I thought of this during a soccer game a bit ago. I wrote up a draft, and, well…
It's under the tab 'Soccer Mom'.
Any feedback would be delightful.
I thought of this during a soccer game a bit ago. I wrote up a draft, and, well…
It's under the tab 'Soccer Mom'.
Any feedback would be delightful.
Well that's adequately horrifying. It's thin, but you probably know that.
Does the inability of the object to be observed assist in telling this story or hurt? I think the latter. It serves no narrative purpose and makes little sense from a "how the hell was this contained in the first place" perspective. I'd suggest removing that.
Of course if you do that, then this is just a ghost mom that beats up on kids, so there needs to be a stronger motivation lurking behind it all. I suggest you ask yourself what the soccer mom actually wants. Is it accomplishing anything? Where did it come from? Why is it doing this?
Once you develop the story a bit more it'll be easier to figure out if this has legs. In the mean time good luck on your draft.
I don't know that the interview log adds anything. I'd like to go further and say you need to make the trigger more subtle. A straight up numerical comparison of scores feels wrong for your narrative.
Think about other reasons why the Soccer mom might get violent. Maybe not even against the whole team, or maybe even not against a team member at all. Parents could be viable targets as well. Right now this just doesn't grab my attention, but it has some potential.
Changes applied.
I'm not quite certain how to determine its intentions without a direct interview, so any suggestions there would be helpful. In the meantime, I've removed the interview.
Full disclosure: I have an strong distaste for censorship in an SCP document. I know it's pretty common, but I don't like it myself.
The expungements at the end sorta work? I'm not sure I like them though. It feels like you're hiding a good story behind censorship for me.
Right now the format on this is a little weird. You've got a list of information, but if you don't wanna condense it to a paragraph or two (which honestly you shouldn't), you might wanna use "* " to create a bulleted list, or organize the information in some way other than isolated sentences.
Changes applied, but I feel that I included more squick than I should have. Further thoughts?
It's a fairly standard "thing that kills people" SCP with the horror coming from the fact that it's apparently uncontainable without being like, world-threateningly dangerous or anything. I don't think the Expunged stuff for the worst outcome of her kid's team losing really adds anything, since straight after that you just state that the outcome is horrifying child mutilation and death. Just stick a scary statistic on the end about how many people usually die when it happens, it'd give the same result without making the SCP needlessly more complex by giving it a mystery power other than child injury.
I can't really think of any changes other than that, but it seems like fairly standard SCP fare. The idea feels very complete as-is, but it needs more of a hook at the same time.
Wow, the violence has become a bit more graphic than when I first read this! It doesn't make or break the article for me, but it does have the downside of requiring compulsion, which seems anathema to the site at present. Could you find another way to inflict the violence without that effect?
I was trying to think of hooks to suggest, or at least lines of thought to pursue. You say that all parents must be present - how do the parents of SCP-XXXX-A react to someone else cheering for their child? Could the Foundation attempt to change the requirements of under-age soccer to stop the SCP appearing?
What if the SCP showed the potential to switch to other competitions? What if that included the race to discover its origins (eg between the Foundation and the GOC)?
Not sure whether any are worth pursuing, but it might be worth pushing on the boundaries of what you have already, and seeing if something that interests you opens up.
Procrastination complete. New changes applied!
EDIT: Hey, remember this draft? Me neither.
But I recently changed, removed, and added an awful lot of stuff, and I'd like some advice before I change anything else.
All feedback is appreciated!
Kudos for re-working this with an eye towards character and motivation, rather than violence. There is still something worth pursuing here, I think.
Some thoughts:
Thanks for the suggestions! Changes applied.
J███████ F█████, born ██/██/██, died ██/██/██ at age 27, convicted of murdering her son, B█████ F█████, age 7, in 19██.
All the blackboxing here is hard on the eyes. Any way you could unblack the first names? First parts of dates? Something?
After SCP-XXXX vanishes, all individuals participated in the game will suffer from various sports-related injuries, including broken bones, concussions, and sprains
Does this mean the kids or the parents? I'm leaning towards kids, but it's juuuust vague enough to make me uncertain.
The police reports are wrong.
I would consider cutting this, as it's incorrect and she seems to know it's incorrect.
The anger just kept building up, then B█████ tore apart the kitchen, and it all came rushing out.
This makes it sound like she beat her child to death. Which is maybe what you were going for! But what doesn't make sense to me is that beating someone to death takes a loooooong time, especially a non-toddler kid. They're resilient and slippery. A slap I could see, even a punch, but the way you've characterized her before this makes her seem not extreme enough to beat a child to death. May I encourage you to choose another manner of death? Still murder, but maybe she drowned him, or slammed his head into the wall. Something fast, so she couldn't know it was happening until it was over.
SCP-XXXX: Forgiveness.
This is very cheesy to me.
Thanks for your critique! Changes applied.
I'm still not a fan of footnotes 5 and 6 (as numbered on the sandbox). Now that -A is receiving fatal injuries (what type? elucidating this would allow you to hint as to what happened to Blake, before it becomes too expository in the interview) I think footnote 7 should come at the end of the paragraph it's in.
I also think that referring to the SCP as a murderess before you explain its effects makes everything too obvious. I would make the identification an addendum, probably before the interview (if the interview makes it obvious that she killed her son) or afterwards (if the interview is ambiguous). It can be a simple statement of the type you have there, but I'd encourage creativity in choosing a different medium to deliver that information.
The interview is still very perfunctory in explaining the critical moment (Blake's death). This is the hardest part of the draft, and the most important, but at the moment it sounds quite cliched. I would try to think about how you would explain your personal greatest regret to a total stranger, and work from that emotion. Also, I think it may tie everything in tighter if Blake's death was somehow connected to the soccer match (even just by association) to explain why Jacquelin manifests at soccer matches, instead of at Blake's school, home etc.
We're getting close to the stage at which my feedback gives diminishing returns, so I'm pleased that ahbonjour has also provided some comments. That said, I have a few more questions for you to consider to help tighten up the draft:
Your points are much appreciated! More changes applied.