I feel like this doesn't hit as hard as it wants to, because the meaning of 'spending minutes' was never really as clear as it needed to be to make what was going on understandable on an emotional level. The way it's used, I imagine it's some nonstandard scifi thing, not your average 'spending time'?

The ending seems to grasp at heartfelt, but I think for me, it landed closer to twee.

The mechanics here are fine, but the story isn't doing much for me.

Okay, it's not quite "mother of dragons" level of a title, but I smirked.

The rest... not so much. The premise sounds fun, but it quickly wears thin, and this story really is kind of a one trick pony in that regard. Even it it wasn't just thinly veiling MLP "friendship" themes.

So yeah, fun idea, but it doesn't go the distance.

Interesting little story. There's a great narrative voice at play in the prose that I really enjoyed, but the dialogue is dry and almost formulaic. I would have liked to see this as a full-on short story: too many questions are still floating around for me to truly love this. However, what is here is good, and I did like reading it.

I did laugh when I read, "Nerd, I got you!" Other than that, this reads like the product of too much alcohol.

Ah, a list of writing tropes, joined by an “out of time to write” summation. I wish the author had put more effort into a way to join or interleave the ideas. As it stands, this only barely qualifies as a story.

Non-title-case title. Pedant powers, engage!

Not much else to say here until the end. This one is confusing. I'll optimistically assume that's on purpose, as the narrator here seems to be losing him/herself and sense of time to this "her." But with so few details given (never even a proper noun) and the way things jump to a new scene every sentence, it's just a big blur.

Yeah, that's the word. A blur. There's nothing I can really make sense of, beyond "magic is a whirlwind" and spellcheck needs a run at the resulting story.

>>Not_A_Hat
Echoed my thoughts pretty well. "Spending minutes," I think, is your average "spending time," but the story never really dives into the nuances and ramifications of the titular question. The ending comes off as sentimental, but it's not a bad story by any means.

Another absurdist start. If this ends in another hidden message trollfic...

Oh no, then it drops to meta about writer's block and the last minute. As they say in "Off to be The Wizard" rule number one is "Don't make the obvious joke." This did, and it's not even funny... or spellchecked.

This was wonderful. I really dug the narrative voice and enjoyed the parenthetical asides made. I would have liked more detail on how the earth came to be destroyed, because I think that would have strengthened the overall tone and impact of the story, but that's my only major beef.

Lightning wrangling air pirates?

Yup... though we don't see much of the wrangling part. I'll blame wordcount.

Overall, well written, with a unique and interesting setting. It leaves more questions than it answers, but that may be a good thing.

0/10 hit too close to home.

Just kidding, though this happened to me far more than I care to admit, and why I haven't been in the Writeoff since two Octobers ago.

All good stories have some grounding in reality. This is a good story. Structurally, though, I didn't care for it. The issue with the second-person viewpoint—and the other viewpoints too, really—is the trap that people fall into with "X" sentences. X did Y. X did Z. It becomes monotonous and saps all energy from the story. Towards the end, this doesn't happen as much and the story is all the better for it. There's a tension present there that this piece needs elsewhere.

I was wondering if I would see a meta piece, and I'm glad to see that it's a successful one.

First segement is very frenetic prose, well capturing the visceral (pun intended) feelings on display.

The italics section is a hard cut to something. I'm not quite sure what. Death, maybe? Odd, and changes tone though, so this is a rough transistion.

The end. "Breath. Heart is corpse." I don't get it. Corpses don't breathe. Ditto "Graveyards are for the living." Is this thing becoming a zombie or some other undead?

Sorry author, you lost me.

As >>Xepher said, it's an interesting twist on the Zombie trope.

Nitpicking time:
- I don't know what the "it must be fresh" refers to. Her flesh? The bullet?
- The heart/brain part >>Xepher raised
- The first sentence, while being a strong hook, somehow clashes with the rest of the story being in the character POV. She may know she is the last one, but we aren't sure of that.

Overall, strong story with a nice pace.

Delightfully absurd opening paragraphs.

Okay, and properly absurd non-ending at the stop too.

So, this feels a bit too much like the dolphin/mice segments from the H2G2. Don't get me wrong, my favorite book, but I can't help but to compare.

The "goldfish memory" joke this leans on is pretty surface level from the title, but... minific is for exactly that sort of thing. This story sets out to do one thing, and it does it pretty well.

I'm going to disagree a bit with >>Xepher on this one.
The word "Gorae" isn't something everyone is familiar with (never heard it before reading this entry), so I feel like the definition you gave is relevant.
However, I think the definition should have been in the second section. Same for the info-dump part. As it is, the third section imagery is lessen by mentions of facts, even if they are framed by metaphors and feelings. And I believe you aimed for a rather strong impression, so cutting that part would probably do some good.

Anyway, I was sold from the end of the first part, and the delivery, while a bit too smooth, is still strong. Good work and thank you for sharing.

The phrase "fairytale forest" breaks immersion. It was already described in ways that made it "fantastical", calling it out directly such breaks the fairytale feeling we're getting.

