let's see how this does
based on a real experience of mine
my intent was to instill that good ol' fear of the unknown with a little bit of imposter syndrome
Despite all my rage… I am still a bacteriophage.
SCP-4084 / Discussion
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This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-4084.
I quite enjoyed your story it's a good SCP.
I am really hyped for more!
Actually, I found the ending super annoying, because I expected it to reveal new information, but instead it was just saying things it had already said as if they were a plot twist.
It's only an information breech if the entity on the other end of the phone actually exists and is not, for example, the phone reading the target's mind and using information from it to imitate the person on the other end of the line. Where's the extensive testing logs via D-class that show what happens when the person on our end of the line starts asking nerdy questions written by researchers?
the point of the foundation considering information expressed by scp-4084 a breach of security is that they don't know what it is and they don't know exactly how it got that information nor what it will do with it.
if enough people feel that this SCP would benefit from an extensive D-Class testing log, then sure, i'll write one, but D-Class testing logs aren't the solution to everything. in some cases, they may reveal nothing not at all, or make the anomaly even more confusing.
i apologize for the annoyance you found in the ending
Despite all my rage… I am still a bacteriophage.
I enjoyed this - simple, disturbing and effective. Easy +1.
Never mind, I thought 33% was high but I guess the conditions for activation are quite specific.
(account deleted)This is a good one. It keeps piling on questions the longer you read it, and never offers to answer any of them, which is clearly the point. But for some reason it doesn't feel unsatisfying or confusing because of that. +1.
I enjoy this because it doesn't give a concrete answer to what's going on. It's not clear if the telephone is stealing people's souls, or if it's making some robotic copy of their personality. My favorite part is how both sides seem to ask the same question ("where is 4084-1/me?), as it makes it even more unclear whether the other side is just a flawed mental copy or not.
This is original, thought-provoking, and mysterious. +1.
I feel very strongly as if there's another skip that has almost exactly this effect, of creating what appears to be a doppelganger of the user trapped in an unknown dark location and allowing them to communicate until the original user terminates contact.
I think this definitely has the foundation of something truly terrifying, but it ultimately doesn't coalesce into much that left any kind of strong impression on me. The final exchange — specifically the final line — I feel, is an excellent capstone for this, but the middle portion felt thin, and doesn't, in my opinion, pull its weight in terms of building tension; the incident feels almost tangential to the story.
The stuff in the middle (auditory hallucinations/fear of landlines) doesn't really add much, and, like shaggy said, doesn't meaningfully contribute to the story. While I'm fine with ambiguous endings, they tend (tend) to work better in shorter articles, where there is a sense that the Foundation (and the reader) simply don't have enough information to make sense of it. Here, the middle portion kills the pacing and keeps the ending from evoking any sense of dread or mystery. -1, but there is good potential here.
wow! i never expected this to get as much appreciation as it did
im glad that whatever i did worked
Despite all my rage… I am still a bacteriophage.
I'm not sure the ending is the strongest place to stop, but I really love the idea of your own voice begging you not to hang up a phone call. Phones are fucking creepy, yo, I can't stand 'em, and this is completely unsettling. +1
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page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
