[symetrik]

Providing feedback to opponent after concession of battle

In general, there were a significant few places where it felt, to me, the rhyme fell off - I'm trying to review the entire line for shadows + multis + etc., but I still feel strongly things were worded weird in a fair amount of places - enough to throw me off the "hip hop/poetry" vibe and throw me into "oh it's just a story" vibe which, while I love a good story, I want the flow and the rhymes and the schemes and the... yeah.

Maximus had once been a magnet in Silicon Valley,
never famous but known in its shadows and alleys.
His inventions had shaped systems, codes, and companies—
tools the world used without ever knowing him publicly.

s/magnate? I think this was an interesting context-setting strategy, giving your subject a rather rich and mysterious backstory without seeming to expand on what it truly was - the nitty gritty. I think I have this stance having worked in tech - I wanna know WHAT he did, rather than the ephemeral "yeah... he did the stuff... with the computers..." xD

But Max wasn’t a glutton for money; he never lusted for fame.
It was the craft that he loved, the innovation he craved.
But that all changed when the ugly truth was discovered:
the industry giants were using his tools to spy on the public.

nice to see a morally non-corrupt tech oligarch.
I think this plays nicely in the overall "Silicon Valley dystopia" vibe, but it's also seemingly the only real touch on a "dystopian" vibe and I think I'd have liked having more.

Now, he moonlights as a sleuth, a private detective,
solving complex cases that the cops couldn’t crack—
like cybercrime and fraud orchestrated by exceptional hackers.
He enjoyed the analysis and how it kept his mind active,
but it was lacking in action and he needed a challenge.

while I do like the career transition, I also feel like this is jerking the reader around - he didn't like tech so he found something he likes, then found that starting to be mundane. sort of the curse of instagram I see (in general) - always posting the good and not realizing the mundane is 90% of it, seems like a similar mindset in struggling to accept the day to day "boring" and wanting excitement.

That’s when he received an email attachment:

—
Subject: Suspicious Skydiving Accident

Maximus,

We have a case that requires your expertise.
Be advised, you may know the deceased.

Victim: Aleister Easton | Age: 53
Occupation: MetaTech V.P.

Aleister, a seasoned skydiver died in what seemed to be an accident,
but there’s something off about this tragic event.

We’ve attached footage retrieved from the scene.
Please review and share your findings with our team.

In solidarity,
Cpt. E.C. McCleen
San Diego P.D.
—

This was cool tbh - it further solidified "story" and pushed things forward in a traditional storytelling sense. I hate the "you may know the deceased" then the immediate next line names them xD like your eyes wouldn't have spotted the familiar name first xD but that's just a nit.

His heart sank. Aleister—Alex, as Max had known him,
had been a friend since their days spent at Princeton.
Back then, Alex was the epitome of precision:
a man who thrived on adrenaline yet never missed a step in business
or life. So, how had he died? Max didn’t hesitate.

I would have liked more of an exposure to Alex's adrenaline - this would have helped tie in the above lines of Max losing enjoyment in the mundanity, if they both were good friends and one was the adrenaline junkie that dragged the other along - instilling the love of the thrill and furthering the gap between what brings joy and what feels boring.

He loaded the drone footage without delay,
his heart racing as he pressed play.

The video began grainy: Alex leaping from the plane,
a black silhouette against the endless blue terrain.
The camera shook violently, his arms opened up wide,
the parachute stowed tightly. He looked almost frozen in time,
like an eagle coasting—just floating in the sky.

This is cool, captures the topic - not much to say here.

Max pressed forward, then rewind. The footage slowed, no pandemonium yet,
it was eerily calm. Until Alex deployed the parachute,
and something went wrong. The ripcord jerked violently,
and the canopy ejected, but it didn’t bloom.

Instead, it collapsed inward like a defective or deflating balloon.
Max’s pulse spiked. Something wasn’t right. He zoomed in,
his focus tightening, scanning with microscopic sight.

this is a solid piece of storytelling, especially the danger, buuuuut I feel like the rhymes fell off completely - some are still there, spiked/right/tight-ening/sight, etc. but I dunno. it just felt off.

Then he saw it.

A hand—fingers pulling the ripcord with surgical efficiency.
Max froze. That hand. It was etched into his photographic memory.
The fingers, the knuckles, the deliberate motion.

HE SAW A HAND WHILE THE ALEX WAS MIDAIR? IS BEN A FUCKING GREMLIN?
this could not click for me. I know you said rewind earlier but in terms of the flow of reading, this seems like the hand that pulled the ripcord was happening midair. I can't read it any other way lol.

It was him. It was Ben.

An unexpected culprit.

Ben. His old rival.

The man who’d once torn apart systems with ruthless proficiency,
leaving nothing but chaos in the programming industry.
This wasn’t an accident. The parachute had been sabotaged intentionally.

fucking rival Gremlins. also, I'd argue that someone that "ruthlessly tears apart systems in programming" is probably a good guy - enforcing security protocols/strictness. just a nit from the industry. I don't like the repeat of the name "Ben" either, but I do like the general vibe of who Ben is - the villain! although I do wanna know more about him. I want to learn about him earlier (which probably demands more line limit)

Alex hadn’t fallen to fate, he’d been forced out of the sky
by a cold and calculated embrace.

Max rewound the footage, frame by frame.
The hand appeared again—it was unmistakable.

Sabotage.

"rewound and the hand appeared again" makes it sound like he wasn't expecting it to xD

An inconspicuous display of animosity and hate.
The police had missed it. But Max never overlooked
the finest details, laid bare, like the final pages of a book.

He stood abruptly, the chair scraping sharply across the floor.
This wasn’t an accident. It was murder;
and Ben was the one pulling the cords
with a cold, brutal, premeditated decorum.

again, "Ben was the one pulling the cords" makes me think he was like strapped to the dude's back and escaped somehow, ***kling.

the ending is rough - the story feels like "context, current boredom, opportunity, analysis of opportunity, realization of the truth, annnnd done" which was disappointing - especially that he was JUST getting up. I wanted to see more about Max and what he was capable of but never got to see it other than "he saw a hand on a recording that somehow the cops missed".

I tried to approach my feedback largely from a story-telling feedback perspective.

A pleasure attending the finals with ya!