psul's Author Page

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[[tab Introduction]]
Welcome to my author page.  Not an in-universe document, I'm afraid - this will be plenty self-indulgent enough without making up an author insert.  And no hilarious images or funky CSS.  In any case, this is apparently one of the longest author pages (by word-count) so any unnecessary additions might make Wikidot explode.
 
But yeah, drop by again some time - I'll update as I remember more narcissistic things to add!  And maybe I'll even fix the formatting to make it more readable.

Here's my sandbox, so you can see what might be coming up next: [http://scpsandbox2.wikidot.com/psul psul's sandbox]
 
**General thoughts**
 
* I started by writing works that played off in-universe explanations for things that appear on the wiki.  That has changed somewhat, and now I tend to write mostly tales, with the occasional mainlist article.  My best work now comes from rubbing two unrelated ideas together to see if they throw off any sparks.
* A lot of my work now is on things for the On Mount Golgotha canon, with the remainder being primarily horror.  I made a conscious decision to concentrate on horror for a bit, as I find it quite a challenge.
* I first came across the site via a reference to the Hanged King's Tragedy ([[[SCP-701]]]) in a comments section somewhere else on the interwebs.  That is a pretty good place to start on this site, I would suggest.
* I downvote author pages that don't have any commentary on the author's works.  Any commentary will do, but don't just link to what you've done.  Half the point of a collaborative writing site is to give insight to aspiring authors.
 
**Works**

So here's what I've done on the site so far:

[[collapsible show="+ All the SCPs" hide="- No more SCPs"]]
 
[[module ListPages created_by="psul" order="rating desc" separate="no" tags="scp" perPage="250" prependLine="||~ SCP Number ||~ Rating ||~ Comments ||~ Created ||~ Last Comment ||"]] 
|| %%title_linked%% || %%rating%% || %%comments%% || %%created_at%% || %%commented_at%% ||
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[[collapsible show="+ All the Tales" hide="- No more Tales"]]
[[module ListPages created_by="psul" order="rating desc" separate="no" tags="tale" perPage="250" prependLine="||~ Tale Title ||~ Rating ||~ Comments ||~ Created ||~ Last Comment ||"]] 
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[[collapsible show="+ All the GoI Formats" hide="- No more GoI Formats"]]
[[module ListPages created_by="psul" order="rating desc" separate="no" tags="goi-format" perPage="250" prependLine="||~ GoI Format Title||~ Rating ||~ Comments ||~ Created ||~ Last Comment ||"]] 
|| %%title_linked%% || %%rating%% || %%comments%% || %%created_at%% || %%commented_at%% ||
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I have also: 
* contributed a few poems (on 9/9/2015 and 24/12/2015) to the [[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2673-containment-maintenance-log |collaborative log]]] for [[[SCP-2673]]].
* added Log 033 to the [[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3301-testing-log |SCP-3301 Testing Log]]].

And I wrote some of the text for the [[[On Mount Golgotha Hub]]] - check it out!

[[/tab]]
[[tab SCP Articles - analysis, spoilers and trivia]]
 
**Writing mechanics, spoilers and trivia**
 
In chronological order of posting:

|| **[[[SCP-2130]]]** || **"Office furniture"** || The second SCP idea I had after I joined the site, and one that has thoroughly divided readers. ||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-2130 Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* Update - Drewbear made [[[http://scpsandbox2.wikidot.com/secretsanta2014 |a recording of the final note]]] from this skip for the Christmas Gift Exchange.  Thanks, Drewbear!

* Spoiler - this was written solely for the purpose of providing an in-universe justification for LolFoundation tropes.  The aim was to go from jokey tone to serious undercurrent - someone is sabotaging the Foundation in an incredibly effective way - and then to an ominous payoff.  Looks like it didn't work for lots of readers.
 
* The biggest criticism was of kappa radiation - a "phlebotinum" way of explaining how the Foundation could know the mechanism of the anomaly (so that it can test for it) but make testing difficult by having background levels of K-rays (so that the skip has some menace to it).  I understand why people objected - I was probably trying to do too much world-building here, and it is kinda reminiscent of Scranton anchors - but I'm not sure whether removing it is the solution, or whether it was just a lightning rod for people who would downvote anyway.  I might try re-writing it to remove the concept at some stage.
 
* The other thing readers objected to was the idea of O5 being compromised.  Again, fair enough, but without that I think the skip doesn't have enough of a sting in the tail.  At least I didn't go with the original ending, which was a further addendum showing that far from being compromised by SCP-2130, the O5 council had in fact deliberately introduced it to Foundation sites as a way to push forward research into anomalies, even at the cost of Foundation lives.  That will not be coming back in any future re-write.
 
* This one dipped pretty quickly to -7, and was looking like being deleted.  I made a few (fairly minor) edits, particularly to the Site Director's note, and that seems to have saved it.  It sat at -1 and 0 net votes for absolutely ages, but will hopefully continue to live in the positives.  That is not a challenge.
 
* I really like the idea of Site-73 - a place with very few living SCPs, so it's like the world's deadliest stationery company - less outlandish and more relatable than other sites.  I have set quite a few SCPs there now.
 
[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[SCP-005-J-EX]]]** || **"No, because she thinks he's talking about the…"** || A -J article written as a palate-cleanser, and because the joke was so dumb that I couldn't believe no-one else had done it. ||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-005-J-EX Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* Spoiler - yes, this is just me writing an explanation of an "Explained" "Joke" SCP about explaining jokes.  Yes, that makes me very annoying, and I should stop.
 
* Apart from the punchline of the article, the levels of meta involved were not deliberate, but I definitely enjoyed reading people explain it to one another in the comments.
 
* The other "jokes" referred to in the test logs are of course:
  * "A duck walks into a bar, and says 'Put it on my bill'" - or one of the variations on that set-up.
  * "Knock knock" ... "Don't cry, it's only a ghost."
  * Pick your favourite racist stereotype.
  * Not a joke per se, but the standard "anecdote falls flat without hilarious drunken context".
  * "To get to the other side."
  
[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[SCP-2136]]]** || **"An utterly driven researcher"** || My most upvoted article so far.  An attempt to write "straightforward horror" that ended up in a format screw, of course. ||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-2136 Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* Spoiler - the pathogen takes over its hosts and can then manipulate their bodies.  By the end of the diary, it has taken over both of the surviving researchers.  It then needs to cover its tracks, but it doesn't yet have the motor control to type clearly, or to input complex passwords - that's the reason for the format screw at the outset.
 
* Headcanon - I like to think that the infection first arrived on the Sentinel Islands because they were looking up at the light from the stars.  I really like the corruption of that usually rather innocent and peaceful activity - I just couldn't work out a way to add it to the diary without it seeming forced. 

* The idea for this one was literally "what would happen if you reversed the effect of [[[SCP-173]]]?"  Leaving aside that [[[SCP-096]]] arguably already does that, it was a pretty stupid idea.  Even once I realised it would work better as an invisible pathogen, I was still thinking about having researcher notes suggesting cross-testing with 173, to see if it could be made immobile both when it was watched and when it was not.  //And// a supervisor's note saying how bad an idea it was, as it might have "precisely the opposite effect".  I'm thankful I didn't go down that path.
 
* The idea to use a diary was the key to unlocking this one.  It allowed me to create a character, who can act as a reader surrogate (note that Dr Heidke's sex/gender is not specified) and can add emotion.  Putting the diary in tabs, rather than drop-downs, was also important, I think, as it kept everything on the same page and kept the reading speed high.
 
* Keeping up a high pace is important for the skip to work (as several people commented), as otherwise suspension of disbelief is liable to collapse here.  I have been very surprised that no-one has called me on any of the following:
  * Can Eta-10 really capture the Indian agents without anyone ever looking at them, or any native Sentinelese?
  * How have the three scientists always managed to stay in visual range of one another for three days?
  * If they are all under quarantine, how does Dr Heidke get access to a new D Class, mirrors etc?
  * Is Dr Fletcher really so unprofessional that he didn't disclose the fact of his having seen inside the containment cell?
  * Does the Foundation not have any ability to communicate with those inside quarantine, so that the message about the breach etc could be sent electronically?  Cognitohazards are a thing, but still!
 
* Once I decided to write this as horror, I was quite methodical about it.  I knew that things needed to escalate, so I needed an incident of graphic violence, then the narrator's experience of freezing (and realisation of the containment breach), then the death of another researcher, then the realisation of being taken over (worse than death).  Things like the personalised horror trope of "when I was nine I almost drowned" felt very artificial to write, as did "LOOOK", but they seem to have (mostly) worked for readers.
 
* One thing I do like about this skip, however, is the fact that the reader can //genuinely// afford to ignore what the strike-through text says.  It doesn't add anything that isn't obvious through the rest of the article - it's the presence of the struck through text that is important.  
 
* Another small thing I like is the way the Foundation captures two government agents of a nuclear power, and has classified them as //D Class// within three days.  That is cold.
 
* One last bit of trivia - to try for verisimilitude in the 0555 entry on Day 5, I typed it with my knuckles.

* Since writing this, I have reflected somewhat on comments that I should have ditched the format screw.  I had those comments throughout the drafting process, and eventually **increased** the obviousness of the screw, rather than removing it.  The reason for having it is this: if the Foundation knows that the pathogen takes over bodies, that would have to be included in the Description, and it spoils the big reveal in the diary.  But the diary contains that reveal, so if the pathogen can edit it out of the Description, it would have to edit the diary as well.  The only way to walk the line and maintain the suspense is for the reader to see this article at that liminal moment between one version and the other - that makes the format screw necessary.  I think that it also helps (a) provide the early hook that incentivises people to keep reading; and (b) add tension and suspense, because the pathogen is neither contained, nor escaped, but is //__just on the verge of escape__//.  That is the point of highest tension in the story.
  
[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[SCP-2161]]]** || **"Blank space"** || My entry to the Short Works Contest 2015. ||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-2161 Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* The Chinese site has a [[[http://scpfoundation.123ubb.com/t5873-topic |translation of this]]].

* When I first read about the contest (500 word maximum), I didn't have any ideas ready for it.  I decided to take my own advice to newbies, and think about the effect that I wanted to create.  The feeling that I wanted to try to evoke was the existential horror of an empty universe.  I didn't get there, but I would settle for loneliness.  
 
* I was also inspired (although I wasn't conscious of this until much later) by a comment on the contest discussion thread, asking whether an entry written with no spaces would count as 1 word for contest purposes.  As usual, my brain took that thought and reversed it, thinking about what would happen to the wordcount with *lots* of spaces.

* The second half of this idea came from a deliberate attempt to mimic ophite's "semantic whiplash" - the idea (to paraphrase ophite) of starting with something normal, then contradicting it, and then pile on increasingly insane facts.  To be honest, I didn't even get the first part right (I should have written something like "a collection of sheets of A4 paper, numbering approximately 85 million, which are self-replicating"), but I wanted a bizarre item made up of the everyday, and once the idea for self-replicating blank paper arrived it was too appropriate to the contest not to use it.
 
* Once I had those two ideas (blank paper that increases, the horror of an empty universe) the rest of the SCP almost writes itself.  I needed a connection between the paper and space travel, and eventually just decided to have the skip turn on a dime, with basically no justification, and see if readers would come along for the ride.  

* As it turned out, the ending is rather more hopeful sounding than I originally wrote.  The note initially ended with "WE ARE ALONE".  In the forums, it was suggested that was somewhat narmy (a word I had to look up), so I produced about 8 different drafts of the final note.  In the end, I rewrote it again with 30 minutes to go before I entered the contest.  I like the sound of "I will search on" from a purely aesthetic perspective, which was what clinched it.  It probably detracts from the original plan of loneliness (although I think that interpretation is still open), but I also don't mind the idea of human fortitude in the face of impossible odds.  Ah well, the people who thought it was narmy still do, by the sounds of the comments.
 
* A number of people have commented that the format-screw of having the document itself affected by increasing space is unnecessary.  I disagree.  With the format-screw, the skip illustrates the feeling of isolation that it is intended to describe, adding to the effect.  In particular, the final note gains more power because the visual effect makes it easier to accept the weaker writing.  And of course it is a slight meta-joke that the length of this skip is increased, without rendering it ineligible for the contest on word-count rules (although the separate letters in the final note each count as one word).
 
* Again, a lot of the writing is very deliberate.  Apart from the attempts at disorienting the reader noted above:
  * I have again left Dr Harper's sex/gender unspecified
  * Dr Harper is both a physicist and author, to justify the final note, as well as the space-travel
  * Dr Harper's home is "former" and "abandoned", suggesting that there is no significant other there - again looking to push the theme of loneliness
  * Dr Harper is from Adelaide because I am Australian but not South Australian, and therefore consider Adelaide to be the likely birthplace of the kind of odd dreamer that would create space travel from paper
 
* This was a pain in the neck to write (and especially to amend the final note) - so many spaces to count, and so many @ symbols to stop them being parsed automatically back to single spacing.  Thanks to Crayne for reminding me how to do it.
[[/collapsible]] 
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|| **[[[SCP-2138]]]** || **"Secrets, secrets are no fun..."** || My very first SCP idea - one that took a while to come into focus. ||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-2138 Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* I put my first draft of this on the forums 5 days after joining the site.  I got one piece of feedback at that stage, but I was lucky, because it was from Eskobar ([[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/forum/t-1213692 |for the record]]]).  Eskobar pulled no punches, and while I had expected direct critique, it was a shock - and probably the best thing that could have happened to me as a first-time writer.  Mostly because Eskobar was right about everything.

* After that, it took a long time to redraft.  My initial aim was to write something that hid the human story behind the technical format, but there was too much information to get across purely in notes, and one intermediate draft ended up with dozens and dozens of bullet points, and looked very ugly.

* Finally, I gave in and wrote the central discussion as a transcript.  The effect was to reduce the theme of hidden human drama (although you'll note that the transcript is a re-hash of the argument, not the argument itself), but it allowed a new theme to develop - the fact that everyone in this situation has something they want to tell someone else, as well as things they want to hide from others, and both communication and lack of communication causes problems.  This is illustrated with relationships between low and high ranking staff (D-13962 and Dr Isaacs), high and high (Dr Isaacs and Site Director Garcia) and low and low (D-13962 and D-4435).  Not totally deliberate, but I like the symmetry.

* As usual, I tried to choose names that didn't make the sex of the various characters obvious, meaning that the interpretation of the various relationships is up to the reader.

* The initial idea came from reading the guides, and a reference to Keter class objects being those that have the highest risk of either human life __or Foundation secrecy__ if they breached containment. 