So... yeah... Another story where I think the writing is great, and sets a feeling, but... doesn't tell a real story. I have zero idea what's happening at the end. I mean, I know the literal, that two entities are going through a gate, but that's about it.

I know it's probably asking too much for a story to come out of 750 words, and that most people are just doing scenes instead, but... I still want a story, and there are just enough of those that I fear I have to judge this against that standard.

>>Fenton
No, sorry, I meant the opposite actually. That the word is strange enough that it made me google it. And that every reader in the modern age will likely be able to do the same. A weird (unique) word with heavy, real-world implications that explains the rest of the story is a great way to end.

And all he had to convey it all was the crude medium of one last text. Don’t forget to read your fic aloud before submitting.

Mmpf. I’m not that sold on this one. Looks pretty contrived and artificial. The end is… underwhelming after a fashion. On the other hand, I don’t know how it should’ve ended for me to care more about it. It’s like the plot’s simply not my cup of tea. It’s not badly written or executed, it’s just that… I don’t really care about what happens here. Sorry :(

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.

What I liked: how you showed the man being swept along in the currents of his life. In particular how he didn't seem to even make any decision about whether or not he wants the cats around - to me he seemed to just go through the motions and do whatever. Kick them? Feed them? Get them removed? Whatever. (I didn't feel like anyone or anything made the decision for him, but like he just went with his gut.)

What I didn't like: the "I want just one more minute" moments didn't seem like he this-is-important-to-me-wanted it, but rather like he only it'd-be-nice-but-whatever-wanted it. Guess that's the flip side of the man appearing so indifferent.

Also what Dolfus Doseux said.

I want to like this story more than I do, but it came across as vague and hard to understand. I'm not sure what exactly is happening here, and that's really what drags this down. I had hoped the characters were in reference to some work, but searching reveals nothing. The interactions between Judith and Gloriana were excellent, but I didn't feel any connection to them throughout the story.

Maybe someone more versed in story analysis than I will love this, but it's just not my cup of tea.

Nice little mood piece. Which is great! But it doesn't really stand out to me.

There's just not a ton of Story here. It starts with this line that kind of ramps of the tension:

But he really didn’t want to be late.

And then the story takes some asides, and that thing he didn't want to be late for doesn't feel as pressing as it did. Then it suddenly picks back up at the end as he "didn't have much time left" and "scrambled".

I mean, these aren't bad things. It just kind of has a mismatched feel to it. It's a nice little photograph of this boy's life, but it's not much more than that. Still pretty good. :>

Love the imagery going on this, but despite the content of the story, I didn't find it particularly funny. I didn't really connect with the narrator, either, though that may be as a result of his given personality. Not sure I can pinpoint something, exactly, but there just needed to be more... stuff, and I realize how dumb that sounds, given that this is a minific competition. It just didn't do much for me in its current state, but it has a ton of potential.

While I'll always consider meta stories to be low hanging fruit, I'll never deny that I always manage to connect to them. You've plucked the strings of my heart, but my heart finds your plucking finger to be coarse. You did just get finished plucking the strings of everyone else in the room, after all.

I quite like this. The descriptive detail puts us into the world, the setting is fresh and fantastic, there’s plenty of appeal to the senses, and a bit of slice of life and adventure story. A nice little package that could be expanded to a grander work, but a complete story in itself. Thumbs up.

What I liked: how you showed the two knowing each other in and out by having them think in similar ways and sometimes even continue each other's thoughts.

What I didn't like: I'm too confused about their background and their situation to really get what these things they talk about mean to them. I get that they've got some human sacrifice thingy going on, but why? Where does their conviction come from? It could all just be superstition - and that'd be fine - but lines like "whatever passes for dawn in this place" make it seem like there's a lot more going on. Like there's stuff going on that's really important to the two, and that I have absolutely no clue on.

The prose itself could use some work, but this was a good read. I was thinking about relativity, but maybe >>Ratlab is on to something with the atomic bomb theory. Nevertheless, good execution (pardon the pun) and fascinating idea.

Not sure the technical jargon is used properly here: the Alcubierre metric is meant to travel faster than light, not to go back in time.

Also, most of the story feels like padding. Of course, there's the pseudo-twist at the end of it, but overall it's too hackneyed a trope to really catch my attention.

Rate: average -

This one's not my cup of tea, and I've already had quite a few cups of the same kind of minute-before-the-apocalypse before coming to this one.

It doesn't have any major missteps, but adding lesbians to something does not make it automatically better.

This was awesome. Beautiful prose and this sinuous rhythm throughout the piece that really makes the ending that much more gut-wrenching. I don't quite understand Lizel standing beside her younger self, and I think that clarifying this point—even slightly—would improve the piece.

Fantastic job, author.

This is a story that would have benefitted if it were longer. I understand their pain, its well written of their stakes in things, but I don't understand why I should convey pain toward them since I have no context.

