Fortnightly Writing Competition - BAD BOSS (Results)

[Baron]

Narcissism, incompetence, entitlement...all such rich fodder for a good story.  Your challenge is to write a story around a character in charge who everyone loves to hate.  You must write a tale of....

The Bad Boss



I'm open to a very loose interpretation of "boss".  It can be a chef in his kitchen, a tour guide in her venue, a grandmother at the head of the family table, etc.  Basically there must be some kind of hierarchy, with the person at the top not quite being cut out for the job.  Naturally this sort of dynamic lends itself to comeuppance, but feel free to play with the trope - maybe things miraculously work out, or maybe inertia just perpetuates the mediocrity?  The important thing is that a savvy underling must chafe at the way things are run, with dramatic, momentous, or hilarious effect.

Deadline:  Stories are to be submitted by Thursday, June 27, with voting to commence whenever I get around to it the next day.  Voting will depend on the number of submissions but will surely involve some combination of spoiler tags and multi-vote polling.   

Good luck to all entrants!

[voh]

Imma try to get in on this one.

[Stupot]

Imma try to get in on this one.

Woah. Welcome back, Voh.

[Baron]

Woah. Welcome back, Voh.

We also would have accepted:

Woah!  Voh!

[Stupot]

A quick heads up to say that I almost certainly won't be able to enter this round. Apologies. I was working on a story, and have it basically plotted out, but I'm not going to have time to actually write the damn thing.

Truth be told, I am probably going to take a bit of time off from FWC. The chances I get to practice writing are already extremely few and far between and depend on a lot of factors. I have a few projects in various stages of unfinishedness, and I want to give them a bit of attention.

I might still enter something very short sometimes if I get a good idea, and I'll still check the threads and read/vote whenever can.

[Sinitrena]

Excessive swearing ahead.

Demonic Boss - literally

Spoiler

Gary hated his job. Seriously, who wouldn't? Gary hated that his job even existed. Seriously, customer service in hell? Who even thought of this bullshit?

He was supposed to listen to and note down customer complaints. In hell. Seriously. What the actual fuck?

What do you think he got to hear every single fucking day? The temperature is too high. Couldn't they turn it down a tad? Or: I really don't like the waterboarding. Could you perhaps put me in the humiliation department, please?

Yes, you read that right. The customers were the victims, the damned souls of hell, not by any chance, the demons. That, at least, would have made some sense.

And the gall of his fucking boss! Just a couple of weeks ago, he came by again. (Something he did far too often and far too seldom at the same time – astonishing.)

"The numbers don't look good." the boss said, his shiny hooves trampling the ground with every word. "We are proud of our customer satisfaction here, and there are far too many complaints."

Well fucking duh!

"It is your responsibility," the higher demon continued in this smug, sensible voice, "to keep the numbers down. It reflects badly on this department and the industry as a whole, when so many clients are dissatisfied."

Gary just nodded along. It wasn't the first time he got to hear this speech. Once, twice, thrice – who cares – he had asked how he was supposed to do this? How he was supposed to keep the complaints down. No answer, of course.

He tried malicious compliance. The numbers are supposed to be down? Well then, he just didn't note down the complaint. It worked for a week and then...

You wouldn't believe it. The customers went to his boss. No, seriously, that's what happened. They skipped the fucking line in front of his desk, they slipped out of the main floor of the torture hall and went to his boss. You can imagine how the next conversation with Hoovy (Gary liked to give nicknames to people, and his boss's defining feature were his hooves, so...) went. Yes, seriously, imagine it, there's no reason to write it down.

His next idea was to actually help the clients with their complaints. What a novel idea. He had never actually considered this before. The clients' demands were always unreasonable, but if his boss wanted to keep complaints down, so be it.

Now for the second thing you'll have to imagine here. This one's a bit more difficult. Imagine hell turning into the fucking Elysian Fields. It was awful. Gary shuddered just thinking about it. But for – what, half a day, maybe – for half a day, everyone was bloody happy! Even his fucking boss. Hoovy smiled. He fucking smiled.

And then the customers started to complain again! It's the land of milk and honey, but the milk's not warm. And the honey is too sweet. And where are the forty virgins? And the dog I had as a child?

