[Seeking Greenlight] Eternal Memory by Coco Chanel

Summary:

A perfume with memory altering properties

[Seeking Greenlight] Eternal Memory by Coco Chanel

VoodooOne 06 Jun 2022 01:17

Seeking Greenlights: Yes

Page Type: SCP Article

Genre (Optional): Drama/Emotional

Elevator Pitch: A perfume that, when used, stops people from being able to form new short term memories, though they will still keep their long term memories. The 24 hours after become their final memory, and they spend the rest of their lives reliving it. No matter what situation they are put in they will adjust their final memory to fit it. They seem to have no knowledge that this is happening, and have no issue with the fact that the story plays out differently every day.

Central Narrative:

+ Open

The central narrative will be about a group of high school girls who used the perfume on the night of their senior prom. They are all currently residing in a long term care facility with symptoms of extremely early onset dementia. The story will told through various documents. Things like transcriptions of local news broadcasts, doctor's notes, and posts from conspiracy theory websites. Theories about the girls range from illegal drugs to black magic, and it was these that led to the Foundation finding the girls in the first place. The foundation gets into contact with the girls, doing tests and interviews. In the interviews they seem entirely unaware of what's happened, such as referring to the researcher doing the interview as their principal, and being taken to a foundation site and being sent to detention. There can also be interviews with people close to the girls, such as family and friends.

For the origin of the skip, it was originally created as a non-anomalous "higher class" alternative to common club drugs. Designed to give you a "night you'll remember for the rest of your life." When its creators noticed the correlation between their customers and the victims showing up in the news, they tried ditch the rest of it. I plan to tell this part of the story through email or text exchanges between the creators. I assume the Foundation would probably be working to track them down, to ensure they didn't purposely create a dangerous anomalous object. I don't really have a plan to turn the creator into anything big like a potential GOI. So when the foundation realizes that the intent was malicious, but not anomalous, they'll be anesthetized and returned to local authorities.

Hook/Attention-Grabber:

+ Open

I think the hook of the story would be the emotional draw of the narrative, since the actual containment procedures and description are fairly brief. I think the second narrative has the bigger potential for a hook, but I'm less certain about specifics.

Additional Notes:

+ Open

I know the rules for first SCPs are that it's easier to try and keep it simple, ex no keter, and no humanoids. I tried to find a balance between a fairly simple object and anomalous effect, while still having an interesting narrative.

Last edited on 10 Jun 2022 20:47 by VoodooOne Show more

Re: [Seeking Greenlight] Eternal Memory by Coco Chanel

DrRevan 08 Jun 2022 01:41

Hello!

Let's dive in!

So, I think this is a pretty interesting proposal, especially in regards to those affected twisting their version of reality to fit that of their final memory. I do have a couple of concerns with some points within the narrative though.

• My first concern revolves around the origin of the anomaly itself. You've described how it works quite well, but there should be some kind of backstory to it. I noticed you started to get into it a little bit in your second narrative paragraph, but it should be expanded upon more. Given that it was marketed and sold to this group of girls, that could imply someone made it with the intent to have someone be affected by it. This creator doesn't have to be from a previously established GoI either. It can be a solo perfumer, or a GoI of your own creation (the latter is a bit more tricky to pull off, but can still be done nonetheless). Regardless of which origin pathway you choose, I would ponder the following in regards to its creator: Were the intentions of this creator malicious? If not, what might've gone wrong that made this final product the way it is? Are they still alive?

• My next concern is more of a suggestion in regards to the use of the anomaly mentioned in the second paragraph. I would avoid having someone like a Foundation researcher using it after exposure to a particularly hazardous anomaly, as it can come off as a bit reckless on their part. Now, having people not affiliated with the Foundation use it to constantly relive what they would consider the "best moments of their life" would be an interesting thing to explore.

For now, I would focus primarily on crafting an origin for the anomaly itself. That way, you can establish how and why these girls acquired the perfume, and then go on to discuss their emotional state after using it.

Hope this helps!

Doc R

Last edited on 08 Jun 2022 23:36 by DrRevan Show more

Re: [Seeking Greenlight] Eternal Memory by Coco Chanel

VoodooOne 10 Jun 2022 20:47

Thanks for the crit, I've thought it through and added an origin story to the narrative section

Re: [Seeking Greenlight] Eternal Memory by Coco Chanel

Fireknight 09 Jun 2022 17:00

I have been summoned!

+ Howdy hey, here’s what I have to say!

I wouldn’t recommend going into your second narrative, it doesn’t contribute much to the first one and it raises all new questions. Mainly because using the perfume right after a bad event makes no sense, because it doesn’t wipe your memory, only stop you from creating new ones. For the same reason, using to cure anxiety doesn’t make much sense

While I get Revan’s point that there should be a reason that this exists, I think that whether or not that’s necessary depends on the context of the article. If this was a product made by some anomalous company and marketed to cause people to relive memories, you need an explanation for that. But if this is simply average perfume that happens to be anomalous, that’s all the explanation you need. Not all anomalies need to be created, sometimes, they just exist. Giving an origin for it wouldn’t be a bad idea, but I don’t know if it’s necessary.

Overall, this is a very solid idea. You did a good job of focusing on the story, which most people fail to do. The result is an interesting emotional story that covers themes of dementia with an anomalous twist. In fact, I’m willing to give this a tentative greenlight. You’ll need to put some proper thought into how to tell the story and get a proper emotional response. But I think your idea holds water.

