I suspect there is a decent piece of meat in here, but, at the moment, I can't really connect the dots. Might be that I'm dumb, might be that I'm lazy, or might just be that the piece is actually too obtuse.

While I do agree that the prose early on does capture the visceral idea of drowning/hypothermia/etc, I feel how lyrical it is actually lets things down a bit. Its a little too pretty, if that makes sense.

I appreciate what you're going for here, and you almost succeed.
A quick note, you mixed up the "conscious" and "for" here: And it wouldn’t even have been a minute Frank was for conscious either,
Overall, good effort, but you didn't quite manage to bring enough wittiness to the table for my personal taste to become engaged.

I gotta say it's a little weird that (even as mare-on-mare shipping is pretty standard in pony stories) a relationship between two (presumably) human women is called out for just existing.

Without much else going on in the narrative, I guess you might see the standard plot and think it's a "revolutionize instantly: just add same-sex relationship" gimmick. People do stuff like that, sure. But when characters depart from your expected default, their differences don't have to be a function of the plot or a political statement. Lesbians don't have to do Lesbian Things to justify their presence in a story. They can just be there. Unremarked on, even.

So, I am sympathetic to the feelings in this story, and it does capture them well.

I just find myself a little... annoyed by them? If you're getting trapped in that cycle, it is wholly on you and a simple matter of you just not wanting it enough. That said, you as the author do definitely seem to understand this, which is good. But it means I (as someone who kicks this problem in the face regularly) walk away feeling annoyed, rather than a shameful camaraderie.

This is... fine. I feel like the thread of the MC is a bit iffy though, particularly in regards to the animal services stuff.

This might not be intentional, but calling animal control in this case is arguably a bit of a negative/aggressive act considering that I believe the majority of city shelters are still kill shelters. Of all the stray animals, cats are pretty good at surviving on their own, so calling animal control feels a bit like attempting to get rid of them.

Considering the core of the story is really about the man's interactions with the cat, the car scene is fairly out of place and should probably be removed/replaced as it disrupts the flow.

Submitted works to this event should fall under the following description:

Fiction not dependent on work under U.S. copyright.

NOT FICTION, NO SALE - okay okay okay I kid.

... Unfortunately, I don't kid by much. This is a very obvious idea, one of the most commonly repeated in Writeoff and similar competitions, and the execution here is bare bones. Relatability is a fine goal, but it has to be balanced with originality and flavor.

Congrats on completing an entry, though. Thanks for writing, and hope to see you back next time, taking on some more challenging material!

It's fine. The main problem for me is that these pure dialogue pieces put me in mind of things like Rosencrantz and Guildernstern Are Dead, which live and die by exceptionally clever and witty dialogue, which this... lacks. Again, this isn't to say that the dialogue here is bad, it just doesn't rise above fine.

If you're going to rely entirely on dialogue, you want it to be GREAT dialogue.

Some fun and decent action that is really painfully hampered by going broad with characters, making action a bit hard to track (due to the number of things to track).

Also Deus Ex Machina. ^_~

What everyone else said. Competent writing, but I'd have preferred to see fewer characters and a more focused story instead of a brief "everyone and the kitchen sink" snapshot. The latter doesn't work too well as an actual entry, because there's no room to explain or introduce anything, so people who don't already know the 'verse are left in the lurch.

Still, nice execution. Makes me want to see this author do more full stories. Thanks for writing!

So, this is super jarring, but the first two sentences are basically a pretty well known piece of microfiction:

"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door..."

They are a -really- strong pair of lines, and I think using them is actually a hindrance since it is very hard to top them. You've reached peak interest right off the bat, and everything afterwards just doesn't compare as well. That said, don't take that as an indictment of the rest of the story. Just that that line pair is potentially more a disadvantage than an advantage, I think.

The idea here is neat, but I do have some problems in that the zombie's lines/motivations are a bit unclear, as is her decision to kill herself -now-.

Also the nature of the zombie apocalypse here is made a bit more complex by the fact that zombies are apparently sapient.

Still, interesting idea, but I think it needs another pass to fully realize itself.

Like a lot of stories in this round, the most admirable feature of this tale is its concept. Using a scientific instrument to determine when one will die is certainly a different twist than the normally supernatural ways people find out about their deaths. I also liked the idea that Naoki tested it on other people out of a perverse curiosity. By making him do something so extraordinarily creepy, it makes him seem as mysterious and off-putting as the narrator sees him.

The biggest problem here is the ending. Even if we work with the logic that the thanatometer can predict death by unnatural causes, it still doesn’t make any narrative sense for Naoki to kill himself. Sure, he was ashamed of what he did with the thanatometer initially, but the dialogue builds it up to be that he legitimately doesn’t know what’s going to kill him and that he doesn’t want his death to happen. This makes no sense if he’s already planned to kill himself. The only way it’d work is if he decided to off himself before the death the thanatometer predicted happened, but there’s nothing in the story to show this shift of mind. It really feels like the concept and ending were written first, while the rest of the story was filled in to make it to that endpoint. Maybe the twist could’ve worked if the story had better build-up, but as is, it just feels like a needless last minute shock.

A good concept, but a faulty execution.

I didn't understand or hook into this piece at all on a first read, and with 16 entries to get through on my prelim slate, that's the read that counts. Clarity and hook are essential elements, especially in minifics.

While I'm sure there are things going on if you read closely and get into the allegories or whatever's going on here, I think the most helpful feedback I can give to this author is to refuse to do so. None of the fancy stuff matters if 90% of your readers have their eyes glaze over and can't buy into the piece to get to it. Don't dismiss this and say "Ok, I get the intro was weak but that was intentional, what do you think about the way it conveyed the feeling of drowning and the Buddhist blah blah"... No. Don't even think in that direction. Go back to the drawing board, focus on accessibility, put forward a strong hook and introduction, and then start thinking about going deep on metaphors.

Thank you for writing, though. Please do not be discouraged by this feedback. Quite the opposite, we want to see you succeed as an author. Make this a good learning experience and come back stronger for it!

Guessed the twist partway through scene 2, which is to the story's detriment, unfortunately, since it mostly seemed to be leaning on the punchline for most of its impact. Outside of that, I don't think we really connect enough with the characters or anything to really invest in them.

Speaking of: introduce characters tied to their dialogue in an early scene like that. Initially we only have Jon and Charlie, so the Alcubierre line suddenly belonging to a 3rd character (only introduced in the next line) is jarring.

There were a couple of small things about this story that I enjoyed. While I have no idea if the technical jargon is accurate, it feels genuine, and it goes a long way to making us feel involved in this experiment. I also liked the camaraderie between Sarah and Charles; it really feels like two coworkers who respect each other, but often get on each other’s nerves.

