Link to article: Interviewing Icons - Djoric.
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[[>]] [[module Rate]] [[/>]] //I won't lie, Djoric is one of my favorite writers to ever write on the site. As one of the old guard, Djoric was a prolific writer here and established much of what we continue to do today with our writing. Djoric was patient with me as I gathered the questions for him, and he answered them in a short amount of time. I am very happy to be sharing with you all this interview with him!// ~ [[*user WhiteGuard]] ------ [[=]] ++ ##800000|Who is [[*user Djoric]]?## [[/=]] ------ @@@@ @@@@ The user [[[djoric-s-author-page | Djoric]]] became a member of this site on the 10th of October, 2009, and his top 3 most popular pages on the site by rating are [[[SCP-1867 | SCP-1867: A Gentleman]]] at +988, [[[10-30-a-m | 10:30 A.M.]]] at +763, and [[[djoric-dmatix-proposal | Djoric-Dmatix Proposal: Thirty-Six]]] at +552. As an author, Djoric has written a total of 31 SCP articles, 88 Tales, 0 GoI Formats, and 7 other pages for a grand total of 126 pages contributed. Djoric wrote a lot of material for the [[[horizon-initiative-hub | Horizon Initiative GoI]]] in addition to many other very unique articles and tales. Among the unique writing he has produced is the [[[stealingsolidarityhub | Stealing Solidarity canon]]] which is a canon about cyborg catgirls. The following interview will consist of 20 questions from myself with his responses. @@@@ @@@@ [[=]] //The bold text represents the questions whereas the text within the boxes are Djoric's responses.// [[/=]] ------ [[=]] ++ ##800000|Interview Questions:## [[/=]] ------ @@@@ @@@@ **Hi Djoric! It is great to be interviewing you. Let's just start out with a simple one I have in every interview. How did you come across the SCP Wiki? Do you remember which article was the first one to attract you by chance?** > I found the site through TVtropes, same as a lot of folks. First article I read was [[[SCP-093 | 093]]] because it was the featured article at the time. This likely colored a lot of what came to follow. @@@@ @@@@ **What appealed to you about the site back then? Why did you bother with it? Do you believe that appeal still exists today?** > I've always been fond of this particular genre - the liminal space modern conspiracy paranormal weird found footage whatever. Maybe it was from watching those shitty UFO specials on the History Channel at an impressionable age. There's the beautiful feeling of finding something new, an unknown that you have to somehow organize in your head. The site just clicked for me, and while I can't remember my exact thoughts at the time I suppose I saw no downsides to joining. I don't think I had much of another online community at the time. > > As for today...yes and no. > > Someone going in for the first time could still get that first initial rush from breaching the seal on the unknown. If they can go in completely blind, all the better. > > But the personal appeal to me specifically is likely gone forever. It's too much, too big, and I know too much of it. The territory has been mapped out, pre-portioned, put in a gift-wrapped bento box with a neat little ribbon top, and I have nothing more to say within its structure. @@@@ @@@@ **Did you have any experience with writing creatively before you found the site or was it your first foray into things? If you did, was that prior writing similar to this genre or completely different if I may ask? Was it challenging for you to acclimate yourself to the style of writing the site had at that time?** > By the time I'd found the site, I'd been writing stuff for myself and friends for a few years. Was your typical middle/high school SFF mush, containing precious little of value besides practice. None of it still remains, and if it does I won't cop to it. > > Adjusting to the site wasn't particularly difficult - these were the days when it was possible to save an article that had hit -7 by coming back the next day with revisions, which is precisely what happened with [[[SCP-499]]]. There was the obligatory first thread full of bad ideas, but as with anything, you write the bad ideas out of your system so the good ones can finally get some space to breathe. @@@@ @@@@ **Who were some of the writers you looked up to or admired when you first started contributing? What were some of your favorite works at the time?** > So many of my (comparatively) more recent memories of the site have dissolved into a haze, and the early days even more so, so you'll have to forgive me if I don't name names for favorite authors. In the early days, there was a terribly small pool of authors anyway, so my list at the time would have been the same big fish in the same small pond as anyone else. > > For specific articles, SCP-093 and [[[SCP-601]]] really got to me early on. They nailed the literary found footage niche that carried so much of the initial appeal. Here's this unlabeled VHS tape with scanlines and tears, showing you shaky footage of something that can't exist. Fucking love that shit. [[[SCP-087]]] too, that was a doozy of an article to come out right as the Mass Edit was over. It's a bit plain nowadays, but competent execution of a basic idea can be gold when there's the right space for it. @@@@ @@@@ **Would you say your style was very unique compared to others or would you say that you tried to take different aspects from some of the prominent authors of the time? Looking back, how would you describe your writing style?