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Alright, my first SCP is now live! Many thanks to Ihp, DrLiebowitz, DrChandra, DarkStuff, LadyKatie and anamazingfantasy for reviewing the draft. If there's anything or anyone I forgot, please forgive me, it's been kind of a busy day for me today so I'm sort of rushing this first post haha
EDIT: Oh, and special thanks to my friend Jeannie for helping me come up with this!
i really like this, got some line by line tone stuff coming in a second. i cleared your tags - don't tag stuff by yourself unless you know what you're doing, because you didn't have all the tags you needed and the tagging team looks for untagged articles.
Your containment procedures are a little short, but honestly that's about all I could see this guy needing.
hitherto undiscovered substance with properties similar to rubber
just take out the "hitherto undiscovered", it's a goofy thing that a lot of people on the site don't like. we can assume this guy's rubber-stuff is anomalous, we don't need to know it's undiscovered.
SCP-4092 locomotes in a variety of ways, most of which appear to be poorly coordinated.
this sentence could be trimmed down - we really just need to know that he's got bad coordination. people locomote in a variety of ways.
ways that do not seem possible within the constraints of conventional physics
this could probably just be "ways that seem physically impossible", it also means you're not using "conventional" two sentences in a row.
"stuck".
kill the scare quotes
SCP-4092 appears to be sapient and is capable of at least somewhat coherent speech.
"is sapient and capable of speech" (you talk about how he's incoherent right after this)
to state that her four-year-old son, Jonathan, was missing.
maybe "to report the disappearance of her four-year-old son, Jonathan"? "state" is such a bland word
Details given to the 911 dispatcher stated
this sentence structure is weird - I would take out the first clause entirely, just say that Mrs. W told the dispatcher [facts].
Mrs. W████████, who had never been divorced or widowed, immediately became suspicious, and assumed that Jonathan had been kidnapped upon not finding him home.
i mean if she's still married to the kid's dad she would probably assume he got kidnapped right away (also say that she's still married to the kid's dad, "never divorced or widowed" is a weird phrasing)
Mrs. W████████, having never seen the alleged “stepdad”, was unable to give further details.
I assume the teacher would've been able to give some details? this sentence could probably just go.
over 144 kilometers per hour
someone converted 90mph to kilometers. round that bad boy up to 150 or down to 140.
posing as FBI.
he's not posing as the Whole FBI. "an FBI agent".
bobble around
"bobble" isn't super clinical but i can;t think of a good replacement so you could leave this one in
the self-inflicted face slamming.
I would just take this bit out, or put that he's uninjured up where he slams his face into the table
involved in its regular pattern of manically stumbling around its cell and slamming into walls,
"involved in its pattern" is a weird structure - maybe "engaging in its usual behavior" ?
removing a pistol from under his pillow
this is irresponsible, and super an action movie cliche. just have it in his nightstand drawer or something.
Researcher ███████ also requested the Foundation grant him a larger firearm for personal use. Request was denied.
also this is super lolfoundation and wouldn't go in the containment documents regardless, i would take that out also
also i think you're a little heavy-handed on the redactions - you could definitely uncensor dates and some of the names.
anyway i love this article and i think doing at least most of these edits would help it a lot - people get picky about tone, u know?
Alright, so I'm not sure if it's weird to do a point-by-point response to a point-by-point critique, but…
My new stepdad sure is a weird guy.
Nicely constructed, interesting premise executed pretty well. Some minor issues like other commenters have said.
Overall, definitely +1.
I went through and tweaked most of ch00bakka's suggestions. Is there anything that still doesn't sit right iyo?
This is really good with the potential to be truly terrifying.
I'm actually really glad to hear that! I don't have confidence in my ability to do full-on horror so I sort of shot for that uneasy space between "funny" and "unsettling" here.
The image of someone grinning wildly randomly appearing in someone's room and screaming something about being a danger FUNger to himself and others is both deeply terrifying and really funny. Good job, dude! +1.
Actually, going back to this comment thread sort of makes me wonder whether or not I'd taken any inspiration from Homestar Runner while writing this? I was obsessed with it as a kid (and I still love it), so it's entirely possible that a lot of its sensibilities seeped into my subconscious mind. During drafting I remembered describing this skip as "too weird even for a cartoon character", and that sort of brought Homsar to mind?
this article gets 500 shiny new CadaverCommander Calamity Coupons for being very very fun to read. well done my fine friend
So, I really like the energy, premise, and structure of this article. The execution… could use a lot of polishing. But all the stuff underneath that execution has a wild, frantic, terrifying energy that blends horror and comedy together really well.
A few things:
SCP-4092 is a humanoid entity approximately 1.8m tall, resembling a middle-aged Caucasian male with the exception of a complete lack of any hair or genitalia.
'Caucasian' is, as a term, inaccurate; it refers to an obsolete taxon. No self-respecting scientist would use it unless they were referring to someone from the Caucasus. I also think you've got a great opener here, but you're over-doing it with details:
SCP-4092 is a white human male who lacks any hair, internal organs, or external genitalia.
SCP-4092 is composed entirely of a substance with properties similar to rubber. Both internal scans and attempts at physical dissection have indicated that SCP-4092’s body is a singular, solid piece of this material, lacking internal organs entirely.
SCP-4092 is composed of a substance similar to rubber. Its internal morphology is solid, lacking internal structure.
SCP-4092's physical movements are bizarre and erratic, and at times seemingly inconsistent with the laws of conventional physics. On multiple occasions, SCP-4092 has been found apparently partially embedded within otherwise solid objects, unable to be removed from them via conventional means. However, SCP-4092 appears to have the ability to remove itself from this state without causing any perceivable damage to the object in which it was "stuck".
SCP-4092's movements are erratic and inconsistent with conventional physics. On multiple occasions, SCP-4092 has partially embedded itself into solid objects. It has demonstrated the ability to remove itself from these objects without damage to either itself or the object.
SCP-4092 appears to be sapient and is capable of speech.
This line isn't necessary. You show us he's sapient and capable of speech (in the logs), and there's no reason to presume he otherwise wouldn't be.
Etc. There's a lot of redundancy here (don't say things 'appear to be' when they are, etc). A lot of language you could tighten up on.
The black-boxes are unnecessary; the logs feel like they could have a somewhat cleaner presentation, and there are several points where the visual descriptions in the logs felt more 'novel-esque' than they needed to be (and also similarly felt redundant).
ALL this being said: Holy shit, the premise (and the content of the logs themselves). The whole idea of connecting a step-dad's attempt to be wildly fun to their new kids with this magical entity who's behavior is terrifying and bizarre is a really great energy. I think the logs could have been tighter in a lot of places, but for the most part, they absolutely nail the concept — the logs are what got me to upvote.
Your critique is fair. I was in Advanced English Classes in high school so I'm sort of used to meeting a Word Count. I think much of what you're saying is worth editing.
However, I use "resembles" and "appears to be" for a very specific purpose. The Rubber Stepdad isn't a white male, it isn't even human. It is something SHAPED like a human, and PRETENDING (poorly) to be a human, yet extremely alien to human-ness. Likewise, it "appears to be" sapient because, while it does respond to its surroundings, it doesn't respond in exactly the right way. I've tried to make it so that it's very much unknown whether it IS a "being", or something EMULATING being-ness. Perhaps my allusions to that fact aren't quite clear enough, though. I'm always open to suggestions. :)