Maybe if you described in more detail the conflict to which was about to be endured it could have been more captivating, but that would require context and thus a longer story. Maybe you could have followed the could-have-been conflict and attempt to induce the same emotion it could have been more connecting to the reader. I don't know, these are suggestions.

Echoing >>Xepher with the rhythm. This was well done for the most part, but the bizarre on-again, off-again rhyming threw me for a loop, and there were a few lines that had a syllable or two extra. I enjoyed the content, and while I think the style worked in your favor, I'm not sure the piece is successful as a whole. It didn't really draw me in.

I was really digging this entry until the end—then it ended. And I wondered exactly what the point was.

You've got good imagery and some vivid details, but they are left as brute facts without building up to a larger point.

It could definitely due with some expanding.

Sorry, that's a no-go, author. The first paragraph is actually what threw me; it doesn't make sense. How is 4034 larger than 4969? Combined with copious spelling mistakes and the pure randomness of the content, it just falls flat.

Nerd I got you Rude tbh

I thought of this exact story for my prompt. Good thing I didnt write it or originality points would have been taken from both of us.

Also, wow, this is a huge exposition dump. I can't connect to this kind of stuff because there is a lack of a concrete main idea. The story is simply the poor AI's raw thoughts. While its completely jarring to say the least for my immediate feeling toward the character, I receive no afterthought besides "this dude is in pain".

Great prose, but the ending, important as it is, needs some work. It's not subtle, though the imagery is fantastic and definitely adds to the overall tone.

The ending also has "Mika" instead of "Maki," which confused me until I realized it was just a typo.

Overall, though, very well done and thoroughly enjoyable.

Well, okay. That builds on a Matrix™ sort of world, except the Deus ex machina is human, there.
It plays nicely on both worlds, though I wonder how 20 seconds of flaky server would translate into your “neural network” humanity. That would mean prolly millennia of shaky conditions at best.

Over all, I'd say it's okay: it doesn't shoot for the stars, but it does fine within what it tries to accomplish. Not awesome, but not bad either.

Was about to complain of cliche "shock" intro with a suicide bomber, but the rewind saved it.

"Timeslicers," "modded for the outer belt," "Mearti?" Okay, jargon peaked my interest, and "tail feathers" cements it.

Hokay, so... that went dark! I'm... not quite sure what to make of this. Some weird future art show? Past people brought forward just at the second of their death, to die on display? WTF? Not bad WTF, just... WTF.

I... I really don't know on this one. It feels like a decent twist at the end, turning it on the audience themselves, but the story feels a bit rushed. Like >>FloydienSlip I had to re-read the last part a couple of times to realize the "teenage girl" in the final scene was Lizel's former self, and also that she was missed by the blade that hit whatever hapless kid she'd hid in the box. Originally I thought "young Lizel" was just entering from offstage or something, or the blood from the box was theater/fake. Could definitely use expansion there.

Overall, I get a lot of potential from this one, but as with "Jump at the Sun" and "In Sparking Skies" I'd want to read more if it was there, but these are pushing the boundaries for this length/format in their current form.

Great characterization and imagery, but there's not much in the way of narrative here. There needs to be stakes, something that draws the reader in and keeps them engaged until the end. It's a fine piece of prose (though there are several typos), but something's missing that keeps this from realizing its full potential.

Well, yeah, I have to agree with >>FloydienSlip here. I wasn't very enthused by the dialogue. All in all, this feels quite bland. It's just… flat, sorta run of the mill. Sorry.

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.

Is this allowed? Original means that its not dependant on an existing copyrighted story. Does this pass with simple name changes?

The copyrighted story being Half-Life.

ALL CAPS TITLE. DANGER.

But seriously, this one was actually well written and almost a little bit touching.

Unfortunately, it falls into the very, very familiar trope of "doing nothing as the end comes." It does that trope well—better than most—but there's not much of a story here, just a kind of cliche scene I'm afraid.

Interesting premise, but the ending is devoid of logic and falls flat, rather than the powerful twist it was intended to be. The dialogue feels somewhat forced and a bit dramatic:

this vale of tears

After I rigged it up, I often took it for a stroll, pointing it discreetly at random people in the streets.

It doesn't flow well and somewhat mutes the urgency of what's actually at stake. The prose itself is competent, but overall it doesn't quite work for me.

Purple-prose-a-paloosa! But going for humor... let's see.

I'm kinda with >>Dolfeus Doseux here. There's some great prose, and it's funny enough for an intro, but then there's no payoff. Things just stop, with maybe a half-hearted "moral to the story" info dumped on us by Beselatenth right before the end.

So A+ for style, but D- for overall structure.

The concept of a device to tell when you will die is an explored gimmick in SF, to say the least (It’s the theme of Heinlein’s first published story, for example). The obvious thing to do with the idea is to hoist the inventor by his own petard, which is all that really happens in this story. Just coming up with a gadget or gimmick isn’t enough; what really makes a SF story shine is the non-obvious effects the gimmick has upon the world around it. For instance, what would society be like if this device were common knowledge and had been in use for a generation? How would it affect the insurance companies, legal system, hospitals, politics? I grant that minific rounds don’t have a lot of room for playing with ideas, and I know that coming up with original ideas is very hard! But when writing SF, you have to keep pushing the envelope.

