18:40:23 <Hippo> Crashington: 'An ongoing disinformation is to cover up any manifestations of SCP-XXXX, labelling it a rare non-anomalous disease affecting the nervous system.'
18:40:27 this can be simplified:
18:40:43 'An ongoing disinformation campaign is to cover up manifestations of SCP-XXXX as a rare non-anomalous disease affecting the nervous system.'


18:41:25 <•Crashington> That works better yeah

18:41:39 <Hippo> 'Affected individuals begin to perceive strong pain in multiple regions of the body.'
18:41:57 rule of thumb: never use 'begin' when you don't have to
18:42:03 'Affected individuals perceive...'
18:42:10 also swap 'strong' with 'severe'
18:42:26 'Where the pain is felt and how it feels differs for each individual.' <-- would cut this line
18:42:56 'Cases of SCP-XXXX can be identified by slight fluctuations of Hume levels at the affected nerves and within the brains of the victims. Furthermore, the pain is not affected by any kind of analgesic1.' <-- hm
18:43:19 i might feel differently but my instinct says 'cut the hume levels sentence'
18:43:25 and change the last sentence to something like
18:44:13 'This pain is non-responsive to any form of medication', maybe
18:44:17 analgesics aren't just painkillers btw
18:44:38 wait
18:44:39 i'm wrong
18:44:42 morphine *is* an analgesic
18:44:49 i thought analgesics only referred to things like aspirin and tylenol
18:44:51 so nvm

18:45:02 <•Crashington> I looked it up :D analgesic is literally everything that is used against pain

18:45:03 <Hippo> 'This pain is non-responsive to analgesics'
18:45:25  yeah, i used to work in a pharmacy and we called it the 'analgesics aisle' and i think i just got it into my head that's *all* it referred to (tylenol, etc)

18:45:41 <•Crashington> Yeah haha, i didnt even know the term before



18:46:14 <•Crashington> The hume level thing was to make it clearly anomalous

18:46:34 <Hippo> right, i think that's a detriment to your article though, depending on how this pans out


18:46:48 <Hippo> like you can get away with not making it clear how something is anomalous as long as the article shows us it's anomalous later

18:46:49 <•Crashington> So noone says "why did this even get an scp entry"


18:47:02 <•Hippo> oh, haha

18:47:04 <•TheMightyMcB> There we go
18:47:40 Yeah it's either you update or I had to kick you from the room and ask you to rejoin

18:47:47 <•Hippo> Crashington: like you can get away with just saying 'this thing is anomalous' -- SOMEONE will complain in the comments, 100% guarantee, but it won't be the majority of readers

18:47:49 <•TheMightyMcB> And ns update is more polite

18:48:07 <•Hippo> especially if it's established in the article itself how it's anomalous later on
18:48:47 'The first documented case of SCP-XXXX was reported by Researcher Dimas Reynolds on 2013/12/03. Researcher Reynolds reported to the hospital wing of Site-52 complaining of sharp pains in his lower abdomen, left leg and throat. During the check-up, no cause for this could be found. As the symptoms did not subside over several days and despite medication, Reynolds suspected anomalous activity
18:48:47 and was granted a more thorough examination.'
18:48:57 this bit feels a bit awkward, let me try to chew through why/how
18:49:37 'The first documented case of SCP-XXXX occurred on 2013/12/03. Researcher Reynolds reported to the hospital wing of Site-52, complaining of sharp pains in his lower abdomen, left leg, and throat.'
18:49:44 (you forgot the oxford comma btw)
18:49:50 (that's the comma that comes before the 'and')
18:50:11 i would cut the 'during the check-up' sentence

18:51:50 <•Crashington> Oh yeah, the checkup thing is awkward

18:52:01 <•Hippo> 'Despite treatment, the symptoms persisted over several days; this led to a more thorough examination.'