* For those following along at home, you'll have noticed that this was another Site-73 article.
[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[SCP-2673]]]** || **"Sonnet Containment Poem"** || A collaboration page contribution in the form of a poem or two. ||
[[collapsible show="+ Poem Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* [[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/sirpudding-s-author-page |sirpudding's]]] poetry skip, 2673, was one of the first things I reviewed on the forums, and definitely opened my eyes to the possibilities in format screws.

* It wasn't until re-reading the skip when sirpudding launched an author page (linked above) and seeing the other contributions, that I remembered how much I wanted to try SCPoetry.

* Even more with poetry than other writing, I find it easiest to work with formal restrictions.  Sonnets are good for this, although I soon realised that I wasn't going to be able to use a standard sonnet rhyme scheme, because other forms of poetry are even better.  

* Spoiler: the highlighted letters spell "two six seven three" - that wasn't deliberate, just something I realised might be possible after I saw the w, x and v there.  

* Spoiler: this is actually two poems, not one - there is an acrostic hidden in the first and last letters of each line.  No-one has mentioned it, despite every comment I've made about the poem (as well as the first two lines of the poem itself) including at least some hint.  Impressively, the Chinese translation was the first place I saw that picked it up!

* The second poem I added was after seeing a few Christmas-related tales which referred to the famous Night Before Christmas poem (called "A Visit From St Nicholas").  I looked it up on wikipedia, and found that [[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Visit_from_St._Nicholas#Authorship_controversy |its authorship is the subject of some controversy]]].  On reading the biographical details of the authors, I wondered whether writing SCP-2673 into the history of some famous poets could be a new angle for the containment log (as simply referring to the basics of containment had been covered well by the existing entries).

* Clearly this poem takes incredible liberties with the historical record, and I don't mean to suggest that their Livingston or Moore were anything like the way I've portrayed them.  But I was struck by how easily the symptoms of the Hunter's infection - impulsive statements, decadent urges, distrust of leaders - lined up with some of the biographical facts.  It was quite fun to write in that regard, although I'm not sure I quite captured the rhythm of the original.

[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[SCP-2162]]]** and **[[[Figure and Ground]]]** || **"... as normal as blueberry pie"** / **"Figure and Ground"** || It's a long story... ||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-2162 and Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* This was certainly my most ambitious attempt to date.  It was my first attempt at Keter-class.  It's my first use of a GoI.  It uses two existing characters, and refers obliquely to another SCP entry.  And it juggles five named characters with speaking roles, and a sixth (Rob Baker) who is arguably the protagonist despite not appearing in person.  I tried to take a long time over this, and in many ways it's the work I'm proudest of.

* Again, this came about from the intersection of two ideas:
 * I wanted to write a Keter, and I hadn't seen many of those that consisted of gases.  However, a gas is relatively easy to contain (just vaccuum it up!) so I realised what I wanted was a spatial volume that consisted of deadly gas, and mobile, so it's almost impossible to contain.
 * The second idea came from a forum post somewhere suggesting that GoIs must have interactions with each other, not just the Foundation.  I thought that Marshall, Carter & Dark must have members that want to commission anomalous art, and that MC&D must have approached Are We Cool Yet? on that basis.  I couldn't imagine AWCY? working for The Man, so wondered how this would play out, and decided that a kid wanting to make a splash would be a perfect mark for MC&D.
 * When I was looking for coloured gases that could form my anomaly, I realised that there aren't very many.  I had thought Bromine was an option, but it's not a gas at room temperature.  I had actually looked up "bromide" by accident, and that means something quite different - once I learned that, it linked in my brain to the lyrics "bromidic and bright" from the "South Pacific" musical, and I realised how weird a description that was.  I had always thought "bromidic" just meant "happy in a slightly dazed way".  
 * That's when the two halves of the idea clicked together - what if someone commissioned anart, wanting a "bromidic" smile, but instead asked for bromine.  Then the artist tried to make it, but bromine doesn't work as a gas, so used nitrogen instead.  The result - a giant, invisible smiley face, made of killer gas.

* The above is the reason for the title - the whole thing came about because of the MC&D client's love of "South Pacific".  And clearly Rob Baker's reality bending is somehow verbal/conceptual in nature, because his giant smile travelled straight to the South Pacific, and is now heading westwards to Denpasar (Bali-hai!).  My headcanon is that once it gets there, it will either stop moving or dissipate.

* I gave myself the challenge of writing this as a procedural - no explanatory notes, just investigation by the Foundation.  I also knew that the investigation couldn't produce Rob Baker at the end of it, because that might allow the anomaly to be neutralised.  I asked both [[*user Randomini]] and [[*user TwistedGears]] for permission to use their characters (each of whom had investigated anart in other stories) and was pleasantly surprised when they both gave me the okay.  I then couldn't decide on which character would work best, and ended up going with both.  [[*user Rioghail]] also gave me permission to use the name "Michael Cavendish" from [[[SCP-2071]]].

* As I wrote, I realised that I was attempting to tell the story of Rob Baker without him ever appearing.  It then hit me that this approach to writing was somewhat like Agent Green's approach to SCP-2162 - revealing the nature of something by colouring the negative space around it.  I looked for other ways to work that in - to be blatantly expository, the idea was to have Rob Baker's story as the ground and the procedural be the figure.

* One of the ways in which I feel I best achieved that figure/ground juxtaposition is in the nature of the story itself.  By the end of the supplements, the Agents are off the case, and an innocent girl is being held captive by the "bad guys".  Is that the end of the story (in which case this is //Chinatown//) or is it merely the end of the story that exists on the Foundation's records, and A-D Griffiths forcing the Agents off the case is just the end of Act II of a buddy-cop movie?  The reader's understanding of the story is based on how they interpret the context of the characters' actions, and how they interpret the characters themselves.  The final question - would no-one come? - is rhetorical in more than just the sense that June's asking it to herself. It is me as author asking it of the audience - what image do you see in this picture?

* Originally this was a single SCP article (without the bookend sections to what is now the supplement), but I was worried about its length earning downvotes.  Splitting it was a compromise decision, and the risk is that the reveal of the shape of the anomaly at the end of the SCP article is not enough to be considered a complete story on its own.  Reviews have been mixed on that - although at least one reviewer whose opinion I respect thought that the story as a whole still wasn't interesting enough for them.  So for now, it stays split.

* One final thought - no-one has commented that I threw in a reference to "aggressive-looking mobile knitwear" in the Field Diary.  It's the anti-[[[SCP-2991 |Scarf]]]!
[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[SCP-2130-J]]]** || **"But seriously, folks..."** || This is not a joke ||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-2130-J Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* This idea struck me when I read a (now-deleted) coldpost SCP that described a bar of soap that made people think it was ... well honestly, I don't remember, but it made me wonder about writing a mundane object that affected perception.  And I suddenly thought that an object that everyone considered funny might explain the -J list - my usual tack of in-universe explanations.

* I had also really been wanting to write a skip with a killer final line - a proper "oh shit" moment, and so I decided to write an absolutely serious SCP article, and post it on the -J list.  I consider this article to be as much canon as any mainlist SCP (which is to say, not much, but more than most -Js).

* Once I decided to write it, using office furniture was an obvious choice - it is pleasantly mundane, and I had already written something similar in SCP-2130 itself.  So my headcanon is that this is a related anomaly - the effect is not the same, but it clearly operates in a similar way to the mainlist article.  And whoever planted SCP-2130 - they're clearly getting better at it.

* The draft went through a large number of iterations, throwing away some jokes, refining others.  The part that changed most is the researcher notes - they had a variety of themes, from random silliness, to jokes about using the "anomaly" to get tenure and research funding, to relationship woes.  I had a lot of feedback, and incorporated at least something from everyone who reviewed it - I quite like where this ended up, considering its rough beginnings.

* Spoiler: Yes, Junior Researcher Kimmy is Paul Kim, and Dr "Dealer" Wheeler is Marion Wheeler - the stars of qntm's Antimemetics tales.  Chronologically I'd suggest this fits best towards the beginning of that series, before they get occupied with other things.  As I said, this is fully intended to be a part of serious site lore.

* I also hadn't quite finished with the group behind this and SCP-2130.  I came back to them in some later SCPs, particularly SCP-2139.
[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[SCP-2366]]]** || **"Ils coopéraient ensemble"** || Another attempt at an "oh shit" moment.||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-2366 Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* From the very early stages of reading WrongJohnSilver's discussion thread for "On Mount Golgotha", I thought that a conductor's baton would be important to the narrative, and potentially more interesting than just another musical instrument.

* In terms of anomalous effects, a baton that made an orchestra more co-ordinated seems an obvious choice, and it also fits the requirements of the "On Mount Golgotha" canon - using this baton, one might be able to make the disagreeable cacophony of the piece into something more powerful.

* But experienced writers for the site will have realised already that as a mainlist idea, this has lots of potential problems.  It's (1) a magic item; with (2) a pseudo-compulsion effect; and (3) it exists only to cross-link to a more popular SCP.

* How does one solve those problems?  In this case, by working backwards.  I realised that simply describing a magic baton wouldn't be interesting, even with the SCP-012 connection, so I thought it better to deliver the idea of the baton and the connection as a stinger, rather than a hook.  Making the baton just one of multiple items made of the same wood seemed like a sensible approach.  

* The way to solve the "compulsion effect" stigma was to try to explore all of the different ways in which co-operation could be affected, and the consequences.  I made the decision to construct the baton from birch wood, as it has a wide range of potential uses, from paper to tea to canoe lining.  I also wanted to make the wood anomaly as interesting as possible, so that the article as a whole would work for people who hadn't read anything to do with "On Mount Golgotha".

* The upshot is that the entire article is an exercise in misdirection.  I want readers to keep thinking that they've reached the punchline, whether it's the escaping prisoners, co-operative coyotes, Native American legends, or Mennonites selling anomalous remedies, before hitting them with the real sting.

* And the sting is this: the anomaly here is relatively innocuous, it is well-contained, and has an effect which is essentially harmless.  The tests show that it is difficult to weaponise, as any close-by opponents will benefit from the effect as well (eg the guards in respect of the escape).  But the existence of this one item is meant to recontextualise everything in the article - this is actually very useful for a single group working together (not in competition with another group), and based on the SCP-012 connection, this anomaly has great potential to enable the destruction of life as we know it.  Does that change the implications of the Native American legend?  Does it make the distribution of herbal remedies more problematic?  What could birch-bark paper be used for?

* With all that in mind, there is clearly a flaw in my execution here, as many of the commenters have found the SCP-012 connection "forced" (ironic, as that connection is the only reason this article exists at all!).  I'm not quite sure how to solve that problem - the inclusion of the Native American legend was designed to try to smooth the musical connection slightly, but perhaps it should come before the list of items (which is where I had it originally).

* Trivia - I had felt that this was almost ready, but was planning to hold off a week or so after posting "Pattern Breaker", so that I had 3 On Mount Golgotha works landing on the wiki in consecutive weeks.  However it struck me on the day of the UK's referendum on leaving the EU (aka "the Brexit vote") that it might be a day to celebrate co-operation.  The availability of a mainlist slot reflecting the date (__23 June__ 201__6__) clinched it, so I posted it immediately.

* Spoilers: the theft of the baton is relevant for the "On Mount Golgotha" continuity, and has been referred to in [[[Counterpoint]]] and [[[Duets]]].

* Spoilers: as I mentioned in my author post, this is linked to something other than "On Mount Golgotha".  The clue is in the Special Containment Procedures - it's another skip stored at Site-73.  Which other items have been stored there?
[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[SCP-2365]]]** || **"The universe is trying to tell you that it hates you"** || Another palate-cleanser, this time deliberately avoiding all explanation.||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-2365 Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* The idea for this skip came in the period between dreaming and waking - I had been thinking about the fact that I've been wanting to write something with a killer closing line, and that feeling of a narrative trap closing on the reader.  The visual of a trap, and my consciousness of being half-asleep, came together.

* The idea itself is extremely simple - not much more than an Extranormal Event - but I think that it's effective for a couple of reasons: (1) the tension between the extremely vulnerable sleeping figure and the bulky metal of the trap; (2) the fact that both parts of the image are in a state of tension - the sleeper may wake, the trap may spring.

* I decided quite early on that I wanted to rely heavily on that one basic image, full of tension, rather than trying to flesh things out too much.  As I mentioned in my author post, I was influenced in that decision, and in how I approached the drafting, by Kalinin's comments on the site about SCPs not necessarily being helped by lots of addenda, by Djoric's [[[SCP-2915]]] from the Short Works Contest (which had a similar approach to drawing the reader in by slowly dishing out details, but not explaining anything), by Drewbear's host of similar short-form works ([[[SCP-2627]]] is another great, unexplained, skip) and by ophite's descriptions of how a well-written anomaly can undermine reality enough that its very unreality becomes creepy.

* Based on all that, I made a lot of deliberate choices in writing this:
 * I wanted to trigger the reader's feeling of wrongness, and helplessness, so I avoided any explanation for why this is happening (or even whether there is an intelligence behind it) and aimed to end with the idea that it could be happening constantly to lots of people, without anyone noticing.
 * to keep the reader feeling helpless, I have also limited the amount of hard knowledge the Foundation has about the phenomenon.  Note the sentence about uncertainty as to whether it is memetic.  Note that there are very few hard details about anything - the amount by which temperature is reduced, how much rust materialises, how loud the sound is.  By removing as much scientific certainty as possible (while still working within the format) I'm aiming to undermine the reader's comfort level by showing that the Foundation doesn't have its usual handle on this.
 * even within the short length, I have drawn out the description as far as I can get away with, to try to prolong tension.  The whole thing could be summarised in a sentence, but I've given it stages so that the reader knows that something is coming, but doesn't know what it is yet.  So rust appears, the temperature drops, there is a noise of hinges - the idea is (a) to get the reader to imagine this happening in a darkened room, and (b) to use well-known tropes like the drop in temperature to semi-consciously cue them that something bad is coming.
 * similarly, I've drawn out the appearance of the trap - the aim is to keep the reader in the moment, so that they don't get ahead of what's going to happen, and are invested in what happens next.
 * note the deliberately blunt and simple descriptions (eg "a large bear trap") - at this point in the story, I can't afford any confusion on the part of the reader.  The image has to be very clear, so nothing scientific about what type of bear trap.  It's also very important to end the paragraph immediately after introducing the trap, so that the reader has an extra split-second to think about it, and to form the image, before reading what happens next.
 * again, I've drawn the moment out by keeping the trap in place and then de-materialising it, before saying whether it might go off.  This is the point of highest tension in the article.  I was quite tempted to go with a [REDACTED] immediately afterwards, and not say anything about what happens next.  In fact, I still think that would be the truest approach to the material (keeping the tension high and the reader struggling against their lack of knowledge) but I eventually decided against it because (a) there really isn't much in-universe justification; and (b) regardless, redaction is a downvote magnet, and I wanted to avoid that in an article that was already at risk due to its brevity.
 * as it is, I have again kept the language as short and simple as possible ("significant trauma to the head and neck") and avoided scientific terms which might confuse readers.  The bluntness is deliberate, and has the added benefit of being able to be read as extremely dry humour through understatement.