But the story on the whole feels somewhat lacking. Other than the aforementioned camaraderie, none of the characters come out as three-dimensional. Charles is the determined one, Sarah is the Captain Contrarian, and Jonathan…is just there. I also thought that the twist, while decent to a point, felt a bit cheap. It starts literally seconds right before the first paragraph began, in the exact same scene. This bugs me because it basically means the twist only exists because the story conveniently leaves out the dialogue with the time loop in a place where it should by all rights appear. The loop isn’t seen from any of the characters’ points of view (the story is in the third-person), so it makes no sense why the author would leave it out except so that we couldn’t guess the twist. In some cases, that can be a good artistic choice. Here though, it feels like a punchline to a poorly-worded joke: technically it was done correctly, but the execution makes the joke dull and just bores the audience.

A good story situation mired by lackluster characters and a poorly executed twist.

>>Kritten
Basically this.

We've seen entries do this sort of lifting before. Same stuff I said back then applies here as well. Here's the game script for reference, you'll want to look down into Anomalous Materials a bit. This is... even more lifted than Inevitability was, though. Even dialogue is copied. Making it a time loop instead of a portal storm is a change, I guess, but not a good look.

Setting that aside, though, time loop twist endings are also overdone. What does this piece have to say other than "lol science caused a time loop"?

Thanks for writing, though, author. I don't know if this will get DQ'd or not, but even if it does, don't feel too bad about it. Just don't do this again. Your prose is competent, so I know you can do it. Write your own dialogue, set your own scene, borrow and use elements, but make them your own instead of copying them, and give your writing meaning. Find an idea in your heart and communicate it. Till next time, then!

I'm more or less on the same boat with the others. A strong, solid and straightforward story that could use some clearer explanations, but I understand that 750 words is short, very short, so still a good job with what we have here.

A nitpick

I could do the math and find out exactly how much time they're experiencing, but keeping the system running is really a two handed job for the next 50 seconds or so.

I feel like this sentence should be reworked or removed because it clashes with the rest of the story. I mean, this sentence tells us that the narrator needs to stay focus on his task, because it is a demanding task. However, the whole story is the narrator calmly (or at least that's how I feel the story) thinking about his situation, looking back on his life and on the life of the whole universe. He's only interrupted in his thinking by some urgent tasks, but it doesn't prevent him from going back to his train of thought.

Nonetheless, this is a solid entry that will end up in the top half of my slate without a doubt. Thank you for sharing.

This is the first time in a while I’ve seen a story based on a real person (see >>Xepher’s post above). On the one hand, I think it does a good job of capturing the anxious feelings the Cold War often produced. The idea that the soldiers like being on high alert if only to avoid boredom is a relatable feeling, and the “missile” works as a good demonstration of why you shouldn’t want too much action. I also enjoyed how the observation post feels occupied, with all these nameless soldiers and orderlies moving about. It’s detailed, but not detailed too much. Military installations are often drab enough to deserve little exposition about their environmental detail.

That being said, this is a story that doesn’t entirely mesh on an emotional level. Stanislav is portrayed as a curt military man, which is probably accurate to his real-life personality, but it makes his interactions with others easy to predict. He doesn’t have much depth, which makes it somewhat difficult to care about him. There’s also the disadvantage in adapting a real-life event for a story. Since some people already know how this story ends, there’s no real stakes for them in what happens. Personally, I thought the story ignored the most important reason for Stanislav not retaliating: his logic. He reasoned that the Americans wouldn’t start with such a paltry opening attack, so he assumed it wasn’t anything they launched. Because of this, the story makes his reasoning for not wanting to announce a nuclear attack more confusing than heartwarming. The story presents nothing but evidence of an American attack, but Stanislav ignores it simply out of some vague morality. I don’t doubt the real Stanislav thought about such things, but it’s inconsistent to characterize him as a military man and not have him evaluate the situation from a militaristic perspective (which, as this story presents it, should’ve called for an immediate retaliation).

An admirable tribute, but the event’s basis in real-life makes the story’s narrative tactics and characters not function as well as they could.

One of the best aspects about this story is the dialogue and the descriptions. This definitely feels like the things people would say and see in this situation, and it really helps to engross us in the story. I also liked how things were just vague enough to lend an air of mystery to the piece, without making the story straight-up incomprehensible. That can be tough to do, but this story did it fairly well.

But I think the story stumbles in that it feels incomplete. The story does focus on Cole’s decision to go through with the experiment, but the ending implies that something more is needed for this story to feel “whole”. By cutting off the results of the procedure, it makes the story feel like buildup to a climax with no falling action. Maybe it would’ve worked better if it had ended with him going into the testing room, before he was strapped on the chair. This could make his decision about the testing be more of the focus than the actual experiment. I also thought the characters didn’t quite work. Cole is the typical desperate test subject, and Dr. Romilly is the vaguely evil scientist. Good for a starting point to a larger story, but not very satisfying for a quick fic. Again, a subtle sign that the story has a little something missing, and largely suffering because of it.

A well-written tale, but enough is missing to make the experience not really “click”.

Unfortunately, the grammatical errors in this piece were frequent enough to interfere with my reading experience. There's not much to be said about that other than keep learning, keep trying, and solicit a prereader or more in-depth assistance after the round. Kinda reads like English is not the author's first language, in which case, serious congratulations for the courage to participate anyway!

As to the story, I felt like I didn't learn enough about the protagonist to understand the meaning behind it. Too many important details are missing. Who is screaming, why is his name being called? What are the pills? Is he calling animal control to take care of the cats, or get rid of them? Who is in the hospital? What does he want one more minute for? And so on.

Overall this didn't land with me, but thank you for writing, and best of luck next time!

Same as the rest for me. Brief dialogue exercise with nothing much to it. The "no homo" bit sits poorly with me, but mostly because it's the only bit of non-generic substance in the piece.

Thanks for writing, and congratulations for finishing an entry. Hope to see you back and tackling more challenging material in the future!

It's fluff, good fluff, but I still felt distinctly unattached from the proceedings. Strong writing that wasn't quite strong enough to grab me, in a sense. The ending felt like a bit of a letdown, but I suppose I've never been one for sunsets anyways.

Another story that takes a bureaucratic approach to the mythological (namely The Woes of a Second Year Associate Reaper), which is certainly not something I'm going to complain about. In a similar fashion to the other one though, such a subject and all of its inherent intricacies feels like too large of a bite to fit into such a small wordcount. Agreeable enough read, although the humour lacked real bite for me, unfortunately.