** > My style had always been more towards the weird-absurd even early on (ex: [[[SCP-907 | 907]]], [[[SCP-994 | 994]]]), but I don't feel like a proper voice came around until '12-'13. > > Those two years, specifically the period from May '12 to May '13, was when things really settled and took form. Open with Blackwood, end with the conclusion of [[[etdp-hub-page | ETDP]]], and somewhere along the line, there was the development of //intention//. > > Honestly, I think the development of my style was an act of spite. Against what, well, we get to that later. > > The final result, in five parts: > > * The anomalous is absurd. Hilarity overlaps with horror. The weird comes before the dangerous. > * Layer those references. Other things on the site, obscure historical events, random nonsense, doesn't matter. > * The greater multiverse moves along to its own rules, and there's nothing the Foundation can do about it. > * The Foundation is, at absolute best, misguided and doomed to their own undoing. > * The Foundation is never at its absolute best. It is a crumbling edifice of cruelty, ignorance, and Cold War hubris that causes more problems than it solves, and the problems it does solve could be done better, easier, and with fewer crimes against humanity by basically anyone with a working eye and half a brain. > > Or as [[[Weizhong]]] put it in the comments to //[[[The Real Adventures in Capitalism]]]//: "slightly off-kilter style ... intense, quasi-religious imagery ... unabashed in its style, and it gives absolutely zero fucks." @@@@ @@@@ **I'll be honest, one of my favorite characters on the site that would end up with numerous tales and references, Lord Blackwood, was established in your most popular article on the site, SCP-1867: A Gentleman. What inspired you to write this and what do you think about the following Lord Blackwood has received based on this article as well as many accompanying tales, primarily written by [[*user Smapti]] as well a few others?** > There wasn't, as far as I can recall, any special impetus or inspiration for Blackwood. He came about just like any other oddball article - take a couple incongruous ideas, mash them together, write up something on the quick, and post. Nudibranchs are cool, goofy pulp fiction pastiches are fun. > > I love the fact that he took off in popularity - he's a great character for that sort of thing. Got an adventure? Add Lord Blackwood! > > I'll be honest, I don't think I read much of [[[smapti-s-personnel-file | Smapti's]]] stories. I recognize the titles but can't recall their contents. I think my approach at the time was "I shall do my Blackwood stuff, they shall do theirs, and all shall be well", and I think that's worked out for everyone. > > Though I think I did nick Mr. Deeds as his butler from Smapti, I can't remember if that was his idea or mine. @@@@ @@@@ **10:30 A.M. is a short simple tale with the wonderful phrase "Welcome to the SPC. From this moment onward, your job is very, very simple: you are going to punch sharks." What is the deal with [[[spc-hub | SPC]]] and this orientation style tale?** > Orientation-style tales were very popular at the time as a way to quickly and efficiently talk about some facet of the greater setting without having to worry about things like plot or characterization. They had a huge burst of favor that rather swiftly evaporated. > > The SPC is, of course, a joke that had been passed around for ages, which I then wrote this about, and then later wrote [[[SCP-1329]]], [[[SCP-1449]]], and [[[It Always Has Been, It Always Has Not Been]]] and even showing up in The Real Adventures in Capitalism. I've seen the GOI hub for it but not read anything on it. Godspeed, you pugnacious bastards. > > There are jokes in 10:30 AM that make absolutely no sense to anyone who wasn't very into the site in the fall of 2011 (nine years ago, my God, what is time): "teeth became shark" and "consult an alchemist" were lines pulled from swiftly-deleted coldposts immortalized forever in the form of this stupid tale. > > If there is one thing that has never changed, I love devoting myself to shitposts that are way better than they have any right to be. @@@@ @@@@ **Djoric-Dmatix Proposal: Thirty-Six was posted on the 22nd of January, 2013 as a collaborative 001 proposal between yourself and the author [[*user Dmatix]]. Not only that, but this was also the first collaborative 001 proposal to be established. What was it like working with [[[dr-dmatix-s-personnel-file | Dmatix]]] on this and what are your thoughts on the proposal looking back?