* Despite this anomaly (a) being uncontained; and (b) being inherently uncontainable, not a single person (at draft stage or on the site) has protested my classification of "Euclid".  I deliberately avoided stating that it was uncontainable - that phrasing in Containment Procedures is a pet hate of mine.

* In draft, I considered adding a final paragraph which would note the appearance of items in some of the wounds - I chose sand, dental floss and a live grasshopper.  This was designed to add to the wrongness and inexplicability of the skip - the items were chosen to have as little connection with each other, or symbolic significance, as possible (eg grasshopper, not spider, locust or scarab).  Eventually I dropped that paragraph, essentially on the grounds of thematic purity - by adding it, I attempted to amp up the weirdness, but at the risk of violating the [[[Conservation of WTF]]] rule.

* I kinda wish that this had been my Short Works Contest entry.
[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[SCP-2368]]]** || **"Across the Water"** || My first humanoid anomaly. ||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-2368 Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* Slightly embarrassingly, this whole thing started off by thinking about the song "Valerie" by The Zutons (later covered by Amy Winehouse).  I was thinking about the lyrics "Sometimes I go out by myself, and I look across the water", and together with the reference in the song to "your ginger hair", it put me in mind of the Scottish / Irish legend of the [[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkie |selkie]]].  Female selkies (in the versions of the story I've heard) shed their seal skins and marry mortal men, but long for their former lives.  Generally their seal skins are hidden, and they need to find them to return to the sea.  

* Scorpion451 also suggested the Leanan sídhe as a possible mythical counterpart - I will admit to not having heard of it before, but Fiona does share some characteristics with that story.

* I couldn't believe that there weren't any examples of selkies on the site already (at least not when I started writing - between then and when I posted, [[[SCP-2967]]] arrived.

* I didn't want to write a selkie legend precisely, but I wanted to try to get at the purpose of selkie stories (at least where the selkies are female) - to display the tension of love vs independence within marriage.

* I needed an anomaly that would allow the Foundation to discover this selkie, and the song provided my inspiration on that front as well: "since you've been away, well my body's been a mess".  I quite liked the idea of having an article that started as one thing and then became something else (which has been a bit of a theme for the past few of my SCPs) - in this case, body horror switching to a story about love and loss.

* Early drafts of this had much longer autopsy excerpts (I read quite a few autopsies for realism) but feedback correctly identified them as slowing things down, so the full extent of organ deformation is sadly reduced.

* Spoilers: I'm not sure if this is necessary, as I think this is straightforward, but essentially the story is this:  Fiona is an extradimensional / otherworldly humanoid, who came to Rousay for a lark and fell in love with Jack (or perhaps just fell in love with the idea of love).  He stole something from her that allowed her to travel between worlds, but she was okay with that, because she loved him.  But her biology, while superficially similar to humans, has vastly different internal organs - and the "dance" to which she refers is the process by which her people shape each other's internal organs when they form relationships.  As such, her relationship with Jack eventually led to his heart attack, and Fiona was imprisoned for his murder.  But "the dance gets faster and faster", so even the friendship she had with her cellmate, and now the basic relationship of trust with Dr Poidevin, is enough to cause their deaths.  The sad irony for Fiona is that she can't grow to trust the Foundation enough to reveal herself to them fully (or get her lost "heart" back), because the Foundation won't let any staff risk their lives by getting to know her.
[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[SCP-2519]]]** || **"Cry me a river"** || Joining in the cross-linking project, but with a larger purpose ||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-2519 Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* Having just finished [[[Counterpoint]]], I wasn't sure what I would write, but got stuck on the idea of sad machines, and wanted a musical connection (as to why, see the spoiler below).

* Having had the idea, and asked in the Brainstorming forum for suggestions, I did a search of the "sapient" and "machine" tags to see what we had on the site.  I wanted three characters with whom I could do interviews, I wanted them to have a range of styles, but to be linked by a penchant for melancholy.  I'm sure there were lots of other options, but Alexandra (with her guilt over the killing of Glacon), Cassandra (with her greatest fear being loneliness) and Mr Brass (with his history of abuse) seemed like good choices.

* I threw in Psalm 137 because I think the round is a very simple, but sad tune.  However reading the Psalm itself gave me the ending of the article - the last two lines spoken by Mr Brass ("Happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us! Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks!") are the last two lines of the psalm.

* When writing the interviews (especially the first two), I tried quite hard to channel the sentiments underlying real-life depression into the dialogue.  

* The Alexandra interview is probably the strongest (ie most patently manipulative) of the three - I think primarily as she is the best known of the three characters, and because I am playing [[[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BreakTheCutie |Break the Cutie]]] in this section.  Notice how Dr Tan is especially cold and clinical, not giving any sympathy at all to Alexandra or engaging with her as anything more than a Siri-like computer program - that is to emphasise Alexandra's reaction by way of contrast.

* My headcanon is that after the cold approach didn't work particularly well with Alexandra, Dr Tan got reassigned - that's why Dr Huber turns up with a noticeably warmer approach.  I also enjoyed having Huber be a little more genre-savvy in terms of his questions to Cassandra, using her predictive qualities to make sure the test is safe!

* This is another "misdirection" skip (like 2366 and 2368) - starting out as being about one thing (the .MPG file that breaks machines) before moving on to something else (sad robot interviews) before a "twist" ending (sad robot uprising), and concealing a deeper secret.

* Spoiler: this is very much, deliberately an important part of the On Mount Golgotha canon.  Only Hercules Rockefeller worked out how (and I'm generally pleased when the rate of realisation is that low) based on their very close reading of OMG tales, and the fact that having given a lot of great critique on my drafts, they are starting to pick up on my "tells".

* Trivia: the picture for this article is a line of music I wrote which could be legitimately added to the round.  The text is from the Psalm.
[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[SCP-2139]]]** || **"Indeterminate object or objects, or possibly a memetic effect of some kind"** || Adding to an arc no-one knew existed. ||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-2139 Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* From at least the time when I wrote [[[SCP-2130-J]]], I had wondered about connections between my "office furniture" skips.  [[[SCP-2130]]] included speculation about the mind-affecting office furniture being a deliberate attack on the Foundation by an unknown group, and I wanted to flesh that out.  And I hinted that [[[SCP-2366]]] was about more than the On Mount Golgotha canon - I had a series about wooden cognitive-affecting skips in mind.

* At the same time, I found [[[SCP-2604]]] - another mind-altering wooden anomaly that seems targeted at the Foundation specifically, with no explanation of where it came from.  And then there's [[[SCP-2472]]], the apparently non-anomalous air coupler - that seems to include a threat to the Foundation via the prospect of an undetectable anomaly, exactly what I'd been hinting at.

* So I read all of Kate McTiriss' work for the [[[The Gulf|Gulf Canon]]], and ended up asking her a pile of questions about the exact significance of the Order of the Hyacinth, which is mentioned in SCP-2472.  Unfortunately she wasn't around to answer them, so I just made some things up!

* While I wanted to write something to tie together all of these disparate skips, and I wanted it to be some sort of wood product, and to be mind-affecting, I couldn't decide on the exact effect I wanted.  So this sat on the backburner for some time, until I wondered about an anomaly that messed with credulity/scepticism.  That seemed ideal both for causing problems for the Foundation, and for telling a good story.

* When I noticed that the 2139 slot might become available, I wrote this as quickly as I could.  I quite like having my skips in groups close together, so wanted to put this near 2130, 2136 and 2138.  As a result, there might be a better way to tell the story than the daily briefings, but I wanted to balance using implication of the craziness within Site-35 with being able to get some of that across from their perspective.

* Spoilers - in case there's any doubt as to exactly what's going on here:
 * At the end of SCP-2472, Researcher Declan Hall leaves the Foundation to join the Order of the Hyacinth (or perhaps was already a member).  In Kate's Gulf Canon stories, Mackenzie Crook states that the Order (formed in the 1970s) "did some foul, evil things before figuring out the right way to go".  That sounds like the Order stopped doing ill after some of their initial Cross City anomalies, but they were involved in the killing of Site Director John O'June in 2013.  Without confirmation from Kate, I'm taking that to mean that there is an offshoot of the Order that is doing bad things again, and that Declan is a member.
 * I'm also taking it that this offshoot of the Order has animus against the Foundation - probably less to do with the Order's ostensible sedevacantist beliefs, and more to do with the Foundation interfering with their anomalies.  This is the reason for John O'June's death, and the air coupler in 2472 was a warning (or possibly also a signal for Declan Hall to defect).  Declan Hall says "we'll meet again", which sounds like a threat to me.
 * So with that background, Declan Hall goes to Site-35 and approves the change of cardboard box supplier to "Apollo Office Supplies" - a front for the Order.  The boxes are the source of the credulity-affecting anomaly - they are made from wood products with similar mind-altering properties to the wood in SCP-2366 (which the Order knows about, and is probably a customer for).
 * Apollo Office Supplies (or another front company) is also the source for the mind-affecting furniture in SCP-2130 and SCP-2130-J, and the mind-affecting wooden fence in SCP-2604.  All of this is a co-ordinated attack on the Foundation by the Order, using anomalies that hide in plain sight.  That is what Declan Hall meant in SCP-2472 when he said "it's time to become the one thing on Earth no-one has their eyes on" - as I mention in the 23 January update in this skip, he means the wood, which no-one sees when everyone is looking at the trees.
 * As a result, Site-35's intuitive leaps (caused by lack of scepticism) in the 23-25 January updates are more-or-less correct (although the number of connections with water hyacinths is over-the-top).  It's just that Foundation command doesn't believe them in the context of other wild accusations and paranoid behaviour.
 * Site-35 is also correct in the 27 January update about the risk of a cascade effect.  That can already be seen in several of the existing SCPs in this "mini canon": SCP-2130, SCP-2366 and SCP-2130-J are stored at the same desert warehouse (meaning that anyone trying to break in to that warehouse would be (a) willing to take risks; (b) highly anomalously co-operative; and (c) viewed as humorous by anyone seeing them in the act.  This is of course a plot point in [[[Counterpoint]]].  In addition, the SCP-2130-J furniture is taken on a "comedy tour", meaning that other Foundation sites are being affected by the anomaly.  The Order's revenge is succeeding.

* Notice that the effect on credulity is reinforced by the 19 and 21 January updates - Site-35 simply accepts what Command is saying without argument.  I figure by the end of the updates, there are too many voices from within the site for Command to still have a strong influence.

* Other than the cardboard boxes and the reference to John O'June's death, all of the 22 January hypotheses are red herrings.  I particularly liked throwing in Director Aktus, as using a Senior Staff OC seems unlikely to be for no reason - and yet in this case it is.

* I have peppered this with references to the Gulf Canon and to 2472 in particular, to give readers the best chance of picking up the thread of what I'm going for:
 * "Scranton Reality Gauge Alarms" - in the 19 January update, and not used elsewhere other than in 2472, I believe.
 * reference to SUSEOCT and John O'June in the 22 and 23 January updates.
 * "when everyone is looking at the trees, the wood is the one thing on Earth no-one has their eyes on" - a reference to Declan Hall's quote from 2472, as mentioned above, in the 23 January update.
 * a direct reference to the Order of the Hyacinth on 24 January.
 * a direct reference to Declan Hall on 25 January.

* This is one of the few times I've used "[REDACTED]" in my skips.  In this case, I am using it to obscure details of the mission parameters (and outcome) of Nine-Tailed Fox against Site-35 - the general Foundation doesn't need to know how many Foundation staff Epsilon-11 killed or that E-11 were affected by the anomaly as well - although in time-honoured style for the wiki, both of those things are apparent from the sentence immediately following the redaction.
[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[SCP-3512]]]** || **"The More You Know"** || My SCP-3000 contest entry, and a return to the horror genre.||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-3512 Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* I had been kicking a draft of this around for a while, but when I heard that the 3000 contest theme was likely to be "horror", I waited and got more feedback and posted it as my entry.

* I had wanted to return to horror in any case, as it's not my natural genre to write in, but is (still) the most eagerly received genre on the site.  I wanted to challenge myself to produce something scary, and in particular wanted to write an exploration log along the lines of Metaphysician and djkaktus.

* I started with the idea of trapdoor spiders that live in your throat as you sleep.  That didn't really go anywhere, but the image stuck with me.  It combined with [[[https://tapastic.com/episode/255864 |this wonderful image]]] from the webcomic "Behind You", and suddenly I was imagining spider-like creatures with human spines for limbs.

* Because I wanted this to be long-form, I didn't want it to be just about the spider-monsters.  So I started thinking about the Fifthists, and decided the initial object might be a book.  As SCP-1425 was essentially a takedown of Scientology and self-help, I thought about similar cultural phenomena - I couldn't believe when I searched on the site and saw that "pick-up artist culture" hadn't been dealt with on the wiki.

* Rioghail put the connection between "pick-up culture" and Fifthism best (it's the same thing that connects Fifthism with self-help culture): "Once you've claimed that all human sexual behaviour can be reduced to a set of rigid principles, is it surprising that this reduction is totally arbitrary, esoteric, and unhinged? ... Once a man decides they're willing to completely refashion their personality and morality to fit another's ideology, in order to get laid, can it come as a surprise that this man would be willingly to break and distort their body for the same purpose?".  I wasn't thinking about this quite so explicitly while writing, but that's definitely the through-line of the piece.

* I read way too much about "pick-up culture" as research.  Urgh.

* The initial draft started with the extracts from the book, then described the entities, then the screaming women, and then jumped into the exploration logs.  I got some strong feedback that the logs weren't working, including suggestions that they be cut.  But they were the reason for writing this in the first place, so I needed a way to better connect readers with the characters.  So I decided to add Cooper's notes, and move the book text down to just before the exploration.  That also meant changing the core anomaly to the bouts of screaming, but I was fine with that.

* Once I had the structure, the thing that took ages was the ending.  I switched from a drone camera to body-cams.  I switched from Agent Cooper being disappeared, to being fine, to being mad, and from the monster immediately destroying the camera, to the camera falling on the floor, to it going in the pit.  Agent Cooper's fate got darker and darker, and I started to question whether I was pushing things too far and becoming exploitative.  I'm still open to discussion on that point, but I've tried to balance the horror with a little bit of discretion.

