# Pastebin HB2uUWIK 11:25 AM Well, I think everybody here has finished, and Pighead will be rejoining us shortly. How about we start with our first impressions. 11:27 AM <+cybersqyd> i...don't know how i feel about this one 11:28 AM I don't exactly know why this is a Department of Abnormalities article at all. It has none of its usual themes, expands very little on what it actually is, and is basically just used to provide a bit more interest into something that's not all that interesting to me. 11:28 AM <+cybersqyd> yeah 11:28 AM <+cybersqyd> it kinda feels like it's trying to spin too many plates? 11:29 AM I was struggling to get beyond the themes - I had a good laugh out of it with some disgust and awe at it... but its nothing like the previous DoA articles that I read 11:30 AM Yeah, there's themes of the weirdness of Scientology, brinkmanship and the Space Race, and the ethics of lying to the public for petty political reasons, but then sex is thrown in there and it makes everything congeal into a ball of weirdness. 11:30 AM <+cybersqyd> mm 11:31 AM I was laughing so hard I couldn't get beyond the whole section of "We built a dick rocket" 11:31 AM I am an easily amused man 11:31 AM <+cybersqyd> my,,,problem was by that point, i was kinda bored 11:32 AM I agree with Blue that the elements here are very entertaining, and the interview section managed to keep me engaged despite being very long and having a lot of cheesy elements, but again, it just feels all over the place. 11:32 AM red3: I thought this was a comedy piece until you read the Russians pov and their missions to the moon/exploring the DoA office 11:33 AM It definitely switches genres a few times, I can agree with that. 11:33 AM Do you think this should've just stuck with one? Because there are definitely great elements to both. 11:35 AM And then I went to like "Oh god this is a bit dark, like uh... that infinate maze skip in series one. The one with the enterance being a cupboard" And I agree, it's both dark and yet very immature (I am a manchild and I laugh at things like the interview section) soooo... I feel like it should have stuck with the "Sexual relations with the moon goddess" schtick instead of trying to mix both themes to make it work? If 11:35 AM that makes sense 11:36 AM I can see that. 11:37 AM There's some great use of mystery here, I feel, with the large redactions and the descriptions of the inside of the moon. 11:38 AM I loved the Russian stuff, like how they used GRU-P to send dead but human drones to explore the moon to the descriptions of what the heck is going on inside the moon 11:39 AM <+DrAkimoto> 5q mp87p 444p4p fmp 8 11:39 AM I agree with that. Seeing the Russians so desperately trying to win a race all for the public opinion while simultaneously having to investigate what's going on with the moon fascinates me. 11:40 AM You okay there Aki? 11:40 AM DrAkimoto: Is that a Yu-Gi-Yo move or something? 11:40 AM <+DrAkimoto> Oh shit 11:40 AM <+DrAkimoto> I'm planting flowers and my pocket wanted to day hello 11:40 AM lmao 11:41 AM red3: I mean, I would have loved the whole article being something that freaks out the Russians and then they get forced to say to the americans "Stop, no one should go to the moon!" Sets up the article as a very dark take on the space race 11:41 AM Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I would've liked to see more expansion on the anomalous hidden war part of this article, rather than it just being tucked away in a simple summary. 11:41 AM I'm back! And I've finished the article. 11:42 AM Pighead: YAY! 11:42 AM And... God, I actually really liked this one. Like Red said above, I don't also see why it is related to the Department of Abnormalities, but this was damn enjoyable. 11:42 AM Great. Right now we're talking about how this article goes for two different tones, which creates a kind of rift of enjoyment. 11:43 AM Well, what creates this enjoyment in my case is the worldbuilding and the humor who is subtle and not subtle at the same time. 11:43 AM → Greyve joined (uid436902@synIRC-AE113E32.stonehaven.irccloud.com) 11:43 AM red3: I would have also liked to see the rivally between Parsons and Crowley as they both raced to the moon. I thought that would have been a nice game of "Space Race Chess" 11:44 AM hi ppls ._. 