** > Dmatix and I have always been on much the same or similar wavelength for a lot of things, so working with him was basically just an extension of chatting with him normally. I brought him the idea, and we went on with it, and by this point, it's difficult to tell where one person's contributions begin or end. > > Looking back, I like that it exists in a form untouched by what I'd later write in my personal canon. It's a memorial to the ideas as they were taking shape - the Veil falling apart because the world has gone beyond its appointed lifespan returns later for the grand finale. It's also the HI before ETDP was written and a lot of the details were set down. @@@@ @@@@ **During our preliminary interview, I asked what works on the site you felt were your best. You gave me three for three different reasons. For that reason, we will spend the next three questions covering them. First is your Et Tam Deum Petivi canon. What is this series for those who haven't checked it out yet and why do you believe it is among your best work on the site?** > Okay, so ETDP is a series about a pair of field agents for the Horizon Initiative that starts out episodic and ends up as a romance. It's rough, clunky, amateurish, a bit predictably tropey, and of extreme personal sentimental value. Enough so that I don't lend to look back at it, because I'm afraid the writing won't hold up to the emotional attachment I have for it. > > (You should all still read it, though) > > Looking back, ETDP was a transition point in my writing, where I finally got the hang of characters with a bit of dimension to them. > > Mary-Ann and Salah are just ordinary people. No powers, no zany backstory. Just folks. You could honestly strip all the paranormal stuff out and the core story would be essentially unchanged. That meant I had to rely on who they were as people to make them interesting. Mary-Ann is drifting through life alone. Salah is haunted by the ghost of his younger self. Naomi is this dorky kid who has to wrestle with the responsibility and expectations put upon her. > > The romance wasn't even intended at first! They were just supposed to by Those Two Agents from the HI, along the lines of Mulder and Scully. The representatives of this new GOI, our foot in the door. Their relationship actually came about when, over Christmas break, I found myself reading //Divergent//, to which I exclaimed "I've written characters who aren't even dating who have better chemistry than this!", followed shortly by "Oh, wait, yeah, they do have really good chemistry..." > > I plotted out the rest of the series arc in quick succession after that. > > While the series was ongoing, [[[hammermaidens-author-page | FortuneFavorsBold/HammerMaiden]]] asked me if I was married because she found the relationship written well enough that she thought I must have had some experience. All these years later that remains the greatest praise I have ever received for anything I have ever written. > > (Having quite a bit more relevant life experience now than I did then, I can confirm that a good relationship is mostly ordinary. Just because you want to fuck each other doesn't mean that grocery shopping stopped being a thing.) > > I am also terribly, terribly proud of my usage of Satan/Jormungandr/Quetzalcoatl as head librarian of Yggdrasill. One of those cases where the details have lined up just so that there was no possible alternative. There's a tale fragment I have in my old notes where he's Ouroboros, too. > > If I returned to the series, I would change a lot. Rewrite the entire thing, most likely. Would be a lot more up-front about Mary-Ann getting treatment for her depression, would probably give more time to explore Salah's thoughts and fears on starting a family, would do a lot more with the [[[wanderers-library-hub | Library]]] instead of the [[[are-we-cool-yet-hub | AWCY]]] stuff that went nowhere and came from nowhere, the ending would be completely different (if you've read it, you can probably guess what the change would be.) @@@@ @@@@ **[[[SCP-2085 | SCP-2085: The Black Rabbit Company]]] is the second one you mentioned. This article is an article you are famous for. There are crazy things going on throughout this piece, but like with most good works, there is a meaning behind the story. What is going on in this article and what does it all actually mean?** > 2085 was and is a lot of things. Me venting frustrations at running up against the limitations of the format, certainly, but also something of a personal challenge. Make the best scip I possibly can, that is also anime trash. Take the most mocked and derided type of bad coldpost and make it so good it has to stick around, like a big middle finger struck right in the eye of God. > > (The original article name was "Space Wizard and the Commando Catgirls" and I regret it to this day that I was talked into not using that one. Black Rabbit Company was a rush compromise I've never been too happy with.) > > So to do that, I essentially played two jokes at the same time. It goes kinda like this. > > * Setup A: "The fuck is with this title? This is going to be some dumb harem anime bullshit, isn't it?" > * Punchline A: "No, actually, their circumstances honestly really grim if you think about it and tonally consistent with the scipverse at large." > * Setup B: "Well then I guess that means that it's going to be a downer ending." > * Punchline B: "Ha! I lured you into a false sense of security! You all fell for it! Even your immediate family fell for it! It was anime bullshit the