18:52:02 <•Crashington> Id change it to examination if ill keep it at all

18:52:31 <•Hippo> 'Below is an interview conducted with Researcher Reynolds to gain further insight on his symptoms.' cut this, you don't need it (the interview speaks for itself)

18:52:41 <•Crashington> Okay

18:52:48 <•Hippo> 'Addendum 1: 2013/12/15 Interview Log' <-- cut the date too (the date is *in* the log)
18:53:29 Crashington: http://kontainer.djkakt.us/hippo-0 <-- check out the top two blocks (one is a video log, and the other is the code for this log)
18:53:43 i'm providing this to show you a simple format

18:53:48 <•Crashington> Oh thanks

18:53:55 <•Hippo> one change i'd make to make this more clean (to the log i provide)

18:53:59 <•Crashington> Shouldve probably looked at formatting gaha

18:54:07 <•Hippo> >
    = **INTERVIEW LOG**
18:54:08 >
    ----
18:54:16 >
    **DATE:** xx/yy/whatever
18:54:23 >
    **INTERVIEWER:** blah blah
18:54:25 >
    ----

18:54:26 <•Crashington> Oh yeah
18:54:31 Thats probably sexier

18:54:33 <•Hippo> >

    [BEGIN LOG]

18:54:47 yeah it just looks much more neat and organized
18:55:16 okay question #1: does this need to be a video log
18:55:19 can this just be an audio log
18:55:24 do we need to *see* anything
18:55:54 if not, make it an audio log -- less for us to process, we can focus on the dialogue, and it feels more credible (like we're listening into an audio-tape rather than watching a video that isn't here)
18:56:36 like asking the reader to imagine we're hearing audio is more immersive than asking the reader to imagine we're watching video (since you're asking the reader to fake *two* senses instead of just one)

18:56:51 <•Crashington> I guess i felt it made sense that they would just default to video
18:57:00 In an interview
18:57:09 But i see your point

18:57:16 <•Hippo> def. up to you but i don't see any reason why it couldn't just be audio! but it's not *super* important
18:57:25 Reynolds: Hey Rosa. Right now, the same way as I've been feeling for the past 2 weeks now.
18:57:26 It just doesn't stop hurting. <-- line-break here? why?
18:57:44 <•Crashington> Not on purpose oops

18:58:15 <•Hippo> 'Lutece: Could you describe the way it hurts?' <-- 'Could you describe the pain?' sounds more like something a doctor would say
18:58:26 or 'Could you describe the pain? Burning, piercing...?'
18:58:47 'Well, basically my throat, left leg and stomach have been hurting like crazy. It feels very sharp and I can't seem to influence it at all.'

18:59:20 <•Crashington> Oh yeah making suggestions is good

18:59:32 <•Hippo> 'It's in my throat and leg. Sometimes in my stomach. Sharp and stabbing. Nothing I do seems to affect it.'

18:59:33 <•Crashington> Really didnt like that single sentence so that makes it better

19:00:06 <•Hippo> the reason i changed this is complicated but one reason is that you don't want his description to sound like literally the description we already received in the discovery log (when you described the pain he reported)
19:00:15 you want it to sound a little more human
19:00:54 'Lutece: What you mean is that the pain does not respond to any influences? So it doesn't grow smaller or bigger no matter what you do?'
19:01:32 'Lutece: The pain doesn't respond to anything? It doesn't grow more or less intense when you do certain things?'
19:02:19 Lutece: I am so sorry, Dimas, I am sure we will figure something out to help you soon. Is there anything else you would like to note before we stop for today?
19:02:19 Reynolds: There is, it's just… kind of hard to describe. <-- need another linebreak for this
19:02:32 'Lutece: Take your time, you can say it in simple words.' <-- just "Take your time." is fine
19:03:47 i just read through the rest of it
19:03:49 i don't get what's going on
19:04:00 can you summarize it for me? like what's the disease?