11:44 AM I'd liked to hear Parsons talking about how the project had been created, what he and the other people made in it and it's the same for the Russians. 11:45 AM But also, there's this whole obsession with sex on both sides and, at the end of the day, that makes me smile. And just the end... magical. I don't know an other word for saying it. 11:45 AM Well, there is a little bit of that in the interview logs. For whatever reason, this gives me huge "Dr. Strangelove" vibes, with a ridiculous conflict between the USSR and the US, the themes of sex being interjected everywhere, the hammy dialogue in places. 11:46 AM Pighead: It does have a strange charm, the Parsons interview. Like I found that it was hard for me to get past "Its a rocket, shaped like a penis, powered by sexual energy!" because that broke me 11:46 AM Greyve: Hey! We're discussing SCP-4220 right now. If you haven't read it before, know that it's a bit long and it took us around 20 minutes to finish. 11:46 AM ohhh boy 11:46 AM Is there a second article planned for today? 11:47 AM Greyve: I believe so, yes 11:47 AM then i am definitely doing to participate in the next article 11:47 AM I'm not a huge fan of comedy in general in this style of slapstick comedy. A lot of it boils down to "Hey, people be fuckkkkking in situations where people really shouldn't be fuckkkkking." That kind of Bo Burnham style that, while I did like a lot in the past, doesn't phase me as much now. 11:48 AM Greyve: We're going to be talking about SCP-4099 next, so if you want to get a jump-start on that, that's cool. It's also a bit longer than the usual articles we cover here. 11:48 AM SCP-4099 11:48 AM <@Secretary_Helen> red3: SCP-4099: We Die in The Dark (Rating: +102. Written 1 year ago By: Connor MacWarren) - http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-4099 11:48 AM — Greyve nods 11:48 AM Also while I love the themes of this whole thing... I struggle to see how this is deserving of the iconic brass plate bolted to a wall/floor/ceiling with "Department of Abnormalities" etched into it 11:49 AM Me too. 11:50 AM This falls into the trap that I see a lot of dado articles do, where they attach the name simply because it's a wacky article that sometimes has to do with drugs and weird voices, but doesn't actually follow through with any of the original themes or ideas. 11:51 AM Mhm, like you get through the dado skips and see they don't touch on the idealogy or themes of him till you get the diamond in the rough (for me it was the dado lil mister attempt because of the wordplay he did and really being bodyhorrific) 11:52 AM Mhm, I agree completely. Well, it seems like most of our opinions have been thrown out there. Let's get into some final thoughts, and then we can take a short break. 11:53 AM I will probably not make a comparison with Dado, but during my read, I was like "Oh, yeah, this is pretty interesting, yeah...", not really "Hmmm, the DoA, yes." 11:54 AM Sounds fair to me: In short, I'd upvote this because I enjoyed it and the themes surrounding it. But if I was to vote solely on DoA themes and ideas, I'd heavily downvote it 11:55 AM And for my final thoughts, clearly an upvote. It's well-written, pretty thrilling, who mix serious and funny things and the end make me lol so hard. So, strong upvote. 11:57 AM I agree with the sentiments that this doesn't seem to be a DoA article completely. Comedy turns me off, so I wasn't very entertained by the goofy caricature that was Jack Parsons in this article. While I was a fan of the more horrifying aspects of the Russian's story line, the fact that it's told through a very linear and monotonous structure where the writer is literally telling the reader what happened means that a 11:57 AM lot of the avenues of storytelling are lost. Furthermore, the final twist doesn't really have an impact on me because it again relies on comedy in order to fill in for the horror which has been set up in the reveal for the entire article, making it an unwelcome and cheap surprise in my eyes 11:57 AM Heavy downvote from me. I do agree that it's well-written, but the story itself is a non-starter. 12:00 PM Now, let's take a short ten minute break before we get into the next topic: SCP-4099. Grab a snack, finish up on reading for all of the procrastinators here (Looking at you, me), and/or just chat here for a few minutes.