Young Writers Society

unknown error

... ... ... rebooting ... ... ...

vision capabilities: restored
kinetic movements: restored
telepathic broadcasting: restored
social algorithms: updated

~ * ~

Simon did not have a concept of time passing while his consciousness was offline, and since time frequently varied between various societies, his interior clock told him it had been nearly a month and a half since he had last been awake. That didn't seem quite right. Perhaps it needed a tune up once he was in a proper environment to do so.

Unfortunately, his visual processors, while still fuzzy as his consciousness rebooted itself, showed that he was still in the game show. But for some reason, he was standing on top of [searching ... searching] a grill. A primitive technology used to cook inefficient food to make slightly less inefficient food. Why was he standing on top of an illusionary grill? He was not aware of any cultures that consumed robots.

What had happened in the month several minutes of unconsciousness after he chose to drink with Mel? Was it still a good idea to follow the trend setter? His social algorithms were still calculating, but right now he and his partner (opponent?) Hildegarde seemed to be the first participants.

Though his processors lagged, it eventually became clear that the participants -- meaning himself and Hildegarde -- were expected to roast each other. This was an odd human societal phenomenon he was clearly not familiar with. He would need external resources in order to accomplish this strenuous challenge.



Simon recalled why human dictionaries were considered, in human emotions, infuriating. Some of these definitions used pieces of the word in it!

Given his inability to eat and his disinterest in harming his fellow contestant, as both of those activities were definitely socially unacceptable in almost all societies, Simon concluded that he was going to be expected to criticize or severely reprimand his opponent. While this would likely harm his social points with Hildegarde, it seemed that other humans enjoyed the suffering inflicted on others by this critique (called Schadenfreude), so perhaps it was not such a bad idea to do so.

The time started ticking as the bipedal dog finished his speech, which Simon had only been paying attention to in the background. He scratched his brain for a criticism that would be considered harsh enough but entertaining to witness.

"Hello Hildegarde," Simon greeted her, as he realized that the two had not yet directly interacted. "I apologize that we must burn the bridge at our introduction, but my analyses say that you would've just talked my ear off about something inane like knitting anyway."

Simon hoped he hadn't been too mean yet.

"Again?" Hildegarde muttered to herself as she was put in the hot seat for the second time in a row — this time literally. How many rounds of this "entertainment" were there going to be? She felt as if this game show had been going on for five months instead of about thirty minutes. Also, were the kids really calling the fine art of verbal sparring a "roast" these days? What a crude term.

Hildegarde didn't particularly want to insult the strange-but-relatively-peaceful creature, Simon, sitting in front of her. Why couldn't she have been paired with that drunkard Lordy? Gods knew she'd met enough men like him to make cutting comments all day.

"...you would've just talked my ear off about something inane like knitting anyway," finished Simon in his strange, slightly distant voice.

With an exaggerated sigh, Hildegarde flicked a melting blob of ice cream off of her front and into the flames. Always so quick to assume, everyone was. She could have talked his ear off about the time she'd stolen a pirate ship instead. And then killed the pirates' kraken god when they tried to take it back.

"Hello, Simon. I would say it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, but given that you seem to be nothing more than a bunch of metal enchanted by some mage, I'd have to say the same to my new knitting needles."

Hildegarde pulled her needles out of the cardigan she had been knitting, slid it onto her plain wooden backup needles for safekeeping, and tucked it away. (It had mostly survived the ice cream shield, luckily, but she wasn't taking any more chances.)

She held up the metal needles, letting their faint magical shimmer catch the light. "Hello, needles."

Simon might have chuckled if his humor processors were not still rebooting (he did have those, didn't he?), but instead he countered with, "It seems that the elderly of us human have a difficult time interacting with technology. Perhaps those knitting needles are too advanced for you too?"

While he felt this response was likely enough of a retort, he felt that the audience would appreciate more goading. He decided that it was a common trope of humans to become better friends after first hating each other, so this aligned with his goals well enough. "And perhaps the delusions from dementia are setting in, what with your intense belief in magic."

Carter raised his brows in approval at that one. Not bad, freakish automation.

Now this was a round that Jerica could get behind. She decided that she was safe from the compulsory question-asking now and was grateful that whatever the sticky coldness dripping down her hand last time was now gone. She looked over at Mel. "Wait, so I just gotta insult you for this one?"

Mel sat on the edge of her seat, fully entertained that she was watching a show go down between a freakish automaton and an old lady. Her attention was diverted when Jerica talked to her, though.