* In terms of the ending I went with, I see it as the horrible "logical" conclusion of the people behind this anomaly.  If you treat women as entirely disposable objects, why not simply throw them in a pit once you're done with them.  It also ties in to the "as below, so below" line, with the idea that things get weirder and worse as one goes further downwards in the caverns (and through the text).  That said, I also wanted to leave the ending unsatisfyingly open, without a full explanation of what's going on - hence the introduction of the grinding noise from below.

* Deliberate withholding of a satisfying explanation is also why Rey simply turns his camera off and walks out of the story.  There are some mild hints that he might be involved (his reluctance to investigate, his smooth manner) but nothing that properly implicates him.  I'm happy with all interpretations, but if I had to come down on one side or another, I'd say that Rey has read at least part of the book, and is probably a bit of a jerk, but didn't realise exactly how horrible this all way until he saw the -1 instance in the caverns.  Having seen it attack Cooper, he panics and turns off his camera.  Something horrible probably happens to him on the way back out of the caves.

* Trivia: in the first Investigation Note, Rey offers to show Cooper the Barcelona skyline.  Cooper seems to misinterpret that as a social invitation, but it's actually a reference to [[[SCP-2728]]] ("On the Barcelona Skyline") - Rey wants to show her the town's other major anomaly.  No-one picked this up - not even DarkStuff, the author of 2728!

[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[SCP-3000-EX]]]** || **"Modified Hospital Beds"** || My __other__ SCP-3000 contest entry :p||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-3000-EX Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* About half-way through the 3000 contest, when it became obvious that I wasn't going to come close to winning, I will admit the embarrassing fact that I became irrationally annoyed.  I channeled that anger into this skip, which (I suspect) will eventually end up being my highest rated, if only due to the relative scarcity of -EXs.

* I'd been thinking about an -EX skip for a while, at least since someone mentioned it as a possible contest theme.  The point made in that discussion is that -EX skips are very limited in scope - coming up with a creative way to explain things is difficult, and most of the obvious approaches (hoax, anomalous event now accepted as consensus, hallucinogens, regular event now understood not to be anomalous) have been taken.  Many of the -EXs are also quite jokey in tone, which doesn't mesh well with the site.

* My thought before the 3000 contest was that an option for an -EX would be something horrible, unpleasant but still fully explainable.  I had imagined writing about a humanoid child with sharpened blades on its arms, which the Foundation eventually learns have been attached to a regular human child using non-anomalous surgical techniques by the child's father.  I had thought the ending might be that the child (blades either removed or not) would be returned to the (clearly horribly abusive) father, because it's not anomalous, so not the Foundation's jurisdiction.

* When feeling angry during the contest, I was clearly influenced by AbsentMindedNihilist's 3000 entry ([[[SCP-3240]]]), which involved autosarcophagy, and also by a draft from HerculesRockefeller which I had been reviewing as part of the contest, also involving cannibalism.  I was thinking about an alternative 3000 entry that would have included a compulsion to auto-cannibalism, then got thinking about how one might cause that situation non-anomalously, and that suddenly struck me as an avenue for an -EX along the lines I'd previously thought.

* Again, I did more research and reading about serial killers than is probably healthy.  Jeffrey Dahmer was a big influence on Carl's actions and character.

* Initially it was just going to be a story about the Foundation finding out they were wrong, and would have ended with Carl being released.  But once I realised that the Foundation would only likely hear about this through the police, another possible ending became apparent - I could take aim at the Foundation's policy of amnesticisation of all witnesses, and use it to blow the trial.  It works, I think, because readers are so used to hearing that everyone has been amnesticised that it doesn't strike people as a key detail which will be relevant later - just like the Foundation themselves.

* The two key issues that reviewers had were (a) why would this be made an SCP so quickly, before becoming an -EX; and (b) does the failure on amnestics make the Foundation seem incompetent.  Someone had a very good solution to the second issue, which was to shift things back in time - that seems to have been enough for reviewers to accept the idea.  Readers also wanted the final update, with the Foundation considering whether to take Carl into custody as a way to make up for its mistake.  My headcanon is that this would be denied - Carl is not anomalous, nor is he a convicted felon to qualify as D-Class, so it's not the Foundation's business kidnapping him.

* I figured I owed AbsentmindedNihilist for the autosarcophagy, so I threw in a reference to The Veldt from 3240 at the end of the interviews.
[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[SCP-3513]]]** || **"The brain that ate itself"** || Short-form weirdness for the sake of it.||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-3513 Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* Another weird mental image I'd been saving for the right skip was the idea of a mouth forming inside a human brain and eating it from the inside.  Originally I imagined a human mouth, and maybe that would have been better, but having looked up "weird animal mouths" I ended up looking at leatherback sea turtle beaks, which are [[[https://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1GGRV_enGB751GB751&biw=944&bih=1067&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=leatherback+sea+turtle+mouth&oq=leatherback+sea+turtle+mouth&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l3j0i5i30k1.4364.5563.0.5817.11.10.0.0.0.0.148.764.3j4.7.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..8.3.389...0i7i30k1j0i7i5i30k1j0i24k1.myt5ggur0MU |extremely weird]]].

* I hung on to the idea for a long time, without quite knowing where to take it.  I had thought that finding out what's on the other side of the mouth might be interesting, but wanted to avoid the usual portal tropes.  Another brain?  Possibly.  Deep space?  The bottom of the sea?  Been done.  Eventually I settled on finding lava on the other side, and imagined some kind of creature swimming around in the lava.  I assumed that meant I could use the outer mantle of the earth as my location.

* A quick lesson in geology showed me how ignorant I am - the only layer of the earth that is consistently liquid is the outer core, and that's not lava, it's (most likely) liquid iron and nickel.  But that's even better!  What the hell could live in a place like that?

* Working backwards, I didn't want the SCP to be just another randomly appearing phenomenon (as I felt like I'd done too many phenomena what with 3512 and 2365).  Tying it to an object felt unlikely too, so I went for the simplest option and chose a volume of space.  That meant I could locate it wherever I wanted, so I picked Windhoek for the combination of (a) very few anomalies being from south west Africa, (b) a big enough town that enough people would walk through this space to allow the Foundation to find it, and (c) a small enough town that all the brain eating wouldn't break the Veil.

* My goal was to include as many discomfiting sentences and ideas in as short a space as possible.  This is where clinical tone can be great for horror - for example:
 * "Over a period of months, the beak slowly ingests brain tissue, consuming it."
 * "following the death of the patient, the beak continues to ingest any remaining brain tissue."
 * "unnecessary brain tissue was removed to allow access to the beak."
 * "The camera was fed into this passage for a distance of 1.4m ... D-2879 reported no discomfort."
 * "A later biopsy of D-4353 revealed trace amounts of processed meat within his brain."
 * "a high pressure jet of molten metal began to spray from the incision in D-3956's brain."

* The three tests are intended to be misdirection as well as escalation.  They also establish the parameters - test 1 shows what the inside looks like, and that the camera comes out somewhere else, and test 2 shows that when you bring the camera back, you bring back whatever's at the location.  These are important for setting up test 3.

* I have no headcanon as to what's down in the earth's core.  It must be pretty weird, though.

[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[SCP-3301 Testing Log]]]** || **"Log 3301|033"** || Contributing to a card game.||
[[collapsible show="+ Testing Log Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* This idea came to me almost fully-formed when I read the previous logs, and my main concern was to get it on paper before someone else used one of the ideas.

* A quick run-down of the references here (spoilers!):
 * each team includes a character that has died in a tale / skip
 * Agent Zhao is from [[[A Convincing Lyre]]] and subsequent tales - I wasn't going to miss the opportunity to use one of my own characters.
 * Agent Zoe Smith is from Myriad's [[[SCP-1638]]], where she has died of cancer.
 * AIC-Glacon is from the AIAD tale series by LurkD, where he is "killed" by Alexandra.
 * Agent Thomas Pankin doesn't have much of a role on the site, but turns up in [[[Come Back Kid]]] and was the only named agent I could find to use from Mu-4 that wasn't an author insert.
 * Dr. Logan Igotta is from Shaggydredlocks' 001 proposal, where she is killed by the anomaly in the form of her former lover, Ari.
 * Dr. Lakshmi Agarwal is from AbsentmindedNihilist's [[[Hunger Doggo Hub]]] series, where her lover, Avery, has been transformed into a bone-controlling dog.
 * Researcher Joseph Bell and M.O. James Candle are from Jacob Conwell's [[[Wayfarers Hub]]] series, where James Candle dies sacrificing himself for Bell and the rest of the team.  Candle also saves himself at the expense of his companion in an earlier tale in the series.
 * The use of Avery and Fernand ([[[SCP-082]]]) as the initial anomalies is a direct reference to Shaggy's 001 proposal, which (in the early going) includes a canine-type entity walking on the ceiling, and an immense shadow behind a door.
 * "And then the sun went out" is a reference to Dr Mann's [[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/the-death-of-alto-clef-etc |profoundly silly tale]]] about the death of Alto Clef.
 * "Don't forget your eel juice" is a reference to [[[SCP-3000]]] as the source of amnestics.  Don't forget - get it?
 * "<singing> Food, glorious food!" - Fernand often sings to himself.  He is a cannibal.
 * "Ar ruv roo." - as well as 5760 falling in love with Lakshmi being in line with the Hunger Doggo tale series, this is clearly a gratuitous Scooby Doo reference.
 * "Is it a sphere, perhaps?" - this is a reference to [[[SCP-055]]].
 * "Who is Doctor Wondertainment?" - this is a reference to Gamer's Against Weed, who first coined the phrase in [[[SCP-2842]]].  Who says Wondertainment doesn't have a sense of humour?

* I don't think that this makes any sense if you think too hard about the timeline or logic of all these characters being part of the same Foundation.  It's just dragging a particular set of toys into this sandbox for the purpose of the story.

* That said, my headcanon is that Agent Zoe Smith developed her cancer due to her exposure to both Shaggy's 001 proposal and SCP-447.  Agent Pankin should probably get a check-up.

* I also headcanon that [[[SCP-179]]] is the way to contain/neutralise Shaggy's 001 anomaly.

* I actually downvoted the underlying SCP-3301, which I think is too top-heavy with rules, and panders to the wiki, rather than being a particularly good piece of writing itself.  That said, it opens up some neat possibilities for mini character work in the logs, so I was happy to support the supplement.
[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[SCP-3515]]]** || **"Unearth"** || Simple long-form horror.||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-3515 Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* The germ of this idea was very simple indeed.  I was digging in a garden, and thought about how the sound of a shovel in earth is (a) distinctive; and (b) faintly unnerving, at least by association.

* So I wanted something that involved that noise, and perhaps some actual digging, and claustrophobia / being buried alive was the obvious route to take.  

* Having done lots of phenomena / intangible skips, I thought I'd go with a good old-fashioned object, and I realised that by making this a painting I could steal the benefit of an artist's cachet and get an illustration made to order.  As to what the painting should be, I figured a tree was the best combination of "spooky" and relatively easy to draw, and charcoals would create that atmosphere I was after.

* The idea of digging up one's own body came a little later, while thinking about the development of the story.  That provided the final kick that set up the pacing of the skip - initial awakening in the other world --> realisation of being buried ---> discovery of bodies --> discovery that it's *your* body.

* The first draft had the D-Class waking up in the same location (ie within a Foundation site, but empty), but I realised that it was dragging the story too much.  Switching to a childhood home amps up the creep factor (by subversion of the familiar), speeds up the storytelling, and also allows me to put the reader more into the shoes of the D-Class (as it's easier to imagine yourself walking around your own childhood home than to imagine walking around a Foundation site).

* I wanted to commit to the reader feeling as much connection to the D-Class as possible.  This is achieved by:
 * Not giving the D-Class a name or a gender/sex.
 * Making the D-Class' dialogue relatively typical for an American teenager (the main audience of the skip).
 * Redacting the location of the home, and making the description of the home relatively typical for America (two story house, bedrooms upstairs, photos on the stairwell, living room and kitchen downstairs, basement).

* I've used "Elapsed time" and the increasing familiarity between the D-Class and Dr Hallard to try to get across how long the D-Class is isolated here (a total of almost five days - originally it was much longer, but I started to run into realism concerns).

* Originally this was just dirt and bones.  I added the tree roots at TheGreatHippo's suggestion, and I think they work for variety.  That said, my headcanon is that the D-Class is wrong about the tree from the picture being out to get them.  I think the tree is irrelevant - there is nothing behind the way that painting works.  It just does something horrible to anyone one sleeps near it.  That's it.  And the cycle never stops.

[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[SCP-3673]]]** || **"But when the door is closed..."** || Playful long-form horror ;)||
[[collapsible show="+ SCP-3673 Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* I was already thinking about this one when the cliche-contest rolled around, and I considered entering, but ultimately this wasn't ready in time and I wanted to get it right.

* It was inspired by the thought that exploration logs (including those I've written) almost always have a first-person camera perspective - that is, usually a camera attached to a person or drone that moves around the anomaly.  I wondered if it would be possible to write an exploration log with a camera that doesn't move.

* That starting point means that the exploration should be of a relatively open space, but I wanted it to be an interior, and not to simply be a plain empty room.  I considered a few different options (eg library, public swimming pool) but eventually settled on a ballet rehearsal room - mostly because I like the idea of having a mirror, and also because I wanted the anomaly to affect a group of children.

* Again I have come back to the idea of an anomalous effect that is arbitrary, almost capricious in nature.  What the room does in terms of spatial distortions varies from log to log (which makes things less boring), but there are two key themes that are in common:
 * the room doesn't seem to want people to get out - it limits the ability to reach the door in a number of ways
 * until the point that people try to get out, the anomaly is relatively harmless and playful - it's only when they try to leave that things get nasty

* I have tried a rhetorical trick of repeating variations on the phrase "when the door is closed" as an attempt to build tension, as that phrase tends to signify that bad things are about to happen.

* The first log (with the ballet class) was very difficult to write.  I wanted to have multiple sets of action occurring simultaneously in different parts of the room, with different characters involved.  I had to mentally plot out where everyone is at any given point in time, but I don't know how well that comes across to the reader.  I have also indulged in some pretty standard haunted house tropes, mostly as jarring asides (eg "Shadows are visible in the mirror") with the aim of keeping the audience off-balance, and setting up an environment where anything can happen.