entire time! The real good stuff, too!" > > I wanted to play the expectations of both genres against each other, but that's still just the scene-dressing - it's the characters that are important. > > Character writing is dependent on informing the character by the circumstances they find themselves in. The girls were grown in tubes and raised in isolation with the intention of being sold as a product, but have rejected that future and have claimed hold of their personhood red in tooth and claw. Wizard is just some guy slowly dying of an alien disease, who's thrown away everything else in his life just for a shot as this impossible cause because he knows he hasn't got much time left and if you are going to go out, do something good and go out with a bang. > > So while they are all superficially anime stereotypes (The Boss, the Happy One, the Shy One, the Angry One, the Cold One, the Generic Man), those traits are taken in with the circumstances of their place in-universe and put on the back burner to simmer. Take it to the table and there's a lot more underneath. As with any good anime: > > * Boss has put all the responsibility on herself to keep the gang together, and fears that she's not up to snuff, and that if she fails the entire operation goes under and her sisters are all imprisoned or dead. Wizard, as an outsider, is her release valve. > * Momoko is genuinely that upbeat, but she's much more aware of it than she lets on - the big dumb happy musclehead comic relief is both an effective shield (outsiders will underestimate her) and a means of keeping morale up. When everything else is stripped away, she is likely the most emotionally mature of the group. > * Hana is someone who is normally rather mild and introverted forced into a situation where she must adopt more aggressive and violent behaviors to safeguard her personhood. She hates it, because she's terrible at being a hardass, and she hates the fact that she's terrible at it. > * Nanami self-sabotages. She lashes out violently and childishly against the world that rejects her. She doesn't have the the maturity or life experience to handle her anger productively, so she puts on a dumb costume, puts on a silly accent and causes problems on purpose. > * Tomi, when she deigns to talk to anyone, is cold, apathetic, aloof, snarky, dismissive, and distant. She does not like being emotionally vulnerable, even around her sisters, and so has closed herself off from nearly everyone else. > * Wizard is at war with himself. Red gives voice to all of the fears he tries to tamp down. He's trying to hold onto hope in a situation that only has one end for him (that he can see, at least). He has the bond he does with the girls because of that - they're aiming for that million-to-one chance, hoping it happens nine times out of ten, and there's nothing to go back to or fall back upon when they fail. > > The spaceship dream is that of escape to a place where they can exist on their own terms. The internal ache hope to shed our suffocating shells and return, perhaps for the first time, to the place that we know will welcome us home. > > Also it's a fucking spaceship and that's really cool and [[[ihp-s-author-page | Ihp]]] is a man of culture and skill for recovering //[[[SCP-2117 | Solidarity]]]// after it was lost. > > I cackle with glee when I see that the article is still, to this day, making nerds mad on the internet. It's too silly, it's too self-indulgent, it's cringey, it doesn't belong on the site, it's the author inserting their fetishes into their work - all I'm missing is "It's too political" and I'll have bingo. > > (Every so often, I see a comment on "but why doesn't the Foundation use them in an MTF" and my response is always some variant of //"Really? After reading this article, that's going to be your take? The militant antifascists are going to help out the people who source test subjects from ICE internment camps?"//, so if anything I was not political enough.) > > (Also: oh you sweet summer children of the SCP subreddit: if you think this is fetish work the internet has some horrible surprises in store for you. The only fetish here is my immense love for ECONOMIC JUSTICE. The entire article is about their violent rebellion against a world-ordering that treats them as objects to fulfill its own desires, and how that rebellion is awesome. If I get all male-gazy about it I have //missed the fucking point//.) > > My disappointment in the continued lack of fanart remains enormous - I know of work by Jenssosaurus, u/Throbbert_Hood, someone in the Korean fan community, and possibly a cameo in Lord Bung's Confinement Ep2, and that's it. In seven years. I could likely find more [[[dr-kondraki-s-personnel-file | Kondraki]]] art made in the last month or two. > > --No, I'm not bitter, why would you ever think that I am //perfectly fine//.