A... lown? Huh. Google suggests this is a real word, meaning calm. But I'd never heard it before. And 'a calm' still sounds awkward to me. /shrug.

This seems rather disjointed in parts. In the first section there's a 'he', but in the second section 'dresses drop in tandem', and in the third, the viewpoint character seems to be coveting the body of their female lover. There's a reading that can be made of that, but honestly, it just feels mostly confused to me. There's enough description about kissing and what, surely if this is supposed to be signal and not noise it could have merited a bit more emphasis?

I guess this is alright, as far as poetry goes. Unfortunately, poetry has to be better than 'alright' to grab my attention. Sorry, but I didn't really find anything particularly thrilling or enthralling here.

Ayyyy, that ending. :P

This was fun. Thanks for writing and sharing.

Cass really needs to put some sort of license on WriteoffTopia.

I covered another like this just a bit ago. Same comments apply here, the piece gets ahead of itself and dives into the deep end while leaving me in the dust. This whole style does not work in minis.

Thank you for writing, though. Don't get discouraged, learn, and come back stronger!

snubbed

>>WillowWren
I have to agree here. Maybe it's because I live in a place where same sex marriage is very normalized, but I didn't even think for more than a second about the fact that they were lesbian, and I don't think the author thought about it either. If the story emphasized them being lesbian a lot I might've thought the token lesbian was being invoked, but it didn't feel that way.

Though maybe the author was just trying to get the most controversial prize on an otherwise plain story, who knows. :ajshrug:

...Is this about the Zong massacre?

Man, the problem with portraying confusing things in minifics is that they're confusing.

Like, trying to convey the emotion of confusion to the reader without actually confusing the reader is remarkably tricky. I'd suggest you dial back the description and go a bit deeper into narration. Tell us what's going on, instead of simply conveying it. As-is, this is just mostly impenetrable to me.

Someone seems to be drowning.

...aaaaand that's all I've got.

Yeah, not doing much for me.

The frantic atmosphere in the beginning is alright, but since I don't know anything about the character, or have any way to connect to them, it doesn't really affect me much. The second bit is... weird and non-sequitur, and the third bit is self-contradictory.

Emotion is good, but I'd like a bit more meaning, please.

I liked just about everything here except the ending. It felt very old-school scifi, which I like, but it just kinda fizzled out.

My first read on this was that Naoki was lying about the whole thing for some reason, which felt a bit odd. Then I thought that maybe someone else had shot him, which didn't make much sense at all. Then I realized he was probably supposed to have committed suicide, which makes some sense, but didn't really seem to be foreshadowed at all in his character.

You know, I think this might work better if the MC offs Naoki. That would make for a pretty satisfying twist, I think. You'd have to build up to it nice and slow, but it might work well.

As someone who is weird enough to watch Prime Minister's Questions for entertainment, I found this pretty good. But it doesn't go anywhere, unfortunately.

I knew there was going to be one of these, especially because of this prompt.

It's not original. We've read this story before, in 'Original' rounds as well as MLP ones.

It's relatable, sure. I'm positive that whoever wrote this just needed to get an entry in for the sake of doing so, and went with the oldest idea in the books.

I'll probably abstain. Sorry.

>>DuskPhoenix

That was my thought upon reading the reviews. I don't think the author thought, "Alright, I'll take this idea and add lesbians. Groundbreaking!"

It's just another one of the dead-end stories that enter the Writeoff, but it happens to have lesbians. I don't think it deserves to be remarked on.

Having said that, I'm sure the first commenter only mentioned lesbians as a joke.

I like this one! Except for:

a sepulchral voice

Sepulchral? Don't do that, please and thank you.

No thank you, the first commenter can solve that one for me.

Why would you do this?

Dropbearship got a solid chuckle out of me.

Also, Hearts of Red Ink 2 when?

breathing machine broke

I don't know enough about current geopolitical stuff to comment on this, but the narrator's thoughts in the final scene feel distinctly American-centric. It's a hard guess to make, but I'm not convinced of an (admittedly soft spoken) pro-American view on this one. But it is a tough call.

I'll take my shot at disagreeing with >>Xepher on the basis that the third scene is a better bookend than just ending with the end of the second scene. While I think the whole could just be better improved with just a little more of an arc for the narrator, the third scene at least provides a bit of emotional closure on who they are and what they are doing (staying willingly vs necessity, etc).

Anyhow, super solid all 'round regardless. Great first scene.

I think the biggest weakness here is that we have very little actual information given or implied about the narrator. We know they're new to this and aren't absolutely gung ho, but that's about it. And without that, I feel we don't really have a huge reason to invest.

I was trying to debate what the better ending on the story was (at the count or in the following paragraphs), and I kinda realized that the answer is irrelevant. They are both perfectly fine ends because the only real arc is the action: either doing the dive or completing it. A little bit of emotional stake would help tighten that up, I think.

I feel like the dialogue doesn't quite read right on me for this one. This is not to say that you can't be a little loosey-goosey with things, but it definitely reads as super modern. I think angling to root the voices a bit more in their expected places would work better for the tone. Right now it reads a little more farcical than I think you intend.

I also think you rode out your ending a few sentences too long.

Beyond that, I kinda feel like not using Oppenheimer here was a missed opportunity, what with the whole "I am become Death, etc, etc" thing.

The punchline is worth a vague smile (for all that it does run into the problem of quasi-contravening the one per customer thing - it is a different product, yes, but then she ought also have an endcap for those too!).

That said, I honestly thought the daughter was going to pull away and get killed, thus necessitating the last minute, which sorta dulls the impact of the joke. Since, while it is well and good to joke about the weird butterfly effect nature of life, there are just too many fairly straightforward interactions possible to NOT actually want the last minute.

I'm tots with Horizon on this one. Same diagnostic, same conclusion. Ran suggested this could be a markov chain experiment or a text generated by a predictive spellchecker. Who knows?

It's a bit mushy at the end, a bit straightforward on the whole, but it is, as other said, far from bad. It's just a bit plain. I wish you had more inspiration to squeeze more meat out of the concept. As it is now, it's like a gold seam that has barely been scraped.

I'm with Xepher here. I thought the prose was a bit too much adverb ridden, and that gave like a ponderous aftertaste. However, it might be exactly what you were going for.

I'm afraid I haven't much to say the others yet didn't. The piece is solid, but the trope is like garden variety. It adds nothing really new. Like, I don't know. Maybe you'd have them both shoot themselves just before the deadline, that would've shaken the reader out of the very quiet and soporific atmosphere you depict.

Well, I don't know. As is, it just feels... sluggish?