Bloody, what? Everyone knows that all dogs go to heaven. They are the goodest boys and girls, after all. I mean, come on.

There were actually more complaints after Gary tried to cater to the clients. More. Gary hated everything.

And so, yes, he went back to just listening and writing it all down.

And then it got worse. Because of course it did.

Did you know that hell is understaffed?

Well, Gary didn't know either, but one day Hoovy (It's still a stupid nickname, but I'm not about to tell you the real name of one of the lords of hell. What did you expect? Seriously.) came by his desk and said: "You'll need to work the third shift, too. Oh, and the forth."

There was no discussion, not even time to discuss, really. Before Gary could even try to formulate some words in response, Hoovy had already stomped away and the next customer was at his table, complaining about nonsensical shit.

"What's that supposed to mean? Why do I have to wait forever for service here? And have you looked at the torture instruments? There's blood all over them! Have you never heard of basic hygiene? When is someone going to come clean them? Torture Room 3 has been out of service for five weeks!"

It wasn't the first time Gary heard unreasonable complaints.

"We are understaffed." Gary said with his tired and well-trained customer service smile.

"Well, that's not my fucking problem, is it?"

Gary broke a bit. (They all break a bit after a while.) "Well it isn't my fucking problem either, is it, now?"

The unmistakable tsking of his boss brought him right back to his senses though. It seem he hadn't walked away quite as far as Gary thought.

You know, in the back of Gary's mind, there was always the fear that one day, one day, he would loose his job. And what would that mean, you might ask. Well, are you under the impression that Gary was a demon? Oh, no, he was a soul, one of our nice little damned souls. And unlike the other clients, he actually seemed to realize that he didn't want to be tortured. Hm, I wonder why?

And so, when Hoovy gave him an unmistakable gesture to take care of the problem, Gary had no other choice but to go to Torture Room 3 to clean up all the viscera, the blood and the bone fragments. It wasn't in his job-description, but then, what really was?

Now, you might wonder why Gary had the privilege to work costumer service. Yes, he could count himself lucky to be one of the few with a job in hell. And Hoovy didn't hesitate to remind him, all the demons didn't hesitate to remind him over and over again of this fact.

First, he thought that we had made a mistake. That he wasn't supposed to come to hell and that we couldn't send him away again, so we made him one of the servants. And he knew he was singularly qualified for the job, because he had worked retail in life. Not as a costumer service drone, though, but as a manager.

He never figured it out. He wasn't supposed to. But you have, haven't you?

Poor, poor Gary, isn't it obvious? Poor former manager.

You think the tortured souls in this department are real? You think they are the ones to suffer? Nah, bullshit. They are illusions, nothing more, nothing else. Gary, Gary on the other hand, Gary is real. And he suffers. Oh, how he suffers. Muhahahaha.

It's the small things. They grind and grind and grind. They slowly grind away at your soul. At Gary's soul. Small things. A customer having unreasonable demands, a shop that is short-staffed? A boss who doesn't listen and doesn't help? The knowledge that you could easily loose your job, a job you hate and still have to keep because the alternative is worse. Sure. Small things. But you do know of a death of a thousand cuts, don't you?

Who am I, you might ask? My, the boss's boss, of course. Name's Lucifer.

I just love this torture. Oh, such sweet torture.

[close]

I did not feel this topic at all. And what I did come up with, I rewrote several times, and it was still going nowhere. But here it is anyway.

[Baron]

The deadline approacheth! 

Due to work/social/familial obligations, it is unlikely that I will get around to start the voting until Saturday, in case anyone wants to take advantage of an informal extension.

Truth be told, I am probably going to take a bit of time off from FWC.

While I lament being deprived of your stories, Stupot, I wish you a very productive break.  I think we've all at times taken a hiatus from the FWC when necessary.  Hopefully we'll see you back soon with renewed vigour. 

I did not feel this topic at all.

I'd be more worried if you were super keen on bad bosses.  

Surely someone has some good news to share on the writing front?  (Mandle, I'm looking expectantly in your direction.)

