Seven Easy Steps to Being Able to Convince People You're a Spy : Week 3, Period 1

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

As the class gathered around the main campfire today, they may have noticed a large amount of boxes and racks of clothes and different props. 

Aly was waiting for them to find seats around the campfire before starting.  "Today, if the massive amounts of costumes and props didn't give it away, we're going to be talking about disguises.  The whole point of a disguise is to be unnoticeable in the company that you're keeping.  To blend in so that you don't occasion comments like 'I've never seen that person before' and 'I wonder who invited her.'  It's not a matter of satisfying your ego by 'standing out' so everyone notices you.  It's a matter of getting your job done without undue risk to yourself, any of your contacts or your employer."

"When you go undercover, you succeed only if you convince everyone around you that you're a different person.  And you can only do that if every detail is consistent.  Every single bit of information from the trash in your pockets to your glasses to your story has to match.  If you're masquerading as a dissident student, you probably shouldn't be driving a fancy car or wearing expensive shoes.  Be consistent.  And blend in.  The key isn't to be quirky and distinctive.  The key is to be nondescript."

Aly handed everyone a sheet of paper with the following points on it to keep in mind when establishing a cover.

• Develop your legend - your backstory.  Keeping details close to your actual life - at least at first - can help you remember and sound truthful.
• Decide on a current cover: name, job, purpose
• Choose an appropriate look or disguise.
• Gather pocket litter or other props to support the disguise.  Each item needs to be appropriate to the persona. 
  
• Learn local customs, accents, slang. 
  
• Match your vocabulary/language to your character's education.

Five Tips for Maintaining Consistency

• Use correct jargon for your assumed profession/role
• Know how much travel and life experience your character has. 
  
• Avoid personal discussions about your pretend family.
• Close questioning sessions quickly.  Avoid the questions by giving the information before it's asked for and by giving enough information to shut down further questions.
• If you think you're about to be exposed, get out of the one on one conversation.  Invite someone to join the conversational group or suggest a coffee or trip.  Anything to give you a chance to lower the pressure and get back into character.

•  

Aly grinned.  "I love disguises.  They're one of my favourite things about spying.  What you all need to do today is create one using the costumes, wigs, makeup, and props we have here.  You can create it to go with the persona you made up last week or something completely different.  Help each other put together a disguise, a cover, and the reason for the disguise then come show me.  And I'd like to see these all be a step beyond a 'someone else in the class' this time.  Disguise is one thing, successfully mimicking someone that people know well?  Is a step far beyond that."

"So go ahead, work together to create a disguise and a cover story and then let me see what you come up with."

[OOC: OCD shall be coming up!

Comments

[Spying 7/25] - Sign In

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

Collapsey and stuff

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Sign In

[sixstandingby.livejournal.com]

Gavin Darklighter

[Spying 7/25] - Notes and Chit Chat

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

One of the other as it were

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Notes and Chit Chat

[sixstandingby.livejournal.com]

Gavin was back to doodling. The doodles were improving.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Notes and Chit Chat

[blackmagic-eve.livejournal.com]

Eve was scribbling in her notebook, making a list of people she could possibly use as disguises. People in the class were on the list but not being counted for purposes of the assignment.

It was a disturbingly long list even without those names.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Notes and Chit Chat

[notqueenyet.livejournal.com]

Aravis was thoroughly unimpressed by the obvious necessity of Aly lecturing on trying not to stand out. That was one of the basic concepts of a disguise, honestly. As though she had found it particularly easy to hide in beggar's clothes last year, being as she was.

She doodled in the margins of her notes during the lecture, taking down information she hadn't surmised from experience. If those doodles occasionally looked like intertwined initials, they were so quickly doodled into something else that it might have been hard to tell they were ever anything before that.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Notes and Chit Chat

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

Annette was drawing stick figures. With hair and long earrings.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Notes and Chit Chat

[vkandis-son.livejournal.com]

He couldn't help it, he was trying not to, but Karal kept looking in faint disapproval - not at Aly, but at the clothes and sundry items. He knew spies were a necessity in some situations, but hiding who you were...it just felt wrong.