* The second log was the last part of this that I wrote, in response to feedback that the switch from the ballet log to the MTF log was too sudden.  This is intended to be a link between the two, but it does feel a little forced - I felt like I was having to come up with new spatial issues to deal with, and the gravitational anomaly comes slightly out of nowhere.

* The third log was another big part of what I wanted to do in this article.  Partly inspired by [[[SCP-3512]]], I wanted to avoid the "cut to black" endings of many exploration logs, where the camera is destroyed at the same time as the MTF dies.  By having an objective camera, I could keep describing the crushing process well beyond where most articles would finish, which I felt could bring something a little novel to what is otherwise quite a standard article.

* Again, I'm using rhetorical tricks, principally around the constant updates on the decreasing distance between the barriers, and the phrase "The barriers continue to move inwards", to emphasise the implacability of this process and the impossibility of escape.

* It's possible that the best ending for this would be to leave the third log as it is, and end with the "thin wall of organic matter".  However I wanted to take things a little bit further.  Having set up an "objective" camera recording events, I wanted to undermine the whole skip by calling the accuracy of that footage into question.  Thus the second update, suggesting that at least some of the MTF and the children may still be alive, despite appearing to have died.  Their message "DON'T TR" would continue "UST THE CAMERA".  I'm not sure that ending works for everyone, but personally I like it.
[[/collapsible]] 
[[/tab]]
[[tab General Tales and GOI formats - analysis, spoilers and trivia]]
**Writing mechanics, spoilers and trivia**
 
In chronological order of posting:

|| **[[[A-fairy-tale]]]** || **"The Little Buck-Toothed Boy: A Fairy Tale"** || Here's one I prepared earlier... ||
[[collapsible show="+ Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* Wow, Randomini [[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/advent-calendar-2015 |did a reading of this Tale]]] - see 5 December.  Thanks Randomini - that's awesome!

* I wrote this a long time before ever joining the site (probably around 2009 or so).  A friend wanted to set up a collaborative writing exercise by email between a group of her friends, and I was interested.  The first suggestion was to write a fairy tale - I think it needed to contain tulips, an old man and ... something else.  As far as I'm aware, I'm the only person who responded, and I think it's generally accepted that I ruined the exercise for everyone else.  I had been thinking that in the environment of group writing, there was likely to be a race to break down formalist structures, to push the boundaries etc - leading to a whole load of pointless one-upmanship.  So I figured I would do my best to destroy the fourth wall at the first time of asking, to circumvent that process.  What can I say, I was a smartarse.

* It wasn't until months after joining the site that I remembered writing this, and thought that the tone might fit, at least as a creepypasta.  I put it through a few rounds of edits, but the essentials are the same as the original.  I looked hard for a connection to an existing SCP to make this into a Tale, but couldn't see anything obvious.  The bear's speech about putting things in boxes feels like a connection, but was actually in the original!

[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[Exit Interview]]]** || **"Exit Interview"** || An attempt at a dialogue-driven tale.||
[[collapsible show="+ Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* This was written originally as a way to practice writing dialogue.  I wanted to see if I could write a dialogue-heavy tale with sufficiently realistic dialogue and still keep things interesting.

* The first thing that came to me was the opening paragraph.  "When they finally came for [x]" is a very commonly used phrase, but it is quite a good one.  And as an opening line, it pulls the reader in - it sets up all sorts of narrative and backstory immediately (who are they?  why did they come?).  Then I wondered why they had come, and my usual aim of justifying wiki-centric issues (the non-consecutive numbering) with in-universe solutions came to the fore.

* Then I realised that it was going to work as a job interview, with an introduction to a new department - a bit like an Orientation Tale, but instead of a monologue, it would be a dialogue (or perhaps more accurately two monologues intercut with each other).

* I wrote the whole thing out, and very little changed over the 5 months it took me to finalise it.  The sticking point was the ending - from the first draft I knew it wasn't right, but I couldn't work out the fix.
 * The first ending involved Dr. Parkes telling Agent Andrew O'Connor that he had gone too far, and killing him via infohazards in the walls.  But that felt like a let-down.
 * Chat feedback was that I should emphasise the meta element, so the second ending involved Agent Martin Stewart meekly compromising his ideals and accepting a job with the MRD under threat of death, with Dr. Parkes explicitly referring to his superiors having cast 3 votes for neutralisation, and Agent "Call me Marty" Stewart much more obviously a Marty-Stew character.  But that never really gelled, even once I toyed with making it Agent Mary Sue.
 * After leaving the idea alone for a few weeks, I did my usual trick of thinking about reversing the situation, and (what was in retrospect) an obvious ending suggested itself.  There had been so many reversals of the power balance in the interview, but Dr. Parkes had always been more-or-less in control.  So why doesn't the agent overturn that balance entirely?  And as soon as I realised that, I also had a snappy closing line ready-made.   I am quite pleased with the final form, and it justifies having left it for so long and not trying to push it to publication before it was ready - it became my most upvoted tale within 12 hours of posting.

* Key to this working is the sense of the shifting power balance, which keeps the reader moving forward through heavy exposition throughout.  In an attempt to assist that forward momentum, I tried to strip back the description and set the whole thing in an empty room, with just enough visuals to keep a mental picture alive.

[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[Letters from Benares]]]** || **"Letters from Benares"** || A Merry Sarkic-Christmas Gift Tale.||
[[collapsible show="+ Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* This tale was my offering to the Christmas Gift Exchange 2015.  I recommend the exchange to anyone interested - it's a great way to make someone's day, and a good challenge in producing writing without having complete control over the topic.

* I was asked to write something for MrWrong, who had requested either something about one of his SCPs, or about Sarkicism.  Well, I knew that [[[SCP-2833]]] was MrWrong's article about Sarkicism, so that seemed like a good place to start.

* I had quite a lot of reading up to do on Sarkicism (and I'd not read [[[SCP-610]]] either) so I spent a few hours doing that first up.  I realised that I might not have the skill to pull off the full body horror of Sarkicism, so I decided on working by implication instead.  And the idea of a young innocent being slowly corrupted by a 2833 instance felt right.

* As MrWrong mentioned when he read it, the 2833 instance here seems much more logical than the unstable examples from the SCP article itself.  I'm going to rely on the time-jump for that - I figure there would be some left in Edwardian times that were convincingly human.  Although I note that the plan is pretty opportunistic, rather than long-term - the instance has simply found a trusting, naive set of hosts (unlike the suspicious locals) and immediately twisted them to the Flesh, regardless of the consequences.

* Finally, the character of Emily Cavanagh is one that I'd like to return to if possible.  I imagine her as being friendly, but hard as nails when required, and whatever actually happened on her church excursion to the South Downs, I don't think it was all tea and crumpets.
[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[Boxes]]]** || **"Boxes"** || A last-minute entry for the D-Class contest.||
[[collapsible show="+ Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* The [[[D-Class Contest]]] arrived during a super-busy period for me IRL.  I have never been a particular fan of the idea of D-Class anyway, and having written a D-Class character in [[[An Impenitent Thief]]], I wasn't sure I had much more to say on the subject. 

* But as the contest went on, I was disappointed to see relatively few genuinely different takes on D-Class personnel.  Most of the entries took ideas that had been debated on the forums (clones, political prisoners, mind-wipes etc) and packaged them into SCP articles or tales. 

* Eventually I wrote this in about 2 hours, the night before the contest closed.  I had no time for proper feedback, so this is my first absolute coldpost for the site.  I did have someone proofread it, who had never read anything else SCP-related.  When she finished, she said that she didn't quite understand what was going on, but had found the ending unaccountably creepy - that's when I knew it was ready.

* When writing this, I started thinking about the closest real-world analogues to D-Class - human test subjects.  The answer was relatively obvious - volunteers for clinical trials run by pharmaceutical companies.  It got me thinking about why people would do those trials - people with time to spare, and for whom the money was worth the risk.  And *that* got me thinking about how the Foundation (a monolithic faceless corporation, when you think about it) could abuse its power to create a pool of people desperate enough to "volunteer" for the Foundation's experiments.

* That's why I suggested in the comments to the tale that I wish I could go back in time to enter this into the Dystopia Contest.  Think about your own life.  Then imagine everything exactly the same, except the Foundation exists, with all of the hidden power and influence it holds.  That is dystopia.

* So yes, this is quite a political tale, although I have tried to be relatively subtle.  You'll notice that, other than its appearance on the site, there is nothing here to confirm the existence of the Foundation or even the anomalous world.  Everything is implicit.  Essentially, I'm trying to imply that the Foundation has (or may have) manipulated almost every aspect of Ryan's life, to force him into financial trouble and thereby into service as their human guinea-pig:
 * he loses his job at the Ford factory because of "some advance in robotics"
 * his neighbourhood is half-empty because of the housing market crash
 * the homeless population has been funnelled into "the new mission downtown"
 * the US war in Iraq was about something other than "the nukes or the oil"
 * he works on a zero-hours contract for a big corporate
 * some company "raised the price of Karen's prescription"
 * he signs a legalese waiver of his rights against Smith-Cline
 * Jim was killed by a drunk driver "according to the police"

* One of my goals in the prose was to emphasise a dull, oppressive atmosphere - Ryan's worn-out trainers and old car, the grey weather, the repetitive scenery along the highway, the squat office building.  I've also put him under the pressure of constant small humiliations:
 * clearly he is short of money - he worries about buying a second-hand e-reader, he hasn't had a nice meal in a long time
 * he lost a skilled job (welding) and has been forced into unskilled labour at Costco
 * he is intimidated by his lack of power (and information) compared to two younger women: the pretty receptionist and the scientist - especially when he has to reveal his need for money
 * finally even his name, his identity, is taken away and replaced with a number

* With the level of everyday misery heaped on Ryan, his small joys - the hope that Karen will like the e-reader present, his pride in making his own car, the memory of a birthday steak, soft country music, the warm glow of the dashboard on his hands - might verge on bathos, although no-one has commented on that.

* To emphasise the fact that Ryan is absolutely trapped by the Foundation, that his whole life is a cage, I have loaded up the story with boxes of various types (hence the title, which also refers to the idea of the Foundation putting anomalies in boxes):
 * the present box containing the e-reader
 * the "flat lid of cloud" makes the whole world into a box
 * the boxy Ford Escape
 * all the various box-like buildings - strip malls, motels, the Smith-Cline offices
 * the check-box
 * Jim's coffin

* Again, I worried a bit about the pun near the end ("For a second I can't see my Escape") being on-the-nose, but it hasn't had any reaction so far.

* The final line is deliberately ambiguous.  It's entirely possible that Ryan will be back to see his family, with a bit of extra spending money, and that life will improve.  I wanted to leave the story at the point of transition - this is where Ryan's life will change in one way or another, and forcing the reader to imagine the results makes them think more about the story and what it means.

[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[Grant Request for the Manufacture of Devices to Regulate]]]** || **"Grant Request: Scranton Reality Anchors"** || A successful re-working of a deleted skip.||
[[collapsible show="+ GoI Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* As you can see below in the "Graveyard" section, I had posted a Thaumiel skip based on Scranton Reality Anchors.  It was controversial, and didn't survive.

* After a long time, I had read some Prometheus Labs format articles, and realised that by making SRAs a "scientific breakthrough" rather than an anomaly, I might remove some of the concerns with the skip.  Reimagining it through a PL lens also allowed me to change the focus to a mild satire of corporate dehumanisation.

* If you bother to look back at the original, you'll see that most of the text (and the picture - first time one has been used in a PL format, oddly) is exactly the same as when this was a skip.  The main changes are those derived from the headings of the PL format, but I'm quite pleased with the direction they led me in.  The bland, slightly upbeat tone of the format also creates a nice dissonance with the rather horrific treatment of the reality-benders.

* This is still, at heart, intended as a hit-piece on SRAs.  I don't really like the concept, as they undermine the danger and challenge of the Foundation taking on the eldritch using only mundane means and quick wits.  I don't think it's been perceived that way - indeed several of the people who were vehemently against this in skip form were fine with it in PL form.

* When I say "Several third parties have expressed a willingness to provide the necessary services [ie kidnapping and slavery of reality-benders] to PL.", I am thinking of either MC&D or the Chaos Insurgency - maybe also the Factory, but I can't see PL working with them.  

* The line "We suggest that control over this "kill switch" should remain with Prometheus Labs, who can be trusted to act quickly to prevent any unfortunate accidents, whenever they may arise in future." is intended as an ironic punchline, what with PL being canonically defunct some years after this article is set.  I'm not sure how well that came across.

* As I mentioned in the comments, this article has one big avenue for fridge horror.  If the reader realises that the Foundation is still using SRAs, despite PL no longer existing, then three possibilities exist, each equally unpleasant:
 * The Foundation knows exactly how SRAs work, and has taken over "employment" of the ORIs (ie they're knowingly engaging in torture).
 * The provision of ORI-related services has been transitioned from PL to its external service providers, and the Foundation doesn't realise who is behind those front companies (ie they're contracting torture directly from MC&D or CI).
 * The eventual marketing materials for SRAs didn't reveal the existence of external services at all, and the Foundation hasn't realised yet that it is relying on a bunch of beryllium-bronze paperweights with no reality-maintaining effect.

* Either of the first two scenarios above also leave the Foundation susceptible to the "rogue ORI" event.

* Just before I was ready to post, ophite posted a mainlist article with their own version of SRAs.  That was potentially a disaster, but I figured I'd post mine immediately to avoid the other version becoming canonical.  As it happened, ophite deleted the mainlister (not really sure why), so this had the field to itself.

[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[After that / Until then]]]** || **"After that / Until then"** || Another Christmas Gift Exchange Tale||
[[collapsible show="+ Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* In the 2016 Christmas Gift Exchange, I was allocated Rimple, who asked for something based on their skips (particularly the characters from the skips), or something to do with time travel.

* I played around with the idea that [[[SCP-2779]]] might have a time-travel element as well as the wasd controls, but couldn't get enough of a fix on the characters.  I re-read [[[SCP-2338]]] (which I had originally neutral-voted), realised how good it was and corrected my vote, and then got thinking about what I could do with it.  I was struck by the parallels between the care that Ms Sato and the jellyfish show for the kids.

* I also wondered about the idea of the jellyfish travelling backwards through time.  That got me thinking about how the events of the attack in SCP-2338 would look if the perspective was reversed, and the image of these strangers bringing the children back to life was so strong that I knew I wanted to build a tale around that.  Little did I know that I was ripping off Kurt Vonnegut - apparently Slaughterhouse 5 has a scene involving bombings running backwards which is quite similar.

