Atmospheric and fun worldbuilding. The intro was strong in that you made the familiar strange enough to emphasize the changes that had happened. The fakeout wasn't bad either.

I know it's the big city and all, but I did find it a little suspicious that there was a chili joint that close.

The characterization was solid; the banter moved the story along nicely, but otherwise didn't stand out to me for good or ill. Likewise the prose.

The biggest issue I had was how it hinted at potential conflict and built up tension, (exploring the unknown, the reactions to the chipcard and the 'people are always people' line), but then nothing came of it.

Overall it was an enjoyable story, but for me it hinted at more than it delivered.

The office/cave juxtaposition made for an attention grabbing intro.

Grammar/phrasing was occasionally awkward; for example the following sentence:

"Even with the sun already up, shadows filled the place, but it was otherwise empty, she was glad to see."

All the commas break the flow up; it could be rearranged as follows, which reads more smoothly to me:

"Shadows filled the place even with the sun already up, but she was glad to see that it was otherwise empty."

Plotwise it was straightforward, but enjoyable. The first two reminded me of monsters inc, which was amusingly subverted with #3

A fun take on the theme.

Fun and absurd, not a whole lot to suggest for it.

One nitpicky observation - moribund, is not a corpse yet

Way to subvert the trinity with the three stooges; it took me until the second read to catch the larry/moe/curly paralellism.

There was an 'all' structure in the wording that was noticeably repetitive, though I'm not sure how intentional this is, as it did factor into the ending.

This has a strong perspective of a young child, which is appropriate. The descriptions and motivations were sometimes simplistic, but generally not incongruously so. There were a few notes that felt off; 'resolved' didn't quite fit, and the sort of 'decided then did' structure to some of the actions felt a little tell-y compared to just showing the actions. Still, the interactions themselves, and the slow but steady shift in attitudes was effective. Someone getting all giddy from sitting on a chair doesn't really make objective sense, but is entirely plausible for a kid. Simple but heartwarming.

A thought on tense - it starts off 'this morning' but is all past tense. Given this setup, you could have made the ending present tense for additional impact.

Atmospheric, but felt wordy at times. For example, 'Blew playfully through my hair' versus 'Played with my hair'

The protagonist has an interesting personality, though how she's seemingly fallen into a life and a career didn't see partially effortful. Not that that is necessarily unrealistic or a negative, but it doesn't build up towards the core 'day off' theme as the burden of 'organization' is more hinted at than explored.

Nevertheless, I liked the message of the story, and it felt on-point. The title also did a good job working with the theme.

The fic was thematically consistent, but at least partially due to the theme, ended up having sort of a passive feel to me.

Granted, maintaining audience engagement while portraying boredom is an inherent challenge. Unfortunately this approach ended up feeling somewhat repetitive; a list of "he did X," (often with that exact phrasing). One approach to spicing it up would be to introduce conflict, or other activities (or explore character by his thoughts when passing up other activities). It might also help to mix up the sentence structure, or show the activities he does do from different angles. For example, instead of saying 'he played civ' have an anecdote about a crushing defeat, or interesting moment.

Also watch up for wordiness; instead of 'he made the decision to take a shower', just say 'he took a shower' or tie it more closely to the cleansing hot waters, which is an engaging part of that paragraph.


For how prominently the dumbbells were placed (tripped was one of the more attention grabbing interactions in the story), they didn't end up going anywhere.

The ending picks things up, albeit with some meta, but there's nothing wrong with that, and the final line did amuse. I'd had that particular Chekhov's gun in the back of my mind from the beginning, and was pleased to see it go off.

First in a while coming up.

My stream of thought reactions, for the most part.

It took me several beats to realize that they were probably not talking about a literal vampire. My first reaction was 'hey wait, I thought vampires don't like water'.

As much as I like the video game reflexes bit, I'd think countermeasures would be automated once enabled.

It seems like a bit of a stretch for a virus to remain in the system for that long. I suppose it gives a reason for the defenses not to be automated, though.

San Diego is radioactive ruins? Just what kind of war is this?

Okay, so they're not just playing dumb and sailing towards a sub for the hell of it. It would have been nice to have known their mission sooner, though.

