GravelPage - SCP Foundation

GravelPage

rating: +17+–x

Hello, this is my author page. I'm not one for visual design, but maybe I'll make this look fancy one day.

Anyway, here's the thingies I wrote in the order I wrote them:

SCP-8117: Life's Got You Down?

I'd wanted to write something for the site for years and only started making attempts in early 2024. My first few ideas weren't great (Bike wheel that gives birth to clones of people, a growing line of people that compels others to join it) and I took a short break. That short break lasted until New Years Eve where I randomly came up with the idea for this article. It was initially just one agent in the basement, but I got some advice from a critter and made it two. I'm very glad I ended up going with that too because someone just monologuing for three full transcripts would've been painful to write and to read.

All in all, I think it's a decent first effort and I'm happy with how it turned out.

SCP-8704: Sir Frederick and the Mighty Morphin' Power Sword

Commentary

- Silly sword man

Came up with this idea while playing Risk of Rain 2 at 1am with some friends. First title idea was "The Place Where He Inserted the Blade", but I scrapped that pretty early on. Fun fact, in the idea's infancy, I was going to have Sir Frederick appear as different vital historical figures throughout time, but decided against it because the whole point was that he was just a normal person who wanted to do the right thing. It's the only lighthearted thing I've written and a sequel is currently in the works.

While I like the idea of my first article more, I think I executed this one far better.

Everything You Can Think of is True

Commentary

- But a Dream is amazing and I want to do it justice

This was meant to be the first entry in my team's series for Public Domain Con. Unfortunately, life got in the way for all of us and we dropped out. This remains as the only part of the story line. The prose is probably the strongest point, but after a lot of contemplation I'm not really sure if I'm happy with the piece as a whole. It's meant to be part of But a Dream, a canon that I adore, and the most easily recognized part of But a Dream is its unique imagery and mood. I don't really think I got even close to matching that. I plan on either revamping this in the future or making a concerted effort to nail down the right tone for the sequel (which is also in the works).

All in all, could be a lot better.

SCP-8463: Lookin' into that big empty

Commentary

- One of many holes in classic con

Here's something that's actually pretty good. This is my submission for classic con and my highest rated article as of now. It's a hole that kills you.

Image is from an old well in an abandoned cornfield. I could honestly write another article using images from that area alone. So many old run-down buildings and farming equipment. Moving on from that though, the political commentary was not initially a part of the article at all. It began as just "weird thing with creepy interview". The first log was significantly longer, including a lot of extraneous details, and the speech was a conversation with the mayor. Once I decided to actually put more meaning into it, there was an emphasis on unseen mental health issues which can still be found in the current draft (Eliza's black mark, psychiatry building being removed) but that got overshadowed quickly by the mayor's speech.

I'll probably end up editing this once the contest is over. As of now, I'm pretty happy with how I've done.

SCP-1166: The Blyd

Commentary

- Another hole

My wonderful co-author, Seal, was working on this for the Summer of Doom anthology. We brainstormed a lot of the plot structure together over the course of a week and when they reached a point where they just had no idea what to do, I offered to co-author.

The concept is almost entirely Seal's with ideas intertwined from me. The block of flesh at the bottom was me, as well as most of the little flesh things underneath it. I was the primary writer for the interview after which Seal touched things up a bit. Otherwise, this is really their project.

As a little side-note, this is the first thing I'd worked on that reached +50 in under month (that wasn't a contest piece) so a nice little milestone there.

SCP-9030: Take It On the Chin

Commentary

- Mm, pork

This went through way too many drafts. I can run through all of them here since I didn't want to clog the author post.

Initially, this was just a TV channel of a man in a horse mask drinking soup and speaking gibberish. Nothing good came of it and no one ever saw this version. Next was a "Too Many Cooks"-esque article about a TV that "animal-ified" the characters in it. There was a wolf caricature running around killing all of them and he eventually got burned alive in a furnace. Nico told me outright that it just wasn't working at all and that helped me to start brainstorming something that actually would.

Afterwards, it became a hostile pataphysical entity that added pigs to TV shows and then killed them. The bulk of it was a really long, boring log that went over multiple recordings and had an ending that was way too fucking cool for this article and didn't fit. A few ideas from this draft might end up in a future story, but they just weren't meshing here.

Now, right before crystallization, I did another rehaul. This time, it wasn't some 5k word slog, it was half as long and focused on three guests. I tried to weave in some themes regarding sexual abuse in Hollywood (A wolf in sheep's clothing seemed like a pretty clear metaphor, it's also why Conti is in a wool jacket in this draft) but even after research I didn't believe I was in a state to accurately explore that topic. Dysadron also helped refine the article at this point by encouraging me to tighten down on details and focus in on only a few specific things.

After this, we reached the final draft. Some changes were made after the initial version, especially in regards to the ending, but otherwise I was done. The release from finally finishing this was amazing and I think it's given me a better grasp on how to handle horror in general.

Happy 9kcon everyone, excited to see what slot I get.

Cool Stuff You Should Read Section/My Favorite Pieces

SCP-240 by macro_au_micro