* Spoilers, in case any of this isn't obvious:
 * In 2023, Ms Sato learns (a) that Ethe jellyfish can carry a human consciousness within it; and (b) that the jellyfish (and that consciousness) travel backwards through time, seeing everything in reverse.  
 * In 2032, Ms Sato retires from the Foundation, knowing that Sun-hee can now live a normal life, and melds her consciousness with the jellyfish.  She now travels backwards through time.
 * In 2029, Ms Sato (as Eomi) releases Sun-hee from the jellyfish, because she knows that 6 months after that, Sun-hee will be cured.  From Eomi's perspective, this is when Sun-hee first joins the jellyfish.
 * In 2023, Ms Sato (as Eomi) tells Sun-hee about (a) and (b) above, knowing that Sun-hee will tell Ms Sato.
 * In 2013, Ms Sato (as Eomi) releases Sun-hee, brings the dead attackers back to life and watches them bring the children back to life.
 * In 2012, Ms Sato (as Eomi) watches herself teach the SCP-2338 children.

* Doing this completely messed with Rimple's authorial intentions (for example, it was never intended that Sun-hee could be "cured" from the costume), but this felt like a thematic sequel, in that it addresses love, loss and healing from unexpected sources.

* There is also a heavy theme of nostalgia - Ms Sato chooses to go backwards, rather than forwards, so that she can see the dead children again.  However the story ends on an upbeat note - once Ms Sato has travelled backwards far enough that she doesn't know what happens to the jellyfish, it will cease to be "backwards" for her - she won't know what is coming, and so will have a new adventure.  And my impression of Ms Sato as a character was that she was very lonely (even before the attack), so leaving her with a new family around her seemed hopeful.

[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[Until Death]]]** || **"Until Death"** || Headcanon-breaking fun for all the family. ||
[[collapsible show="+ Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* This comes out of my post-3000 contest commitment to concentrating on horror themes.

* The idea came from reading GeometryPrime's [[[SCP-2649]]], the predatory teapot which uses a corrosive pocket dimension.  Some of the discussion on that page focussed on possible connections with SCP-106.  I started thinking about black pocket dimensions and whether Goomy's [[[SCP-3001]]] would ever be threatened by 106 popping up in Red Reality.  The possible connection/overlap became obvious.

* I had given Goomy lots of feedback on SCP-3001 when it was a draft contest entry, so I knew it relatively well.  The disintegrating body of Dr Scranton seemed to fit very well with the decomposition of SCP-106.  And the interior of 106's pocket dimension had always been described in a way that could make it a Foundation site.

* There are some gaps between the two anomalies.  My headcanon is that during the 25 years he was trapped post-3001, Dr Scranton became even more completely deranged, gained the ability to control the look and feel of his pocket dimension, started harvesting body parts to try to rebuild himself, and finally found a way to appear back to his wife.  106's predatory behaviour is based on that initial impulse (rebuilding himself and his wife with younger parts) but completely twisted from its original purpose.

* I decided early on that I wasn't going to provide any real hints to the twist (I took a punt that no-one would twig to the Site-120 reference in the first line, which seems to have been correct) - I wanted the twist to have as much impact as possible, and to control when the revelation occurred.  So the structure of the tale was fairly straightforward: slow start to establish atmosphere - sudden entry of 106 - flight - a moment of calm shockingly broken (eye trauma is the best) - desperate flight - entry into the pocket dimension - the apartment / body pile - panicked flight - drop the hammer of the twist - end nastily.

* I was hugely influenced by Dr Gears' [[[Treats]]], from which I harvested the general feel and a number of adjectives(!) - what I really like about that tale is utter helplessness of the protagonists and the unpredictability of 106.

* Not feeling able to give the researcher a name (I thought that even "Anna Lang" might give things away too much) was a bit clunky in terms of having to use "her", "she" and "the researcher" a great deal.  Frank hints at her name by calling her "ay" a couple of times - I presume people read that as an accent.

* I had a great time reading this tale and discussing it with taylor_itkin on the Author's Corner podcast.  You can find it at https://www.djkakt.us/authors-corner/2018/7/2/authors-corner-episode-3-psul 

[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
|| **[[[Golden Horde Funk]]]** || **"Golden Horde Funk"** || A sequel that I wish more people would read! ||
[[collapsible show="+ Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* [[[Golden Horde Blues]]] is a terrific tale - really, genuinely excellent and fun.  I don't recall where I got the idea about a sequel, but it may well have been reading the tale, and looking up the references.  Because there is a section referring to a variety of historical battles involving the Mongols, and one of the battles referred to is Leipzig.  But that's not a Mongol battle - it's Napoleonic.  And that reminded me of [[[SCP-2515]]], where Napoleon fights the daeva in a painting from an alternate history.  So I wondered whether the Golden Horde may have helped Napoleon out?

* With that core idea (Mongols vs daeva), I decided to write this tale as a sequel.  As with any sequel, I aimed to stick very close to the style of the original, but with a few twists and callbacks:
 * instead of the old supervisor talking to the new recruit, this is the recruit talking to the supervisor;
 * "Director Sarangerel" is referred to in both skips;
 * the reference to "weren't much for writing things down";
 * the reference to not being cleared for things;
 * the reference to the budget being liquidated.

* This has not had much readership, and has had lukewarm feedback, which I've been disappointed by.  I genuinely think it's as good a sequel as could be written - not as good as the original, of course, but perhaps a "Last Crusade" to Golden Horde Blues' "Raiders".

* I wanted another musical genre to replace "Blues" for the sequel title.  "Funk" only really has meaning in that the assistant starts off in a bit of a funk, before sorting themselves out.
[[/collapsible]]
@@@@
[[/tab]]
[[tab On Mount Golgotha - analysis, spoilers and trivia]]
**Writing mechanics, spoilers and trivia**
 
In reading order:

|| **[[[Bloodlines]]]** || **"Bloodlines"** || A "high concept" side tale to the canon ||
[[collapsible show="+ Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* When the History Contest was announced, I was thinking about alternate histories, and wondered about using the daeva.  In thinking about blood-magic, I got thinking about vampires, and wondered whether I could write something about Vlad Tepes (the reputed historical inspiration for Dracula) being a daeva lord.

* Sadly I couldn't find a way to make the story work in time for the contest.  But the idea stuck around, and finally I wondered about another blood connection: SCP-012.

* Which means, essentially, that this is a "my anomaly is stronger than your anomaly" story - 012 is stronger than the daeva.  That's pretty difficult territory to make work, so I think the vampire angle is important to add another element to the mix.

* I did a fair bit of reading about Vlad Tepes as background for this tale.  Poenari Citadel, where the action takes place, is a real place, and was one of Vlad's fortresses.  The blood-visions that the old woman has are of Vlad's nighttime attack on the Turkish camp at Targoviste (known as the Battle with Torches), and of the "forest of the impaled" (apparently 20,000 people were butchered, at least according to the records of Vlad's enemies).  Konstantin was the name of Mehmet II's janissary.

* I wanted the story to be a battle of wills between the daeva "Dracula" and the unnamed old Romani woman, who cannot beat the daeva lord physically, and is eventually killed by him, but stops his plans for conquest nonetheless.

* Spoilers, in case anything isn't clear:
 * the warrior is a daeva lord, leading an invasion of Transylvania and then Romania.  The plan (as usual for the daeva) is to conquer all of Europe and beyond - he has only brought a small force for now, as his blood-magic will allow them to destroy opposing forces;
 * the woman, knowing that she can either betray her people or die, decides to die while singing what she knows of SCP-012 (her Romani magic has kept the power of the compulsion effect at bay);
 * clearly the singing is enough - the daeva lord becomes obsessed with the music of 012, and kills his soldiers, and finally himself, in order to have the blood to write it down on the castle walls.  Note that this is significant in the context of On Mount Golgotha - it suggests that seeing the written pages from the SCP-012 file is not necessary to be affected by the skip: mere knowledge of the music can cause the obsession.
 * when Konstantin comes up to the mountain, he sees the aftermath of the daeva's compulsion, but is not affected himself because the rain has washed the blood off the castle walls, so he doesn't realise it is music (although he starts signing to himself as he leaves! and feels sanguine!);
 * as the daeva have been defeated, history changes (as usual for the daeva) and now Dracula's blood-magic is just a story, not fact.  012 beats the daeva!  0-1-2!  0-1-2!  0-1-2!

* I suspect that I might be playing into racist stereotypes of Romani people somewhere here - I welcome views on that, and anything I can do to rectify them.

[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[A Convincing Lyre]]]** || **"A Convincing Lyre"** || MTF Contest Entry / On Mount Golgotha Canon ||
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* I had been edging towards writing something for the On Mount Golgotha canon for a little while, and when the MTF contest was announced, it seemed a fantastic opportunity to expand that canon with a musical/sonic MTF.  Thankfully WrongJohnSilver agreed, and we ended up with a fantastic team in Smapti and CumaeanSybil.

* My team probably considered me a very difficult teammate - within a day of the contest announcement, I had set up a sandbox and started populating it with ideas for characters and crosslinks.  And then I drafted and published this tale (early in the contest period) as the introduction to the team, which was relatively restrictive in terms of what they could write.  Sorry, guys.

* The original idea for this was based around Emma talking to the MTF, meeting them as characters and discussing SCP-012, before the tale would end with the MTF running off to deal with a containment breach.  However, I realised that just having a long conversation full of character introductions would be pretty boring, so instead I absolutely packed this tale full of cheap tricks to keep up reader engagement - I've listed a few below.

* The most obvious cheap trick is the opening dream sequence.  This was an idea I'd had before the contest, and I couldn't work out how to shoehorn it into a canon tale, so the idea of a musical SCP causing the dream ended up driving the plot of this tale (and also most of the rest of the contest entries - again, sorry team!).  My feeling about the OMG canon was that it had a great sense of mystery and history, but very little immediacy of threat to Emma as protagonist - I wanted to inject a bit of that, and start to get things a little bloody.  The idea is that the unheard music is SCP-012, of course.  Hopefully the imagery is sufficiently dreamlike, especially as it goes on - I am disproportionately proud of this snippet of writing in terms of achieving the pacing and effect I wanted.  Notice how the last couple of paragraphs include a phrase or two to try to keep the context (concert hall, bright vs dark, orchestral panic) around Emma's throat-ripping.

* The next sequence, in the aftermath of the party, does a huge amount of heavy lifting.  It brings in the concept of the MTF, introduces 4 out of the 5 MTF members and a lot of their technology (resonators, earplugs, sonar goggles).  One trick here is the fact that by using Emma as audience surrogate, I can deliver exposition to her in dialogue, rather than covering it in narration.  

* Notice also how little physical description I give of the characters - I figure physical description would slow down the reader here, unless any characteristic will be important later.  And the characters' behaviour will guide the reader's image of them - in this section I've particularly tried to do this for Commander Richards (his stiffening jaw, his curt response, sharp looks, his firing the resonator without trying to get Emma out of the way first, his rapid orders to the team) and Agent Zhao (gently helping Emma up, putting a hand on Emma's shoulder and then pulling her out of the way).

* Again, originally this was just a conversation, which would be continued back at the MTF barracks, but it felt too slow.  I came across SCP-932 as part of my reading on sonic/auditory/musical SCPs, and they seemed a good fit for something to drive the action - they're relatively harmless, but require this particular MTF's skills to recapture.  

* I also cut Roger Anderson from this bit - he disappears slightly from the story, but he was just one character too many.

* The sequence in the corridors was added to bridge the time period getting back to the barracks, but also to give Zhao a chance to explain a little further about why Eta-11 is underappreciated.  Notice how her lack of recent experience means she isn't particularly effective with the resonator, having to fire multiple times. 

* The final section, with the MTF common room, is a bit of a juggling act.  When trying to plan it, I finally realised that having the MTF members come back one at a time would allow me to talk about them in their absence, and to let each of them have a say without the conversations getting too big.

* Trivia: Mike's initial mention of the best tunes is referencing various musical skips: Grateful Dead ([[[SCP-1398]]]), Rush ([[[SCP-2112]]]), Radiohead ([[[SCP-2747]]]), and Tupac ([[[SCP-2137]]]).  I used to have a reference to Billy Joel, but the skip it was based on (a version of "We Didn't Start the Fire" that killed you) got deleted after a year.

* In this final section, the conversation is driven along faster than it would naturally go by having constant interruptions.  Every time a follow-up question is due, or as soon as the main point has been stated, either a new person walks into the room, someone interrupts, or an alarm goes off.  It's a very cheap trick, but better than getting bogged down in conversational segues.

* The anomalous recording is only a lyre because I liked the title, and I already had the "Impenitent Thief" title (but not the story) in mind.  The reference to hitting and scratching the instrument is intended to link to the "clicking sounds, and rhotic consonants" mentioned in Smapti's [[[Project Proposal 2014-2112]]].

* I was initially a bit worried about including [[[SCP-2337]]] (Dr Spanko) in the list of anomalies breaching containment, as I know he's a little controversial.  However when looking at the list of sonic/musical SCPs, very few of them were independently mobile such that they could breach containment and require the MTF to pick them up.  Also, the fact that the four breaching SCPs are not particularly dangerous is __absolutely deliberate__, and Spanko fit that category as well.  However no-one particularly commented on it, so perhaps I was unnecessarily concerned.  I find the mental image of Mike attempting to recontain Dr Spanko quite amusing, and I would be very happy for someone to write that particular vignette.

* The final cheap trick for this tale is the very last line.  Originally I wanted to end with Mike's "getting the band back together" comment - as it looks forward to the MTF's actions in the contest.  However, I thought that the best writing in this tale was at the start, and as it's quite a long read, was worried that people may have forgotten about it by the time they got to the end - which is the time they'd be voting!  So I wanted to put an explicit call-back to that section, which may not have existed if this wasn't a contest entry.  I think it works outside that context as well - Emma is meant to be the POV character, so it's only fair that the focus end with her, and ending the story with her suddenly alone again is a fit with the somewhat chilly tone of the OMG canon.
[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[An Impenitent Thief]]]** || **"An Impenitent Thief"** || A Continuation of the "Savage Beasts" Story ||
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* After I had written "A Convincing Lyre", I thought Agent Dee hadn't been given as much introduction as I'd like.  Really, she only got a throwaway comment about her name/status, and two or three lines.  That felt like a waste, as a D-Class being part of an MTF is potentially interesting psychological territory.  So I realised I wanted to write a follow-up tale which got inside Dee's head.