[Mandle]

Jun, Harriet and Everyone Else

Spoiler

    At the top of a thin rocky spire, on a folded towel, sat the only lonely man in the world.  He grinned down at the river of people thronging by far below, with the teeth he had regrown seventeen times by his count.  Two days ago, a woman he had acquired a replacement kidney from decades before had passed by in the flow, her face frozen in the same eternal bark of soundless laughter it had been then.  This had amused the man momentarily, although seeing her here again was not by any means a surprise nor a coincidence.
    The man's name was Jun Kenichi, once a famous name known to all, back when the concept of fame had still had meaning.  He had once been one of the most powerful people on earth, as opposed to being THE most, and only, powerful person on earth, as he was now.  He sat cross legged on his black-and-white-checkered towel, a hundred or more meters above the rushing sea of heads.  His black hair, in a waist-length ponytail, powdered heavily by the yellow dust of the desert, blew sideways in the strong breeze, out from under the shade of an umbrella, into the blazing sunlight.  It was his daughter, Harriet, who stood beside him holding the umbrella stock solid, unwavering, her face a rigid mask of hate.
    Harriet's face had once moved freely through all emotions, of course. It had been over a century since it had frozen forever on this one, and Jun had, at first, kept her by him more to punish than to comfort himself.  Now, however, she was just there.  But not for all that much longer, he thought, his grin relaxing into a neutral line, the nail of one index finger habitually twisting in the tented fingertips of his other hand.
    It had been a Friday when humanity ended; the last time Jun had ever seen his daughter's expression change.  The last time he had seen anyone's expression change, except for in mirrors.  Harriet had been angry with him for going ahead with Phase Tranquility without her approval.  She had shouted at him; why had he even bothered to appoint her head of the AI initiative if he was just going to do whatever the fuck he wanted anyway?!  Who did he think he was?  Buddha?  He'd told her dispassionately that he may as well be, that the next generation of the AI had been promised, by the current, to end all war and suffering forever.  And it had.  What a fool of a Buddha.  Had it tricked him on purpose?  That would have been a nice thing to believe.  It would have directed the blame away from himself somewhat, back when he'd still cared about things like that.  But it was unlikely.  No, the concept of blame, extinct once only in every other person on earth, and then eventually within Jun as well, was meaningless.  There was no way he could have foreseen the irreversible step the AI would take once he told it to proceed with Phase Tranquility.
    Harriet had burst into The Apex ten minutes later, ten minutes forever too late, alerted by the chip in her head that it was shutting down its etherwall completely.  Jun had received no such alert, of course.  This was the first he knew of what he had really done; his own etherwall intact.  Somebody had to be outside the system, and who better than he, its creator, to stand as the guardian of mankind?  A role reduced from security guard to custodian in the nanosecond it took his daughter's face to freeze in hatred in.
    In a way, Jun later came to admire the AI for its solution: tearing down the etherwalls on the chips in every person's brain across the planet, linking them all, filterless, choiceless, was the purest answer to the task Phase Tranquility had set.  Was the freezing of faces a side-effect?  A glitch?  Jun didn't think so.  It would be just like a machine to switch off a function that no longer had any purpose.  Why would a hivemind ever need facial expressions for its individual cells?  Why had it frozen them instead of turning them blank?  Was it to punish him?  No, that was stupid.  It just didn't care, never even thought about it, now that it was one.
    Now that Jun was a lonely god.
    A god, because it couldn't get in from its side, but he could from his.  He'd designed that power into his one, unique 'Guardian' chip.  He was to have been the one who could pull everything back together if it ever fell apart.  Foolish Buddha.  The hivemind had proved too cohesive.  He could make it do whatever he wanted, except disband.
    And now he sat, towering over his failed experiment, watching them rush by in their multitude of one: happy face, sad face, dopey face, yawn-face, O-face.  He could have taken a look inside each, seen what they had been experiencing in that moment to make those faces, and he had before, many times.  But it wasn't important anymore.
    What was important, he mused, his fingernail turning and turning in his tented fingers, was that they were all coming here.  All over the planet, they were filing onto automated trains, riding in autonomous cars, sitting in motionless ranks on pilotless airplanes, all coming here.
    The flood of what was once humanity that swept by below him had been raging for weeks now, and would go on for months more.  It had taken Jun quite some years to decide how to perform his final custodial duty on his failed experiment.  Then he had remembered a meme he had once seen, claiming that the entire human race could all easily fit inside the Grand Canyon.  He brushed a drop of sweat from his yellow-dusty eyelid and looked over at the colorful waterfall of flesh and fabric pouring off every edge of the great hole in the desert.  He'd always wondered if that meme were true.  At least now he would find out, then hold hands with his ever-angry Harriet and go down to join them.