I’m with Ran here. The clunky sentences and occasional grammar blunders threw me off. Also, the story doesn’t really click with me. I don’t see what the conflict is, and why the guy suddenly wants to adopt the cat. There are, as Ran said, too many important pieces left out for me to put them back together and complete the jigsaw.

Sorry. But take heart. And be sure it won’t land at the bottom of my slate.

Yeah, I'm with >>Not_A_Hat here, "lown" threw me off.
Anyways, I don't have much to say. I'll just abstain on this one, as I don't feel competent to assess or give any feedback on poetry.

Sorry, author, I think the WriteOff is really not the place to lodge poetry entries unless, as someone suggested, we went for full poetry rounds (but what would the audience be?).

The whole first paragraph is boring. Sentences repeat the same structure. It's very monotonous.

Tobacco is not really toxic. Tars generated by burning it are.

The prose gets better (bitter? 😛) by the end.

The story feels strange. Why does the guy feels the compulsion to show a snuff movie to an android? And why has he decided to “retire” him at the end of it, while his hatred seems to be targeted at humanity, i.e. flesh and blood. Or is the other guy an android too, but that contradicts what you write at the beginning about synthetic airways. So yeah, I must admit I hardly find my bearings here.

I would’ve a hard time scoring this. I’d say, better than average, but the unanswered questions confuse me, and so it won't probably get into my slate toppers.

First of all, which such a title this must be Rao's fic.

But no, it was a little past two in the afternoon when the Earth blew up. Two in the afternoon where? Maybe in some other timezone the hour WAS significant.

ITS shape, not it's. Grrr

Hmm... I don't know. I think the end is pretty anticlimatic yeah. I mean, I expected to see Samuel jump out of the water to warn the human something was about to happen. And fail. But do something.

Or, just, you know, forget about it right away, since goldfish's memory, I heard, does not exceed a minute or so.

But otherwise it's a pretty funny read, yeah.

>>Oblomov

Having said that, I'm sure the first commenter only mentioned lesbians as a joke.

Keep in mind that I am a time-travelling medieval peasant that can't always recall the particular mores of the timeframe he's visiting.

Slow burn intro, and a twist with an explosion. Let's see it pay off.

Instinct to smartphone... I like that.

So one quick, techinical note. Gary notes his plane has two engines, and one is gone... then assumes he's dead. That makes no sense. If it only had one engine and it was gone, fine, but... he points out the redundancy and then ignores the safety it provides. That's how I knew he wasn't dying here, and it ruined the ending.

Well, kinda ruined. "Spoiled" I guess is the word. I was also going to point out that it detailed what he did with his phone, but didn't show him taking it out of airplane mode. Thankfully that was intentional, so well done there. (I'd also been thinking about how, technically, most cellphones won't connect at higher altitudes inside a metal airliner.) Also, points to him for calling and saying the same thing. It shows him having actually learned something/changed. That's the entire point of short stories, and I'm pleased to see it captured in a great way here.

So in summary, needs a little polish, but otherwise a great slice of life.

Cowboy Bebop title. 'kay.

Strange piece, this. Unfortunately, it's all dialog, and not much reveal. There's a little bit of amusement in the words, but without at least some setting, I can't "see" it in my mind, so it feels less real than most other stories. I need at least a sense of where I am to kickstart my imagination.

I will say it slightly hits home in an odd way though. I was "let go" from a job I've had for three years on Friday, and "the last minute" bits here, with other engineers poked that open wound.

Overall, not bad, but needs context to make it real.

I adore your first scene. Like, if the other two scenes just didn't exist, and I was judging this purely on the strength of that first scene, this would undoubtedly be one of my Top Contenders for this round. It builds this subtly creepy atmosphere that leads up to one of the most fantastic scene breaks I have seen in quite a while, establishing a brilliantly unreliable narrator (and can we take a moment to appreciate how perfect an unreliable narrator is in a story about confession?) and a building sense of unease and dread through omission...

At least, that's how I read it: the actual sin itself is omitted, and only the circumstances leading up to it are presented. And if that's your goal here, author, you've accomplished something damn amazing in that first scene. My concern from the later scenes is that that's not your intent, and that not only makes the final two scenes fall a little flat for me, but also weakens the punch of that first scene.

That isn't to say that your second scene (we'll, uh, come back to the last one in a bit) is bad! Actually, I quite liked it on my first reading. It does a fantastic job of maintaining the suspense the first scene built so well, and keeps that creepy atmosphere that is really the most enjoyable thing in this entry. And heck, in the reading I think you might have intended, it's probably the strongest scene: the moment the sins move from being thoughts to thoughts-accompanying-actions is a key moment in Latchford's arc, and in that reading this scene holds that up really well.

But the second scene does, I think, tell the reader a little too much. I said before that I thought it maintained the suspense from the first scene: I would much rather see the suspense build further, here. Keeping suspense unchanged is really the bare minimum you need to do with it to keep a reader engaged, and I really do feel that this scene could pull a little more weight in that regard.

And then... then we have the third scene. I'll be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure how this scene fits into either of the readings I've established as obvious choices, which either suggests that I'm missing something or that the first two scenes aren't quite guiding the reader to the place you'd like them to be at in time for the third. In fact, I'm so uncertain about this scene's purpose that I'm not fully sure I know what its sin even is! My best guess is that it's got something to do with the almost-but-not-quite stream-of-consciousness passage about piss, but not only did I find that passage obscure and irrelevant, I'm not entirely sure how it fits into the structure of sins that we've seen so far. Add to that the rather jarring change to the narrative voice―though, of course, wholly justified by the presumed time skip—and the scene as a whole falls totally flat.

All in all, author, I think that you might need to consider seriously re-writing some parts of this. It's not that any of the individual passages or scenes are poorly-written (quite the opposite—on the whole, your prose is great!), but that they don't all seem to fit together very well, and it might be easier to pick your favourites to keep and craft new passages and scenes to fit in better with them than to sand away at what you already have until it fits. And despite all I've said, I do still really like a lot of what this story achieved. It was Flawed but Fun, and I can appreciate that a lot. I do hope you let us see a polished version of this, because I for one would really enjoy it!

(Horse? HHHHHHOOORRRRRSSSSEE)

Have to say this pedantic thing, sorry. But... The dollar sign ($) goes in front of the number in English. Of course, we strangely place the cent symbol (¢) after the amount: 30¢ but $0.30. No, we don't care why, but that's how it works. So, welcome French-speaking author!

There are a lot of heavy implications in this premise. Using it to forget the premise ever existed is a rather clever way to execute this in such a short format, so bravo for that.