As to the prose, it does what it needs to do in presenting the idea, but doesn’t step far beyond that. Sparkling prose can save a story with a basic idea by taking a different track to entertain or instruct the reader. We don’t get any deeper insight into why Naoki chose to presumably self-fulfill his own prophecy. It just happens offscreen. Watching a man wrestle with an inevitable death can be compelling if it gives us an insight into his character, and this is another approach you can take on expanding this story.

In all, I will class this as mid tier. Please don’t be discouraged, Author. The easy ground has long been covered in SF, but there’s still room to find a fresh angle on things.

Straightforwards idea, straightforwards execution.

Personally, I'd like to see this go somewhere a bit more exciting. I get that cramming actual plot into 750 words is hard, and I also tend to rail at simple twist endings, but... yeah, I think this suffers a bit from lack of ambition.

Other than that, it's pleasantly written, and entirely inoffensive in concept. Nice!

Great narrative voice, but I have to agree with >>Cassius and say that I don't get the point of this story. The connection to the prompt isn't obvious either, though maybe the narrator is confessing these on his deathbed? It's not clear, and the ending feels anticlimactic compared to the growing tension in the first two parts of the story.

Ever since Syeekoh's Thanatosian stories, I have had the etymology of "Thanato–" burned into my mind so that I don't end up researching it again, mostly because I felt stupid for having to look it up in the first place despite having played as Thanatos in Smite. Unfortunately, this means that the general idea of this story was blindingly obvious from it's title. Sorry author: probably not your fault, but that certainly didn't help me enjoy any tension or suspense that might have been here. Perhaps a different title would be a good plan?

Still, despite their predictability, I certainly enjoyed the ideas on display here enough. This was the kind of approach to dark topics that I enjoy: characters treating death as if it's a casual conversation piece is something I generally like, and it was good to see that here. And your ending? I certainly didn't see that coming, and though it might not have been the most tactful take on the subject, I thought it was an interesting twist that recontextualised some earlier prose in just the way a good twist should. I only wish there were more for it to recontextualise!

Prose-wise, though... I'm not so sold. There are some really strange word choices (is "befuddled" in that penultimate paragraph really a better choice than "confused"? Is the contrast and juxtaposition of images inherent in the phrase "dreadful toy" really the effect you wanted to achieve there, rather than repulsion?) and the dialogue comes across as stilted and uncomfortable—a fantastic choice for Naoki, since it builds that "reclusive weirdo" character well, but only if you can contrast it with natural and colloquial dialogue from the narrator.

And yet, with a bit of editing, I think this could be pretty interesting. Tidy up the prose and dialogue, aim for consistent characterisation (Naoki is ashen and speaking with a quavering voice to begin with, but shortly after is triumphant and becomes almost excited and enthused in explaining the project? Cut that first description, I think, and it would feel more consistent—and give that ending all the more punch!), and this will certainly be an engaging read. As it is? I think you need to Keep Developing this one.

(Horse? HHHOOOOORRSSSSEEEEEE)

The point of repentance is that there is a morale to which you learn through your actions or that you promise that you'll never do such sins ever again. If the story was longer you could have used the wrath of the man to bite back at him, or at least allow him to learn his lesson. This is half-repentance, expecting to be forgiven of your sins when you cant even bring yourself to cease them, which, both story-wise and life-wise, is incomplete.

A fine entry indeed. Bonus point for having me in it (I'm like that, attention whore easy to bribe).
However, this story brought me a paradox I can't resolve.

You see, the major difference I make between pony rounds and OF rounds when it comes to characters, is that the former doesn't require you to present them (unless you write OCs), contrary to the latter, which is a thing on which I base quite a big part of my judgement.
Since this story relies on being familiar with the Writeofftopia and already existingcharacters people, you avoided a challenge for me, so this will unfortunately make it lose some point.
However, however, however, I want to see this happen again, but it can't occur during pony rounds. I'm torn, please help.

Aside from that, this fits well with what we already got, so definitely not a bottom slater for me. Thank you for your work.

Basically how I prepare for the write-off.

There's a few spelling mistakes in the story, I's that are not capitalized and "Dealt" is spelled wrong near the end.

Other than that I thought the story was funny. Meta-ness worked well.

WRITEOFFTOPIA —THE KILLING !JOKE

That ending was the icing on a particularly indulgent cake. This is legitimately the best love-letter to the writeoff community ever and I love you.

That is all.

Yeah, I agree with previous commenters that is a bit of a one-track story. It’s fun at the beginning, but like many parodies of RPG D&D type scenarios, there's not really much substance that underpins it, the characters are pretty cardboard cut-out, and the joke overstays its welcome.

It would made a good scene in a cartoon type of show, but there's little else to it.

The twist at the end is decent, but I feel a lot of the character building and dialogue is just really generic.

There's nothing that really stands out besides the reader's realization in the last paragraph that the story is repeating.

