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I wanted to keep this scarce for any additional detail, because I feel like detail makes it bland. If you have questions, that's good.
Once again, my thanks to those who looked at this in chat and gave comments/critiques, notably Jekeled and Devereaux. It is always appreciated! :D
Firstly, good job, now small critiques.
I feel like the designations separating the checkpoints, the house, the sisters, and the area, in general, are a bit…. confusing. A redesignation to make the subject described clearer would be beneficial in my opinion. Thank you.
Good job, djkaktus. Very surreal mental picture, and the concept is pretty damn interesting.
And if the whole world is crashing down… fall through space out of mind with me.
Always nice to see a reality bender handled well, especially with the mental image of that machine.
For organizational purposes. I thought bullets looked kind of awkward.
It would have worked even without bullets nor bolding.
Hot damn, that is one creepy concept.
I like the buildup for this article, and the pay off is also pretty neat.
Well done. +1
Firstly: +1. This is very good.
However, it does have a few issues, which I will highlight on an individual basis.
The image - I cannot for the life of me figure out how it relates to the SCP. It appears to be an underground, concrete-walled building like a garage. If it's meant to be the entrance in the limestone mine, it looks nothing like that.
as one travels further and further away from SCP-2464-2
Is this meant to be -1? It could easily be either, but I wanted to check.
SCP-2464-4 is a machine designed and constructed by the late Dr. Michael Banning
As this is your first mention of Banning, I think you should add a brief description of who he is - either here, or earlier, perhaps when you first mention the house (it's his house, right?). I was very confused when I read this - is he a Foundation doctor? He is mentioned like someone I should already know.
The apparent purpose of SCP-2464-4 is as a means of extending the lifespan of SCP-2464-3 by means of preventing SCP-2464-3 from aging
This sentence feels a bit redundant - the repetition of 'means of' highlighting this. You should consider shortening it.
entirely because of the difficulty in finding and containing these entities. It is entirely possible that,
Might want to consider a re-write to address the repetition of 'entirely'.
Finally, regarding the final addendum: I don't like it. It tells us nothing that the rest of the article doesn't tell us, and it just feels like a note directly from the author (not helped by the name being an obvious reference to your username) telling us that we should have feels about this. Feels would already be there - especially if you included, as I suggested earlier, a quick note indicating that the farmhouse is believed to be the property of Dr Banning, the father of -2 and -3.
But yeah I still really like it and my upvote stands even as-is.
Alright, I went through and made some pretty significant edits based on your observations, and I can honestly say I like it a lot better now. The last note is gone, the addendum have been rearranged, and a few things have been cut or added.
As for the picture, it's actually an interior shot of a cutting wall from a limestone mine, given to me by a patient at our office. The reason it looks the way it does is because 1.) it's pretty well lit, and 2.) it's not a great picture. That being said, it is literally a picture of what I depict as the entrance to -1, so I figured I probably couldn't get better than that.
I think you've done a good job here, making this more tight and to the point. I think the removals haven't damaged the spirit at all, and it's still very interesting and scary.
I was a little worried by the last addendum hinting at escalation, but I think you handled it subtly enough to make it work.
One thing that occurred to me on re-reading is that if -3 is unconscious (the majority of the time), her head would hang down unless supported in some way. Might be worth including 'neck' in the list of shackles. Not a huge thing.
Also, you've left a close collapsible in that doesn't have a corresponding opener. I didn't fix it myself because I didn't know how much you wanted to be collapsed - but you should fix this ASAP because it looks pretty bad!
And regarding the picture… even though you've said it's a limestone mine, I still can't figure it out! What's the scale? Is the coloured blob a person?
This one is okay, but really just okay in my opinion. I think the problem is that there's altogether too much fluff. The infinite space under the cavern is pretty well pointless; its connection to -2, -3, and -4 is tenuous and underdeveloped, which makes it look like filler.
You have, however, managed a really interesting mental image. Strange device with copper pipes feeding into a young girl. Viscous black fluid pouring from her mouth into her sister's mouth. Identical twins (which is really just a short-cut to creepy town), a poorly repaired farm house, constant dusk. It's reasonably surreal, I'll give it that. Some kind of half-remembered dream or something.
But there are flaws. It doesn't cash the emotional check, for one (an angle it's pretty clear you were trying hard for through the last addendum). I'm a dad, even, and I find it hard to relate for some reason. Maybe it's because you wrote the letter from the POV of a Foundation crony and not the POV of Dr. Banning. Maybe it's because "Dr. Banning" is also the name of the Incredible Hulk. Maybe I'm being a fudd. Nonetheless, it doesn't strike me.
Second major flaw I see is the restricted access. Perhaps I'm jaded or too used to looking at the Foundation from a Level 4+ perspective, but I don't see the need to keep that information secret. It seems to me that it would stress the importance of the classification and the research into repairing SCP-2464-4. Maybe it would make the assignment a bit more stressful, but considering the other kinds of Keter threats the Foundation deals with I don't think that would be a concern.
Despite my misgivings, the prose is solid, the narrative is clear, and most of the choices seem self-consistent and justified. You'll get a 0 from me, but it's an optimistic one.
Now this is an keter. To me you nailed the detail level and the pacing of the reveal. Am I right in thinking that the -3 sister is some sort of anti-reality warper, or a reality warper herself? Regardless, that last evening they spent in normal spacetime had to have been one heck of a rough day for the fabric of reality.
Oh fuck I remember this one. I love shit like this. More, more!
Living the dream, or dreaming the life?