As a story though, I can't quite say I enjoyed the story. I think it's clever, and decently written (despite the symbol position thing) but doesn't do much for me.

I'm not sure of the point here. It's enumerating sins, but I don't get out taking a leak at bar is a "final sin." Loss of faith maybe?

The first two scenes set up a pretty obvious structure, and it's working until that third scene break. The third scene feels non-sequitur to the extreme. No idea why friends at a bar are his "Troubles" or most of the other references.

Sorry, but you lost me.

There's a lot of ways to read into this deeper. It's got the Keanu face of blankness that let's the audiance place their own self/values on the protagonist. Is he weary of the world and wanting to die? Or is he tired of killing kids? Does he want to be left alone, or is he waiting for a foe worthy to defeat him?

The problem though, is the same with all Keanu movies. They mostly go nowhere and do nothing. This is a very, very cliche setting and sequence. By leaving it mostly a blank space for us to imprint on, the story itself does nothing to add to the expected.

Summary: Competent prose, but forgettable story.

First off, I don't see the connection to the prompt™.

Ok, I can totes relate to the guy, being myself the total opposite of “pushy”g. The characterisation here is pretty strong, as Ion Storm notes. I agree with Xepher, though, that nothing really changes. Years later, the characters are still the same, except Dean who quit.

So, I don't know. I mean, I could easily get the takeaway here as: “be pushy and loud, you’ll succeed in writing by trampling on those who don’t dare speak up”. But I’m sure that’s not what you intended. Did you mean that every successful author is loud and vain? I’m a bit lost.

Red, White, and Blue in the first paragraph. Intentional metaphor?

Pats on the head, head against shoulder, etc. Hmm... Android or engineered pet?

Wait, he's had all this augmentation, and synethic parts, but is a "Luddite?"

Okay... I have to point out the similarity here to "Exhibit Hall." Both are effectively an art piece about a series of deaths, and both end with the main characters blowing up something. Weird synergy.

Overall, I think this does a decent job at what it tries to do, but is hurt by word limit and ends abruptly. We need more connection with the characters, as this is primarily a character driven piece. The first half is doing a good job of that, but it jumps to the conceit too quickly.

Is this fanfiction on Neil Gaiman's Stardust? IIRC, the airships in that story fish for lightning.

This was an engaging read, although it feels more like a vignette than a story with a proper arc. I wish there was a bit more personal significance to the MC for what just happened, which would also help make the MC more relatable, more of a concrete character.

Your Grim Reaper sounds a bit casual, I think.

Also, is he, like, a time traveler trying to ensure Einstein gets something done? I'm not sure I get it.

This was fairly engaging, but it doesn't really feel like it wraps up properly at the end. Still, it has an arc, which is great, and I was never lost as to what was going on (until the very end) so I appreciated that.

Nice work, although I'm pretty sure something's missing.

>>Oblomov What's wrong with sepulchral?

>>Not_A_Hat

The dialogue in general seemed off to me, but I singled in on 'sepulchral' because it seems like slightly too byzantine of a word to use to describe dialogue. Dunno. Maybe I'm just dumb. I'm new to this whole reviewing business.

I mean, it is an odd word. And don't mean to say you shouldn't react a certain way, or be honest about your reaction; I think honest reactions are valuable feedback. I was more just curious what that reaction really was.

Count me with >>Ranmilia.

The prose and the pace are actually good, but when it comes down to originality, errr...
The idea is very obvious and there is nothing to add some flare to your story. While relatable, this is somehow meta Writeoff entry 101.
So not a bottom slater, because of the prose and pace, but not a top tier either.

If you ever wish to submit a story like that again, try to add something new to it, and you'll definitely won some points from me.
Thank you for sharing.

All I can say is:

Calling it "fish college" instead of "fish school" was a missed opportunity. It could then lead to an aside about how Samuel had never gone to fish college or had dropped out to take this job or something. More humorous asides are always welcome in a piece of this sort. Short apocalyptic fun, though!

Mike

The thing I enjoy the most about this story is the prose. The narrator shows his emotions in a very verbose manner, and the details were descriptive enough to really show this odd place and even odder people in it. I also liked how the story, despite the high stakes the ending provided, mostly felt low-key and relaxed. It made sense, given how this was a companion bot hanging out with his master. But the story also had that slight tinge of menace, as if something wasn’t quite right and things would go south quickly (which it does).

The biggest stumbling block is the last few lines of the story. I can understand an escalation, but the intensity of the climax feels a bit off. We’re not given much of a clue that Elias was planning to cause the explosion, so the conclusion feels like it was a last-ditch attempt at drama. It just feels out of place with the relatively subdued story we were originally presented. Frankly, I think revealing Elias’ hatred towards humanity would’ve worked as a final revelation, showing just how disturbed this man the narrator loves is. I also thought that some of the details overwhelmed the development of the characters. So much of the first part of the story is a description dump about Elias that it’s almost halfway into the story before the story really gets started. It leaves the story’s progression feeling rather uneven, as if there were more events the author wanted to include, but ran out of word space to do so.

A decent tale that just needs a few pacing adjustments and a better climax.

I mean, it was technically 06:06:06 somewhere, right? I'm a little conflicted about the goldfish seeing something in the clock that tells him the world will end, though. That just doesn't make any sense, no matter how I consider it. Eh.

This is a nice little slice of weird with some decent jokes in it. Feels kinda Douglas Adams. I wish it were more compelling, but it's eminently readable and definitely got a smile or two out of me, so that's nice.

Hey, this is pretty good! Got some characterization, some world building, some emotion, some emotional stakes... I like a lot of what you're doing here!

I do think you need to start things sooner. As-is, the meat of the conflict doesn't really come in until, like, the last third at best. You need to start it sooner than that; first line, first word, throw it in the hook! Imagine if this story had started with: 'I don't want to kill my best friend today' or something like that.

But other than the pacing, this is great stuff.

I actually really enjoyed this piece. It was a tale that focused more on the emotions of Sammy than any real plot, and it was done fairly competently. The details about the bike and the plain streets really captured that feeling a listless suburbia would have, as if there was a deep dissatisfaction boiling under the surface. I also really liked how Sammy’s emotions are somewhat confused, swinging between his unhappiness with his family and his joy with the sunset. It’s very reminiscent of a kid just trying to figure out life to the degree he can, a common theme for many adolescents.

The only thing I found a bit extraneous was the reference to John Lennon’s death. That’s a pretty specific event that lands this story in the ‘80s, and I don’t think that’s a good thing. The story felt better when it was vague and dreamlike, as if this could be happening anywhere at any time. Broad emotions work better in broad settings, and Lennon narrows the setting down just a tad too much.

