Sorry for writing this whole essay, but I see the writing on the wall and it seems like my writing style and choices are probably going to seem like AI no matter my justification. I know you guys are volunteering to read these emails and manage the wiki, and I'm sure there's also a torrent of slop articles made daily (especially since the Lost Series' release), so I can't blame you. I'd probably flag my own work too :( Anyway I decided to fill this message with a bunch of the references and whatnot else I made during the article's creation because that's probably my best defence.
Dr. Marsden is a reference to a favourite TV show of mine called Burn Notice. In one of the episodes (S5E10 if you care to check, here's the wiki link) the main character makes up the name "Jack Marsden" and spends most of the episode trying to convince his enemies the guy a) actually exists and b) is trying to kill them. I won't get into the plot too much but the point is that Jack Marsden is a great name to use when you want to make up a name. I have no idea if someone's already written about a Dr. Marsden, but I used Dr. Jack Marsden since it's my favourite alias.
In contrast, I handpicked the name Apollo Vili by googling name origins. I wanted to find something that translated to "Reason for Life" but couldn't find anything that fit nicely, so I expanded the search a bit. Apollo refers to the god of (a few things but mostly) art, which is the focus of most of the article and eventually the remedy to the SCP's nihilism. So you've got some foreshadowing there, (maybe some irony too). Vili apparently means Will/Desire in Norse, and the irony of this SCP is that it's a nihilist and lacks both the will and desire to live. So the whole name effectively translates to "the Desire for Art". Maybe not exactly, but I couldn't find any other names that sounded as good so… Apollo Vili it is. I might do the same thing with Dr. Marsden's name later.
Again for formatting, I was following SCP-049 as the golden standard. It does the "clinical tone" pretty well, and it's popular, so clearly it's not just me feeling that. That article bolded all its annendums, log headings, section labels, and whatnot else so I thought I should probably do the same. Besides, it looked clean. That's the same reason why I wrote the nested list in the description section, being that it just looks nice. It's clean and gets the point across in what I find to be the least amount of text as possible. SCP articles are supposed to be official-looking documents, so it seems like a good idea to be concise. Besides, I'm used to nesting stuff. I'm sure I'm not the only guy who's written code in the fandom, and I usually do a lot of nesting when I program stuff, so a two-level list feels natural to me.
Another thing I feel like I should probably say… This is just how I normally write. I even removed the periods at the end of my last message to seem more "human". I don't even know how to write anymore. I'll admit it's become problematic since AI became a thing, since this isn't the first time people have thought my original handwritten work is generated, but I can't stand writing like I'm DMing someone. No punctuation, horrendous grammar, THIS LOWERCASE LETTER (i) in the middle of sentences, I can't stand it, it looks ugly. I guess nowadays looking ugly is be preferable to looking like slop.
For what it's worth, if anything, here's a list of some other choices/thoughts I made when writing the article that hopefully give it enough depth to seem authentic:
- I started writing just before the Lost series came out, but when it did, I was hoping this article could use SCP-L042. When I saw how fast the slots were filling up and how long the writing process would take, I planned to stick with 8757 or any random number (I wanted 42 because it's the number everyone associates with the "Meaning of Life" and thus the article. I haven't even read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and I know this reference).
- I put a dumb little bit of comedy in preface sections observation logs 1 and 2. I also put some more with what 8757 chose to paint in log 1. These aren't particularly important but I feel like an AI wouldn't do either.
- The first time I ever did sculpting, I made a phoenix. I distinctly remember zoning in while making it and using a toothpick to add feathers to the wings. So, I added that to log 2.
- I can't stand heavy metal music, so I added that to Apollo's personality. Same thing goes for country (lol)
- And for the most obvious part: I have an interest in philosophy. I though writing an article about Nihilism would be interesting. A logical (as the interview shows) character who's Nihilistic because he can't see a logical reason to live? The original idea was to have him consume the universe if his nihilism consumed him, and he'd be contained so that he doesn't learn about formal nihilism (hence the "Absolutely no formal philosophy" line in the special containment procedures) which would act as the logical justification he needed. I changed my mind because a) that character felt like too much of a murder monster and b) I feel like I can do subtler, more interesting writing with a character that can share its joy with the world but must suffer alone (I got that idea from this poem I like, link).