:Don't be silly, Karal.: Altra shook his head and went back to watching Aly.

He smiled ruefully in response. I know.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Notes and Chit Chat

[falcon-or-blade.livejournal.com]

Faile had actually done the disguise thing already. She looked a bit smug as she listened to Aly's lecture, completely ignoring all the times she'd slipped up on her backstory.

[Spying 7/25] - Put together a Disguise

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

Go ahead and mod the contents of the boxes for clothes, wigs, makeup, whatever you need. Work with someone to help them come up with a workable disguise and cover persona.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Put together a Disguise

[socksofcool.livejournal.com]

The first thing Seely did was start looking for socks. Plain, boring, ugly socks.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Put together a Disguise

[sixstandingby.livejournal.com]

Gavin thought nothing could be worse than the last disguise he wore.

He was wrong.

This (http://www.buycostumes.com/Category/126/4294967191/20/Product/17133/ProductDetail.aspx) wasn't embarrassing at all. He was so not going with this one.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Put together a Disguise

[blackmagic-eve.livejournal.com]

Eve was rummaging through a box, just seeing what was in there. She was thinking Paige or Elena as disguises, though Paige was more likely to work.

Except this was harder than she'd thought. She needed to grab Savannah. Savannah knew Paige better than she did.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Put together a Disguise

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

Annette started rummaging through the boxes of clothes and whatnot for her disguise. She wasn't really sure what she wanted to do but after searching, she came up with someting and just hoped she could pull it off.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Put together a Disguise

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

Will started rummaging through the boxes for a wig she could use. Red hair would probably be a clear giveaway that it was her under there.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Put together a Disguise

[vkandis-son.livejournal.com]

Karal was picking through the boxes while Altra shoved his head in another. He wasn't too worries about formulating a disguise. Not a Priest would go a long way towards convincing people he was someone else.

A pair of glasses with plain lenses seemed a good place to start, and he decided he'd be a scholar of some kind. It was a persona he was confident he'd be able to work with.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Put together a Disguise

[the_merriest]

Rikku managed to piece together jeans, boots, and a vest of sorts into a vaguely Western-looking outfit, complete with gun and attitude to spare.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Put together a Disguise

[ambassadorinara.livejournal.com]

Inara actually decided to take a different route. She put on a pair of jean shorts, a t-shirt, and tied her hair back in a bun the way she'd seen some girls wear it. Then, she'd removed her cosmetics and added a pair of eyeglasses and a backpack.

If she was right about this, she'd look just like a regular student.

[Spying 7/25] - Show the Disguises Off

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

Show Aly and the class what your disguise is and the cover that's going with it.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Show the Disguises Off

[thebluespirit.livejournal.com]

Zuko managed to find clothes that looked close to the fashion currently popular in the Earth Kingdom. He wasn't going to show off however.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Show the Disguises Off

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

Annette stood up, striking a pose (http://www.thecostumer.com/cfwebstore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=3515), thinking that her gun pretty much described her cover story. She made her make-up extra dark, lining her eyes with black and going heavy duty on the mascara.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Show the Disguises Off

[falcon-or-blade.livejournal.com]

Faile didn't know enough about Earth culture to know what would make her blend in. Aside from what she was already wearing anyway. Instead, she chose clothing that would help her disappear in her own world: a long skirt and blouse in dull colors and a kerchief to cover her hair. She presented herself to Aly with a meek demeanor; her hands were clutched nervously in front of her and she kept her eyes downcast.

Re: [Spying 7/25] - Show the Disguises Off

[the_merriest]

Rikku strutted up in front of the class, scanning the exits and nodding at certain people, gun set cocked over her shoulder. "Mercenary," she said shortly. "Heard there was a target in the area. What's the price?"

[Spying 7/25] - Talk to Aly

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

Of ships and shoes and sealing wax -- Of cabbages and kings...

OOC!

[tricksy-spy.livejournal.com]

"You are old, father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?

Re: OOC!

[vkandis-son.livejournal.com]

"In my youth," father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."