Identity Theft

Summary:

How to Create Amnesia

Identity Theft

somekidbewack 25 Aug 2020 08:18

EDIT: Entire narrative section rewritten, PLEASE LOOK OVER AND CONSIDER CRITIQUING AGAIN

Seeking Greenlights: Yes

Page Type: SCP Article

Pitch: An identity stealing humanoid that steals all the memories from the subject in question

Narrative: When a man is caught wandering around by police, he’s found without any identity on him. He has no fingerprint marks, and DNA tests come up null. The SCP foundation are called to take him in, and inspect. Through conversation with class-D and foundation personnel, it is discovered his ability to steal another person’s identity, leaving them with the worst case of irreversible amnesia known to man. This causes him to, when discovering that people are treating him different, claim he is the identity he stole. When no remorse or belief is given, he begins to slip into insanity and loneliness. He truly believes who he is, and depending on the identity, can even attempt suicide to get out of the predicament he is in. The foundation staff is forced to continue changing identities, hopefully saving the SCP’s vessel for further testing, but the conflict is how dangerous it would be for the SCP to engage in conversation with staff of high clearance levels, or what could happen if that person also lashed out at the change in treatment. SCP is shown wandering around its containment, trying to piece together what is going on. Conversation with personnel slowly turn from normal conversation to a sad and lost identity. They truly don’t realize where they are. Days can go by in experimentation, increasingly growing lonely. Slowly, they may begin to lose their mind. Talking to people who aren’t there, begging for someone to speak to them, and on some occasions, can be caught speaking to another one of the identities trapped in the SCP. SCP must come into contact with another human being when it becomes a danger to itself at the risk of losing research, or if it survives, the risk of losing one of the identities in question. After a survived attempt, researchers quickly realized they had lost the last identity it had, and had slipped into the previous identity without knowledge of what had happened. This article will follow an addendum following one of the first identity thefts and the time each item happens, as well as an interview with the identity afterwards, in which the interviewer slowly loses their identity and the SCP adopts it. A possible idea I have is an experiment log in which it follows the slow but steady degrading of the psyche of the identity inside of the SCP at the time.

Hook: Though stealing an identity isn’t out of the ordinary, causing the person whose identity it is to forget every event that has ever occurred to them, down to core details, isn’t an easy thing to do. Also, no other human would be able to perfectly replicate another person’s life without knowing everything, like this SCP does.

Additional Notes: Identity can change to past subjects that have been tested with SCP if faced with someone they remember/an event they remember.

Last edited on 12 Sep 2020 15:50 by somekidbewack Show more

Re: Identity Theft

Naveil 25 Aug 2020 12:20

So, to preface, I find this concept genuinely cool. It has grounds for sublime psychological horror if the cards are played right. That, of course, leads to my main point, which is how you want to play your cards.

Execution takes near full importance here. Arguably, how to you want to play your narrative is oftentimes just as, if not more, important than the actual narrative itself. It's what separates a string of events that just… happen, vs. genuine fear being instilled upon a reader.

Even if execution is something better judged in a draft, I'd still like some indication on what you plan to do, which I'm not getting. You're telling me how the anomaly works, not how you plan to put it into action. Give this a thought, and then feel free to give me a poke when you're ready for me to take another look.

Re: Identity Theft

cybersqyd 25 Aug 2020 12:46

Okay so I want to talk about your narrative: you've used that section to lay out what the SCP does in terms of it's effects but what I really want to know from that is what does the article do: how are you intending to show these effects? What do you want to do with it?

Remember: you're trying to tell an interesting short story about the SCP and how the Foundation interacts with it, not really just do an encyclopedia entry about a weird thing; so you want to be thinking about things like 'what is the central conflict?' and 'how do I want to make a reader feel?' and then 'how am I going to make them feel that way?'.

Re: Identity Theft

somekidbewack 25 Aug 2020 18:41

When identity is stolen from class-D, SCP will try to talk to personnel, oftentimes asking for information on where they are, and why they keep being referred to differently. SCP will show sheer confusion from being treated differently, so it is important to keep the lifestyle of the SCP similar to that of the identity it has stolen. Because of this, there are more than one containment areas to keep the SCP. All rooms are complete replicas of class-D cells, site research and testing areas, and any other areas attached to identities they learn about. It’s the fact that to avoid the conflict of confusion that may lead to the identity lashing out and trying to escape containment, interact with other SCPs, or even going straight to attacking other personnel or class-D. The foundation must avoid confusion and try to create an atmosphere that is as normal as possible to avoid conflict with the SCP.

Re: Identity Theft

cybersqyd 27 Aug 2020 08:09

[+] Open for crit

Okay so my problem with how you've expanded this is that a lot of what you're saying is still very focussed on what the SCP does (which isn't necessarily a fatal flaw) but you've gotta remember that the SCP article is written from the perspective of the Foundation: the events you're listing here have to be conveyed by researchers or security cameras or such stuff instead of directly from folk; even if you have D-Class, their story here will be told to a researcher say.