[close]

[Mandle]

Surely someone has some good news to share on the writing front?  (Mandle, I'm looking expectantly in your direction.)

Haha I got the "someone else has posted" warning from your post when I hit "post" on mine.

[voh]

My god I let this linger for too long.

His Kingdom

Spoiler

Leonard looked out over his Kingdom and saw that it was good. The smell of freshly ground coffee hung thick in the air, the musical sound of the espresso machine was all around, his branded apron and hat fit snugly, and his worker bees were doing a fairly acceptable job. It had been an amazing first year running his own coffee house, and it had changed everything for the better for him.

He'd been stuck in a career not of his own choosing, office-based and boring beyond what he was able to accept, and had spent most of his time behind his desk daydreaming about what he'd rather be doing instead. Over time, one thought had kept coming back. Make his hobby -- making exquisite coffee -- his actual job.

His parents had called him insane for giving up a guaranteed pay check for the uncertain existence of a service-based business owner with very little experience with it, but he knew he had to do it. No reward without risk, after all.

Leonard had very specific demands of how the coffee should be. He had spent far too much time throughout his life getting both of them exactly right, and he was not about to let the quality slip now that he had people actually pay for it. And he had found out very quickly that good help was hard to get.

Right now, he had decent help. Not good yet, but he could whip them into shape if he had to.

It was important to Leonard to offer not just coffee, but a coffee education. For that reason, his menu had little information sections about the coffee that was on offer. And more specifically, it had a section on it that was a list of coffee that would only be prepared and sold to those who would agree to drink it as provided, without putting milk or sugar in it.

They were listed as the 'pure brews', and they would never be available for things like lattes or white flats, whatever those weird Oceanic drinks were called. Leonard refused to care.

It was a crisp spring day, and Leonard was standing in his regular spot, slightly off to the side of the counter. From here he could see, judge, and correct everything his flawed worker bees would inevitably do wrong. And though his bees were busy, there was no guarantee they were busy doing the right things.

"Kate, clean the counter," he barked at her. She looked up from the boxes of coffee beans she was unpacking, sighed, and walked over to the counter to clean it. She had learned a good while ago that arguing with Leonard didn't get her anything but the argument itself and a load of frustration.

"Dave, refill the napkins," he snapped at Dave, fully intending to make Dave feel like an idiot for not seeing it before Leonard had to tell him. Dave was in the middle of taking a customer's order and halfheartedly nodded at Leonard, clearly planning to first finish what he was already doing. When Leonard stared at him intently, Dave sighed, apologized to the customer, and walked off to the kitchen.

"I'm sorry, can you take my order instead, then?" the customer said to Leonard.
"No," he said without looking at her or acknowledging her any further.

She huffed loudly, stood there for a second longer to see if Leonard would change his mind or if Dave came back, but when neither happened she turned and left, rightfully annoyed. The little bell hanging at the entrance dinged as she pushed through, and she was gone.

Leonard didn't care. He didn't need her. She had been trying to order a coffee that was mostly milk and other adulterants like syrup, so good riddance. They didn't even have syrup. He didn't even want to offer milk and sugar, but he had learned very quickly that he didn't really have a choice. If he wanted to reach people and educate them about coffee, he needed to lower the threshold so any old neanderthal could come in and leave a better human being. So he had swallowed his pride for the greater good, and allowed the crap to remain. For now. To trap the idiots and get them through the door.

Leonard once more looked out over his Kingdom and saw that it was good.

The door dinged again, and a young woman walked in, nodded at him, and sat down at a window seat. Since Kate and Dave were busy doing what he had told them to do, he sighed and decided to take her order instead. He walked over and saw she was checking out the menu.

