RPC Authority

its cool to snort worms

Superb. Truly terrifying to visualize, and was provided enough detail to keep the mental picture going until the end. You earned my 5. Well done.

Saw this in the draft forums. Loved it then, love it now. +5

I like the worm snorting poster you crafted, that was the detail that really drew me in.

very well made. as good as it could get 5/5

Snooort em reeeal good!

Also noticed that the white text is still kinda visible. If you want to make it truly hidden, use #e8e8e3 for the color, or a minor variation of it.

lumbricidae's a hell of a drug

First off, a couple nitpicks:

There were a couple major points here that crippled immersion for me. The first is the white text in the file, because then I have no choice but to imagine the author had to take the time to stop what they were writing and change their font color to express mortal terror in their brief moment of lucidity. I feel as though you could have acheived the same thing with more casual interruptions that didn't break the flow.

The second major point is their use of incindiary grenades to disinfect a public building. It's psychotically dangerous for a clandestine operation to use something so blatantly conspicuous, especially when there are more sensible options available (fumigation, for example).

Beyond that, the final addenda doesn't really carry its weight in terms of adding anything of value to the entry, it's just excess verbiage that drags on to justify how they found it. Even if it is for some reason an absolute must to include, you'd probably get more milage out of swapping the addenda such that the more intriguing content caps off the piece.

Overall, I gave this 1/5. Even putting aside my many smaller issues with the work, it's not really doing a whole lot in terms of originality — mind-stealing parasites are pretty basic and tropey — which is a shame, because the basic idea of people snorting worms (…and anomaly ensues) is supremely fucking disgusting.

A few of the anomalous traits (compulsion upon viewing, mind-controlling infected people to spread the phenomena) seem tacked on to increase the danger level, and aren't really taking advantage of some of the thematic ideas touched on in the journalist's note. I don't think you necessarily need a compulsion — I could totally imagine people doing this of their own accord!

Speaking of the jornalist's note, I do like the idea of this being some form of pre-decomposition pact… (I guess?) I think that this could have served as a better thematic base to work from — that people continue to partake in the thrill-seeking behavior of a worm-snort challenge because they're (literally, as the Authority comes to find out) dead inside. I would consider excising the notion that they're being controlled as some form of odd worm-scheme, and go full-in with the angle that they're, for all intents and purposes, completely normal on the outside, but full of squickly little squimers on the inside.

I think you could have done a lot more in terms of really leaning into the gross-out factor here. Instead of a simple note, something visual could get across something much more immediately visceral.

As it stands, it's has a good base to work from, but I feel that it's not living up to its full potential.

this would never happen >:)

Most of this article was pretty straightforward from the initial concept. I don't have a lot of comments there, so I'll cut to the few pieces where I do. The written document was decently executed, but the "horror cutaways" were eye-rolling. The discovery section didn't say anything that couldn't have been assumed.

It was reaching for an interesting point with the "decomposers" bit, but it didn't quite make it. The anomaly wasn't bad, but I don't think it was the kind with an appeal that can stand on its own without additional documentation and events.

I would recommend RPC-159 as a brain-replacing anomaly over this. I'm sure that article was inspired by this one, but there is such a thing as exceeding your inspirations. 3/5