A great concept.

I really wish we had gotten a longer story, something like this would have been greater if the author had more words to work with.

As it stands, the narrator is good and the writing is both descriptive and effective.

8/10.

Hmmm… I didn't know about this story following the South Korean Boeing incident, an incident which, it turned out, had been 100% rigged by the US army to spy on Russia's eastern electronic defences and countermeasure devices.

The story is nicely told, but yeah, since it's a re-telling of a past incident, there's no real tension here. I think it maybe would've been worth telling the story from the PoV of one of Petrov’s subordinates, or find something more original than Petrov’s PoV that we already know of.

Anyway, middle of slate.

Plot seems a bit vague, and why is real-life technology mentioned if the next paragraph references sword fighting?

The idea is fun, and it's definitely nice to see a villain exploit that whole "friendship conquers all" BS.

And the ending is worth a chuckle too.

Other people have mentioned how vague this is, but I'd like to point out that it's vagueness tends to clash with the style of description you seem to be going for. Take the third line, for example, which really threw me out of the story:

Her pupils punctuate our soundless sister-speak: twin volcanic islands in that blue beyond my depth. I grasp and fail.

This is the sort of line that I want precision from. When authors throw in a lot of descriptive words, it's important for me that the words work together well, because if they don't, I have trouble staying engaged. Take the 'her - our - sister' relationship. There's no limitation on characters yet, so I can't tell if the 'her' is included in the 'our'... which means I can't tell if the 'her' is the 'sister' referenced in 'sister-speak'. I originally assumed no, that you had three characters, and it messed me up later on.

Moving on... how do 'pupils punctuate'? This doesn't make any sense to me. Like, there's no action I associate with pupils that makes sense here, without supporting text. Something like 'a piercing gaze' might work, but there's a lot more to 'a gaze' than the movement of someone's pupils.

Volcanic islands? What does this even mean? Aside from them (probably) being black, I don't see what this adds to the description. It just feels odd to me. Maybe there's something in your head that goes with 'volcanic' that I don't get.

And the failure to grasp... Of course they'd fail to grasp 'volcanic island pupils'. Those three things are normally un-graspable, and nothing in the description suggests they should be otherwise. Because of that, the failure didn't feel nearly as dramatic as its end-of-the-line three word sentence seemed to suggest it should be.

This is, honestly, all nitpicking, and none of the other lines clunked quite as hard to my ear. But... I had a hard time making my way through this story, and I think a lot of it comes from things like that. With elaborate prose, I feel like the effect should be elaborate and descriptive. However, if the denotations and connotations don't line up tightly enough, it has the opposite effect on me, because the contradictions lead to a feeling of impenetrable vagueness.

If someone wants to write in an abstract but concrete style, I think they need ensure all the little pointers point the same direction, so the audience can grasp their aim, even without the normal supporting structure of easily recognizable plot and characterization and worldbuilding.

OTOH, I do appreciate that this feels ambitious. It's at least trying something interesting and nonstandard. I don't think it worked particularly well here, but I do like the idea. If you don't want vague, consider pondering your word choice more, aiming for stronger cohesion, and trying to get all your little implications and suggestions working together.

If you like vague, uh, mission accomplished? :P

Difficult to read, but not actually bad. Thanks for writing!

The ending is weird to me? Why not mercy kill the zombie before offing herself? Why condemn him to an eternity of loneliness?

The concept is good though, and the writing is solid. I enjoyed this story.

Generically competent. It tries to inspire a sort of calm dread, the inexorable doom encroaching upon all reality, yet the niche it tries to fill is already stuffed to the brim with others of its ilk. Not the worst attempt, nor the best, it simply is. As others have said, trying to inject a lesbian couple without actually making it matter in the least feels more of a detractor via virtue signaling than a worthy wrinkle to a tired concept. If the cat had gone full 'So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish' it would have be been far more impactful.

Reminds me of the movie In Time, with the heavy use of time as an actual currency in this story.

It's fun, has solid writing, even if it has a bit of a generic plot structure.

Ending is cute too.

I'm lacking in the necessary Writeoff meme and user knowledge to accurately judge the humor in this story.

Strong characterization supported by evocative wordplay with a solid three-part structure detailing the movement of the main character's opinions. The note of Benny's eyebrow twitch becoming annoying is a great example of this (and certainly something I can relate to in some respects). I will admit it didn't really enrapture me quite as much as Benny did his audience, but I do appreciate the craft and skill put into it.

I actually enjoyed the purple prose, helped build the world in the story. Humor is decent enough too.

Solid entry.

I think the strongest part of this piece is the ending. It explains why the poem uses so simple language, and it adds a certain emotional element to the final lines. But the rest of the poem doesn’t really seem to connect for me. One of the biggest reasons is the continual rhyming. As >>FloydienSlip pointed out, there are a few inconsistencies in the rhyming and the number of syllables. I wouldn’t mind if the poem was supposed to be staggered or off, but that doesn’t feel like the intention. If you’re going to keep the poem firmly structured, you need to follow that structure.