19:08:01 <•Crashington> Basically, the foundation is dabbling in an unconventional way to keep people from dying ik accidents
19:08:28 By pulling versions from universes where they didnt die to ours, to replace them

19:08:39 <•Hippo> okay -- is that something i'm supposed to get from this article?
19:08:47 or do i need to have read the other article you reference to understand that

19:08:59 <•Crashington> This however, not only robs the other universed, but also leads to them feeling tje symptoms of their originals death
19:09:14 The other article is just a thing that kills alot of people

19:09:19 <•Hippo> that seems like... an interesting idea, i think? but it also seems incomplete

19:09:19 <•Crashington> But it didnt

19:09:24 <•Hippo> oh, okay
19:09:32 yeah like there's absolutely no way i'm going to get that from this article

19:09:36 <•Crashington> Yeah i still seem to be not clear enough with it
19:10:05 I would like it to be something where  you dont get it inmediatly
19:10:16 But i obviously dont want it to be completely unclear

19:10:17 <•Hippo> i'm a huge fan of making things implicit but this definitely falls well past the line of 'not enough information to leave the reader with a sense of what's going on'

19:10:53 <•Crashington> Yeah, youre not the first to say that (although i already made some changes)
19:11:03 Where do you think it could be more explicit?

19:11:09 <•Hippo> also like, we don't even get the sense that the foundation is *up* to anything here
19:11:41 <•Hippo> hm
19:11:59 <•Hippo> idk i also feel like the whole phantom limb/phantom death thing is *interesting* as a premise but somehow incomplete
19:12:13 that being said, i think you need to... hm

19:12:38 <•Crashington> Oh really

19:13:00 <•Hippo> one thing i'd put a lot of thought into is whether you want this to be something the foundation is doing, or something that's happening without the foundation's awareness, too

19:13:18 <•Crashington> Damnit i thought the seemingly senseless research prohibition and the restricted accesd would do lead it into the conspiracy thing
19:13:51 I would definitly like it to be a conspiracy type thing

19:14:00 <•Hippo> i mean that implies the foundation isn't interested in investigating this, but that could imply all *sorts* of things; technology that uses alt-universe body-snatching isn't exactly the first place my mind would go
19:14:25 okay, then i think you need to establish a sense of strong paranoia

19:15:03 <•Crashington> Yeah i guess so hmm

19:15:22 <•Hippo> like. rather than the direction you're going in here, i think the interview needs a significantly different approach
19:15:46 the way you have it structured now it's him talking about the pain, mentioning something weird, then going on this speech where he describes being confused and going to the wrong mailbox

19:16:35 <•Crashington> That one is to imply like a mandela effect

19:16:52 <•Hippo> instead, think of structuring it this way: describe this initially as anomalous pain in the body. then, at the end, with just one line, briefly mention something about the subjects expressing various degrees of paranoia, confusion, and displaced/incorrect memories. then have the interview be a *psychological* interview/therapy session, where
19:16:55 --yeah
19:17:27 like, he's been growing angry and confused and is no longer spending time with his wife or children. insisting they *aren't* his wife and children, maybe
19:17:42 or maybe more subtle, just describing how everything in his house feels wrong. the alarm clock is the wrong color
19:17:55 the number of steps on his staircase in his house is one too many
19:18:09 you want to skirt the line between making the reader wondering if this guy's legitimately crazy or if he's legitimately right
19:18:41 you can have it escalate at the end with the psychologist mentioning some incident with his wife and/or children and him claiming loudly they aren't his children -- like that could be how it ends, this forceful insistence or something
19:19:07 at that point you've got the reader a little confused and interested, because now they're wondering "okay is this guy just paranoid? or are things changing around him? or what's going on"

19:19:16 <•Crashington> I guess he is waving it off too much right now

19:19:23 <•Hippo> right, and it's not the focus

19:19:32 <•Crashington> Yeah

19:19:35 <•Hippo> also that big speech he gives at the end -- like i think that's too much -- it's this huge chunk of text that's easy to gloss over
19:19:46 you want to work it in slower, with the doctor talking to him about it, easing the reader in