Re: [Seeking Greenlight] Eternal Memory by Coco Chanel

VoodooOne 10 Jun 2022 20:49

Thanks so much for the crit and the greenlight!

Re: [Seeking Greenlight] Eternal Memory by Coco Chanel

caspian2 18 Jun 2022 07:13

Summoned by PM:

Interesting discovery premise, a plausible backstory, with the potential highlight of future danger. This is very close to a greenlight for me.

I'm trying to picture what the eventual article/draft will look like, and while I can definitely envision the first half, I'm still unclear about what happens in the rest of the article, and how it ends, specifically. So the Foundation discovers this perfume, and interviews the girls, I'm guessing. There's some hint at some bigger conspiracy going on, and then what? Do we just leave things there? Do we get a meaningful conclusion? Or does the scp just get locked away and forgotten?

There seems to be something missing here: that omph and spark at the end that makes us go "Ooooh" and ties all the previous story strands together. Maybe you can elaborate a little further on how you envisioned the article to end?

if you decide to revise the concept / respond below, do drop me another PM and I'll take another look. Best of luck for now!

Re: [Seeking Greenlight] Eternal Memory by Coco Chanel

VoodooOne 23 Jun 2022 22:54

So, this took a bit to think out and put into words, but I'll do my best here.

+ Open

The end was definitely the part of the article that I had thought through the least. I had intended for it to all be wrapped up neatly with a bow, with a minimal number of casualties. Someone would accidentally create something anomalous, foundation finds it, anesthetizes the creators, they go to jail, nothing can be done for the girls, and future catastrophe is avoided. A stand-alone article, with a nice, neat ending. But like you said, that did feel like it was missing something.

The first problem was figuring out what wasn't working, you can't solve a problem if you don't know what it is. So, for that I went back and read through series seven skips, focusing on their ending. A lot of them did feel like the story was wrapped up nicely at the end, so I don't think that's the problem. However, most of them had that "Ooooooh" moment you were talking about, some dramatic emotional twist/new information that was brought up in a final addendum. It didn't need to necessary prepare for a sequel or anything like that, just something with emotional oomph.

Finally, actually getting to my plans, this has been a lot of contextualization, I have an idea. Its fairly simple, but it would change the origin so that its creator was originally trying to create something anomalous. But something went wrong, the effect wasn't supposed to be permanent, etc. I don't think that it makes sense for it to have been created with explicitly malicious intent, more like someone was trying to profit off of an anomaly without considering the potential danger. Especially if it was created by a bunch of teenagers who were messing around with the arcane or w/e. This can all be revealed at the end in some form, probably transcripts of emails or text messages between the creators. Maybe having them panic when they saw the girl's stories in the news, as a plan to make a quick buck turns into a life sentence. The other potential plant that I had for the big emotional reveal at the end would be to have logs of an MTF detaining them and bringing them for interview in the foundation and such, without really mentioning how young they are. Then having that show through the interview in their responses. With things like worrying about getting into college rather than the fact that they were detained by a pseudo militaristic organization. The only problem with that is that since its longer over the course of the article it would shift the focus from the girls to the creators, and I'm not sure how that would read. I'd like feedback for this idea of an ending, since on one hand it seems more unique than just another organization of mysterious guys in suits profiting off of anomalies. On the other hand, it might feel too much like it comes out of left field, as opposed to something with enough meaningful buildup.

I was also considering ending it with the foundation coming up with a cure, and families are reunited, That again felt like it was wrapped up too nicely, and there's probably a reason joy isn't usually used in SCP articles.

Eugh planning endings is hard.

Re: [Seeking Greenlight] Eternal Memory by Coco Chanel

caspian2 30 Jun 2022 04:55

It is difficult, but most rewarding when everything connects and hits at the end.

At the end of the day, I asked those earlier questions because I was curious if there was a big conspiracy, or not. If there is one, then you would need to go big, i.e. hint at the involvement of a GoI, like the Chaos Insurgency trying to mess with Foundation researchers' memories, or something more goofy, like Dr. Wondertainment making the perfume for teenage girls who wish to forget their heartbreak.

Even if the product is accidental, like you mentioned, the ending still could be tied to a GoI, just that you will have the extra burden of explaining its creation process, and what went wrong at the end. Both routes are possible.

Even if you don't decide to tie it to a bigger conspiracy, I still think you can make the story work by focusing solely on the girls' experiences with the scp. Like you said, the story would hint at bigger conspiracies and black magic, but the twist at the end was that these girls simply wanted to use the scp to soften the pain of their teenage angst. That would be a satisfying and emotional oumph as well.

Whatever you decide, post it below, then let me know again via PM?

Re: [Seeking Greenlight] Eternal Memory by Coco Chanel

VoodooOne 30 Jun 2022 20:41

So I had actually originally planned to go down the greater conspiracy route. However, I got a bit worried about how well that would go down with people on the site. Given that it’s my first SCP article, I was worried that including one of the more popular GOIs like the chaos insurgency or Dr. Wondertainment would give the same vibe as cross linking only series 1 skips, like I was just trying to get upvotes by using a well known name.

However, I do really like the idea of having the final emotional punch be that it was just a group of girls who wanted to be popular for the big dance. This could be done through a recovered diary entry or text messages. Something to show the regular teenage struggles and general stress and depression of high school.

If you don’t think that the stuff I talked about in paragraph one would be a problem, that could make a nice anempathetic ending. The final addendum would be items recovered from one of the girls homes. One piece being the aforementioned depressing diary or texts, and the other being a classic whimsical Wondertainment advertisement. Something about Making the best night of your life feel like it lasts forever.