A well-written and simple poem, but not much else.

Really enjoyed this one.

It manages to be a complete story even with the limited word count, and still resolves itself resoundingly without leaving a noticeable section of weakness throughout the plot. It's probably more strong as a short story than if the author had to stretch it out.

The concept is well-executed, even if it is a bit generic, but the strong writing puts that thought well back out of the way.

Definitely going to make the finals.

I agree with >>FloydienSlip.

I thought the story was building towards so much more, but the ending takes the weight out of everything and barely concludes the story.

That being said, the writing is great, and the world and characters are given a lot of depth within the word count restraints which is commendable in short stories like these. If the ending had been better, this would have definitely been a very strong contender.

I still enjoyed it, however, just disappointed that the ending saps the strength from otherwise a great piece.

So, that happened. Or, is happening, I guess.

I thought it was written well but it just wasn't made for the minific round. There has to be more.

did you enjoy writing this, at least? I don't think I would.

These characters feel entirely too caricatured to me. They don't even have names! I'd like a few details; what makes them unique? What does the Gunslinger do to make money? What's 'the kid' wearing? What's the weather like? Or maybe I'd be alright with such stock tropes and characters if they were twisted or suborned somehow. But as-is, without something fresh, the whole thing just ends up feeling kinda bland, and it's really hard to care about.

Maybe that's asking too much here, given the contest limitations. I dunno. The prose is fairly clean, if a bit dense at times, and there is an entire story told here without some inane twist at the end, and I do appreciate all of that. I'd just like a bit more zest and zip, I think.

Reminds me very much of How To Make A Friend At The End of The World.

Written solidly. The setting seems almost calm for the calamity about to happen. It's a nice piece.

...I guess this is horror...? Yeah, I guess, in the end, I'm not sure whether this is supposed to be bitter or sweet; I don't think it goes far enough in both directions to really land 'bittersweet' for me, but I'm also not sure it goes far enough in any one direction to land either one independently.

I dunno. I think your tropes are clashing. That being said, at least you've picked a classic; the Greeks did it with Tithonus, and it worked well enough to stick around.

I'm glad it wasn't another immortal ennui thing. I clearly understood what was going on, and the character's actions and motivations all made sense. I just didn't feel much about it in the end.

This is good, but I think it just doesn't go deep enough. Maybe that's factor of word-count, though.

This is an intriguing story. I just feel that the end that I have a lot of questions left over, a symptom of a story that hit the word limit hard. It’s a bit too abrupt and summarized in the second half.
The events are certainly dramatic and the setting is interesting. I’m placing this in my upper tier.

This story isn't on my slate, but it does deserve some feedback.

I really enjoyed this piece. The prose is strong at all the right points, though there is a minor hiccup in the flow towards the end. The voice of the narrator is very tight and focused, though I never quite got to the level of connection I was hoping for. The ending is a tad cliché, but I think it fits the tone and message of the story well enough to give it a pass.

Overall, excellent job.

There were a few things that stuck out to me about the structuring; I think there was a line or two a bit off on the meter, and the rhyme did seem kinda haphazard. At least in one place, the words felt unnaturally twisted, for no real reason. (just we -> we just)

Pretty good style choice, though. Felt like Dr. Seuss in the meter and when it did rhyme, and that dovetailed with the ending.

But... this felt a bit heavy, as a topic for a children's poem. And I don't think there's a whole lot of cohesion to this besides similarity in topic choice; each stanza varies quite widely, and they never really tie together or evolve the idea beyond a simple answer. As such, I find myself wishing there was a bit more depth here.

Well, you definitely put some work into writing this. Consider counting syllables on your fingers or using a rhyming dictionary if you'd like to hammer out a more precise rhyme and meter. And maybe doing a bit more with your interim stanzas instead of just asking questions, to try and draw the 'I would' bits together into a greater whole?

Hopefully this was even a little helpful. Poetry is hard to grasp sometimes.

Okay, so, elephant in the room: this is noise.

I don't mean that as critique but as description. I use the word in a technical sense, like when we talk about "signal to noise ratio". Signal is the communication of meaning; the absence of meaning is noise. This communicates nothing to me and I would be hard pressed to argue that it communicates anything to anyone.

It is entirely possible that you are trying to use that lack of meaning to make a point about art. However, it is also entirely possible that you are not. My goal in Writeoff judging is to assume good intentions because it is easy as a reader to substitute our own biases and intentions and meaning for that of the author's -- and when there is no distinguishable meaning, that principle ends up working against you, because the only interpreted meaning in this piece comes from that which I assume.

(>>Dolfeus Doseux has great advice if the intended effect was literary nonsense.)

I say this after at least a modest effort to interpret the text. I read the story end to end. I attempted to extract some themes from the more coherent sentences (e.g. "Silly younster relaxes so others shape everything good. Devil lies so often", which might point toward an underlying metaphor if it was supported by anything else in the text). I attempted some light steganography: first letters of words, sentences, etc. So if there is an attempt to communicate obfuscated meaning here, all I can say is: it failed to do so for me.

