The Gutter Gator

The Gutter Gator

TheOstrich 06 Sep 2020 14:42

Seeking Greenlight: Yes

Page Type: SCP Article

Elevator Pitch: SCP-X is what appears to be a normal alligator. It spends all of its time lying motionless in the gutter of the bowling alley it inhabits, but does not appear to be unconscious. However, SCP-X has the ability to instantly teleport any organic material, and if an uncovered human hand passes within its eyesight, the hand will be cleanly severed at the wrist and will be instantly transported to SCP-X’s “storage space” (the space where bowling pins are usually set up). The human subject’s sanity will rapidly deteriorate from here, and they will become incredibly fearful of SCP-X. The only time that SCP-X ever moves is if it needs to eat. Despite the fact that SCP-X doesn’t physiologically require nourishment, it annually consumes a single hand from its storage space.

Central Narrative: After killing a local fisherman and several animal control officers, SCP-X was found by the Foundation in an abandoned bowling alley on the outskirts of a small town in Maine. The residents were relocated and given amnestics, and the Foundation set up containment around the building. SCP-X appears to absolutely refuse to leave its bowling alley, and will use the same means that it uses to transport hands to teleport itself back to the gutter that it lives in. Clearance from O5 to airlift the entire bowling alley to a more secure location is still pending. It is also incredibly defensive of its storage space and will kill any living thing that approaches it, usually by removing the phrenic nerve.

Hook/Attention-Grabber: While most of what SCP-X’s victims say is incoherent, they also insist that SCP-X is significantly more dangerous than it actually is. Two concepts that victims often mention are that SCP-X was “awoken” shortly before being discovered, and that if SCP-X hasn’t eaten for a year, then “all is lost”. Victims also gain knowledge of concepts that they would normally have no way of knowing about, most prominently the fact that SCP-X eats one hand annually. These claims are dubious at best, but the foundation still requires that at least one victim be offered to SCP-X annually.

Additional Notes: I plan to use brief experiment logs to show how the Foundation has tried to move SCP-X, and also an interview with one of the victims of SCP-X.

Last edited on 22 Sep 2020 23:06 by TheOstrich Show more

Staff Post - Open

Riemann 06 Sep 2020 14:50

TheOstrich, this pitch veers very close to just posting a draft in the ideas forum. It's also almost 200 words over the 400 word limit. Please take some time to edit this to be clearer and shorter.

Re: Staff Post - Open

TheOstrich 06 Sep 2020 14:58

Will do

Edit: Cut it down to exactly 400 words

Last edited on 06 Sep 2020 15:23 by TheOstrich Show more

Re: The Gutter Gator

Naveil 13 Sep 2020 14:41

While there is something here, I'm not sure I like it.

First off, I feel as though there's too much going on here. Nothing feels concise and focused - there are multiple ideas with conflicting emotions. For instance, the base anomaly itself feels comedic, in a sense. Yet, there's also the element of suicide, which adds an unnecessarily dark area. Making this work is not unachievable, but I don't have particular confidence, and suicide is often a polarizing topic to begin with.

The narrative is… okay? It's a generic "anomaly wreaks havoc before capture" story, which, although not special, can still be entertaining if done right. The question remains - how do you want to portray it? What kind of genre is it, what emotions do you want to evoke?
Beyond that, there are the (I assume?) interview logs, which just feel… bloated. Once again, it just sounds convoluted to me, and my main bout of advice here is to condense the story, emotions, and genre you want into a single narrative.

Now, I'm putting my staff hat on for a moment. While you are able to repost threads that haven't seen activity for 14 days or more, a far easier alternative is to contact reviewers. This is the main guide for doing so. If you want to make changes to a thread to adjust to feedback, you can edit by clicking "options" underneath your post, then clicking "edit" from the dropdown menu.

Re: The Gutter Gator

TheOstrich 13 Sep 2020 14:47

Thank you for critting this. Considering that the idea itself was originally comedic, I’ll probably lean more into a dark comedy theme with this article and cut the parts that are too serious for this kind of writing.

Re: The Gutter Gator

cybersqyd 25 Sep 2020 09:58

I'm…not necessarily a fan of this? It kinda feels like the narrative is a little unfocussed: there's a lot happening but there's not really any stakes to it and it doesn't really feel like it's going anywhere; so while it feels like a believable sequence of events, it doesn't quite feel like an interesting story that escalates towards somewhere instead of just kind, puttering around for a bit poking the idea with a stick and trying to see if something interesting happens.

The whole 'teleports their hands into a pocket space accessible in the back of the bowling alley' thing just feels…weird to me? I don't really get why this happens and it's not particularly…amusing or interesting to me. The whole angle of it driving people insane then feels like something you've tacked on in an attempt to make this more interesting.

This also applies to the bit at the end about it needing fed and stuff, like, it could be an interesting angle if it was explored in some manner but there's a very 'some people mentioned it so i guess we should briefly talk about it' energy to it where it feels just, not that important for something that's very important.

I guess at the end of the day my big question is really just "what story are you trying to tell here? What do you want a reader to get out of it?"