-- > > I get to have the last laugh anyway because, as if foretold in sacred scrolls, Yasuhiro Nightow's (he made //Trigun//!) //Blood Blockade Battlefront// features a five-woman squad of special agents with a non-indicative animal theme-name who spend all their screen time fucking around / doing shootbang operations / drinking liver-annihilating amounts of alcohol. > > Observe the following image. You should be able to guess immediately which one correlates to which member of the BRC. > > https://imgur.com/a/yPrTwnL > > I am a god-damn //prophet//. > > (It is, of course, purely coincidental convergent evolution but to see it in a show I am quite fond of makes me a happy, happy weeb.) > @@@@ @@@@ **The last one you mentioned, The Real Adventures in Capitalism, was one of the final works you added to the site, and you mentioned that it was one of your best in terms of the quality of writing. What did you do right with this tale?** > Well, the obvious thing is that I posted it in 2018, so it's the result of several years of writing stuff I wasn't terribly burnt out on. Nice and rejuvenating. > > It's the grand finale of the Djoricverse, tying together basically everything I had written up to that point and several things I had never gotten around to putting to page. It's a completion to Isabel's storyline, a completion to Naomi's storyline, a completion of the Scarlet King storyline. No loose end remains, because the multiverse is gone. It's over, it's done, there's nothing left for me to write. > > There's a certain amount of tossing off the weighted clothing and pulling out all the stops involved - if we're going to have curtain call, we're going to go big, using everything that wouldn't or couldn't work elsewhere on the site. Reducing it down to a highlight reel was honestly the only way it could have existed (I would have burnt out on a tale series), and it worked out. Waste no time, waste no words, hyperlink it to hell and back because there will be everything here and I haven't got the time to footnote every single reference. > > (Example: the Foundation appears exactly once in the entire tale, as one of its researchers throws the [[[SCP-140 | Chronicle of the Daevites]]] into the ocean. It's not explicitly stated in the tale, but it is referencing my headcanon that the Foundation had been compromised by the Children of the Scarlet King ages ago.) > > Isabel started as mostly a joke with no plan, as things of mine tend to be. I'm immensely proud of where her story ended up. The story is also a nice bookend to my body of work because the first real thing I wrote for the site ([[[Video Oddity]]]) was a collection of fragmented anomalous video recordings. > > Fun fact: the final battle against the King has an associated song I basically played on loop to get pumped and inspired for it: "The Greatest Jubilee" from Bayonetta 1. Isabel makes her big entrance at 2:32, fastball special at 3:05, final blow at 3:18 (or push it to the second loop if you want an extended fight.) @@@@ @@@@ **Previously, I interviewed the prolific tale writer, [[*user Ihp]]. Although you began what would become known as the [[[the-s-c-plastics-hub | S & C Plastics]]] canon with your tale [[[Stratagem]]] from 2010, [[[ihp-s-author-page | Ihp]]] is the one who really picked it up and ran with it. What were your original thoughts when creating this series, and what do you think about what it has become?** > Ihp has done more, and done better, with S&C than I could have ever hoped to achieve. The original intent was just to have a recurring crew of nobodies (I remember originally pitching it as a replacement for the senior staff avatars. Ah, naivete.) having low-danger escapades. He's taken that and run a marathon with it. I couldn't be happier with the result. Were it only up to me, it would have been abandoned after those first couple tales. @@@@ @@@@ **As previously mentioned, you have worked alongside Dmatix before. Dmatix was the originator for the GoI The Horizon Initiative. As a writer who has written a lot for that GoI, what do you think is charming about it?** > First and foremost, it's a project that a good friend and I worked on together, and that by itself is its own charm and appeal. > > Secondly, it's a way to approach the scipverse from a different lens. Foundation contains, Coalition eliminates, Initiative (eventually) learns - even if it doesn't like the lesson, and most of what they learn is that they were wrong in the first place. It can't front the material support of the other large GOIs, but it uses its knowledge of the greater scipverse to maintain its position despite the deficiencies in manpower. > > Example: "So hey, there's a giant library in the middle of the multiverse and it is run by Satan." > > * Foundation: Lock the door, no one ever gets in. > * Coalition: Oh that's a wonderful stack of grimoires you have there would be a shame if something happe-//whoops// who put that flamethrower there? > * Initiative: Sigh. All right, who's going to be the official liaison? Yes I know it's Satan but we've got to do something. Hey, Salah, your daughter's a teenager, right? She'll be perfect, teenagers love Satan. > > Thirdly, it's a house of cards liable to implode at any moment in a wonderfully symmetrical manner. There's the simmering tension between the three main Abrahamaic branches trying to work together without killing each other, then also the simmering tension between the conservative and progressive wings of the organization, then the added pressure of biting off more than they can chew