# Pastebin cPQ1BKC8 <•red3> Cool. Alright, what are our initial thoughts on this article? 11:19 AM <•cybersqyd> i want to like this a lot more than i actually do 11:19 AM I do fail to see the horror here imo, more a curiosity piece than a horror piece (but then again, I'm not the brightest person here) 11:19 AM <•red3> Yeah. I knew the ending of this before I read it, so a lot of the horror was lost on me. 11:19 AM <•cybersqyd> the intent is that the final picture behaves like a jumpscare 11:19 AM <•red3> ^ 11:20 AM <•cybersqyd> where you aren't sure what to expect and it catches you out 11:20 AM <•cybersqyd> there's like, a quiet horror to the narrative up to then, between the bone pieces and the ghosts in the machine but it feels... 11:20 AM <•cybersqyd> amateurish? 11:20 AM <•cybersqyd> that's a mean way of putting it but the build up feels...clumsy 11:21 AM <•red3> So the point of describing the picture and its effects in the second addendum is to make the reader imagine what the picture looks like in their head. And since it gives basically no description of it besides "It's a distorted picture of two little girls" the reader doesn't think it's that horrifying. So once the reader reaches the final image, they see what it actually looks like and get jumpscared. 11:21 AM <•cybersqyd> yeah 11:22 AM <•red3> Yeah, I agree with Cyber. There were two moments especially that ruined a lot of the buildup for me: the Description noting that the brain matter was from the daughters and the note in the third addendum. 11:22 AM <•cybersqyd> yeah 11:22 AM <•red3> The first was slightly better because it gives me a little bit of backstory on this thing and introduces the element that these girls were kidnapped, so I could picture what happened to them in my mind. But the latter basically gave away the jumpscare. 11:23 AM <•cybersqyd> someone describes this as like, a take on the campfire story telling thing where you start telling a story as a distraction and then grab someone for the actual scare and like. i see that but it doesn't make the narrative work for me? 11:23 AM — •cybersqyd nods 11:23 AM <•cybersqyd> Blue: what'd you think of this? 11:23 AM <•cybersqyd> like beyond it being a curiosity piece over horror 11:24 AM So the anomaly is a chess board with the minds of twin girls from a famous chess player (I assume), a steam engine to power the chess board analysis machine, and a samurai suit set up that causes subjects to feel anxiety when looking at the face plate. I'm more interested in the former with the chess board set up rather than the samurai suit. I assume this was "The Samurai"'s get up but... is that it? 11:24 AM <•red3> Yeah, I see that. The fact that it describes the photo and its effects makes me think that it tries to do that, since revealing that so early makes the reader think that it can't really impact them. 11:24 AM <•cybersqyd> yeah the samurai suit is a distraction 11:24 AM <•red3> BlueJones: And yeah, the samurai suit felt odd and unnecessary. 11:24 AM <•cybersqyd> it's like, based on the 'mechanical turk' style of automaton, where it has a person there to like, explain how it works 11:25 AM <•cybersqyd> BlueJones, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk#/media/File:Tuerkischer_schachspieler_windisch4.jpg 11:25 AM <•red3> I think that's the case, but I felt like the only reason the samurai was really included was to make this thing more closely resemble the real automaton, rather than adding anything to the story. 11:25 AM <•cybersqyd> it's this kinda setup except the steam engine and the ghost means it can actually play chess without having someone in the box underneath 11:25 AM <•cybersqyd> yeah 11:25 AM <•cybersqyd> like I understand the inclusion of the samurai but it feels...unnecessary 11:26 AM So, okay, with that in place. I can understand a majority of the article but I feel like there should be a bit more of a hint as to what is going on 11:26 AM <•cybersqyd> the chess pieces being made of the bones of the girls is a weird detail here 11:26 AM <•cybersqyd> it's like, kinda a cool touch in isolation 11:27 AM <•cybersqyd> but it just...doesn't really go anywhere? 11:27 AM <•cybersqyd> then again, *points at the rest of the article* 11:27 AM <•red3> Yeah, I kinda assumed that it was the bones of the girls, considering that it reveals that the girls' brain matter was inside the machine as well. I guess it's just to give the reader a better idea as to how the girls are able to move the pieces. 11:28 AM <•cybersqyd> oh it explicitly says that 11:28 AM <•cybersqyd> "Samples of the bone used for the pieces have been matched genetically with tissue samples from SCP-1875-1/a and SCP-1875-1/b." 11:29 AM <•red3> Oh yeah. 11:29 AM <•red3> I'm big dumb. 11:29 AM <•cybersqyd> but i was expecting it to have more significance? 11:29 AM <•cybersqyd> nah, it's a detail that's easy to miss 11:29 AM <•cybersqyd> cos it's a piece where there's tonnes of little details like that 11:29 AM <•red3> I guess. 11:29 AM <•cybersqyd> but none of them pay off really 11:29 AM So, to go off my last sentence, why does the samurai suit leave people feeling anxious? Why are the chess pieces made out of human bone? Why do all of this? Was the Samurai angry that he lost a game and decided to have his revenge with the twins' father doing this method (This is me assuming btw, not what is in the article from what I can tell)? These are questions that I feel like they should be answered within the 11:29 AM article 11:30 AM <•cybersqyd> honestly the samurai does nothing here narratively, blue 11:30 AM <•red3> ^ 11:30 AM <•cybersqyd> like the samurai isn't controlling anything at all 11:30 AM <•cybersqyd> (it's not a real samurai remember, just an empty armour set) 11:30 AM <•cybersqyd> you know 11:31 AM <•cybersqyd> the detail that annoys me most is it uses the brains of the daughters of a chess prodigy 11:31 AM <•red3> But back to the jumpscare, one thing I didn't like was the description of the photo's effects. Mainly that it takes place over twelve hours. The jumpscare is only going to scare the reader for a few seconds max, so spacing out the effects seems very odd. If it took place over just a few minutes, then it would impact the reader more because they'd think that the fear they were feeling was because of the photo's effects. 11:31 AM <•cybersqyd> like chess is some kind of skill that's genetic 11:32 AM sqyd: Oh yeah, that is an annoying detail. Chess is a learned game, not a genetic game. red I agree with the jumpscare's effects being less impactful and it should have had the time shortened a tad bit 11:33 AM <•red3> I didn't mind the article saying that the girls were daughters of a chess prodigy because I think, like... it gives the reader a kind of expectation. "Oh yeah, these girls are daughters of a chess prodigy, therefore they'll be really good at chess." And then once the girls start to make illogical/illegal moves, then it shocks the reader more and makes them question why the girls are doing that. 11:33 AM <•cybersqyd> ehh, I think the list spacing it out like this is good because it means you can technically sit and stew in the fear that it's going to happen over the next few hourts but 11:33 AM <•cybersqyd> it doesn't really land 11:34 AM <•red3> I mean, maybe. Fear is a really subjective thing. 11:35 AM <•red3> And I also agree that it doesn't really land. The effects are just "OOooooh, you get really scared and also start to become obsessed with the image and also die [DATA EXPUNGED]" 11:37 AM <•red3> Are there any more thoughts someone would like to throw in before we go into our final opinions? 11:40 AM Final thoughts: Too many details, not enough of a drive to go on and not many plot points, I'm no-voting cause I can see the potential here to be something much, much more horrifying 11:41 AM <•red3> This is a light downvote from me, since there are signs of good buildup here. However, I just can't ignore the few points where the suspense is released too early. 11:41 AM <•cybersqyd> i'm strong downvoting; it's too disconnected for my tastes 11:42 AM ... frick it, I'm downvoting