Challenge: Choose an author (FFMer or non-FFMer) to mimic and what element(s) of their writing you want to mimic in your story. Optionally, include one sentient plant, animal, or inanimate object. Optionally have the theme be music.
I ended up grabbing Snickie‘s FFM 2025 meta setting (FFM 2025 04 – In Search of Plot Bunnies, FFM 2025 03 – Don’t Forget Your Towel, FFM 2025 31 – I Brought Towels, meant to be read in that order) and running with it. I also grabbed some names from the FFM Discord chat from last night and this morning my time (and figured that ink-singer is probably good few hours behind me and therefore became the victim of sleep deprivation, sorry!) and ran with them too, haha.
I couldn’t shoehorn the theme in so for the first time in a long (I think) time I skipped an optional element.
Windy paused once she made it to the Flash Fiction Metaverse Mansion. Hydra’s many-headed laughter came from… somewhere in there. Not that she was surprised after so many FFMers misinterpreted yesterday’s hint. Better a laughing Hydra than a silent or growling Hydra anyway. Plus, it was nice to hear them on-site again.
Anyhow, she was relieved that today was not a collab day after all. She had not been sure she could do it this week at least without further overloading her brain. Not that she had any more idea what to do about today’s challenge than a collab. Still, it was better than overloading her brain for the umpteenth time this week.
Maybe she should try asking Hydra if they have employment opportunities available once FFM would be over and she would not miss out on challenges if that got her sent out of this plane of existence at a moment’s notice. Their mighty leader had been in an especially bloodthirsty mood this July, so she would probably get offered employment as “a meal” or something like that. It would hopefully probably be a joke because if Hydra ate her now, she could not write tributes for them in the years to come. Probably. At least if she assumed that being eaten by Hydra resulted in death. (And if not? Hoo boy, it was Far Too Early o’clock to contemplate whatever that might entail, especially considering the fact she had been a few bits too deep on the internet during her years.)
The plot bunny from last year — now named Whoops because what the hell else was she supposed to name that hellspawn? — poked their head out of their carrying bag and plopped it onto her shoulder, no doubt eying the fingers holding onto her crossbody bag’s strap. They did not need to do anything else to communicate that they were getting impatient with her having yet another internal crisis before getting on with writing.
“I guess we’re torturing Steirdrar again today if the challenge allows?” Windy asked even though she already knew the answer to that.
Whoops let out the plot bunny equivalent of an evil cackle. A very enthusiastic one, of course.
“I thought as much.” Windy took a deep breath and tried to remember yet again how to people in-person [with other people than her family and Whoops]. “Well, let’s get to it.”
There was a good number of people already (or still) working on their flashfics, considering how early she was. At least she was pretty sure it was “still” for Kiri, considering they were, like, 13 hours(?) apart. At least she was pretty sure Kiri resided on UTC-10 (last she checked anyway). The furthest away from her timezone out of all FFMers anyway. Ink-singer was scrutinizing something on her screen — probably related to today’s challenge — but looked up when she saw her enter.
“Good morning,” Windy greeted. “Or whatever the time it is for you.”
Ink-singer checked the time. “Very late. So, good night for me.”
Windy nodded. “Fair.”
She looked around to find a table to set up shop at. Wizard had made it to the table she had used yesterday before her and was now occupying it. So, seeking out a table somewhere deeper in the compound (and unfortunately further away from the tea and coffee) was in order.
She spotted LANd and Gwendolyn along the way and nodded greetings to them upon eye contact. When she found a table that was not in use, she also found bananas on it. So, definitely Damon’s table. Best not to mess with that; she had seen the Banana-mancer come up with enough crazy things (with and without bananas) not to want to risk getting on his bad side.
When she found a completely unoccupied table far deeper than she usually went — she had a feeling there were more people participating this time than there had been in the recent previous years, judging from how many tables had signs of being occupied — she realized why this one had no signs of having been used in a good while: the nearby vent connected to somewhere that made weird noises. Maybe something related to how this place ran? Maybe the multitude of awesome generators that the Head of Tech had put together between the FFMs? The time machine Hydra dropped that one year so many times she added it to her statistics for that FFM? Something more (or less) interesting?
No matter. Once she had confirmed that Whoops did not mind the noises and was happily settled on the table next to her laptop, she put her headset on and started playing some music as background noise.
Then it was time to torture write.
WindySilver 