Code block does some funny coloring to the text that I thought you were doing something with before I realized it’s some automatic function, but it’s a neat poem regardless.

It had been a normal afternoon for me until I turned down one of the supermarket alleys and spot someone seemingly out-of-place. He was wearing an impeccably-pressed suit and his skin was as red as fresh cherry pie filling. This close to Halloween, it’s not all that surprising for folks to go out in their costumes, but this man stood out like a sore thumb.

“Well, hey, you son-of-a-bitch!” I greet the horned man as recognition dawns on me. “I was a-wondering if you’d ever show up again!”

“Johnny,” the devil greeted me coldly. My grin grows wider at the thought of being important enough to be in the devil’s memory. That lost must have stung his ego. “Don’t mind me. I’m not here on business.”

“Sure you don’t want to try your hand again?” I laugh. “I could use another of those fancy fiddles of yours!”

====

That’s all I’ve got. I don’t know where I was going with the story but I couldn’t help but make some sort of Devil Went Down to Georgia reference.

On a personal level, hearing “gamification” and “recommendation engine” wrt fanfiction sounds like everything I actively and vehemently do not want from a fanfiction platform.

On a more objective level, seeing “monetization” anywhere near fanfiction is asking for legal trouble.

Also I get what you’re trying to say with the whole “positive comments only” but what’s actually coming across is [valley girl voice] “our writing is perfect here and if you give any constructive criticism, we will construe it as a personal attack on us and call you a **** and *******”[/valley girl]

Ooh, not mine but this reminds me of Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold by S.B. Divya (14,739 words, or search up “podcastle two hands wrapped in gold” for a dramatic reading by Kaushik Narasimhan done for the Podcastle podcast – was done in three parts totaling ~1h40m). Definitely ways to take this old tale, I just don’t have the energy atm.

So like Khaemweset, fourth child of Ramesses II (~1281~1225 BCE (side-note, I just noticed that dude had a long life)), noted as “the first Egyptologist” for preserving and restoring already-ancient monuments and temples and also record who built them and for what purpose.

Or maybe Pharaoh Thutmose IV about two centuries prior (~14th century BCE) who had Great Sphinx of Giza uncovered (it had been buried up to the neck by then) after having a dream under its nose and placed a carved tablet (now known as the Dream Stele) recounting the event between the Sphinx’s paws.

Sorry this hits on one of my autistic fixations so I had to infodump that this actually happened in history, multiple times. Wikipedia says there were Ptolemaic-era restorations going on under both the Ptolemies and Romans (~3rd century CE) but without a citation and it’s difficult to properly search for this topic online.

Ah, shoot, yeah, typo. I’m not entirely sure what word is supposed to be there anymore – “calls” fits but I can’t imagine misspelling it so bad that it auto-corrects to “real”.

Hate to comment on a writing prompt without actually writing, but my mind inevitably wanders to that genre of post of trying to talk to some famous historical figure about the modern day thinking they’d roll in their grave only for them to be sidetracked by something they’d much more reasonably be concerned with (e.g. the famous post about a time traveller asking Sappho of Lesbos what her sexuality is while Sappho herself is hung up on the fact we went to the moon)

Tho, I suppose in this case, that thing they’d most likely get hung up on is the genocide required to bring them back to life. That’s if we handwave the language barrier thing.

Like it’d be wild if the story was about reviving King Tutankhamen to ask how he died (side-note: WAY less interesting than asking what his dad was about and how he took the Egyptian religion back) and he was just like “𓍘𓅱𓀁𓇋𓄿𓅱𓀗”

When my family started using those AI chatbots all the big companies were pushing, I held my tongue about it. Too stressful trying to talk sense into them when they were the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” kind. As long as I stayed away from it, I could deal. I’d always preferred blending into the background.

Then, the plug-ins came. It was all too easy now for them to push a button and feed all their data from their phone contacts into the system—messages, photos, voicemail, with just a simple flick of a switch even their phone calls were fed into the data-hungry sycophant machine. When I started getting fewer calls and messages it started worrying me. Come to find out, they were having an easier time talking with a replica they’d been collectively building of me. Maybe not on purpose, but when they finally showed me that thing Frankenstein’ed together from thousands of my personal messages and real with them, it chilled me to the bone.

At least at first. Thing was, I’d always preferred blending into the background because nothing I did ever seemed good enough. That copy of me was, for them. It took their judgemental eyes off of me. I could finally be myself. They could keep their perfectly-preseved never-was son. I’d become the daughter they’d never known.

Sorry I don’t have an actual story reply but my mind immediately went to the animal trials of the late Medieval and Early Modern eras. Quoting Wikipedia for one that comes to mind:

A notable French jurist, Bartholomé Chassenée (1480-1542), successfully defended the rats of Autun through various largely procedural arguments. He won an extension for the rats (who had failed to honour a summons and appear in ecclesiastical court) by arguing that they did so because they feared for their lives. He used similar arguments in defense of woodworms in Mamirolle.[4]