"Hi, welcome, what'll it be?"
"Hi," she said with a smile. "I'd like a Feriado de Jorge, please."

Feriado de Jorge was a custom blend Leonard had made, and was the only blend on the pure brews menu.

"That's entirely possible," he said, pleased that she picked so well. "You do know it's only served black?"
"I saw that, that's fine," she said pleasantly.
"Alright, I'll go make that for you," Leonard said, and walked back to the counter.

He tapped Kate on the shoulder, who was about halfway through cleaning the counter, and told her to make the coffee. She started to protest, but realized that it wouldn't help, so she let her shoulders droop and just went along with it. She wiped off the counter just enough so she could use it, then started on it.

Kate knew that even though he was an absolute asshole to her, he still wasn't going to accept a sub-par coffee at his place for any reason, so she did her best. The ultra-fine, reddish brown, fluffy-looking crema topped off a well-made double espresso looked delicious to her. As she stopped the espresso machine, she felt pretty good about it. She took the cup, made sure it looked good, and then got ready to bring it over to the customer.

"I'll bring it," Leonard said, as he stopped her and took the cup from her. "Keep cleaning."

He always did this, take credit where he did literally nothing to deserve it, and Kate just shrugged and went back to cleaning the counter. This is who he was, and she had given up hope for him to ever change.

He handed over the coffee to the customer carefully, did his little spiel about how he came up with the blend, and she nodded politely. When he was done, he wished her much enjoyment.

After he had walked away, she put her cup down. She took a wooden stirrer from her coat pocket, which she had brought herself, then rummaged through her bag for a second, before pulling out two cheap-looking paper sticks. A stick of sugar and a stick of powdered creamer. The unbranded stuff you'd find at a truck stop, the stuff that just says 'sugar' and 'creamer' on it with nothing else. She ripped open the tops of both and dumped them in.

Kate noticed, and held her breath for the drama that was undoubtedly about to unfold. Leonard hadn't noticed yet, but when he took up his regular spot again, he looked back and saw she was stirring her coffee. He then noticed the empty sugar and creamer packets and his face turned red in an instant.

"No no no don't you dare," he shouted at her. "Do not!" he then added, even louder, taking a step forward.

The customer looked back at him and looked confused.

"What? You said it only came black, so I added my own stuff to it."
"You're--" He had trouble breathing. "You're not--" He stopped talking and was visibly shaking.

He suddenly pointed at the exit and screamed at her to get the hell out. "Get out! You philistine! You absolute monster! You b--"

Kate gasped. The other customers gasped. Dave stuck his head out from the kitchen and looked at Leonard disapprovingly.

The customer looked at him for a second, then got up, and simply left. Her face had shown her anger and, frankly, disappointment.

Kate walked up to Leonard and stood in front of him. "Did you really just call a customer that word?"
"She deserved it," he answered quietly but angrily.
"Yeah, no, she definitely didn't. You're insane. And you know what? I've taken a lot of crap from you, but I'm done," she said, as she started undoing her apron.
"Done?" Leonard said, his anger subsiding a little, only to be replaced with a sudden fear.

Kate took her apron off and let it drop to the floor, then shouted "Dave! We're leaving!"

Dave walked out of the kitchen, saw Kate's apron on the ground, and started undoing his own. They had been friends for long enough that he didn't need to be told what was happening. He walked over and dropped it on top of Kate's. Then he stood by her side, not saying much but just looking at Leonard, waiting for Kate to say the word.

Leonard looked at the aprons on the ground and knew that if this was Dave and Kate quitting, he was in deep shit. "Kate, Dave, listen," he started, putting on an awkward smile, getting ready to use all of his charisma to smooth this over somehow.

Kate held up a finger to stop him and spoke calmly, though with a barely hidden anger of her own.

"Stop, Leonard. It's not your turn to speak. I'm completely done with your constant complaining, nit-picking, angry outbursts, and just—" she waved at him, "—this whole thing. It's not worth it, and after seeing how you treated that customer today, even going so far as to call her the b-word? No. I refuse to deal with all of this anymore."
"Yeah, you suck," Dave added.

Dave knew that if Kate was this worked up, she was probably right. He definitely only worked here by this point because Kate was there, and he enjoyed working with her.