and getting revelations that they weren't necessarily asking for, then the added pressure of all the minor cults flocking to the banner, then the external conflict between them, the Foundation, and the GOI, and //then// the external conflict between them and the CotBG and the Fifthists. > > Fourth and final is the fact that the HI is built to feature ordinary people. Even most of the Wolves, fanatics that they often are, are likely to be your garden variety (maybe you'll get an Alexander Anderson type in there). The Tribunal in charge are absolutely ancient, but they're still pretty ordinary. > > The banner has been taken up by other authors and other GOIs since then, but at the time pickings were slim in this regard. The Foundation had the legacy of wacky zany author avatar characters or faceless goons. > > (God does canonically exist in the Djoricverse, but the HI is forever looking in the wrong places, for why should they ever suspect Doctor Isabel Helga Anastasia Parvati Wondertainment V, PhD?) @@@@ @@@@ **So in 2014, you wrote a tale called [[[Dust and Blood]]]. This tale establishes a lot of lore on The Scarlet King and its children. What is this tale to you and what do you think about SCPs like [[[SCP-682]]] and [[[SCP-999]]] being referenced often as part of these children?** > Dust and Blood was some setting-building, putting into shape some of my ideas for how the greater SCP multiverse is structured. > > 682 was referenced pretty openly in the tale as one of the children of the 4th Bride, so that's no surprise. The link to the Scarlet King is actually much more convoluted than it needs to be: this was the era of my dumb insistence that [[[SCP-231 | 231]]] was a whale, and 682's image is that of a rotting whale carcass, so if the Scarlet King is whale/leviathan themed, then obviously there's a connection. > > I can see the logic in 999 as children of the 7th, but it's one of those fandom things where I think someone had the idea and then other people latched onto it without reading the original - the tale itself says: > > "Her children walked on two legs, and were mighty hunters and heroes" > > Which is pretty clearly not a cute lil' blob, but whatever, offsite fandom is gonna fandom. > > I had planned at one point to make an article about one of the 7th's children (I know there was something involving finding a massive sword buried in the moon that they had thrown there), but it never came to fruition. Instead, we got [[[Across the Hills So Quiet]]], which I like much better. @@@@ @@@@ **I believe this interview would feel incomplete without talking about [[[SCP-2845 | SCP-2845: THE DEER]]]. This article was met with a lot of acclaim and a lot of controversy, which may very well define your tenure as an author. Personally, it is one of my favorites by you and as [[*user A Random Day]] said in the discussion, "This remains one of my favorite Series 3 articles of all time." As an author, you can be described as someone who wanted to break conventions. With this article, you managed to get readers to question if the Foundation is doing the right thing. What prompted you to write an article like this?** > This was my original 2000 contest entry, though my beta readers were pretty unified that it wasn't sci-fi enough to count, so I entered [[[SCP-2085 | 2085]]] instead. > > The themes aren't coincidental with the timing - it shares the same "fuck the Foundation" energy as 2085, though from a different direction. It was a way of giving voice to my frustrations with the SCP article format at the time - the limitation of having to maintain secrecy was not playing nice with the grand, sweeping mythos I had made for myself, but if you want views you either write an article, or you write a different article. Tales get buried. > > With THE DEER, the Foundation has finally stumbled across something far outside their abilities to safely contain. For narrative reasons, it is contained, of course, but only by a thread, and the accompanying tale details what happens when it inevitably snaps. > > I had effectively painted myself into a corner by that point, mentally speaking. My brain was full of big-picture things, far bigger than the Foundation could actually contain, but if they were stuck in tales, the readership would always be limited. > > I had something of a chip on my shoulder, you see. > > Reading the comments from the time of posting is just wild. Granted, my attitude didn't help at all, but the sheer amount of ruffled feathers over an article quote-unquote breaking canon (despite longstanding precedent that all articles exist on their own, independent from all others, regardless of links) is a sight to behold. From what I know of the modern site, I think I ended up vindicated. Ha! > > The Foundation universe operates on the principle that these things are secret from the public at large. With each new article and every new Group of Interest, that principle becomes harder and harder to believe until it becomes downright farcical. I eventually wrote it away that the Veil is, itself, an in-universe construct (that eventually collapses, as we see in the Naomi tales), but without resorting to "magical secrecy field is a thing that exists", I