Reality Check / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page Reality Check.

page 1 of 212next »

Author Notes

Zyn 21 Apr 2014 22:42

Many thanks to Tuomey, Dmatix, Eskobar, Photosynthetic, The Raven, Vince, ProcyonLotor, DrYucatan, Randomini, and anyone else who read it over in chat whom I may have forgotten and if so I am sorry. Title was picked by Aelanna, who convinced me with “It has a double meaning, because a Check is also a movement in fencing.”

This started off as an SCP article, but that format didn’t quite suit the story I wanted to tell, which was basically “Foundation studies thing, Foundation effectively breaks thing, Foundation pretty much keeps studying thing.” Also, I wanted to touch upon the in-universe process of writing up an SCP article, and the inherent possibility that the Foundation has a lot of other broken things in storage (including living things).

Also, swords. I did a lot of reading research about swords. For the record, it’d be called a bastard sword, or so I’m told.

Re: Author Notes

MisterFlames 23 Apr 2014 02:32

If I had to guess, the sword was probably a Swiss or German fencing blade, probably around the sixteenth century. I can imagine it being a blade more devoted to instruction rather than combat, in one of the German universities. I like it!

Re: Author Notes

DrMagnus 28 Nov 2017 17:19

For the record, I 100% rubber stamp all of the verbiage and research put in here.

This is spot on.

Longsword is fine, as is bastard sword. They were actually way less finicky about it historically than we are now.

Re: Author Notes

Zyn 29 Nov 2017 08:10

Thank you for the rubber stamp of honor, Master of Swords!

TL333s 21 Apr 2014 22:58

The "article" is fun, but I really appreciate this tale, showing some of the trials of writing an article, in-universe.

(account deleted) 22 Apr 2014 23:59

Hmmm. Neutral vote. It's written well enough, and it rings truer than a lot of "slice of SCP life" style articles do. The article at its center though is just too silly for me to take seriously as the focus of the story.

Zyn 23 Apr 2014 00:58

Admittedly, I wasn't totally sure if the humorous aspect was overdone. I wanted to have a clear shift between "oh look, it's a talking sword how delightfully amusing" and the research ultimately causing irreversible harm to the object.

Dexanote 23 Apr 2014 04:04

god damn this is good

anqxyr 25 Apr 2014 06:45

This is great.

No response, save for the door swinging shut.

That bit is confusing. I interpreted it at first as Mercer leaving the room to check on testing, but then Mercer is inexplicably back and talking without any mention of him coming back.

Zyn 25 Apr 2014 06:58

Yeah, he left the room to check on the testing lab place thing. The "in-progress document" inserts are to indicate passage of time, but yeah, that it is confusing there. I'll add a sentence about Mercer returning.

Ambrosius Ostberg 27 Apr 2014 15:03

I'm really impressed by how engaging this was. I even forgot that I was reading a tale halfway through. Now I'm just wondering how it would have reacted to one of Abel's swords.

Last edited on 27 Apr 2014 15:04 by Ambrosius Ostberg Show more

Zyn 17 Apr 2015 18:23

Now I'm just wondering how it would have reacted to one of Abel's swords.

[incoherent screaming], most likely.

HatMan 16 May 2014 22:44

Fantastic article. I like to see new takes on the internal operations of the Foundation, and it breathes more life into the well worn standard format.

However,

“properly introduced to her”

SCP-XXXX: He refused to speak to me.

might need another letter for consistency of the joke.

Last edited on 16 May 2014 22:51 by HatMan Show more

Zyn 16 May 2014 23:01

It's intentional.

;)

Aelanna helped me come up with it. I think the dialogue tossed around was originally something like "What did she say to you?" "It was a man."

thedeadlymoose 04 Jun 2014 05:58

Nitpicks:

Riven outright laughed.

Overplaying. Just have him snicker.

Surprising that it knew about legendary swords, though.

Not really sure why this is surprising, though I could potentially believe it. Just seems odd to single out. I mean, we know famous human historical figures, right? Maybe add a line or something.

And none of the other interviews seem to give as much information about the object.

Exposition not necessary.

“Do you think it’ll ever speak again?”

Odd question. It's only been seven days, why wouldn't it speak again?

We don’t even know if it’s the sword itself that was talking, or something inhabiting the sword that just up and left.”

Covered that already in the story (but this one's better, could probably cut the earlier instance, but not the biggest deal).

I really like the closing lines, but they could stand to have at least one or dialogue tags to keep us grounded.

Saying "item has ceased to exhibit effects" without at least waiting a little bit longer seems really premature.

Beyond that, I love this piece. Quite entertaining and funny.

Last edited on 04 Jun 2014 06:03 by thedeadlymoose Show more

Zyn 04 Jun 2014 06:05

I feex! (most things. Rest will happen when I'm not as tired)

ribby97 03 Feb 2016 22:53

This made me smile.

One thing though- Why does the fourth addendum say that it refused to speak for seven days, if it still isn't talking? Shouldn't it just say that it has refused to speak since the incident?

Zyn 03 Feb 2016 23:14

At the time the fourth addendum text was written, it had been seven days.

As the SCP article was scrapped due to the object no longer requiring specialized containment as an SCP object, that piece of documentation was not updated.

DrMagnus 28 Nov 2017 15:51

I can't believe I only saw this now.

This is…awesome. +1.

Zyn 29 Nov 2017 08:16

Coming from you, that's a huge compliment! :D Thanks!

page 1 of 212next »