# Pastebin kmrQqJsG 11:09 AM Alright, how about we dive into our initial thoughts on this article? 11:09 AM Fuck gaslighting. 11:09 AM Yup. 11:10 AM It's dark as hell. 11:10 AM <+cybersqyd> yeah 11:10 AM very potent emotionally 11:10 AM It was quite... disturbing to read this. It felt very dark and very very strong in its tone 11:11 AM So, is it cool if I delve into gaslighting in a rather dark way? 11:11 AM Go for it. 11:11 AM I'm alright. 11:11 AM it uses disturbing content without feeling edgy or unnecessary, so mad props for that 11:11 AM Sharp: agreed 11:12 AM This is a fairly emotional piece, but it falls into a trap that I see often in depictions of abuse. The main character of this is the abuser, rather than the victim, so I'd expect to see some kind of justification. Besides the generic "We are the Foundation and we are right / I love you / You're hurting me" it doesn't really give much light to the thought process of abusers. There's certainly more there than just those 11:12 AM reasons, but this article just repeats those same three points over and over again to the point where a lot of the horror that I should've felt from this fell flat. 11:12 AM Ok, so here's my read on gaslighting. It works best in two really distinct ways. First (and usually most applicable to relationship gaslighting) is when the person being abused has a strong emotional attachment to their abuser. They believe that they love them and that feeling is reciprocated. It is a place of trust, like a child to a parent. Usually when there is a real or perceived power imbalance 11:13 AM oh boy um 11:13 AM I'm going to comment on red's point first. 11:13 AM The other way, and the way this one starts, is when the abused is in a state of confusion, fragility usually induced by trauma or massive disorientation. The mind seeks some sort of stability, some sort of way to make sense of their situation 11:14 AM This one starts here and slowly tries to include the second in their gaslighting, to reinforce the imposed view of reality upon "sarah" 11:14 AM I agree that whereas there isn't too legitimate an explanation for the abuser, in real life, abusers often have ingrained the abuse into their existence so much that they don't even need a reason anymore; of course, the cycle of abuse has impacted them as well, but they take it out in one way or another. 11:15 AM It paints the Foundation in a dark light, as thought it's a haven for those to impose their suffering on others 11:17 AM Malyce: I think the usage of "confusion" is particularly potent in this article because we as readers start off with a perception of "confused" before we too realize what the hell is going on. 11:17 AM MalyceGraves: Using those definitions, I feel like this falls into both categories in a sort of weird way. For the first avenue, there is a big power imbalance between the anomaly and the narrator, but there isn't any real sense of love or emotion between the two. This is probably due to how short the article is, thus decreasing the amount of time the reader gets the know the two characters, and due to how little the 11:17 AM anomaly actually gets to speak. They disagree at first, agree to get the narrator to stop talking, disagree again to try and get their point through, and then cry. That combined with the extremely blunt repetition of "I love you" to convey the narrator's love made this feel like it was really trying to get that feeling, but failing repeatedly. 11:17 AM <+TARS> 'T Any Real Sense 11:18 AM Yes. As I said, I think it moves from one version to another, in order to reinforce both angles. 11:18 AM My main thoughts are that this sets up the villain excellently but then it's over and not much is done with that well-crafted setup i enjoyed. 11:18 AM I actually enjoy the shortness 11:19 AM I feel like that open-ness allows for a sense of "we only see this bit, how much worse stuff happens behind the curtains" 11:19 AM What's there is really good, but it feels like the story is incomplete in a way i dislike 11:19 AM I don't necessarily see this as the Foundation being needlessly cruel. Rather it is utilizing the way the brain works to do something awful to contain something worse. I don't headcanon that the Foundation is a truly cruel entity, but rather one that is trying desperately to do a shitty job with even shittier options available to it. 11:20 AM maybe that makes it better for other people, but i can't dig that 11:20 AM Malyce: I agree that the Foundation isn't a cruel entity, but nonetheless, there must be "cruel" people within the Foundation. 