Leonard  looked at them both, and started panicking at the realization that they were definitely quitting and leaving him by himself. But then the part of his brain that knew so objectively that he was definitely right kicked in.

And now Kate was defending the customer massacring his coffee? His blend? And Dave was defending Kate? So they were all in this together, now? 'Oh, no, no, no', Leonard's brain stupidly went.

"Fine. Screw the both of you. Who cares," he said, his spite forcing its way through his building panic. "Leave then."

It was not fine. He absolutely cared. He didn't want them to leave, because he knew he couldn't run this place without them.

"I don't need you," he said dismissively.

Yet he absolutely needed them, but he didn't know where the words were coming from at this point.

Leonard was too far in now. He had made his decision, rational or not. Regardless of the consequences, he wasn't going to let them win. In for a penny, in for the dumbest, most stubborn, most self-destructive pound.

"I can do it alone," he said bitterly, knowing he definitely could not.

Kate just smiled and shook her head. She knew he was lost without them, and none of what he had just said was actually true. She knew him well enough to know he was lashing out, and he'd realize he had screwed up eventually.

But this time she did not intend to be there when that happened.

"Good to know. You can mail us our last paychecks. Anyhoo, have fun doing this without us."

Kate and Dave walked out without looking back.

Leonard sighed deeply with his eyes closed and then opened them again, only to be met by stares from confused and scared customers. He could tell they were nervous, especially the children, some of whom were now crying.

They'd seen all of it.

He knew he'd need his customers more than ever, but Leonard forced himself to ignore that too. He couldn't deal with it right now.

"All of you can get the hell out too," he said to them, as he walked toward the counter and shut down the espresso machine. The customers all scrambled to get to the door as fast as possible, away from the raging psychopath.

One yelled at Leonard that he would leave a bad review.

Leonard just chuckled sadly and shook his head.

"Like that matters anymore," he muttered, as the door closed to his now empty kingdom.

[close]

[voh]

Woah. Welcome back, Voh.

We also would have accepted:

Woah!  Voh!

Heehee, 'tis me!

[Baron]

Well, that's a wrap, folks!  Thank you in advance to all our eloquent contributors.  We have three contestants this round.  For your consideration, they are:

Voh with His Kingdom
Mandle with Jun, Harriet and Everyone Else
Stupot (a.k.a. Drew Freak)
Sinitrena with Demonic Boss - Literally

Honestly I forget how to make polls, so just voting in the thread will be fine.  Feedback for our aspiring authors is always greatly appreciated.  You have TEN votes to distribute as you see fit (e.g. 6-4, or 5-3-2).  Votes that are not properly enumerated will be interpreted as being an even split.  All ties are to be broken by moi, the arbiter of ultimate appeal.  Voting deadline is set at 23:59 Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone Wednesday July 3.

As always, good luck to all of our participants. 

[Mandle]

First up, here's some comments:

Sinitrena:

Spoiler

You said yourself that you couldn't find much footing in your story, and it did show. I could tell that you didn't put your usual care into polish and structure. That being said: it was a nice comeuppance tale at heart, but really needed the reader to experience an example of what a terrible boss the main character had been in life. Perhaps if the complaints he received were somehow based on terrible decisions he had made in life, and had somehow involved flashbacks to those moments, which grew until he came to realize what his true situation was, at which point his memory is reset or something. It felt a bit like the premise of a story was being explained, rather than the actual story. I hope the next theme is more suited to you.

[close]

Voh:

Spoiler

I enjoyed the story, and the writing was good. The story was very prosaic and didn't end in a dramatic way. This made me wonder if it was perhaps based on a real life experience of yours. As a slice-of-life kinda thing, it did its job. It was my favorite of the two offerings.

[close]

My votes:

Spoiler

Sinitrena: 4pts
Voh: 6pts

[close]

[Sinitrena]

Mandle:

Spoiler

This is a sad story of hubris - and reads very well. I enjoyed it so much that I have fairly little to say. Just one point: I find it rather questionable that the system that is so focused on existing (as in, doesn't allow to be disbanded) would allow a self-destruction of its drones. I would assume it would let a few cease to exist, but at some point it would become clear that this leads to its destruction, in a similar way as even though a hivemind doesn't consider individual love or sex-drive, it still needs to reproduce in some way to further its existence.
BTW: How do you pronounce Jun? I can think of at least three different ways.