can't see a way to maintain the secrecy principle without cutting 95% of everything out. > > The Foundation can have secrecy, or it can have an expansive universe. Both is juggling narrative chainsaws. > > THE DEER was my hammer to make that point. Eventually, something will break. > > Final note: I love that it's caught on in the greater fandom and I appreciate every single person who does art of it, y'all are wonderful folks and I hope that good things happen to you. > > Finaller note: Holy shit [[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVq4sPIXrLk&t=950s | The Exploring Series video]]] on this article has //one point two million views//. Dear God, man. The comments explaining that THE DEER is contained because it is confused at these weird apes chugging olive oil got a good laugh out of me too. @@@@ @@@@ **During your time here, you were one of the strongest personalities around whether for good or bad. How different would you say you are now as opposed to the prolific Djoric we knew from your heyday here?** > Less transphobic, thank Christ. Less inclined to get involved with dumb scene drama. Better head on my shoulders. Still bullheaded. Still have a brain that won't sit still and a mouth that runs too fast for it. Freed from a bad place in my life and writing what I want. @@@@ @@@@ **When you look at the wiki now, what surprises you the most? Or has the site become what you expected it to turn into? What do you miss about being an active writer here?** > The site is effectively unrecognizable to me. I would have been absolutely thrilled at all the GOI formats, interesting formatting, narrative-driven articles back in the day - now the prospect is exhausting just to think about. Too big, too much stuff. Long articles were already losing their luster for me as I left ("get to the fucking point!" cried he), and it doesn't look like that train has slowed down at all. Additional object classes and threat levels are here, but I can't muster the excitement for them - a disappointment after all the backing I put into them with THE DEER, but the ones I have seen have required referencing different pages to parse and that's entirely counter to the spirit of my grand rebellion. > > I get the need to sweep through for CC image compliance, but honestly if we're going to do that I'd have half a mind to put out a call for art submissions for as many articles as possible. Get a bunch of artists in a pool and do a lottery or something. Hell, find a cause and do it as a charity auction. This likely has something to do with the fact that [[[SCP-1296 | Dial-a-Llama]]] and [[[SCP-2915 | Frostee-Flesh]]] are both dependent on their images and now have got none, neutering the jokes. > > Is it bad to say that I don't miss much? I was active for the short side of six years, give or take, and for about half of those I was in a slow-motion self-destructive episode with a personal crisis chaser that still took me a few more years to pull myself out of. I was a miserable bastard growing more and more miserable as time went on, and holy //shit// I treated some folks heinously during my time here ([[[dr-mackenzie | Aelanna]]], [[[the-deadly-moose-personnel-file | Moose]]], [[[drclef-member-page | Clef]]], doubtlessly others). > > Living with a chip on your shoulder that large for that long is a terrible thing to do to yourself, and getting away from it was one of the best things I've done. @@@@ @@@@ **Do you happen to have any projects going on outside of the wiki that you would like to talk about? If not, would you mind just sharing some of the stuff that you have been up to during your time away from the site?** > I've been keeping myself busy, but I've decided to keep it separated from my presence here and it's likely to stay that way - no one wants to be followed by the ghost of all the dumb shit they did in their early 20s. > > But, rest assured, I haven't stopped writing and the pace has not waned. @@@@ @@@@ **And who exactly is "Djoric"?** > A portrait of the artist as a young man, as seen through a mirror darkly. A vertical slice. A parasocial persona existing in a specific bubble of time-space that I don't particularly like all that much anymore but that I very occasionally put back on when a fit of nostalgia hits me. A silly name I made up as a teenager. > > Is he me? He was, once. @@@@ @@@@ **How many SCPs could be improved by being turned into or including whales?** > Just this one: SCP-XXXX - "Suddenly, A Whale Appears Out of Fucking Nowhere". > > That one's free to the first person who can keep a hold of it. @@@@ @@@@ ------ This concludes the interview. I hope you enjoyed it! I would like to thank Djoric for doing this interview with me. It was awesome to do, and I am glad that I could share some thoughts from one of the old guard. I already have the next interview in this series prepared, so stay tuned! [[=]] **Thank you for reading!** [[/=]] @@@@ @@@@ [[=]] **<< [[[Interviewing Icons - Ihp | Ihp]]] | [[[Interviewing Icons Hub| HUB]]] | [[[Interviewing Icons - The Great Hippo | The Great Hippo]]] >>** [[/=]] [[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box]] [[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box-end]]