Given how hot this war is, I'm very surprised by the level of restraint they're showing by asking the trawler to be boarded.

Ah. So much for the boarding.

Hmm, the helo comes back, but no word on if it succeeded or not. Would've been nice to have some closure there.

Weighty subject, evocative prose.

One thing I noticed on my read; after it's said that the fellow's name is basically 'John Doe' it took me a while to be certain if the scenes were all of the same guy, or if this fellow was a representation for all suicide bombers, as they were both reasonably plausible explanations. The balance eventually tipped, but it did introduce some uncertainty for a time.

The way the kid was ignoring him, I thought he himself might have been a ghost at first. Still, two days stuck in a flooded building with a dead parent? No wonder the kid has issues.

I get a vibe that the setting is modern, but clearly there's magic, or at least esp afoot. But whatever it is seems to be normal enough.

Good descriptions of body language, showing the headmistress's nervousness.

Hmm, palace guards and now a queen. More anachronistic than I was getting earlier; I'm having trouble picturing the setting.

He's fifteen? I wouldn't have guessed.

Ah, so the dream thing doesn't seem to be a common ability.

I didn't follow the therapist logic, though, as to why he's not worried.

A few mechanical errors, but nothing excessive for a writeoff entry.

Some nice interactions with the princess; I like how he has to use his skills to win her over. That said, it's still relatively quick. It would've been nice for there to have been some more complications.

Likewise with the dream sequence. It's an interesting dream, and it all fits together, but it only takes the one. Given the writeoff word limit, this is largely forgivable.

It seemed solid overall, my main thought would be to throw more obstacles in his way to overcome.

This story has a lot of good points.

The fundamentals all generally seem to work; the description does its job, the characters are interesting and well voiced, the narrative is enjoyable, the action is believable and hangs together.

The one area where it doesn't quite fire on all cylinders for me is conclusion, however. It felt like the issue the story sets up: Vechi wanting to be there, isn't the one it delivers: the other farm animals acknowledging her efforts. Right now, the two don't seem to be strongly linked.

I liked the description of the planet. In particular, it's a good excuse to light up the caves.

Ominous crystal is ominous. Nice balance, though. Dangerous, without being too terribly overt. Makes me wonder if their ship is going to be there when they get back to it.

And they just leave the sample there in the lab overnight in their spaceship, after bad things happened with it around electronics before. Not winning any awards for genre savvyness.

They're acting strange. Not a complete surprise, but I'd expected more of a technological effect. Silver in her eyes? Are their bodies being invaded by the chrystals?

It might help to give the AI a less human name - it's easy to forget that they're an AI.

Overall, it's a decent arc, though I'm not seeing the connection between the drone's circuits being smashed, and people's emotions being affected.

Given the eco theme, iPlants made me think actual plants for the longest time, before I cottoned on that the plant probably referred to implant.

Interesting premise, but I can't help but wonder why they'd need to start with a human to make an animal. There's a whole 'life cannot come from nothing' bit, but it seems like starting from humans is still an unnecessary overcomplication.

The vixen twist was very strong. Especially after all his interactions with Nevada and finding out that they'll be the same species leads you to think they'll be getting together.

Understated but moving ending.

Overall this was a slow burn with an interesting premise. Some high points were that it wasn't just the poor that were caught up, management was as well, to the extent that he wasn't the only one represented. The twist was another high point. I don't know if I could really pinpoint the theme; the tones of religion and corporatism were provocative, but not main points of the story. I still don't get the title.

Congratulations to our medalists!

As to Felines, this wasn't exactly my greatest performance, but it ended up not placing as badly as I feared.

Most of all, thank you >>Fenton, >>Zaid Val'Roa, >>Monokeras, >>AndrewRogue, >>Not_A_Hat, >>Astrarian, >>Dubs_Rewatcher, and >>libertydude for your comments.

Unfortunately, as is all too often the case, there were some serious mistakes from the very beginning. You see, my intent was for it to end with the girlfriend taking the dog, and him keeping the cat. Re-reading the story after seeing the first comment was basically a facepalm moment, as I never write a word indicating that the human was the man.

