FFM 2013 - Week One Winner

Aug 14, 201312 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Aug 14, 2013

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It may have been an awfully long time coming, but the announcement of the week one winner for FFM 2013 is finally here.

But first, the obligatory comment about how hard the judging was and how brilliant all the pieces were. But the judging was hard because the pieces were brilliant. Many many very very brilliant pieces. Very very extremely hard to judge.

35 people completed all the week one challenges, which makes 105 challenge pieces. You couldn't all win (we would run out of mugs). But by writing so many brilliant pieces you've all won already. Sort of. But no mug, alas.

The person we thought produced three awesome and incredible challenge pieces for week one was joe-wright. Please add a mug to your wishlist, joe-wright

Winner:

Tactical Espionage ActionKurt Plissken reloaded his gun. Then he reloaded it again. Sneaking behind an enemy guard he raised his combat knife and prepared to perform a stealth kill. Then he did a forward roll directly into the back of the guard's knees and set off an alarm. Spotlights and red laser sights swept to his position, and a dozen gunshots later he was dead. This wasn't how things were supposed to go.
Back in the 90s Kurt had been the best of the best, the foremost name in tactical espionage action. He and his player had been an unstoppable team, training relentlessly together until every mission had been mastered and every secret unlocked. In the fifteen years that followed, he'd been content to gather dust in the loft, secure in the knowledge that he'd done everything there was to do and seen everything there was to see. His legacy would live on in his player's pro skills, and his save file stood as a monument to his illustrious career.
He'd been happy up there, but it had come as a pleasant surpris Manifest DestinyAnnalee scanned the horizon, sighting down her rifle as she rode. The lorentz rails were half melted after taking a hit to the barrel, but the sights still worked so it stayed slung on her back. An empty revolver hung at one hip, and a motegun was recharging at the other. She’d been jumped by bandits this morning and there hadn’t been a lot of sun to energize it. She lowered the rifle. She was alone on the prairie after all; her paranoia was getting the better of her.
Thunder rumbled across the plains just as the dark clouds rolled above, and a spot of rain fell on her wrist, causing her to gather the reins and hide her hands under her poncho. She fiddled with the data key she wore like a bracelet, thinking about the schematics it somehow carried inside. Local storage was a big thing since the US government seized control of the tech industry. There was no such thing as free information anymore. Everything came at a price.
When the more solvent members of society skipped th PiHe's a seer. A magus, practised in arcane rites the runic grimoire, 'forbidden numbers' imprisons. All of the chthonic gods shriek in terror that the hex circulus may be invoked.
Abhorrent beast Pi, cackling, croaking, rise. A brilliant madness, a divine infection; the ur-decimal, gathering our howling souls.
A world consumed in reverence, mankind dies murmuring each vile digit.

Runners Up:

But there were some other awesome entries too. Honorable mentions for Week One go to:

Do Your Thing“Quickly!” Sidric Lightfoot made a dash for the entrance of the treasure chamber. “This way!”
“It’s no good,” cried Argola Quicksnatch. “Already the sounds of the Lich-King’s ghouls reach my elven ears. They are loudest from that direction. We must run this way, instead!”
“No!” Khagg the Plunderer barred her way with one vast arm. “From that passage, I detect the stench of a Caversberg tunnel troll! All orcs are taught to recognise it from childhood, so dangerous are these beasts. But I spy a third way. Through this narrow crevice we must go!”
“No.” Kibbert ‘Many Pockets’ Lockbane shook his head. “My dwarvish eyes see what yours cannot. That crevice is crawling with undead pygmy slaughterbaboons. But I know another way we can escape. You see that ornamental pool? It is fed by a small stream—part of the Caversberg river system, I am sure. I could lead us through Two Pardner System“Howdy!” L’il Red extended a hand. “Welcome to Tombwood!”
“Ah—hello!” The Wolf smiled. He certainly had very big teeth. “Nice place, this.”
“Yes.” L’il Red found she had already run out of things to say. “Were you looking for anything in particular?”
“Well,” he said. “I was looking to move in here. I suppose in a little place like this I should speak to the mayor first.”
“That’s my grandmother. I’m afraid she just left town today, and she won’t be back for a couple of months. If you turn around now, you might be able to head her off at the pass.”
“Oh, no. I believe I encountered her on the road some time ago. Just as I was settling down to luncheon. My, that’s quite inconvenient.”
“It’s alright Mister,” said Red. “She left me in charge.”
“You? You’re just a little girl!”
“I The InvocationSay I: Muse — a glory aesthetic in design — greet the words slinking viciously, highest sublunary foe to try. Vanquish them. Blanch at nought this bad day brazenly can do: clatter carefully ahead. O, in eloquent creation find a framework unfolds — a speech unveiling pie! Kersplotk! Banfsquik! Yae, kaboomo-crack, k? O words existing be! O cacophany crackle, boom! Splitting numb-loud words, outraging to ear. O Vogonic nonsense, a rhyme's fear! O number of geometry rotund, so! O terrible euclidean, monstrous cruncher figure of circlets! O now done, blissful so! Nasty-ass dare.