11:20 AM The other avenue of the victim believing that the abusive relationship is the baseline is a bit more fleshed out, since we're first introduced to the narrator rather than the anomaly. However, since the anomaly fights the narrator at the first possible opportunity, that sense of safety where this is the norm in the relationship is thrown out of the window. The technique implemented by the abuser here may be gaslighting, 11:20 AM but it feels a lot more fiery, a lot more vicious than what it would suggest. Rather than a creeping feeling that the abuser is manipulating this anomaly, they're both clashing trying to get their points of view across. 11:20 AM I think that it is meta in the sense that it very much plays upon our preconceived ideology that gaslighting is inherently bad (because it fucking is), but that sometimes really awful things must be done in order to protect 11:20 AM Especially in the grim headcanons that lack an EthCom 11:21 AM This piece does leave a very strong impact. For those who have experienced this kind of abuse and those who only have a perception of what this kind of abuse is like. As readers, we either have an understanding of what this is about or not but in either case, the more we dwell on this kind of thought, the more horrific it becomes as we think of what could be happening behind the doors. Similar to our discussions 11:21 AM during our Department of Abnormalities week 11:21 AM Greyve: I'm not seeing much in the way of negative space or allusions to other abuse, to be honest. 11:21 AM Since it tries to do both, there are two massively conflicting tones: fiery engagements and slowly creeping manipulation. It threw me off to a really weird middle-ground where I lost most of the emotional impact and was just left with the repeating phrase "I love you", which gave me the feeling that the article was trying to get that emotional feeling back. 11:22 AM SharpEmbrace: True. I just like that it's presented as a small snapshot. We don't know what happens during other "feeding" sessions. 11:22 AM red3: I agree with that 100%. Honestly, repeating "I love you" is the weakest point in the entire article. 11:22 AM Greyve: I'd imagine it's much of the same, which doesn't really do it for me. 11:23 AM Repetition works for sure in meta articles, like 3999, but here it just stalls. 11:23 AM — Greyve nod nod to sharp 11:23 AM MalyceGraves: That's a really good point. The narrator repeatedly calling this anomaly by its item designation is something that's really cheaply thrown in in a lot of low-quality articles, but the way that it's explored here really brings the reader in. The reader expects this to be a normal article where the anomaly is a number rather than a person, so when the anomaly asks to be called "Sarah", it feels like a really 11:23 AM human moment. 11:24 AM Greyve I agree that it stalls, but it also fits the pattern of abuse that many survivors have expressed. 11:24 AM I do have to question one thing, though 11:24 AM <~barredowl> okay, i'm back 11:24 AM <~barredowl> what'd i miss 11:24 AM The choice to have the abuser explain Sarah's backstory 11:25 AM In my personal experience, my abuser would repeat that lie over and over again, to the point where I think that they were trying to convince themselves almost as much as they were trying to convince me 11:25 AM I get that it comes across as condescending and overpowering 11:25 AM BlueJones: I admit that I'm a bit divided on my opinion with this one, since it really focuses on the experience of abuse victims rather than as a window into their lives for people who haven't experienced it. 11:25 AM Malyce: I see. 11:25 AM barredowl: http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-4311 Note that it does contain mentions of abuse and frequent gaslighting. 11:25 AM Eventually the mind finds ways to rationalize "If they say it so often it MUST be true" 11:25 AM We also have no real idea how much time is passing between repitions 11:26 AM repetitions* 11:26 AM thats actually a brilliant perspective 11:26 AM <~barredowl> ok 11:26 AM MalyceGraves: True, but the formatting makes it appear, at least to me, that they are close together 11:26 AM barredowl: it's really dark ngl 11:26 AM <~barredowl> yeah, i read it before 11:27 AM SharpEmbrace: But to someone locked in the space like that, time fails to really have meaning. WE see it as immediate, but that doesn't mean that's how "sarah" is experiencing it 11:27 AM Right, and that style of abuse works in real life because it's being repeated thousands of times a minute in our minds. With something like this, that feeling can't really be reinforced in the mind of the reader unless they've experienced it first-hand. It feels more like a reminder of a past abusive relationship rather than trying to evoke a completely new one. And since I personally have never had that experience, it 11:27 AM loses a lot of its emotional impact. 