My first Department of Abnormalities skip. Hope y'all like it. Thanks to Limeyy Limeyy , Yossipossi Yossipossi , EstrellaYoshte EstrellaYoshte , djkaktus djkaktus , and Laneous does not match any existing user name for reading and critiquing. Big thanks to Kaktus in particular for suggesting and writing the lockbox note.
For those that want to figure out what's going on, here's a hint: Israfil
It's the aftermath of 055 and 579 interacting.
EDIT: Big thanks to Claire Walker does not match any existing user name and Aiken Drum Aiken Drum for translating this into Chinese and Korean respectively.
EDIT EDIT: Polish too! Thanks to Jasiu06 Jasiu06 .
EDIT EDIT EDIT: Big thankies to A Random Day A Random Day for his critique and suggesting the ISRAFIL object class. I didn't think this day would come.
EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT: Holy shit, a reading of my SCP! Thanks to NomadicArchives for the narration!
Mm Mm Good
I feel like the organism/corpse should have been SCP-5709-1 or something in the description. I do like the DoA and how you got details on the hut
Edit: Reread the article and I am keeping it on no vote, but even after the spoiler and explanation I don't get it 100%. It assumes I have read the other pages and am familiar with that lore/didn't forget it.
I still don't understand… Am I too stupid?
To smile, to dream, to be different.
See the Spoilers under my author post but, to expand on what is exactly going on:
As shown in SCP-2998 and SCP-5000, bringing SCP-055 and SCP-579 together produces a universal reset. We know the primary property of 055 is it can't be remembered, so surely 579's has an opposite property as to completely destroy the universe when combined. The only thing that conflicts with an unrememberable object is the unforgettable object.
I took "Action 10-Israfil-A" somewhat literally.
SCP-579, in this interpretation, is the pearly gates, the entrance to Heaven/the afterlife. An unforgettable object. By letting 055 pass through 579, their properties inherently conflict, thus producing the universal reset. The aftermath? A broken gate, ruined and unrememberable. The previous universe's Heaven has been annihilated, hence Israfil's (the organism that launched from 5709) death and burns.
Mm Mm Good
Oh, I see! Thank you for your reply!
To smile, to dream, to be different.
Had to read this to understand what was going on, and I can point to the description of the entity as being somewhat confusing, specifically the "conical appendage" that both descends from the mouth and seems to be fused to its hands.
I wish more of this came across in the article, though. :/
Not a big fan of the continuing trend with CSS to gradually reveal the article one bit at a time. I know it's rich coming from me, but I don't like staring at the screen with my mouth open as the article's headers fade in one at a time, waiting a few seconds before the first part I actually care about (the special containment procedures) pops up.
Aside from that, the article isn't really my flavor. I occasionally like DoA stuff, but this reveals too little for me to really enjoy it. In addition, it rides too much on established lore for other articles, and otherwise feels less like one piece of a puzzle and more like bathroom stall graffiti. That being said, it's not explicitly bad, and it otherwise feels tonally competent.
Novote.
Not exactly bad but requires a LOT of lore knowledge to even comprehend.
While I wouldn't say that this is poorly written, it feels far to reliant on the reader drawing big conclusions from a very small amount of information (which itself is reliant on the audience having read articles that aren't directly mentioned or crosslinked). Novote.
Forum signatures were a mistake.
Spoilers in critique.
I’m not a fan of the note in the lockbox. It’s necessary to pick up on the 579 connection but doesn’t feel like it has a reason to exist within the article except to indicate that connection to the reader. Even with that note, the high concept you want to convey is heavily obscured by the opaque reference to Christian theology and ultimately doesn’t feel satisfying to read about because it doesn’t effectively utilize the 055-579 connection moreso than 2998 already did. I’m actually surprised there’s no reference of Clef’s Proposal in this piece; it‘s much more strongly connected to the high concept you want to convey here and also offers a good hook for the underlying question here — "why does heaven need to be erased?" I think you’d be better off replacing 579 with Clef’s Proposal, or at the very least, introducing Clef’s Proposal into the mix here, since you’re ultimately still falling back on the idea of mixing 055 and 579 to reset the universe without offering a good hook or rationale for doing so that distinguishes itself from 2998.
I think the new edits make the piece much stronger now.
Like ARD, I think the edits are an improvement. In particular,
I like that the 579 connection is now less overt. We can still make the same cognitive leap, thanks to the word "Israfil" and the number of this anomaly, without having that incongruous note about the round peg. The less obvious link is more in line with the way previous DoA-versions of other anomalies have done it, and it preserves the DoA's sense of mystery much better.
However,
The significance of Israfil, beyond being the connection to 579, remains obscure. I had no idea of the name's significance until I read your posts above. If you wish to clue in readers a bit more to the nature of the corpse, a simple fix might be to attach some wings (or burnt stumps thereof) to it, unless you think that'd be too obvious.
Either way, I like it enough now to upvote.