Of course that wouldn't have completely salvaged things; the other main issue raised was that the cat perspective/human action of the story don't really gel, either. So yeah, it'd need a fair bit of work.

Regardless, thank you all again for the feedback!

It has some nice dialog, but I found this piece quite confusing overall.

Mentioning a knife so early is definitely an attention grabber. The knife could be a butter knife, I suppose, but then we get to additional hints such as the 'weakening breath' and such, so it does seem like he is injured/dying, though we never get clarity as to what happened/how is the knife important. Without knowing how he would use it, It's not clear why setting it aside matters. If he's injured, was he not able to defend himself? Zaid's hypothesis is as good as any, though there's also some hint that he's traveling: "I know you can drive while the car speaks for you." Also, perhaps speak and drive got reversed? And if he has a phone, why not call 911?

His wife, Elaine is briefly mentioned once, then never again.

Also, the whole cookies and cream / chocolate train of thought. I know it's minor, but she agrees with what he's saying, so why does he pretend to be changing his mind?

The last line is confusing. We never hear the phone ringing, and it feels almost like a non-sequitur. Was it accidentally copied from the first?

So there's some good emotive interaction, but I was lost at many points.

As the name implied, it was a series of vignettes, that were individually well drawn. Outside of a general time/life progressing, theme, I didn't really get a sense of how they interconnect.

The narrative voice seemed odd to me at times, I'm not sure just who's perspective this is from. A prime example is the intro to the second scene; within two paragraphs, it seems both omniscient (knowing his inner thoughts) while also being limited (not knowing where he is). It might be stronger with a more identifiable perspective, like a mother looking over an old photo album or something.

Overall there are some nice, evocative scenes, but for me they don't build on each other as much as they might.

Interesting in that the protagonist is portrayed as sympathetic and unsympathetic at the same time. While the ending was guessable, it still worked. Small scope, but well composed.

Clever approach to leveraging both the prompt and the season.

Not 100% sure how likely the State would be to separate a newborn from their presumable mother, but still plausible enough to be unsettling.

Stylistically consistent and appropriate voice, didn't notice any serious mistakes. So, some straining of the suspension of disbelief, but overall a well constructed piece.

On prompt and creative. In particular, the variation in styles between the various pieces was enjoyable.

That said, I didn't really get the sense of a larger theme, and the fragmentary nature of the piece kept me from getting strongly invested in the story

It started off on the wrong foot for me, thanks to the title – ‘verbal battery’ has a closer mental association to a criminal act, than to an energy storage device.

I liked the overall arc – it felt balanced between the three characters, and the pacing worked. I was sometimes perplexed by the conflict; maybe I’m not well enough tuned to academia, but I didn’t really see what the dude’s problem was with what she was doing, particularly since she was getting results.

I liked the gradual development of communications, and in particular it did a good job of conveying a sense of alienness to the exchanges.

The overall concept was clever; the whole meta-elemental idea. The pedant in me wonders just how this whole energy system works, but hey, magic.

Overall it worked pretty well for me; the setting seemed interesting, and I liked the variety of perspectives in play.

I have a hard time reviewing this one. It seemed solid overall, but also understated – it didn’t really leave a huge impression on me.

Characters and their interactions were a strong point, the level of detail felt appropriate. What might have bogged down another story felt appropriate for the more personal, somewhat reflective theme. The somewhat unreliable narrator generally worked, although as horizon mentioned, the tone does have some variance.

The plot was relatively straightforward; it got the job done, but wasn’t particularly memorable. I did like some of the nuances, particularly their ‘summertime theme’ they had going. Their ritual was kind of neat as well, though some of the effect was lost because I basically saw where it was going due to the prompt.

Overall, it struck me as an enjoyable character piece, but without a strong takeaway.

Good characterization, vivid setting and description. You could have cut it off right when they leaped, and it would have had just as much impact, but it still ends in a good place.

I was thinking time dilation as well, but thematically I'd guess that the ending is alluding more to his involvement with the atom bomb than relativity. I think that involvement was more of a letter than equations, though.

Have a skeletal idea, but am traveling all weekend to see family / friends / eclipse. No idea where I'll find the time to write.

And here I thought Luna was keeping the moon up to game the deadline...