* Like "A Convincing Lyre", I realised quickly that simply covering Dee's thought process as she (for example) sat down to lunch wouldn't provide enough narrative juice to keep the story interesting.  I needed to combine the internal narrative with some external action - essentially to see Agent Dee at work.  And I realised that, although I hadn't planned it to begin with, the re-containment of [[[SCP-339]]] might be a good opportunity - it tied in with the previous story, and it was sufficiently dangerous to keep up interest.

* This is one of the first things I've ever written in first-person - it's a style that I'm not very comfortable with, but I knew that it was the only way to get the immediacy I needed.  The use of present tense was for the same reason.

* Having come up with the idea, I wrote this in a very different manner to the way I would normally write.  I was on holiday, with a couple of long train trips, and wrote it on a phone, out of sequence, essentially in snippets / paragraphs, before coming back and reviewing / re-ordering it afterwards.  I had a feeling that approach could work, as I knew I would be switching back and forth from thoughts to action, and I wanted the train of thought to be somewhat meandering.  The re-ordering was primarily to ensure that the emotional stakes increased through the story along with the physical stakes - Dee gets more and more stressed and angry throughout, before the moment of catharsis.

* There were a number of beats that I wanted to hit - mentioning Dee's history of theft, the thief on the cross, the feeling of being adopted like a stray, the guard getting shaken to death, the skip going over Dee's foot - and I knew I wanted things to almost fall apart right at the end, but I hadn't worked out exactly how it would happen.  So the idea of using the suit to recontain SCP-339 came quite organically while writing.  As I said in the discussion page, it genuinely felt close to the thing writers talk about where the decisions of their characters take them by surprise.  It really helped unlock the story, as it simultaneously makes Dee more physically vulnerable, and makes dropping the torch/keys more plausible than if the suit was still on.

* While this is set thoroughly inside Dee's head, I am quite pleased with the amount of characterisation given to Zhao over the course of the story.  I like to imagine her perspective on the same sequence of events, and what she was thinking about.

* For the record, I certainly don't see this as a "Road to Damascus" moment for Dee, and it's not going to change her life or behaviour in any long-term way.  In my mind, she probably has this kind of anger/forgiveness cycle with the rest of Eta-11 relatively regularly - this was just an example in a particularly stressful situation.
[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[Our Mutual Guide]]]** || **"Our Mutual Guide"** || The On Mount Golgotha canon gets an antagonist ||
[[collapsible show="+ Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* This was another long-gestating idea - one that I'd had before the MTF contest, and which I wanted to come back to.  One of my other thoughts about the early On Mount Golgotha stories was that all of the action and the threat was in the past, rather than being immediate.  Part of trying to escalate the threat was to create a present-day perspective of the forces looking to complete SCP-012, so that the story would have an antagonist.

* However, I didn't want to reveal the identity of the antagonist immediately, so I imagined this story as being like the standard TV scene where the villain does something ominous, but you never see their face.

* I needed to use first person again, because I wanted to get inside the head of this character and show their thoughts, and also reveal some (coded, symbolic) spoilers about their agenda.  What I had in mind was a cosmology - something like the creation stories that Djoric / Dmatix have written for their canons - but I didn't want it to be something from a book, or a sermon.  Visions were also not my first choice, as they can be a bit clichéd, but eventually they were the only option to get the information across, and I fudged it with the "like they were painted by music" line.

* The first draft of this consisted entirely of the visions (everything from "Darkness.  Silence." onwards) but early reviews suggested that it was too vague and didn't provide enough character - and importantly, that there wasn't enough in it about music.  Adding the musical references was quite enjoyable - particularly choosing the composers to refer to (all of that stuff is true, by the way).

* The visions themselves are all quite meaningful, and I have tried to load them with references and enigmas.  I've unpacked some of them below, some might become more obvious based on the next two tales, but others are significant in the context of the On Mount Golgotha endgame - particularly what happens when SCP-012 is played in full - so I'll leave them out for now.

* Spoilers - the first thing about the visions is the constant repetition of the same four-colour palette: White, Red, Yellow, Black.  That is the same set of colours that characterise Alagadda itself (see [[[SCP-2264]]]).  They have an additional meaning in that skip, and that is also true here, but for now, here is a list of most of the places that they're used:
 * Each of the visions has a colour associated with it: a "blank sheet" of clouds, red firelight, yellow sky over Alagadda, darkness.
 * In the second vision: "noon [white] has become sunset [red] has become morning [yellow] has become dusk [black]".
 * The second vision again: "Lit by embers [red], candlelight [yellow], bright fluourescence [white] or left in shadow [black]".
 * In the third vision, the four coloured rivers are from Metaphysician's description of Alagadda.

* Spoilers - here is a summary of the visions and what I'm referring to:
 * First vision: Golgotha Hill, outside Jerusalem, is reputed to be the place where Adam was buried (and possibly also where he was evicted from Eden).  His bones were taken up by Noah in the ark and then delivered for burial by Noah's sons (hence the references to high mountains and flood-ravaged lands).
 * First vision: Golgotha (and its surrounds) have also been the place for a variety of temples over the years.  The vision refers to gods of love (there was a Roman temple to Venus/Aphrodite), gods of fury and sacrifice (Astarte, goddess of war and Moloch, to whom children were sacrificed (and part of the basis for [[[SCP-089]]]) may have been some of the gods to whom Solomon purportedly set up temples on the Mount of Corruption, not that far from Mount Golgotha), gods to be sacrificed (that is of course a reference to Jesus in the Christian tradition).
 * Second vision: this is probably the most obvious - I'm taking a scene from the life of the mysterious musician whose grave was found in [[[The Journal of K. M. Sandoval]]], with the original copy of SCP-012.
 * Third vision: this is Alagadda, but the two faces of the city (raucous revellers, blood-spattered and empty) from Metaphysician's (and SunnyClockWork's) writing are not represented.  The city's namesake referred to is "St. Alagadda" - first mentioned in Sandoval's journal, and expanded on in "Pattern Breaker" and "Counterpoint".  St Alagadda is a big deal in the OMG canon.
 * Fourth vision: we're back at Mount Golgotha, for what may appear to be the crucifixion - two thieves on either side of Jesus.  But (and maybe this is obvious), I'm suggesting that the crucifixion itself was merely an analogy for a more important cosmological event.  Here, the frenzied thief (impenitent) is Yaldabaoth, the god-figure of Sarkicism.  The calculating thief (penitent) is Mekhane, the Broken God.  But their petty squabbles are nothing - the central figure, St Alagadda, is as far beyond them as Jesus was the thieves.  I am also using similar imagery here to my earlier description of composers: the fury of Prokofiev and the clockwork of Bach, overshadowed by the towering Mahler.  Patterns - everything is about patterns.

[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[Pattern Breaker]]]** || **"Pattern Breaker"** || Back to Emma Stark, and time to meet some more SCPs. ||
[[collapsible show="+ Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* Even during the MTF contest, I realised that there was space for a tale about what Emma was doing while MTF Eta-11 were off hunting down anartist composers in [[[The Musical Suspects]]] (see below).  Considering that the last two On Mount Golgotha tales (in chronological order of when they were written) were The Musical Suspects and Our Mutual Guide, neither of whom involve the story's main protagonist, I wanted to get back to Emma and start some development on her character, which had been very passive to this point in the story.

* I had always planned for Mike to be involved in this story, and for that reason I deliberately left him out of the first two parts of The Musical Suspects.  I even insisted to CumaeanSibyl that he was kept out of [[[Enjoy the Silence]]] - thanks for helping out with that!

* I had also wanted for a while to see what [[[SCP-2992]]] would make of SCP-012.  WrongJohnSilver had always wanted ProfetiX to be involved, based on his memetic ability to get songs stuck in people's minds.  But I quite liked the idea of ProfetiX being an unwilling part of someone else's plan, rather than a mastermind - to me, the idea of replacing lots of songs with just one song, SCP-012, would be anathema to SCP-2992's world view.

* Soulless Singularity, the author of SCP-2992, was very kind, not only graciously allowing me to use the character, but reading through a draft and giving some really clever feedback about how to write ProfetiX's dialogue.  Soulless even thought about writing something for the canon at some stage (do it!).

* This is yet another long tale principally driven by dialogue, so again I have limited the length of some conversations by jumping straight into the next scene - essentially the written equivalent of a smash cut.

* I wanted to start by reminding readers where we were up to in the story, so "Stolen!?" seemed like the right first line.  And then I wanted to put Emma under immediate pressure, to get her character back to where we left her in A Convincing Lyre.  It's that pressure that pushes her to change throughout the story.

* The conversation about Emma and Mike joined the Foundation is some slightly gratuitous backstory, but I wanted to give Emma some more substance, and also a reason to feel isolated, and a basis for her naïveté.  That is also the reason for having her write songs for that CD of hers that no-one else has ever heard.

* Patterns are (going to be) a big theme of On Mount Golgotha - music is full of patterns and repetition, and the story will have patterns as well.  As such, "Pattern Breaker" as a title refers to a lot more than just the headbands that Mike has invented.  For example, it (deliberately) self-refers to the fact that "Pattern Breaker" as a title breaks the pattern of three word titles which had been running through the canon at this stage.  Emma also starts to break the pattern of being the assistant and the victim that has been set for her in the story so far.  But as ProfetiX says, a broken pattern might just be a different kind of pattern.

* Speaking of which, ProfetiX very cleverly finds a way to get around the restrictions of the Pattern Breaker, and put songs in Mike's head.  After he learns about the pattern breakers, ProfetiX quotes (or nearly quotes) lyrics from two different songs in his speech: "They won't become some background noise" and "A bell that rings inside your mind".  Obviously, the bell is a reference back to Our Mutual Guide.  But it's also a reference forward to The Musical Suspects. Both of those lines are from Queen songs ("Radio Ga-Ga" and "It's a Kind of Magic", respectively).  ProfetiX manages to get those songs stuck in Mike's head - which is why those are the first two songs Mike thinks of in The Musical Suspects.

* Originally the story ended with the security director saying that the site director wanted a word with Emma (paying off as a punchline her comment to Mike earlier) but it wasn't the most satisfying ending.  I wanted Emma to have a chance to show some emotion, and that fit with her breaking her pattern of submitting to authority, so I added her rant.

* Unfortunately, because of what I want to write for the next tale, I had to immediately undercut that by having her tased.  I didn't do that lightly - I'm trying to empower Emma as a character, and immediately taking that power away is sub-optimal both for the plot and her treatment as a woman.  Hopefully it will be worth it.
[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[The Musical Suspects]]]** || **"The Musical Suspects"** || A Third MTF Contest Entry ||
[[collapsible show="+ Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* Originally our team's AAR/log for the contest was going to be written by CumaeanSibyl, but that turned into a tale instead - [[[Enjoy the Silence]]] - and just as well it did, as I absolutely love it.  I'd already been thinking about logs, and my original idea turned into the first episode of this entry - I wrote it as a full transcript, but ultimately it felt too long and was bogging down readers before they could get to the good stuff in the third movement.

* While I was thinking about radio chatter transcripts, it struck me that a musical MTF might sing their communication.  Having thought about using lines from songs generally, it struck me that many of the lines I'd thought of came from Queen songs.  Queen had the advantage of lots of usable lines and being a very recognisable set of lyrics - that thrill of recognition is key to reader enjoyment here, as you have to be able to imagine the team singing along together whilst in action.

* From there, the logs basically wrote themselves.  I just got a list of Queen's most famous lyrics (from Greatest Hits I and II), selected those that might be useful, and then arranged them in groups based on the phases of the fight that I had planned (realisation of the anomaly - team under attack - realisation of the use of ultrasonic - fightback - the bots get reinforcements - call in the airstrike - rounding up the PoI).  Then I selected the lines that fit best, allocated them relatively randomly, and that was the bulk of the work done.  I didn't count, but I think I've got almost 20 Queen songs represented here.

* That said, the introduction and Mobile HQ parts are critical to this working.  The opening needs to establish which character is behind which codename, as the contest entries had established distinct personalities which I wanted to use.  And Mobile HQ, as the only character that can say exactly what is going on for large parts of the tale, is vital to ensure that it makes sense and that the reader can picture the action - although they needed to stay out of the way enough that the singing was the main attraction.

* I always planned for this to be robots (the silliness is easier to accept if the MTF aren't shooting at live people) but making them Freddy Mercury came about pretty late in the piece.

* And would you believe I didn't think of the "We are the Champions" ending until quite late on?  I personally like the idea of giving Eta-11, who had a pretty angst-ridden set of contest entries, some catharsis at the end of their story.  Granted, they haven't found SCP-012, and they haven't dealt with any of their personal or collective issues, but they have succeeded in the immediate goal, and they worked together as a team.  It's very deliberate that Mike Carter is the one who starts them singing - I see his enthusiasm as being very important to the team's closeness.  That's also part of the reason that Mike didn't get to come along for the two previous missions. 

* This is as close as I've come so far to a coldpost - I didn't want to spoil this too much in the forums before posting it, so only WrongJohnSilver read through it before I uploaded.  WJS gets credit for "I see a little silhouetto..." - I can't believe I hadn't included that!
[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[Counterpoint]]]** || **"Counterpoint"** || Wrapping up the first act of the On Mount Golgotha story, and setting up for the next ||
[[collapsible show="+ Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]
* While I had been writing Our Mutual Guide and Pattern Breaker, I had been brainstorming with WrongJohnSilver as to the answers to some of the mysteries we'd set up in the OMG Tales to date.  It felt like time to provide those answers to the readers, and I felt like the pieces were finally in place to do so.

* Essentially this boils down to the two revelations: (a) Commander Richards stole SCP-012, and (b) Dr Pherson is the antagonist from Our Mutual Guide.  When I imagined revealing them, I visualised it as a series of cross-cuts between two interviews, with the dialogue referencing back and forth between them.  Once that image stuck, I really wanted to try it in textual form, despite the complexity involved.

* I let this percolate in my mind for a long time before starting to write it.  I had a week's holiday with some built-in time to relax, so I printed out all of the OMG tales, and spent the first half of the week just reading them, taking notes and making connections, so that I could ensure (a) consistency with previous work; (b) a workable, logical plan for Richards and Mace; and (c) that I actually resolved all the outstanding points I wanted to resolve.  The resulting hand-written notes, showing theories and connections, were described by one observer as looking like they came straight from the scene in the thriller where the detectives discover the lair of the obsessive conspiracy theorist or serial killer!

* "Counterpoint" as a title came from the back and forth of the dialogue, but is also a reference to the musical compositional technique, with independent voices fitting together as a larger whole.  That is also a good image for the subject matter, which involves puzzle pieces being brought together.  