A good exercise in the emotional confusion a young person often goes through each day.

The main concept is pretty interesting, with a computer gaining sentience and trying to remember a past love. I also liked how confused the words were and how the emotions bounced around a lot. It really captured the anxiety Jesse is feeling and the dawning horror that he’d soon be dead.

That being said, this story doesn’t really connect in an emotional sense. Everything’s too rushed and too hectic for us to really zero in on Jesse’s personality. Maybe the story would’ve worked better if we’d gotten a view of this computer’s dawning sentience and how he deviates enough from his tasks to require this shutdown. I also thought the text being bunched together wasn’t an effective tactic. Thoughts this disjointed and chaotic need to look and feel chaotic, and bunching them up into one paragraph doesn’t really work in that regard. It makes the story feel too ordered and structured, when it really should have used oddly placed white spaces and new paragraphs to make this as bizarre as it looks. The arrangement of the paragraphs isn’t always talked about in writing classes, but it is an important tactic in conveying the story’s emotions.

A decent idea that just needs a better execution.

I thought this one was Cold’s because of Japan. Then I told me that Cold wouldn’t’ve written “gage” for “gauge” so this is definitely not him.

searching for a den for her litter made me cringe a little, because of the two “for” (that’s eight) just one after the other. I think I would’ve written “in search of a den for her litter” here.

I agree with the others that the “post apocalyptic” imagery is strong with this one. It’s a nice take on what the fallout of a nuclear conflict between NK and the USA could be.

The end is a bit underwhelming though. It doesn’t seem to fit within the two other parts, and, well, it feels a bit cliché to be honest (sounds like the end of a B movie). It’s a pity, because the rest is nice.

What should I have
Expected of such a story?
Laughing out so
Loud my neighbour’d complain?

Definitely I agree with the
Others. It reads as pure
Nonsense. Nothing
Extraordinary but thanks for the smile.

Basically what the others said: it read confusing to me, and it seems at the end I’m none the wiser. What happens? Why does one sister have to face a life-threatening challenge alone? What is it that fate placed on them? We have many intimations, but zero answers, and that’s disappointing a little.

Man, I thought this was some great sci-fi thing, but nope, just nukes. Eh.

I think you're making the wrong call (I complain about this a lot in minifics) by not establishing some sort of stakes or tension early enough. The imagery in the opening is striking, but there's no emotional context to it; just a mild curiosity and a sense of weirdness. If the narrator even so much as felt a pang of regret for the rumble of the trains, I think I'd have a better idea of how he felt about all of this, some hint at what's going on that I could feel things about.

Because the opening is so flat-affect, I had to read that 'nearly 100 percent survival rate' line about four or five times, wondering what it was talking about. There's no context to that, and it's super non-sequitur.

There's also a touch much reliance on jargon here, I think; mugicha might give flavor for someone who understands the word, but without an explanation in-text, it's gonna throw some people off too. 'Gold coins to a cat' is a bit of an odd one; it struck me as understandable but non-idiomatic. That alien-ness might be the intended effect, like with mugicha, but... I'm not sure I like it. With things like these, if they're being used for flavor, their alien-ness needs to be balanced against the immersion of the reader, I guess. Gorae gets an explanation in-text, which is good, but... honestly, I'd just rather see 'barley tea', 'useless', and 'submarine' in here. I don't think you'd lose much, and it might read more smoothly.

I dunno. I like a lot of what's going on here, but I can't shake the feeling that this is played like some sort of 'reveal' story and it's doing the whole idea a disservice. IMO, the strength here comes from the pathos and tragedy, not the 'twist' that oh, man, it was nukes all along! Maybe that's mis-characterizing your intent, but yeah. I'd like more context earlier. Let me feel this main character's love for Tokyo, show me why he hangs onto his city despite feeling the fear that's driving everyone else out.

Worth a chuckle/10.

There are about three people this could possibly have been written by, and it's pretty obvious which one of the three it is

So. What to say about this story?

For one, this needed another look from the author to really make this piece shine. There's some good verbiage here, but then you come across monstrosities such as:

When Tokyo was the largest city in the world, a sprawling megalopolis of concrete and steel towers and houses crushed together abutting elevated rails and jammed roads.

I dub thee: the prettiest ugly sentence in the Write-Off. Just look at all those conjunctions. The overall image is nice and the contrasting of old versus new Tokyo is an interesting sentiment, the prose just is an utter mess to read. The subsequent sentence is also a bit of a conundrum (where the only animals were [insert long list of animals, rats baffling described as "allies"]), and doesn't effectively communicate these rather important details of a city slowly being abandoned.

What I would say is that the scene construction here is generally on point: the author has his image, and it's a good one. He is just clumsily communicating it. I don't mean to say that the piece is disorganized, again to the contrary; all the framework is there. It's just that a breakdown occurs when you really try to peel back the fine details, and by the end, the author just sort of gives up and says to the audience: "This is what the story is about, you idiots!"

This breakdown in communication is more noticeable for this particular author because of how clean his work is generally. As such, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

For example:

I smiled, more out of politeness than true humor. Unlike most Tokyo residents, I didn’t bother with a mask. I always thought they were depersonalizing, and most studies showed they were ineffective against radiation anyway. Unless you had a full-face mask with HEPA filters, you might as well stay inside.

In almost any of story, I would read a paragraph like this and say: "hmm, this author doesn't know how to organize paragraphs. The author is showing a reaction shot to the prior dialogue, then immediately cutting to an unrelated piece of exposition made to inform the reader about the background. There should be a paragraph break here or something that connects these two unrelated topics together."

BUT OF COURSE SINCE IT IS THIS AUTHOR, I KNOW THAT HE KNOWS BETTER. Even if I am being overly presumptuous about this author's identity, it is apparent in the text itself that the author understands how to build discreet paragraphs and transition topics from paragraph to paragraph—which is all the more egregious when the author chooses not to. Again, I am given the feeling that this piece was rushed.

Lot of small details that are good about this piece. Little things that communicate personality, perspective, and emotions of our two shown characters in evocative ways. I personally would have preferred the dialogue scene to go on longer and not end on a long bout of information dumping. In fact, framed with the dialogue, all of the material from the first and last scenes could have been delivered in a much more interesting and dynamic manner.

I agree with >>Xepher, the author went overboard on the stargazing in the middle of the day. There needed to be some restraint in utilizing that imagery, because I really felt like I was beat over the head with the fact that he's looking for missiles. I got it. Don't worry. The wistfulness seeps into a bit of melodrama, and as >>Monokeras says, the tone doesn't fit.