19:19:56 <•Crashington> That makes alot of sense
19:20:15 This is the 2nd time ive triednto weite dialogue so this is really helpful haha
19:20:26 Tried to write*

19:20:43 <•Hippo> oh, no problem, and yeah dialogue is extremely hard to pull off well -- it takes a lot of practice i feel, and a lot of reading of other works to kind of get into the right headspace
19:21:12 i'd look to movies with dialogue you really like -- remember that dialogue doesn't have to be realistic, it just has to *feel* realistic


19:22:00 <•Hippo> also if you go with the paranoia angle, just be careful not to get too deep into the mental illness angle, lots of potential landmines there (you can avoid most of them by just going with a generic 'paranoia' diagnosis)

19:22:43 <•Crashington> Yeah

19:23:09 <•Hippo> after that though you're not done -- i'm not sure where you go from there, but once you establish the atmosphere of paranoia, i think... maybe broaden it? give us a sense that there's multiple people throughout the foundation experiencing this. there's one other creepy angle you can go with for atmosphere that might work, might not


19:23:30 <•Crashington> I could also escalate it more with the incident, where all those displaced people show this confusion and hysteria

19:23:35 <•Hippo> remember that these are people who were supposed to have died -- they were snatched from a world where they didn't and brought to one where they did


19:23:56 <•Hippo> so maybe part of this process leaves them increasingly fixated on the method which they should have died
19:24:03 ie, someone who died in a car crash keeps waking up in his car
19:24:07 keeps having dreams of car accidents

19:24:11 <•Crashington> Ohh
19:24:19 Thats an interesting angle

19:24:24 <•Hippo> until eventually he just. *kills* himself in a car accident/crash. recreating it

19:24:38 <•Crashington> Yeah

19:24:50 <•Hippo> like, some part of their subconscious recognizes they don't belong here, that they were supposed to have *died* in this world, and they keep going back to that

19:24:52 <•Crashington> I think i need a much  igger escalation
19:25:02 This does not work with a fpcus on the small scale
19:25:10 Bigger*
19:25:29 Not even more explicit but just more extreme

19:25:41 <•Hippo> i think it can work with the small scale focus but i do agree you need to broaden your approach a little, maybe? not sure hat that would look like but -- maybe, yes

19:26:14 <•Crashington> 19:23:30 <• Crashington> I could also escalate it more with the incident, where all those displaced people show this confusion and hysteria
19:26:21 <•Crashington> What would you think of this

19:31:03 <•Hippo> Crashington: either way after the interview (which is your hook -- this might be a challenge because it means your interview's gotta be pretty choice, and a good, atmospheric, escalating interview is *really* hard, especially if you haven't done them before), you need a way to push things farther and make us start feeling that paranoia toward the *Foundation* -- like once you got us into
19:31:03 the guy's paranoid headspace about his life, you need to make us wonder if the Foundation *itself* isn't fucking with him somehow
19:31:11 but i think that interview is the main thing you've gotta get first
19:31:32 like that's what i would focus on, making that interview a good bangin slow-boil paranoia thing
19:31:45 after that the rest can kind of flow out from it

19:31:57 <•Crashington> Yeah the interview is definitly the main part
19:32:03 That was always the intention

19:32:21 <•Hippo> from there you got a lot of options (once the interview is solid i mean) and it's hard for me to talk about them because they all depend on how the interview goes
19:33:35 i think that's it for now unless you got anything you want to ask me

19:33:36 <•Crashington> I like the idea of leaning into the censorship best, but yes it probably depends on the interview
19:34:06 Not really, this was alot to take in, but in the best way
19:34:19 You have been a huge help hippo, thank you

19:34:25 <•Hippo> np!

19:34:32 <•Crashington> I know where to go from here