* And while thinking about the title, I realised I would try to increase the degree of difficulty by writing this (very loosely) in the style of a two-part musical Fugue.  It is *very* loose, but for music students, you should be able to find the main theme, variation, recapitulation (including a partial inversion of the theme) and coda.  If you're still having trouble, the main theme is basically:
 * "for the record"
 * an indignant "I'm a _______!"
 * memetic hazards
 * "what am I doing here?"
 * musical anomaly

* After making sure that this covers all of the plot points I want to include, and throwing in a liberal amount of echoing and repetition (see the [[[On Mount Golgotha Hub]]]: "Each note has larger echoes ... the same pattern can arise independently in many places"), the key to this tale working is pacing.  As a general point, the pacing speeds up when there is lots of cross-cutting (usually on short statements back and forth) and slows down when it's mostly only one interview doing the talking.

* So after setting up the structural conceit, and showing how the cross-cutting will work (everything up to "So why aren't you looking for them?"), I try to build up the momentum by posing Roger as a red herring, and then slow it down again, as the interviews diverge in subject matter - Emma talking about 012, and Mace about 1638 and Zoe Smith.  Each side gets longer exchanges within itself, although I try to "match cut" on lines of dialogue with similarity between the two interviews, to keep a sense of cohesion.

* Then I try to amp up the emotion on both sides to pick up the pace, leading into the first revelation - Commander Richards is the impenitent thief.  Of course, this is just a random accusation / intuitive leap - I've tried to make his arrest slightly more realistic by off-setting the start times of the interviews, to allow Barnes to run the investigation that proves Richards did it.

* Again, things slow down as Stark and Richards tease out the "how" and "why" of Richards' theft.  Then I've tried to pivot both discussions to lead them to the second revelation, jumping back and forth more quickly to accelerate again.  Once Pherson's role is revealed, we move into the wrap-up, with the transfer of power from Richards to Stark.  By the end of the tale, their starting positions have been almost completely reversed.

* The end-state of this tale is very deliberate.  I wanted to set up the canon for the next phase - in particular, to give the main characters some concrete goals, an excuse to spend time together, and a reason to get out of the (relatively safe, sterile) site and into the dangers of the outside world.  I really hope that someone finds inspiration in this and can take the story forward.

* In the original draft, the last 10 lines of the Stark/Site-Director interview had the  dialogue essentially reversed, with the Site-Director giving responsibility and resources to Emma, and Emma reacting in surprise.  Reviewers said that this was a bit unrealistic, and I realised that it didn't fit with my goal to make Emma a stronger and more active character.  By reversing the dialogue, I achieve both goals - now Emma is asking for what she wants, and it's slightly ambiguous as to whether the Site-Director will really just give it to her.

* This was an absolute pain to format.  Originally I thought I could do it by using the column div-block, and inserting blank lines where necessary to align the text.  Unfortunately, after spending hours doing that, I found that looking at the tale on a narrower screen (eg on mobile) threw out all the formatting, so the interviews didn't align properly.  That is obviously a disaster for comprehension of this tale, so I went back to the drawing board.  Eventually having separate div-blocks for each change of interview, and having the blocks overlap each other, was the best solution, but again it took ages to make sure I had all the coding correct.  The only shame is that there are several lines of dialogue where I wanted both interviews to have the same line simultaneously (mostly the "cadence" lines like "It was Dr Pherson"), and that isn't possible with this formatting.
[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[Lessons for Old Dogs]]]** || **"Lessons for Old Dogs"** || Starting the next phase of On Mount Golgotha ||
[[collapsible show="+ Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]

[Coming soon]

[[/collapsible]]
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|| **[[[Duets]]]** || **"Duets"** || Time for some character-work ||
[[collapsible show="+ Tale Spoilers etc" hide="- collapse"]]

[Coming soon]

[[/collapsible]]
[[/tab]]
[[tab Chronological list of works]]
[[module ListPages created_by="psul" order="created_at" separate="no" perPage="250" prependLine="||~ Title||~ Rating ||~ Comments ||~ Created ||~ Last Comment ||"]] 
|| %%title_linked%% || %%rating%% || %%comments%% || %%created_at%% || %%commented_at%% ||
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**Things that aren't my posted work**
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[[tabview]]
[[tab Translations, Readings, Art]]
Other wonderful people have done things with my works.  I am generally in awe.  If I have missed something you've made, please let me know and I'll try to update this section.

**__Readings and Art__**

**SCP-2130**

Drewbear made [[[http://scpsandbox2.wikidot.com/secretsanta2014 |a recording of the final note]]] from this skip for the Christmas Gift Exchange.  Thanks, Drewbear!

**The Little Buck-Toothed Boy**

Wow, Randomini [[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/advent-calendar-2015 |did a reading of this Tale]]] - see 5 December.  Thanks Randomini - that's awesome!

**Letters from Benares**

* The incomparable SunnyClockwork has created art for this tale, which I absolutely love.  You can find it [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/sunny-art-cotbg-sarkicism |here]]], towards the end of the Sarkicism heading (or just search on the page for "Benares").  Kundalini has never seemed so ominous!

**An Impenitent Thief**

* AbsentmindedNihilist made a terrific recording of this tale, really capturing the stress of the situation, and an Agent Dee on the verge of breakdown.  You can listen to it here: [[[http://vocaroo.com/i/s1hRBhOKKN5C |Part One]]] and [[[http://vocaroo.com/i/s0akJrF2yeZi |Part Two]]].

**__Translations__**

There are now a huge number of translations of my articles - more than I can keep up with here.  By far the best way to find them is at [[[http://scpper.com/user/2156983 |scpper.com]]] - clicking on any of my articles there will show you a list of translations of them.

[[/collapsible]]

[[/tab]]
[[tab Recommendations]]

**A very short list of other authors' SCPs that I particularly enjoy**
 
[[[SCP-087]]] - I thought the novel "House of Leaves" was great, and this has much of the best of that book, in a simple, well-delivered package.
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[[[SCP-1193]]] - a perfect exercise in the uncanny, from someone who not only understands how to do it, but can explain how to do it in a way that I can comprehend.
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[[[SCP-1782]]] - finds ways to create horror obliquely without being random, and the overall effect is genuinely chilling.
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[[[SCP-1893]]] - if you're going to do a format screw, go all the way.  Write 5 different tales, all quite different in general tone, despite having the same dialogue.  Make them all disturbing, to different degrees, but with a consistent throughline.  I got the iterations in order BDECA - I think that might be the perfect way to read this.
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[[[SCP-1981]]] - pleasantly unsettling.  I don't like re-reading this, which must be a good sign, right?
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[[[SCP-2072]]] - the more I read this, the more I like it.  Tremendously unpredictable, it gets weirder and weirder, with a brilliant ending, and all within the confines of a table.  A reminder that final notes and diaries is not the only way to write a good story.
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[[[SCP-2188]]] - shows the potential of the form.  Nothing scary here, but more depths of emotion than any other 6 skips put together.
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[[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/unforgettable-that-s-what-you-are |Unforgettable, That's What You Are]]] - qntm's Antimemetics tales constitute one of the best-realised series on the site.  You should really start at the beginning, but this one is the best of the lot.  Beautiful prose, in the service of a clever, thrilling narrative.  Absolutely inspiring.
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Other favourites from Series III: [[[SCP-2264]]], [[[SCP-2286]]], [[[SCP-2361]]], [[[SCP-2442]]], [[[SCP-2557]]], [[[SCP-2582]]], [[[SCP-2602]]], [[[SCP-2719]]], [[[SCP-2733]]], [[[SCP-2740]]], [[[SCP-2915]]] and [[[SCP-2935]]].
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Other favourites from Series IV so far: [[[SCP-3005]]], [[[SCP-3034]]], [[[SCP-3043]]], [[[SCP-3117]]], [[[SCP-3171]]], [[[SCP-3191]]], [[[SCP-3242]]], [[[SCP-3785]]], [[[SCP-3900]]] and [[[SCP-3966]]].
[[/tab]]
[[tab The Graveyard]]

**Articles that haven't survived**

All of these you can find at the bottom of [[[http://scpsandbox2.wikidot.com/psul psul's sandbox |my sandbox]]], for future reference / rewrites / laughter / learning.

|| **Scranton Reality Anchors** || (SCP-591 for 60 hours) || __Obituary:__ "scranton reality anchors, were discovered to make great high-end paperweights and subsequently shipped off for auction at -12 and 4 staff votes". ||
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[[collapsible show="+ What it was, and why it was deleted" hide="- collapse"]]
* I decided that I really liked the idea of subverting SRAs (found in [[[SCP-2000]]], [[[SCP-2343]]] and [[[SCP-1451]]], as well as [[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/and-this-one-explains-humes |these]]] [[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/an-faq-part-two-or-your-hume-questions-answered |tales]]]) by turning them from a scientific handwave into an anomaly with a horrible backstory.  It also felt like the only thing shown to control reality in the SCPverse is reality benders, so SRAs had to work on a similar basis.  

* This was a slightly quixotic project - I expected a lot of downvotes due to head-canon clashes, and there was a 100+ post discussion in the Drafts forum running through the pros and cons.  What I hadn't expected was the concern that turning a piece of site lore into a mainlist article would stifle creativity of future writers.  I understand that on one level, but I think that it is an objection that can be overcome if the writing is good enough - [[[SCP-748]]] is a good example.

* Unfortunately in my case the writing wasn't good enough.  Once it was finally posted, it immediately went negative, and spent most of its short life between -7 and -9 before finally tipping into oblivion.  Sample comments:
 * [[*user sirpudding]]: This still has the (I believe intractable) problems with a general purpose technology used as element in fiction that is supposed to be about special procedures.  Even with a limited supply of SRAs, why are seven active and 14 (!) backup units used on SCP-2343 and not on something that is actually a K-Class waiting to happen? If all of those K-Class Keters have such high Hume differentials that SRAs can't work on them then how is SCP-2000 shielded from them?
 * [[*user Crayne]]: Can't speak for anyone else, but the reason for my downvote is that I fundamentally believe solidifying elements that should be used to support articles into articles of their own is detrimental to the wiki. "There is no canon is fine" as a throwaway line, but the fact of the matter is that once something like this is written, people will grasp at it to downvote other articles that don't conform to it.
 * [[*user dankaar]]: There's a reason that the Foundation historically locked them up and never used them (except for that one time). Now you're telling me that the Foundation is putting them in control of an object that amplifies their abilities, and hoping that their treatments won't be overridden because the bender could always simply and easily reverse the surgery. All it takes is one reality-bender to seal part of their mind away so as to not be affected by any fuckery with their brain, and then the Foundation has the largest catastrophe they have ever engineered.
 * [[*user Petrograd]]: I'm downvoting because this doesn't need to exist, and in its current form does nothing to justify itself in my eyes. It comes across as a takedown or deconstruction of SRAs, and I don't see them being powered by Type Greens with anime-style head sockets as any particular improvement.  Similar to the comments above, you're cementing anomalous mojo to something that exists to be a handwave for Science! that we as readers don't understand. That's removing a central characteristic from a story, and the opposite of interesting to me.

* The image I used was a cross section of a theodolite - drawn for consistency with the (since-deleted) Short Works Contest SCP that illustrated SRAs with a theodolite.  Possibly in a fit of defiance, or possibly just because it was the only image to hand when I finally got sick of that smiley, I have adopted this SRA image as my user avatar.
[[/collapsible]]
|| **Scranton Reality Anchors** || (SCP-3001-EX for around 24 hours) || __Obituary:__ "-13 and three staff votes. A Random Day and sirpudding have volunteered rewrites/collab". ||
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[[collapsible show="+ What it was, and why it was deleted" hide="- collapse"]]
* Somewhere, perhaps while thinking about the earth's core for [[[SCP-3513]]], I got thinking about the interior of the moon.  I was slightly surprised to learn that there is very little known about the interior of the moon, other than what can be surmised by mass etc.  I wondered about this as an SCP topic.

* I also liked the idea that (a) the interior of the moon would be obviously artificial in some way; (b) the Foundation understood it enough to make it an -EX; and (c) the reader wouldn't get that explanation, leaving a tantalising question (why can't the Foundation reveal what it knows?).

* At one stage I strongly considered making the entire Description the following:

"SCP-OOOO-EX is the internal composition and structure of Earth's Moon.  [REDACTED]."

Eventually I put in some more text to try to make the gist more obvious.  I'm not sure if that improved things overall.

* It definitely didn't go very well with audiences.  While it got some upvotes, it was always negative and went quickly to -10.  Sample comments:
 * [[*user ChrisAKAPiefish]]: This might just be personal taste but I just didn't feel like there was enough content here. The redaction of the explanation for this explained SCP also just frustrated me. I would've preferred some of the explanation to be redacted rather than all. All of the explanation just feels like a bit of a cop out to me.  [In a subsequent reply] Okay I can see what it's going for but I think for that idea to work, the article needs to have the right balance between giving too much away and not giving enough away. Currently I feel there's just not enough content here for this idea to work.
 * [[*user DrMagnus]]: Personally, I don't find the idea of just spurring speculation to be a solid foundation for an article ... The implication of a greater story would be interesting, if there was any greater story.
 * [[*user MrBazzle]]: After a bit of thought, I upvoted because of the greater story this article suggests. I initially downvoted wondering if I was missing the bigger picture, but then it suddenly hit me. The fact I’m still thinking about this for many minutes after I finished is also a good sign that this is done well. I also think it’s better off that this delivers a message in so few words. Having everything explained would just make it kinda… bland(?), mainly because it’d already state what can be found out as the article already is.
 * [[*user Scorpion451]]: I think the problem is trying to do too many things in one article- "the moon is artificial but it's non anomalous but we can't tell you why or how but it still needs to be covered up but the article won't talk about that either"
 * [[*user Modern_Erasmus]]: I'd suggest putting a few pars where the redacted section is and redacting specific details within that to give a few more hints while still keeping the most important details shrouded.
 * [[*user The Great Hippo]]: My suggestion: Imply somehow — without elaborating on the how or why — that the Foundation eventually discovered they themselves did this. Furthermore: Once they discovered that they did it, and they discovered why they did it, they were perfectly okay with it. "Oh. Right. Okay. That's why the moon is filled with concrete. Yeah, that makes sense. Good job, everybody." ... Honestly, I really enjoyed this exactly as it is. But I love minimalism, and I love stories that are really just very engaging story prompts.

* [[*user ARD]] did a new article using some of this as a base, and it turned into [[[SCP-4220]]].  Honestly, other than being about the centre of the moon, it is totally unrelated to my deleted version, but that doesn't make it any less good :)
[[/collapsible]]
[[/tab]]
[[/tabview]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box]]
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psul's Author Page

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