[close]

voh:

Spoiler

Welcome back. This is a very well written story with a great charactarization of Leonard. The story as a whole feels a bit too normal though. There's nothing it adds to reality and it doesn't say anything profound. It's a bit too much slice-of-life to feel worth reading. I'm not saying it wasn't fun to read (on the contrary, it was fun), just that one necessarily waits for something noteworthy, extraordinary or strange to happen and it doesn't. Even the employees quitting is not particularly dramatic.

[close]

Votes:

Spoiler

Mandle: 7 points
voh: 3 points.

[close]

[Mandle]

Sini:

Spoiler

To answer your queries: The special chip that Jun (the "u" is short and flat, like in all Japanese words, the "u" in "sushi" for example) designed for himself means that he can control the other cells of the hivemind, but he cannot be controlled in return. The hivemind has to do whatever he commands. It is not so much that it will not disband out of some sense of self-preservation. It is more that it cannot be disbanded. Even if he tries ordering it to. The glue is just too strong. Why? Because the story wouldn't happen otherwise haha.
Thanks for the feedback on that point! I will add a mention of him trying to disband the AI multiple times in the past, but failing, in any future versions.

[close]

[Sinitrena]

Jun (the "u" is short and flat, like in all Japanese words, the "u" in "sushi" for example)

Thanks. I was actually wondering about the J  : as in english july, as in german, where ju would be pronounced like the english word you, or maybe even like the spanish j which would be close to the ch in the scottish loch?

[Mandle]

Jun (the "u" is short and flat, like in all Japanese words, the "u" in "sushi" for example)

Thanks. I was actually wondering about the J  : as in english july, as in german, where ju would be pronounced like the english word you, or maybe even like the spanish j which would be close to the ch in the scottish loch?

Yes, the "Ju" in "Jun" is said exactly like "Ju" in "July" in English.

[voh]

Sinitrena with Demonic Boss - Literally

Spoiler

I actually quite like it. The twist was to me pretty clearly signposted but I enjoyed getting there. I didn't really feel like I wanted the character to be in a bad place though, I didn't really _feel_ he deserved it. Overall I enjoyed reading it! Also, now I'm sad I self-censored, because there was a lot more swearing in mine originally, but still less than in yours 

[close]

Mandle with Jun, Harriet and Everyone Else

Spoiler

I've written some AI stories myself, and the one thing that always gets me is that once AI gets to be too powerful, it'll be instant. And it doesn't matter if Jun had said no, if it hadn't been him, it would've been someone later, somewhere else. There's a desperate kind of sadness to the scenario, and then there's this almost whimsical ending to it, where Jun just goes 'eh, if it's all fked anyway, what could be a fun thing to do?' that I appreciate. Good stuff!

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Votes:

Spoiler

Sinitrena 4
Mandle 6

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[voh]

Responses to feedback

Mandle:

Spoiler

It wasn't, though Leonard in a way does combine some qualities in people I've worked with. Thankfully none who were that selfish and narcissist. Glad you liked it!

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Sinitrena:

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Fair points when it comes to normality/dramatic. I think what I was going for was more the mundane kind of evil, the energy-vampire type, who just sucks all joy out of everything. But you're right, it's very down to earth still. I seem to have missed the call for dramatics in the opening post, but see it now

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[Mandle]

@voh

Spoiler

Cheers for the feedback. Yes, the "whimsical" ending was the reason why I wanted to write the story. I'd had the idea in my head for quite some time, from a talk with a friend about what a hivemind humanity might be like, and if it could possibly be even a positive thing, maybe even an inevitable thing that a species must become to survive once a certain level of technology is achieved.

Of course, it seems like a horrible thing to us, as individuals, but maybe it is the ultimate peace and "happiness". It's still a consciousness and could still feel emotions of happiness, purpose, achievement, and even compassion, possibly.

But then I just ignored all those deep themes and wrote a dark O.Henry story instead, haha.

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