Accordingly, I have to bottom-slate this. I will continue to assume good faith, though, in the sense that I will choose to interpret this as an experimental text which did have a point the noise failed to communicate; and I hope we learn that that was the case.

Having worked in the legal field, I can confirm that there are plenty of people like Frank. Always looking for the smallest infraction to demand the biggest payout, they’re a living hell to deal with. As such, I found this to be fairly amusing, and somewhat of a revenge fantasy against all of the frivolous lawsuits I had to deal with as a legal assistant. I also liked how Death looks so done with all of this, as if this whole situation is an annoyance that he doesn’t deserve.

That being said, the story doesn’t really amount to much other than the bizarre situation it provides. It’s certainly amusing, but it isn’t an especially engrossing event. The main character isn’t really interesting either (and I actually related to him!), as he’s just that beleaguered worker who deals with stupid people. It's a good archetype, but it's not enough to make a great character.

An amusing story, and that’s about all it is.

Top-tier so far for me.

The writing is great, the concept is interesting and well-focused. It does suffer from the word limit, but I enjoyed everything else about the story tremendously.

Definitely a solid entry. I'm with >>Ratlab on this one, the implication is about the atomic bomb.

Also,

It was dark and cold outside

Obligatory
However, I feel like people tend to mock this sentence while it is a solid way to convey a timeframe and a tone to your story. So no, this is a good hook, and anyone who disagree will have to face me in a purple prose duel!

Thank you for your work.

Solid premise, but execution was a bit lacking. As others said, there are inconsistencies with how things are implemented and the descriptions informing the reader of this world's realities are somewhat clumsy. Overall, a good effort, if in need of some refinement.

So, this struck me as really good in a lot of ways. It hooked me! It developed rapidly and glibly, despite being complex and strange! It had more than two characters, and I got a good grasp on each of them! there was worldbuilding and stuff!

Well, I was kinda annoyed by this:

first squirmed from the nascent intelligence of the planet's inhabitants.

because the 'supernatural stuff is created by belief' trope is something I've seen often enough that it feels stale in a way that this fic otherwise avoids. That being said, the ending adds a hint of candor that lampshaded the idea hard enough it almost ended up working for me.

Er, and the last line feels like it should be a stinger, but I'm not sure I get the joke.

Anyways, I liked a lot of what's going on here, even if it didn't quite land perfectly. Up the slate it gooooooes.....

>>libertydude's "the story doesn’t really amount to much other than the bizarre situation it provides" voices my major impression here, although in my case I think the big driver of that impression was the inconsistency in characterization that drives the turn. The "Stop talking" hand moment sets up Death as a neutral arbitrator (like a judge to the narrator's prosecutor) and the narrator as on somewhat thin ice for their lack of professionalism. Then everyone's reaction to what the narrator writes blows apart both of those things. This could benefit from staking out more clearly the characters' relative relationships up front (and possibly from thinking about why Death stops the "bullshit" line if he's going to back the narrator up on his defiance shortly thereafter).

That said, this could be interesting if it dug more deeply into its premise. I'd love to see this lead in to watching the actual court case, although that would be terrifically hard at minific size. You do effectively set up the archetypes here and the real satisfaction would be from watching the karmic shoe drop.

This is Horizon's prose for sure. Or someone that imitates it quite competently.

I dunno what to get from this one. In a way, this is very much like Cold's former story about the girl which, for art's sake, complies to whatever order is given to her.

It strikes me as a purely intellectual exercise. Interesting prose, dense, packed with powerful imagery, but the jargon doesn't add anything to it, and it sounds ultimately sort of bombastic—maybe it's intended to replicate what the artist thinks of herself here.

I don't see the point of introducing alien races, besides Horizon's obsession with them.

I'm not sure what's the takeaway here. It sure is a wonderful piece of English, but, as I said, maybe it is intended to resound exactly like modern art resounds for most people: unpalatable, hifalutin and most of the time simply meaningless.

As Xepher said, there's some strange word and structure choices. I would be more confident in saying that it's stereotypical Russian-styled narration if the dialogue went for it as well (No 'Da'?) but such is not the case. Overall, it's okay I'd say, but not quite good. Nice tribute, though, to a man who certainly deserves many of them.

*this is subject to change. I will post an update if we need to rearrange.

This could maybe use a whip-round with a proofreader, I think. Unless the English was intentionally a little off? But that would be weird, because they should be speaking fluently, except in Russian, right?

Er, I'm not sure how I feel about this as a story, because it's kinda-sorta biographical. As such, this feels less creative to me. Maybe that's unfair to you, as the author, but I think it's going to affect my judging no matter what I do.

Other than that, there's some visceral feelings here, which is good, but I'm not sure that the missile being fake worked as a 'reveal' -- even if I hadn't known this story already -- because it causes dissonance between the reader and the character. If he knows the machine is wrong, why exactly is he so worried about phoning in the call? If he doubts the call, then why does he phone it in so deftly? I dunno. I think this would be better if we knew what he was really worried about the whole time, whether that's the possibility of being wrong, or the fact that he's going to have to tell his superiors that the machine they spent X bajillion dollars on can't even tell the difference between a solar flare and a minuteman.

