SO here is my idea This is a woman, and she cannot be photographed, but she can be seen by any human eye. also, to every person she looks different, but in every case she looks extremeley attractive, and if a woman sees her she makes friends with her. now i know that this will be difficult to write, but i am up to the challenge. i just want to know if there is anything out here like it, or if i should keep thinking thanks!
No offense but this is the same thing from Greek mythology. It is the same as a Greek/Roman goddess named Aphrodite/Venus. She switches her form to reflect beautiful people and such.
This is not like Greek Mythology at all.
chrisblammo123, you've been called out on giving unhelpful feedback before. Please refrain from giving any further critique on the forums until you have written a successful mainsite piece.
If you continue to exhibit this behavior, a ban will result.
This will be incredibly difficult to write up successfully, since it's inherently a perfect person. There are no character flaws, no depth, nothing but apparent ability and overall friendliness/approachability. How will any reader relate to this?
Chances are if you don't add something compelling, it will come off as a wish-fulfillment self-insert character, and those don't do well at all.
Humanoids are actually pretty difficult to write successfully; if you're really set on writing one, then take a look at this guide first.
is there any way to salvage this idea? i mean, is there anything that would turn this into a not so likely to succeed to possibility of succeeding?
You'd need to write something that's more interesting. Stereotypical "wow this person is so pretty and friendly although apparently they can't be photographed" is fundamentally boring because there's no depth. Nothing to make the reader think of the world in a new way or look with a new perspective.
Why do you want to write this particular idea? Is there some sort of message you're trying to present to the reader? Is there an emotion you want to evoke? Generally the more perfect an entity is, the less interesting they are. Without flaws or anything to make them more than one-dimensional, there's nothing to grab attention.
This sounds like it would end up being a mary sue and a lot like SCP-056. I personaly would advise against writing it.
I was going to post an idea the whole thing of "Cannot be photographed and looked different to different viewers" gave me, but now I'm not sure if I should put it here or make it its own article.
Geek alert!
The idea of a woman who appears both highly attractive and completely different to different people is very similar to an episode from the BBC comedy show Red Dwarf. In the episode, the all-male crew rescues a life form that appears to each of them as their perfect companion.
However, just because it's a similar idea doesn't mean that that's where you got it from. I would suggest either changing the "extremely attractive" aspect to a more varied appearance or throwing in an additional anomalous aspect to this woman so as to avoid any thoughts of plagiarism.
I know what I wanted to say, I hope I verbalized it well enough.
I would also like to chime in that Dr. Clef has a very similar ability in that any attempt to record his face invariably fails for no apparent reason, and that when a woman sees him they become fast enemies.
Now, on the idea itself. There are already a lot of scps that metamorph into and ideal specimen of beauty, either through illusions, or actual shapeshifting. There are scps that make you like them(even if you wouldn't actually like them, so simply making your scip flawed in some way isn't enough). And yes, the two abilities have converged. So how to make your lass unlike the ones that came before? Well that's up to you, but here are a few ideas:
She's not real - Some sort of psychic phenomenon. Infected people think she is real, act like she is real, and defend her 'realness' aggressively, but when they are photographed or filmed, they are actually doing all the things she should be. If she was drinking water, the infected would be holding the glass up and pouring it into thin air. If she was writing, one of the infected would actually be the one writing. Those infected do not notice a thing, and when shown photographic evidence, still claim to see her doing all those things.
She cannot control it and the metamorphosis process is horribly painful. Kinda a bodyhorror angle. And if too many people with different standards of beauty see her at once, a redact worthy squickout happens.
Adding on to everyone else, I think you can focus on the "cannot be photographed and shapeshifting" parts for a start.
It does not need to look attractive (why must they always be good looking?). It can look ugly, pretty, or whatever. It does not need to compel others to be sociable towards it (which is the part that, in my opinion, really sends it down the Mary Sue route).
Above all, you must have a really good spin on the concept if you want it to stand out from the lot.
This did sort of give me a vague idea for a sort of large predatory feline that couldn't be photographed and looked different to different viewers, with the implication being these were supposed to be adaptations to subvert modern humanity's team-based hunting methods.
That could be fun. I can see a bizarre evolution of a Bengal tiger that adapted from organised hunting parties. They could either include humans as part of their diet, or just kill humans to "get rid of the competitor".