This is a "War is Hell" sort of story. Or rather, the cousin of a "War is Hell" story called "War is Messy and has long term consequences for civilians." There is a need for this to be a grounded in its emotions and more small scale. The opening scene is about the quaintness of a fox in the subway. Small emotion moments are what is going to sell this sort of story.

I liked this story and would give it a high ranking if it were on my slate.

I actually really enjoyed this piece. The idea of murder as art isn’t new, but this story definitely added some unique twists to the concept (i.e. manipulating time for subjects, nonhumans looking to human violence). I also liked how the art patrons aren’t simply nameless psychos, but somewhat concerned with the subjects she’s presenting. It gives them a little more character, and it makes Lizel’s psychosis all the more unnerving (when people who shop for violence think you’ve gone too far, you’ve gone too far).

That being said, the first half of the story goes on for a tad too long. I get that it’s meant to show the capabilities of Lizel to utilize time travel for her art, but that shouldn’t have required that much word space. Manipulating time isn’t a new idea, so I doubt many people would need this much elaboration to wrap their heads around it. I also thought the assistant was a largely extraneous character, as he was just there to talk to Lizel. It doesn’t help that everything important is mostly explained in the third-person narration, making him even more unnecessary. Finally, the story’s conclusion doesn’t seem to fit, ending with a twist that didn’t flow very well. It felt like the author just needed a snappy ending and chose the “murder the audience” twist because…Lizel’s nuts? I’m not against twists, but this one didn’t really add anything to the story and just made Lizel’s motives more confusing than sinister.

A good story that just needs a little trimming and a better ending.

One of the great risks about doing a low-key story about a high-key event (the end of the world) is that it can feel a bit too uneventful. However, this story’s focus on all the small details of this world (the post office, the cat, the television) really makes this story pop. I really understood how this apocalypse would feel, even if I was just hanging out in my house. I also enjoyed how the breakdown of society is such a non-issue at this point that Karen only offhandedly mentions it. It really shows how screwed everybody is, where the terror of destruction has just sort of lulled into acceptance.

However, I have to admit that while the story is interesting to read, it doesn’t really provide a compelling conflict. The world is ending, yes, but that doesn’t really give us any interesting character interactions. Karen and Trish don’t reaffirm their love or come together at the final moment, as they were already happy with one another (well, as happy as one can be in this situation). Karen’s relationship with her father gets a brief mention, but that remained unresolved by the story’s end. This is the story’s biggest weakness: by skipping to the “acceptance” stage of Grief, the story robs a lot of the internal conflicts that this apocalypse might’ve been provided. Without these, nothing really drives me to be concerned about these characters. If they’ve accepted their fates, why shouldn’t we?

A well-written story that needs a more tangible conflict to be effective.

The prose was one of the best parts of this story. A lot of the humor comes from the idea that the bureaucracy behind the end of the world is taken so seriously, and the prose reflects that rather admirably. I also enjoyed how these demons, despite their natures, are trying to be orderly about the destruction that may come to Earth. It’s certainly amusing to see normally chaotic beings trying to be so diligent about their duties, even to the point of infighting.

That being said, the story doesn’t really work. The Prince of Lies is the only character who really shows shades of a personality (a goofy trickster), and that makes the events that occur rather uninteresting. After all, why care about demons who aren’t really affected by anything and find the Earth’s destruction more of a formality than a threat? I also thought the humor itself didn’t always work. Other than some of the word choices and the Prince of Lies exploding, none of the dialogue or descriptions really made me chuckle that much. I know a large part of that is my personal taste, but since the story’s goal was humor, I have to look at it critically when it doesn’t meet that goal.

An interesting situation muddled by a one-joke premise and bland characters.

I don't have anything very constructive to add; I usually leave that to the better reviewers. But I do want to say that I actually quite liked this, for what it's worth. I like time travel, it's clever, and it's a solid story to me.

Yeah, I didn't find this predictable, personally, and it did get a smile out of me. Maybe the idea of buying the minutes just to throw them in the salesman's face (take that, time travel!) just seemed inherently ridiculous enough for a smile.

Er, if you end up revisiting this, 'last moments' might work better than minutes. Then he could ask for 'five minutes worth'. But it didn't seem like a big problem to me.

Hmm. There's a distinct start, middle, and end to this, which is nice.

It seems to me that the real emotional weight in this story comes from Cole's fear. To that end, I think you'd have been better off bringing it in sooner; the shadows are there in the first and second sections, but it doesn't really crystallize until the last one, where his signing up for this starts looking like he's running from real life, and in the end, when he would be willing to sacrifice someone else because of his fear. If there were more hints of that sooner, I think it might work better; instead of having everything break down in the end, give the audience a bit more time to come to terms with his denial and how he might actually be doing this out of cowardice.

Well, even putting that aside, I like a lot of what's going on here. There's character arc, there's worldbuilding, there's drama; it's all pretty good. I'm not sure the prose is as tight as it could be; that bit about him drumming his fingers seemed to use a lot more words than the content needed. The in-media-res intro was a bit odd; it's a helluva lot better than not having any hook at all, but it just seemed strange in such a short story, you know?

This would make a pretty good origin story, though. How would someone with these sorts of mental issues turn out in a government run hero program? Could be interesting.

Nice work overall! I think it could have had more punch, but what's here has a definite zing to it.

Man, I hate to say it, but... I'm sick of meta already, you're a bit late to the slate.

Sorry. I mean, I'm sure you knew there would be a handful of other stories like this going around, right?

Anyways. A one-note joke metafic that doesn't even use half the words it's given... nooooot doing much for me.

Well, it probably won't end up at the very bottom of my slate, if that's any consolation.

If anyone else is doing off-slate reviews, there are two stories left with only three reviews:

The price of magic
Epithalamia

It's a nice little piece, although I feel the title is way too obvious.

The rhyming and syllable-count in the first two parts are easy enough to follow, but I could not find a scheme in the third part as it is all over the place but maybe that's the point?

The word choice and imagery here are really nice, and the poem completely fits inside the word count without being noticeably lacking in any part.

If it were on my slate of reviews, it would be around mid-high ranking. I'm not a poetry connoisseur so take all of this with a giant grain of salt. Perhaps a more seasoned poet will be better able to spot issues with this piece.

But it's a nice read with a decent punch of emotion and I quite like the style.

This is... fine. Not great, not bad, but ultimately I don't feel it lands with the emotional strength it wants to, though damned if I can point to exactly why. The idea is certainly effective, but I suppose what it is that it ends up being a little rote, going down the path of fame and fortune being nothing compared to your family and loved ones. Nothing here is executed particularly poorly, it is just that nothing is particularly well executed either.

