# Pastebin rhpubaNQ 11:14 AM <%red3> All right, let's get into our initial thoughts on this article. 11:14 AM <%red3> BoogeyMobile23: You're good. 11:15 AM I feel like this is what works best for dado: using his character traits of being illiterate and twisting words to perform very horrific stuff on people/make his anomalies work 11:16 AM <+cybersqyd> i like what this is trying to do a lot more than i like what it did 11:16 AM <+cybersqyd> like the emotions it's trying to play with here are poignant and would make a super dope dado piece but it just...kinda feels like it doesn't quite hit the emotional beats right? 11:17 AM <%red3> This is certainly a darker interpretation of dado than most other articles, but I feel like it works better. dado works better when their comedic and light-hearted dialogue is paired with the real effects of what they're doing to people. 11:17 AM <+cybersqyd> yeah 11:17 AM <%red3> cybersqyd: Yeah, I agree. It feels like the whole relationship goes too quickly, so I don't really care what happens for the guy since I don't have enough time to really know him. 11:17 AM <+cybersqyd> yeah 11:18 AM It felt a bit constricted to me, but I think thats the style of dado articles more than anything else. Like, calling back to what Sqyd said, it dosen't do the emotional type of thing it was going for, and some of the dialoge (from the guy, not dado) only makes it weird. 11:18 AM <+cybersqyd> yeah 11:18 AM <+cybersqyd> i think it's log 3 that bothers me the most 11:18 AM Like this "i need to buy my daughter this expensive doll for christmas or my exwife isnt going to let me see her again." 11:19 AM <+cybersqyd> the reaction from blue girl feels...so frosty??? 11:19 AM <+cybersqyd> when like, at that point,as far as she knows, he's actually gonna do something right for once? 11:19 AM That too. Log three was kind of a, this didn't get much info here beyond, eh, exwife dosen't care. 11:19 AM <%red3> I think that's the point, though. She's being really cold to him as punishment for not what she thinks is right. This does take place only an hour or two after the first log, iirc. 11:20 AM <%red3> *for not doing 11:20 AM <+cybersqyd> yeah 11:20 AM red3: I agree with you there and I agree with sqyd, there wasn't enough time to connect to the unfortunate man that got turned into this. I do believe that maybe the guy or like a more emotional response? Perhaps like a containment log of this mr mister trying to get back to his family but is captured by the foundation. I feel like this sort of thing would hammer home how horrific and sad this must be 11:20 AM <+cybersqyd> i mean, i guess? idk, like, conceptually I can see the emotions but it just, feels so short that it never really manages to convey the emotions in a way that clicks for me 11:21 AM <%red3> But I agree with Kara's point that some of the guy's dialogue feels a bit too much like exposition. Especially in the opening log, I felt like the information could've been delivered more smoothly than just bluntly stating "you'll never get custody again". 11:22 AM <+cybersqyd> iunno. i don't hate it, i just, don't quite feel like it succeeds? 11:22 AM Yeah, it dosen't do entirely what it needs to do to achieve the point its working on. 11:22 AM <%red3> BlueJones: I kind of disagree with that, since it brings the Foundation more into this story. The Foundation feels like it's taking a back seat to the broken relationship between these two people and how dado worsens that. Making the Foundation the bad guy puts it more into the spotlight, which kind of ruins that effect. 11:23 AM If anything, I feel like this is a much stronger piece than the other skips/tales we've seen so far imo 11:23 AM red3: Ah I had not considered that point 11:24 AM <%red3> cybersqyd: Yeah, it tries to go for a sucker punch at the very end, but there's no buildup to that. It's like telling the punchline of a joke right off the bat: it might be a little funny inherently, but it only really works when it's built up. 11:24 AM <+cybersqyd> yeah 11:25 AM <+cybersqyd> i agree about the foundation taking a back seat; it feels like this needed to spend a little more time developing the relationship between the folk involved 11:25 AM <%red3> ^^^ 11:26 AM <%red3> It tries to hook the reader into sympathizing with this dude because his wife is being really manipulative, but it can only accomplish so much. 11:27 AM It dosen't really show trhe wife being manipulitive tho. 11:27 AM More just cold and distant than anything else 11:27 AM <+cybersqyd> yeah it's really hard to get a feel for where everyone stands here 11:27 AM Looking at 4432, ya I thought the ending felt abrupt - like it was setting up for more, but didn't go there 11:28 AM <%red3> > i knew my mom was right about u. i dont care what u do, just make sure u buy the gd doll for alejandra or i will make sure you never have custody again 11:28 AM <+cybersqyd> cos you can read it as the wife being manipulative; but you can also read it as the dude just being, an absolutely shit dad 11:28 AM <%red3> It's more this line than anything else. I mean, she's hanging the guy's custody of his daughter over his head. That's at least a shitty move. 11:28 AM <%red3> cybersqyd: I think that's true somewhat, but the father's definitely more sympathetic than the mother. 11:28 AM <+cybersqyd> yeah 11:29 AM <+cybersqyd> like i'd definitely lean towards the father being sympathetic but also...on some level that's just cos it's only his perspective being shown here? there's no real indication of what happened to cause the mother to be so pissed off at him 11:29 AM <%red3> The only fault he really did was paying his bills rather than getting his child something, which is selfish but not really malicious. And in the story, it acts more like a chip in his shoulder rather than a moral wrongdoing that he must atone for. He's so poor he can't afford something for his daughter, woe is he. 11:30 AM <+cybersqyd> well, the implication from the estrangement and the way the mother talks is that this is more 'the final straw' than 'the first offence' 11:31 AM <%red3> cybersqyd: Yeah, that's true also. Lengthening the story might take away from that, because we'll be able to see why the mother is so furious, but it could also open more opportunities for the father to become more sympathetic. The mother can still be manipulative and angry while being slightly sympathetic to the reader. 11:31 AM <+cybersqyd> yeah 11:31 AM <%red3> Does anyone have any other thoughts they'd like to throw out or should we go to our final opinion on this article? 11:33 AM If we're moving onto our final opinions, then I want to say that the more I pondered on this upon first read was that it was quite a sad skip. But after this meeting it has certainly changed some aspects of my thinking towards this. I'm keeping my upvote for now but in terms of scale it has gone from heavy to medium updoot 11:33 AM <+cybersqyd> it's a no vote from me 11:34 AM <+cybersqyd> it comes real close to being great for me but doesn't stick the landing 11:34 AM <%red3> I'm in-between a novote and an upvote, since this does use dado in probably the best way that they can be used. I agree completely with Cyber that it fails to impact me with how short it is, but I do think that its strengths outweight its weaknesses.