cahn

Finally digging myself out and hopefully will be able to post again (I'm way behind in Hugo-reading posting, for starters), but first!

cenozoicsynapsid and

hamsterwoman and I were talking about Sarah Gailey's story STET, as one does, and our critiques of it, and I made the throwaway comment "Heh, now I'm wondering about writing the story where the editor itself is an AI, which would neatly solve the problem of the editor being clueless in that particular human-emotional-subtext way," and then

cenozoicsynapsid took that and ran with it and made it into an IF story :D

You guys. It's SO GOOD! If you didn't like STET (I know a lot of you had the same problems with it that I had), you should totally read this story. If you did like STET (which

cenozoicsynapsid did, in fact, though in large part because they gave Gailey rather more credit than I did for a nuanced viewpoint), you should also totally read this story! If you haven't read the story, the original story is short and you should read it and then read the fic! (well, mind the content note and don't read if that would bother you, of course.)

The IF can be made extremely short and is still good, although the more you click around the more interesting it is. It's heartbreaking, and quite chilling in its look at an all-too-plausible near-future, and also somehow manages to have a distinct sense of humor at the same time.

I am just unutterably pleased that this story exists in the world :D

Content note: non-graphic death of children and animals (at the same level as in the original story).

Rephrase? (21 words) by CenozoicSynapsid
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stet - Sarah Gailey
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Original Characters
Additional Tags: Interactive Fiction, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Child Death, Animal Death, Artificial Intelligence, Workplace
Summary:

Your company's automated vehicle system has killed someone, your team has been working all week to figure out why, and now you're working late writing the summary for your boss. It's a tough job, the kind that might even lead someone to violate the rules of business etiquette. Luckily, corporate has installed a new style checker to make sure you keep things professional.