Beyond this, what you have are events, not really a story: these things don't really escalate somewhere or build to something or like. really go anywhere? They're things it feels like you're adding cos you're trying to pad out the SCP rather than for a purpose.

My hot advice: step back for a second and think about emotions. Think about what parts of this really work for you, and in turn, how you can make a reader feel something about this; and then in turn how you can have a core story about something happening to show these off. Like, for example, if you think the confusion the SCP creates as it changes identities with folk is the fun thing, then you have to figure how you can show that to a reader and tell a story about it: the confusion should start small and then get bigger and bigger while something opposes it, and the ending should, in some way, resolve this. It might be worth thinking about the framing here, like, do the Foundation do the right thing? Is the SCP sympathetic or should be be rooting against it?

Re: Identity Theft

cybersqyd 29 Aug 2020 12:29

At the moment, my biggest concern is it feels like you have two big narrative threads that don't mesh well: the story of the emotional state of the identity thief and the story of the confusion he causes within the Foundation. Neither of them are bad per se except that they don't mesh well together: the first creates this impression of a barely functional person the reader feels immensely sorry for; while the second feels like it's a lot more about this bad ass spy person who sows confusion and could get in anywhere and like, either could work but they don't feel coherent.

Honestly, focussing on the emotional first one seems better to me: like, really show the arc of the thief and how his feelings change here; and maybe play in the suspicion from the Foundation there to justify them doing stuff which makes him feel even worse in the pursuit of their own security? My, concern here is that I'm not sure how it'd all end, or how you'd escalate to that ending: it seems like you could have either a sad ending where the SCP ends up neutralised, or a happy one where the Foundation figures out what they're doing and stops but?

Re: Identity Theft

cybersqyd 06 Sep 2020 08:10

My biggest concern with your new narrative is how you'll convey the emotions present in it: like, there's definitely good emotional beats in there but I'm a little unclear on why the Foundation would put what are relatively intimate personal details in their SCP file, and I'm more unclear on how exactly you'd convey them: are you wanting to use interviews? journal entries? something else? How are you going to show the progression in the loss of identity without like, feeling very repetitive and like you're just retracing your own steps but with less detail as the person loses their identity?

(BTW: have you considered whether it'd be worth making this a tale? You could really centre this on an affected person better that way without having to explain why their loss of identity is being included in an official file, and it'd let you give this a much more intimate feel rather than the relatively cold/detached feel you'd expect from a SCP article?)

Re: Identity Theft

Naveil 29 Aug 2020 23:04

Even though I hold that I vastly prefer a body horror approach to this concept, what you've presented seems interesting.

Honestly, my thoughts align with cybersqyd's. The plot on the Foundation's fear and confusion just doesn't seem natural to me. It'd also be difficult to pull off in an SCP article, and it just… doesn't feel interesting to me, emotionally nor narratively. It doesn't really go anywhere, there isn't a specific endgoal in mind, form what I can tell.

Now, the first plot shows a bit more promise. I think if you're able to play the emotion well, it can be good. Like, make this guy seem really tragic and confused, but try not to overdo it (i.e. with the suicide and whatnot, which a) would be hard to get across well and b) has a stigma around it; please only attempt it if you know you can deal with it properly and respectfully).

Re: Identity Theft

caspian2 22 Sep 2020 01:17

Summoned via PM:

Hi there somekidbewack. Let’s take a look at your concept.

who am i?

So the main issue I have is I don’t comprehend the narrative. Perhaps It’s your style of writing or the plot is unnecessarily convoluted, but I feel there’s a lack of clarity that hinders our understanding of your concept.

He has no fingerprint marks, and DNA tests come up null.

What about dental records? Does this mean that he doesn’t show up in the database?

The SCP foundation are called to take him in, and inspect.

Why? I don’t feel the entity is anomalous enough at this point to warrant Foundation intervention.

Through conversation with class-D and foundation personnel, it is discovered his ability to steal another person’s identity, leaving them with the worst case of irreversible amnesia known to man.

How does A lead to B? This isn’t explained. How exactly does he “steal another person’s identity”?

Similarly, how is “amnesia” involved?

This causes him to, when discovering that people are treating him different, claim he is the identity he stole.

I don’t understand how this sentences links to the previous one.

When no remorse or belief is given, he begins to slip into insanity and loneliness.

Again, why?

I’m going to stop here because the rest of the concept is equally difficult to access. I feel you need to simplify / shorten this entire paragraph in order to make the narrative clearer.

Do let me know if you decide to revise the concept / respond below. I think the concept has potential but it’s lacking brevity at this point. Do drop me another PM and I’ll try to look at it again. Best of luck.