"Hm?" she said as as her words sunk in.

That was right. They were going against each other... which was a shame. She was beginning to like Jerica. Why couldn't she go against someone she wanted to insult instead?

"I guess so," she said with a shrug. "But I don't really want to insult you. You're pretty chill, even if you got a stick up your butt."

"Oh, same," Jerica answered before the insult truly registered. She shrugged. "I mean, you're kinda annoying. But I'd rather roast one of them."

She nodded towards Lordy and Carter.

Lordy giggled as he watched the strange man and old lady bicker with one another. Some embarrassment at the expense of someone other than him was more than welcome.

Unfortunately, Jerica was bickering next to him and complaining about who she was paired up with. Lordy turned to her and rolled his eyes, "Was the beat down I gave you in our dance contest not enough? Do you really need a verbal beatdown as well?"

"Shhhhhhhh." Jerica dramatically put a finger to her lips. "The grown ups are talking now, Lordy. Go do your little dance of shame if that makes you feel better."

Lordy scoffed at her, "Are you still embarrassed that you're as stiff as rock?" He waved his hand at her dismissively, "Please, we can't all be monsters on the dance floor."

Hildegarde laughed at Simon's insult, because it didn't even make sense. Belief in magic, a sign of dementia? What plane had he been living on?

"Since you seem to have missed all the illusions, not to mention a giant —" (she gritted her teeth) "— ice cream shield... maybe you should run some scans on those eyes," Hildegarde said, and at that word turned her eyes, whites and all, completely black (by casting Thaumaturgy). At least cantrips seemed to work.

"While you're at it, check your snap judgements. And your sense of humor. Wow, there's really not much of you that's working right now, is there?"

Simons gears creaked as his arms shuttered. His hands moved to his face as his screen registered a “shocked expression”, mouth and eyes wide as he bent his upper body slightly away from the old woman.

“Oh my, if I am in need of an update, you must need a whole reboot. Your eyes have simply powered down without your permission!”

Then one of his mechanical hands moved to his hips as he said, “You might be past your warranty, so you might be out of luck.”

Hildegarde sighed loudly and turned to face the audience. This was getting old. Clearly Simon had no idea what she was capable of, which was why all his insults were so terribly shallow. Okay, maybe she had no idea what a 'warranty' was, but it wasn't hard to tell he looked at her and saw a harmless old lady just like everyone else.

"Look at him, trying to understand magic. Isn't he sweet?" she called out to the audience. "If he ever gets to see what magic can really do, I'd love to see the look of shock on that thing passes for a face."

At that moment, the flames underneath the contestant on the giant grill roared, rising up beneath the two of them, and for a moment, they were consumed by the flames. But when the flames subsided, both Hildegarde and Simon were unscathed, aside from cartoonish scorch marks on their clothes.

"Well wasn't that some entertaining back-and-forth banter!" K.K. Slider chirped over the mic as he started levitating over the grill.

"But I think we need the audience to weigh in on who won this one," K.K. hummed, tapping his paw on his chin.


"CALL 1-800-ROASTED AND PUT IN YOUR VOTES RIGHT NOW!"

"With a near-unanimous decision, the audience has made up their minds," K.K.'s said as his voice echoed out over the loudspeaker. He continued to levitate far above the giant grill that the two contestants were seated over.

"The winner of this round's Roast the Most is our beloved fellow robot SIMON!" K.K. shouted, and the crowd roared in cheers and applause.

At that moment, the seat Simon sat in was raised, magically levitating far above the grill beside K.K., and K.K. gestured to him in adulation.

Hildegarde's seat, however, moved to the center of the grill.

"Looks like the loser of this roast is TOAST!" K.K. chirped with an almost evil laugh.

It was at that moment that the flames of the grill roared once again, and Hildegarde could not be seen by the fire.


The fire came and went, and when it dissipated, Hildegarde was gone.

But actually, she had just moved back to sit with the other contestants who were observing at the time. The crowd didn't seem to notice at first, and they still gasped. Some clapped. It was a mixed crowd, apparently.

"Now, onto our NEXT round!" K.K. said, twirling his paw and sending Simon's seat fluttering down beside Hildegarde.



Jerica and Mel's chairs zipped over to the grill as the lights in the room flicked in and out for a moment, before the spotlights landed on the two of them.

"IN FIVE SECONDS, THE ROAST THE MOST BEGINS," K.K. shouted, hyping up the crowd.