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It's an interesting concept, yes, but I feel the execution is just bland. In addition, despite the concept literally being about a lack of communication, it feels far too short—Snom described it as a Minicon thing and I completely agree.
Also hovering over footnotes can be extremely buggy. I had to open the page source to even read it.
this piece is incredibly good at playing itself straight. this articles trope would very easily be a downvote if it didn't innately mock itself. however, the way the irony is not only acknowledge but applauded in this piece is unique and i quite like how it was used. no words were wasted and the lack of words actually made the whole piece have a lot more intrigue.
of course, the obvious has to be confronted; this has been done before, but for some reason, i like how this one did it. the taking of literature as a medium and revoking it is inventive. though the footnote is a rather obvious way to convey this, i do enjoy how it just talks straight to the author.
the only improvement i could suggest is maybe tapping into elena a bit more. elena is witnessing all this, maybe talk about how freaked out they are that a metaphysical being is talking to literally nothing. other then that, very well done.
~~~🐜Ant boi baby🐜~~~
this is the backrooms equivalent of an empty frame on an art museum with a solid brick of commentary to explain why the blank frame is actually some artistic masterpiece.
funny idea, but i'm here to read articles and there simply isn't one here.
- Snom, Backrooms Wiki Site Admin
Agreed with Snom.
Finding the Forgotten, Mending the Found.
comparing an article with substance behind it to literally nothing is not gonna make your comparison work. there is stuff here, and by ignoring it you are missing the point.
~~~🐜Ant boi baby🐜~~~
The substance here is the irony of the situation as opposed to any sort of narrative. This is cosmic horror put bluntly in a really on the nose way — but it's effective. The genius here is the blank frame, because instead of looking at the canvas you're looking at the shades of white which were painted on the blank canvas.
There are roads,
a samurai must travel…
I agree. The idea seems cool at first, but upon further thought it really isn’t. The execution is fine, but that doesn’t save the page for me. I personally want to read articles with more substance than just a self-aware footnote. I’m either no-voting or down-voting. Not sure yet.
Edit: I’ve decided to down-vote.
Edit: I later changed my vote to a no-vote
Edit: I yet later changed my vote to a down-vote
It is a concise article.
Ideas like this one have been attempted before, and what they truly need is the underlying lore to be perfectly executed in the most minimalistic way, without junk-ish sentences that add nothing to the flavor.
Whatifcon is exactly about a wide range of "what ifs" and this one is really interesting and could definitely have been given a large article, but why not? Because the whole point of it clearly seems to make it simplistic given the nature of the event, and that is why I like it.
I agree with Yellow on the probable improvement, and aside from that, I see nothing else I would want to be changed.
- Signed by: MyrandFox
It’s an interesting idea, but the execution was lazy. You could’ve had symbols, images of things to display things their trying to talk about, people using the first letter of a color to try and talk or literally anything else. I get what you’re trying to do, but just feels cheap. -1
That's the point.
This is not something like SCP-2521 where some sort of communication are blocked and you need to find a turn around.
Here, the horror of the situation lie on the fact that there's no way to cheat this curse.
Using symbols or codes are a way to communicate, they are also prevented from doing so.
But for storytelling purposes, this is such a difficult thing to work with. I don’t find horror in this, it just makes me try and think of loopholes. It would’ve been absolutely horrifying if a single person was able to cheat this and was able to speak freely and tried to talk to other people but was simply ignored because the others couldn’t. I believe there’s so much more you could’ve done with this, but as it is I don’t enjoy it.
if you think anything horrifying has to resort to breaking something, i just think you lack an imagination.
the idea behind this is terrifying. no one can do anything to speak to anyone. imagine that. imagine your life, you can't say anything. in that world, your practically dead.
you're right about one thing. this article isn't horrifying. it's terrifying.
~~~🐜Ant boi baby🐜~~~
How do i say this in a way that is simple and concise…
There is almost nothing here. I get what this is trying to do, and i like the concept and idea behind it. However, unlike a story that is vague on purpose so that the reader can come up with their own interpretations and stuff, there is nothing here that you can really grab onto.
However however, I do like how the author note is handled. Like a real author note, it's placed in a footnote, which is cute considering what the conditions of this AU are. Now, why the author note is there in the first place, how we know of this AU's existence (considering they can't communicate with us), how the author knows about it and can tell us, why they're not telling more etc are questions that don't really get an answer, since there's not really a way to answer them.
I feel like this could work amazingly in a minicon, as a level that once entered would have those effects or something. It doesn't fit the theme of this specific con, I'd say. It would be a plus all the way if there was an expansion on the idea.
But just how annoyingly clever the concept of using a footnote as the only text and, yes, the simplicity of it keep it above downvote for me. Right in the middle. The footnote idea and the "can't communicate in any single way" idea are both cool concepts on their own, but don't really work when put together.
TL;DR
Two very very interesting ideas that don't fit well together. Neutral.
After further consideration and reading and re-reading this article over and over again and thinking about a place like this, i have come to the conclusion it is fucking terrifying +1, but just by a little
It's… well it's a concept. A fascinating one for sure, I mean, without the ability to communicate by any means, how could one even function? But the thing is, the concept that's suggested here implicates the possibility humans would hardly be able to do anything, as thousands of actions can and are used as a form of communication. It isn't just trying to tell someone that breakfast is ready; messages and underlying themes won't be able to come through, which basically means that people cannot create art unless it is meaningless. But even then, if something is presented as meaningless, that in itself has meaning. The way this concept is presented feels too broad, and the "article" doesn't at least hint at the possibility of another way to communicate. Not to mention that there are SPaG errors that add up to the concerns in this piece.
However, I can see the points made by previous critics who gave the piece an upvote. But even still, the other opinions I've made here still stick out to me. As much I'm tempted to give this a downvote, I'll instead choose to give this a novote. Hope you understand.
Note from the author: This tale posted for "Whatifcon 2022" is an in-universe record taking place in an alternate reality where all living being had been afflicted by an imprecation that caused them to lose the ability to communicate by any mean.
It's going farther than people not being able to understand each other, here, they cannot even attempt to transmit information. Their body is prevented from doing so as soon as they try, each and every attempt of doing so by unconventional means failing desperately.
Needless to say that in an environment as hostile as the Backrooms are, this event will sign either the downfall of the humans living in them. At the very least, it will lead to a deep transformation of their way of living and interacting with the world around them.
Here, we're seeing the futile attempt of Elena, 32, working for the BNTG as a security officer, trying all she can to record this wretched event.
Subversive caricature of a genre of modern art that's using way too much subtext to be understandable or simple idea going to far ? Ross, the author, will let you be the master of this choice and encourage you to express it by voting and commenting.
Enjoy your ability to communicate, as you are lucky to still have it.