11:27 AM ^ 11:28 AM yeah 11:28 AM <~barredowl> i'll try to keep up here. 11:28 AM agreed 11:28 AM we need to comprehend the meaning of the phrase properly before repeating it will have purpose 11:28 AM and i think it's really difficult to build that up in such a short space 11:28 AM <~barredowl> i'll try to get into the discussion of our next SCP 11:29 AM SharpEmbrace: I totally get that. It's one of those things that probably wont work unless the reader has personal experience 11:29 AM SharpEmbrace: While it's difficult to build it up in a short space ,the tone within this small window is spectacularly ominous. 11:30 AM That said, I don't think I've experienced gaslighting before, so my opinion is probably a bit less valid here 11:30 AM <~barredowl> if anything, i'll say this: i'm generally coming to this article with an outsider's perspective in terms of handling abuse like this. but i still think it somewhat rings true and works for me. 11:30 AM the atmosphere is incredibly powerful 11:30 AM I never experienced this kind of thing before but I am aware on the troubles and problems it can bring on the abused and it hurts me knowing that victims all over are suffering from things like this. This piece does leave a very grim reminder of how people may or may not be experiencing. The tone, the patterns, the use of vocalbulary.... its quite a hard hitting feeling 11:30 AM SharpEmbrace: That's true. That's why I think this needs to be a longer piece so the abuse can be more readily spelled out a la SCP-4231. Either that or change the section that this is an edit being made, since it implies that this is an inciting incident of sorts. Since this isn't some part of the containment procedures, the reader feels that this is new and thus, the feeling that this is something that this anomaly 11:30 AM experiences daily is lost. 11:30 AM red3 agreed 11:31 AM hi sorry I'm late I totally spaced 11:31 AM np diana 11:32 AM red3: That would make this a lot more powerful, yeah 11:33 AM heya Diana! 11:33 AM Hi Greyve! 11:34 AM We still on 4311? 11:34 AM yeah, but it seems like were wrapping up soon 11:34 AM I do like the use of the ellipses near the end. In the beginning and middle, they're used to symbolize blankness and only function as a way to space out the narrator's message so that they don't seem so long. That simple change from a period to a semi-colon really throws that concept for a loop since now the reader sees that they're meant to be representative of the anomaly's emotions at the time. They're not simply 11:34 AM being silent for the sake of the story, they're //choosing// to be silent. They're //choosing// not to speak out and give their point of view. It brings a lot of emotional value to something that's very simple otherwise. 11:34 AM Alright 11:35 AM I also feel like this doesn't have a proper ending? 11:35 AM but that doing so kinda makes it more powerful, in a way? 11:36 AM what do y'all think about that 11:36 AM SharpEmbrace: I think that might be the purpose. Not having a proper ending could mean that the nightmare for "Sarah" is over but rather its going to happen again 11:36 AM ^ 11:36 AM <~barredowl> i think the ending is pretty good fwiw 11:38 AM I agree that the line "You'd be nothing without me" is a painfully cliche way to end an article like this. It feels very one-dimensional combined with the repetitions of "I love you". I think I would've liked this better if the line before that was split apart and we were just left with "How disgusting". A sort of subtle nod to the audience that they're causing this, that they're bringing this anomaly pain by reading 11:38 AM this and supporting the Foundation and thinking that their mission is right. It leaves the reader confused because they'd spent the entire time hating this narrator only to realize that they're on the same side. 11:39 AM red3: totally agree. 11:39 AM in that case, it's less of an ending and more of an imposition 11:40 AM Does anybody else want to share their thoughts on this? I know Owl and Diana were both kinda cut short by my thicc paragraph messages. 11:40 AM <~barredowl> well 11:40 AM <~barredowl> i was gone for a while 11:41 AM <~barredowl> so i didn't really get to hear out anyone else 11:42 AM <+cybersqyd> i didn't really have much to say here 11:43 AM <~barredowl> yeah, i'm sorry. i didn't get to read along with y'all