Yeah. Another case of perfectly fine but doesn't really do anything else for me. It is a perfectly serviceable arc that works perfectly well and ends nicely and I really wish I had something more interesting or constructive to say, but I don't.

Thanks for including me! ❤️

I’m not, however, really into this superhero thing. Sorry. But I won’t penalise you, I’ll just abstain.

Yeah, this is really obscure.

It's like, a ship capsizes. One of the crew members barely makes it swimming to a nearby island. Then the guy faints and see God in dream? Then finally, the strain is too strong and the guy dies?

Or maybe Oblo is right. The guy is on a hospital bed, the drowning is metaphorical, maybe he’s experiencing a pulmonary oedema, and succumbs to a heart failure.

I wish I could put all the pieces together, but I can’t. Like the others, I’m stumped. I mean, it’s not a bad thing per se—some fictions leave you wondering, but you know you have all the clues necessary to work up the hidden meaning, and it’s only because you’re dense that you can’t put two and two together. But here, we’re left with the definite and lasting impression that we’re being led up the garden path…

Not a bad piece of writing, but it left me scratching my head.

This is a thing of beauty, and not just because it's the first fanfic I've cameoed in in ~2 years. ^^ So I'm basically the Flash due to my caffeine-powered hyper-metabolism? headcanon accepted

I do think the ending flows a little bit less well than the rest, and there are some seriously big huge sentences, but overall I feel like I got my money's worth.

Yeah, I think there’s a lot of obscure fictions this round. I remember Cold saying “don’t try to be subtle in the WriteOffs”. I agree up to a point. I mean, as I already said, it’s perfectly acceptable—even encouraged—to titillate people’s neurones with intriguing story, provided the reader has enough elements to elaborate different meanings and juggle with them.

But here, we’re left with a very generic story, in a way: someone sentenced to death remembers their life as the final minute approaches. By failing to deliver on what’s special in that case, i.e. the mage created a living being which then proceeded to destroy a large part of the country he lives in, you strand us in totally uncharted territory, and we have no blazed trail to escape. So that’s it. We’re in the middle of nowhere, trying to make sense of something that is way to fuzzy to be perceived clearly.

Sorry.

I agree with Xepher here. The first scene doesn’t really look like a sin to me. Envy, maybe? But, I mean, envious can be a positive feeling if you turn it into a drive towards improving.

I get the second more easily. Retaliation. I can relate to that (even though I don’t practice this form of petty vengeance).

As for the third, it’s pretty confusing. I think the guy breaks down because he suddenly realises he’s beginning to think or act like the others – whom he despises – do. That’s the more likely explanation I can come up with.

However, yeah, I don’t really see the connection to the prompt.

Like all poetry here, abstention.

The title is fake Latin. Morte doesn’t exist. Either you mean “About the death machine” and you should write De Mortis Machina or “About (the) dead machine* and it’s De Mortua Machina. In every case, not what you wrote.

My biggest problem here is the obvious non-sequitur here. A machine would be able to think zillions of time quicker than us. Leave 60 seconds to a computer, and you'll have it execute billions of cycles. So, yeah, your computer is either darn slow or dumb, which means probably damaged, and so it totes deserves to be upcycled. Requiescat in Pace

Yeah, I was pretty jarred by the opening, since I know pretty well the story those two lines originally belong to. Hopefully, yours takes a totally different route.

Ok. To me, she kills herself not to get rid of zombies, but to become a zombie herself and keep company to the other one waiting at the door. Maybe it was her former husband? The ones that seemed to be suffering most were the ones that still had heads. ➡ that's why she wants to fry her brains!

Overall, what the others said. Original take, good execution, this is going to land quite up in my slate.

You like heave a sigh, right?

It’s a nice portrayal, if not entirely original, but entertaining. The characters play well off each other, and I found their respective ego interesting. I also like the idea that the demons lurk around just to remember people what a total Armageddon would mean.

All in all, I found that very solid. I wasn’t expecting anything more than the story bringing a closure to the point being discussed, so I couldn’t say I was disappointed by the end.

Top slater.

Well, I like the idea of a device probing into spacetime, even though that’s very far away from how spacetime really works.

The problem here is not so much the idea or its execution, rather that the story lacks a steady grounding to give the reader a reason to care about what’s going on. Aside from some scant details about Naoki, we – the audience – know nothing about the characters and have no reason to care about Naoki's decision to end his life, (if he indeed commits suicide). As such, it lacks the emotional punch it aimed for. The stakes are never really established, and instead we're treated with the majority of the story being devoted to explaining the device—which could have been accomplished in a sentence or two.

Also never end with a gun being fired and cutting to black in the last act. That's just poor form, author.

Decent prose and idea, just lacking in execution.

This is clearly about the E = mc² equation, which is the foundation that atomic bombs operate on.

I agree with Andrew, the dialogue does seem a bit off. Sort of a bit informal for both Einstein and Death. Einstein doesn’t seem so frightened (more like resigned) and Death is a bit too lively :P Otherwise, solidly written.

There’s a small mood whiplash at the end. While (see above) 7/8 of the story has this sort of informal nature to it, as if it were being dictated like a "so Einstein and the Grim Reaper walk into a bar" sort of story, the focus on the crying wife throws a much somber veil. At the same time, maybe it’s intentional, as Einstein suddenly realises the implications of his “innocent” theory.

Pretty solid though! Upper middle upper mid tier in the middle of the upper level. Thanks for writing.

So, despite one of the least imaginitive titles in the contest, this is actually pretty good. The digital-existence-for-more-time as a civilization hunkers down in a dyson sphere against proton decay is a fun idea I've been exploring in one of my own (unfinished) stories. Maybe I'm a little overly partial to the concept because of that.

But what I think sets this apart, is the perspective of the tireless sysadmin (which I am as well, so more bias) keeping everything running despite the impending doom. It humanizes the whole thing, and makes the epic-scale concept actually fit/work within a minific format.

All in all, great job. This is exactly the sort of thing I love seeing come out of the minific rounds!

Title lets me know I probably won't get some of this. I only just now figured out there's a podcast thing by this title some of you are doing.

And yup... meta crackfick. Hope it's amusing to others. With that, I shall say no more.

There are a lot of typos, misused words, and strange phrasing in this which kept throwing me out of the stream of thought.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what to take away from this. We have no idea what the man does, and the scene changes seem to make no sense. Things (like the advertising on the van) are called out clearly, but never shown/explained.

Overall, as others have said, this just doesn't do much for me.