Nicely written, even if it is a re-telling of something IRL, but somehow the emotions just don't jive for me.

Going to join the chorus of 'fun idea that starts off strong but runs out of gas rather quickly'. A bit more punch in some of the jokes would have gone a long way. The Google Now and cow skull were good running jokes that helped pull things along, at least.

Other than repeating what others have said, this is the best representation I can give to my general reaction: MFW

I like the idea. Writing was okay, but you have an issue with sentence variety, specifically in regards to the sheer number of them that begin with "She" and "Her" (amongst others less common but in a similar vein). The clock bit feels like it's just there to fit the prompt, though.

I will say the ambiguity is more of a strength than a weakness in my personal estimation. In a genre-defying short story like this, not wasting words on the details allows the reader to come up with their own conclusions, as long as the clues presented to draw said conclusions are strong enough.

Man, I spent a few minutes contemplating making a review that read 'hahadumbass' up the side, but I just can't be bothered.

Part of that 'I don't care', I think, comes from the fact that this doesn't do much more than its gimmick, which I've seen before, in a rather snappier format. Sure, it got a grin out of me in the end, and in a few other places; the absurdism was fun in and of itself. But I wish it did more than that, and most of the pure nonsense in here doesn't feel like it's useful or interesting enough.

Still, it did get a smile out of me, so that's definitely worth something.

Your gobbets of gibberish aren't pulling their weight here. You don't have enough words to throw random strings in like that, I don't think, when they're not doing something really important for the tone.

Otherwise, this is fairly straightforwards. I do appreciate that the story is largely told with implication, so that's nice. It just didn't seem much deeper than 'hey look tragedy mkay?' which I feel kinda eh about. I appreciate you're reaching for emotion, but I'm not feeling connected to the characters, so even though I can say 'oh how sad' in an abstract way, this isn't really kicking me in the feels.

Anyways, interesting attempt. The flaws kept it from really landing for me, although I've gotta give you points for ambition and originality.

This looks as if the author was playing First Letter, Last Letter. The fact that there is some structure encourages me to look a bit deeper to see if I am missing something more. But assuming I have to look that deep to extract meaning, I still have to say that what works as a puzzle may not work at all as a story.

So, they're pulling dying people out of the past and watching them die? That's... fairly ingenious, as a plot concept. I think it could be a bit clearer, though.

Hrm. I guess she does something to the crowd? Or is it her older self? 'Remote trigger' sounds like it should be a weapon, but... mm. Lacking a bit of context, I think. Does she blow them up?

Saurian/feathers kinda threw me at first. Maybe that was intentional, though, to keep the readers from realizing the scene was supposed to be herself.

Her being named Lizal but called Mearti threw me. Is that a title of some sort? An indication of that might help.

I feel like the ending is 'no wait--no wait--NO WAIT!' trying to top itself too hard, too fast, with too many twists, and not enough context.

Is this trying to make a statement about shock value in art? Or about destruction and brutality? If it is, I'm missing it.

I guess, as much as I want to like this, it feels a bit too jumbled for me to really feel sold on it. I read it two or three times and mostly figured it out, but the ending still feels like it's a bit too loose to grasp.

Still, it was entertaining, even if I did have to read it twice, it wasn't really a chore. The style is fairly crisp and the prose is pleasant. I just wish I knew if this was supposed to be high-concept or caricature.

Interesting idea, but ultimately I didn't really find it that compelling. Stream of consciousness is a bit annoying to read, and I really don't think it adds much to the narrative in this case (particularly since all the 'secrets' as they were are spelled out in plain text).

Honestly, I find this sort of thing works best when it is offset by normalized text to give better context to the strangeness and desperation and offputting nature of the stream.

Nicely done, but I think you spend a little too much time on the details early on, leaving your end to sort of thud flatly into place. The nature of the bomb is actually kind of important. Like, what is he blowing up? Is this a world ending threat? Is this just a standard terrorist act? Losing that information actually robs the story of a surprising amount of impact.

In addition, I feel the reveal of the narrator's plan comes a bit late and really robs us of a lot of the drama. They clearly knew they were coming in here to do this (what with their bomb being timed), so why deny us the drama of having to act out a pleasantish evening with someone they deeply care about while knowing they are going to kill both of them? That's the real meat of the story here, but instead of a big delicious steak, you stuck us with a bunch of asparagus!

>>Whitbane
Exactly what I was thinking myself.

Story is solid, but not remarkable. It's pretty much taking the memoirs route, but hyper-abridged. I feel like it would have been stronger if the concept was used in a gambling scene or something to that effect.

You got me.

I'd just be retreading what others have said, so there isn't much left for me to say. Good writing, somewhat tired concept. I was half-expecting you to subvert the trope and have him just stand there and let his tired, aching legacy die with him. They'd all searched for glory in the gunslinger, what better way to die than to deny it in his last breath?