoid using the format.

GentleGifts 23 Aug 2018 14:31

Holy fuck.

This is unprecedented. Unnatural. It breaks fundamental expectations and requirements for what an SCP should be, and introduces a new take on some of the most iconic and sacred canon within the Foundation universe.

It made me gasp out loud twice, and it made me want to cry.

You managed to tie together

SPOILERS

the lore behind Dr Clef's origin, 166, 231, 239, 2317, and Scranton,

and somehow have it all work without feeling forced or cliched.

This is undoubtedly one of the finest things I've read on here. The only problem I have with it is that I can't upvote it twice.

Last edited on 23 Aug 2018 14:39 by GentleGifts Show more

rattles 23 Aug 2018 15:38

Holy… shit.

mlister 23 Aug 2018 17:22

Never before has the word "Ukulele" inspired such an emotional reaction from me.

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Oh boy. I'm not quite sure what to say. It's rough around the edges, in ways that I can't quite elaborate upon without rereading this behemoth. There's also waxing and waning in my interest from section to section. Learning what a few farmhands have to say about a glue factory just isn't as interesting as getting a look at Clef's head. But overall you've got this well-written, well not quite epic, per se. It needs a bit more closure than what here's right now. But you got me invested and you got me intrigued and I really did want to read more and more. The novelty of redefining the lore is handily backed up by a tight central narrative, and I hope that the next part of series doesn't take too long to come out! I do hope that it's a bit tighter and bit less dithering next time, though.

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Melonical 23 Aug 2018 18:59

…most likely, that experience has changed you. Most likely, you are much different. Most likely … you will never be the same.

This is precisely the feeling I'm left with after reading. Enthralling, captivating, disconcerting, gut-wrenching; a rich amalgam of all the sensations which continue to draw me back here. I was hooked in the very first segment, but the codename-drop in "Pigs" had me mentally reeling with surprise, ushering me giddily down the spiraling, meticulously crafted path which followed. The final stinger (if I'm understanding), tying together the anchors, the rights to A's body, the unspecified vital ritual supplies sourced primarily to the 80s… that steady, creeping, dawning realization while mulling over parting words is a rare treat.

I have a feeling this will be one of the handful of pieces which linger at the edge of my thoughts for a good long while. Superbly done.

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