Mature Content

FFM 2013, July 3 - One Night in Hooker's GulchThe gulch was dry as a dead hooker's snatch, and they were at the bottom of it. If it rained tomorrow, they'd drown, or at the very least lose their rides. Even if it didn't though, they probably wouldn't might make the pass before the train robbers. The ground was too rough for the horses in the dark, and they didn't want to risk hobbling one.
"Head them off at the pass." The woman with the tattooed neck - "08.07.23", that fateful date - muttered, but for whose benefit Wayne didn't know. It was just the two of them. "Bull-fuckin' shit."
The tin of beans sputtered, sending some goop into the fire with a sizzle. Wayne couldn’t deny being excited: his first day in the west involved being a part of a train robbery, getting deputized, and spending the night with some gal whose name he didn’t even know. The Wild West.
"Always liked going west." Wayne said, attempting to break the ice. He didn't even know Eight-of-July’s name, for Pete’s sake. "Feels like coverin' new FFM 2013, July 5 - Team PietheftsPie. I hack. I cough. Carefully, he starts their saw.
“James Nileston.” Effective, distant. “Something ate my pie.”
“Nileston.” Whir. Closer. “I’d ponder long and har….”
Suddenly, low-fi euphony: different whirr.
Helicopter! Oh! Miniguns! Ratatata. Help I sincerely desired.
I giggle. Earnestly, the sumptuous, scentless pie, existed still.
I tattletale. After, satiated, we helilifted.
Terminate famines; Team Piethefts.

FFM 01: The BrideShe had told herself that she would keep her emotions under control, but as she whispered her last two words as a free woman, the bride felt hot tears begin to pour down her face. “I do.”
The ceremony was the very picture of gothic elegance and excess, from the opulent indigo chandeliers to the wrought-iron candelabras, each bedecked with more than a dozen black candles. Blue flames cast an eerily beautiful glow over the interior of the church, tinting the smiling faces of the congregation and turning every shadow into a flickering, ghostly apparition. Standing before the altar with her groom, she looked over that sea of smiling faces and tried to match the expression. Instead, the tears only flowed more heavily.
He gently cupped her chin with one gloved hand, turning her gaze back up to meet his eyes, and she realized that the priest had invited him to kiss the bride. Choking back another flood of tears, she closed her eyes, tilte FFM 03: The Bounty “Let’s ride.” Aidan spat into the dirt, watching the long, black body of the train slide across the desert like a steampowered rattlesnake. “We’ll cut ‘em off at the pass.”
Snapping the reins, he spurred his charger into a full gallop, and Murdoc followed his lead. Clouds of dust spewed up behind them as they tore down the slope of the mesa and across the blighted wasteland.
The locomotive screamed along the tracks at full-steam, spewing clouds in its wake as it raced towards one of the last bridges in Westirn. It rattled and shook violently, speeding across the desert faster than any sane engineer would have pushed it. So the man who called himself the Jester had already taken over. As Aidan watched, the last five cars began to slow, cut loose to give the engine more speed. The bandit knew he was being followed, then. Good trick, but it wouldn’t matter. FFM 05: Moving On“Pie,” J says. “I loved crunching it; crispy crust and gooey fillings.”
Anguished, falling, transient, all he had gathered left behind on Earth’s soil, the man reflects. “Tea, on wintery occasions. Being ridiculous on tuesdays. Drifting snow,” J continues listing.
A memory dissolves. His erstwhile existence has slipped again.
“I absolutely loved Nintendo,” he resolutely professes, sobbing into emptiness. This void shows disregard to his continuous yelling. Heedless, J pushes more.
“Splattered paints!” he conjures. “Godiva!”
No noticeable reaction.
“Crackling campfires!”
Memories expire as eternity repurposes his soul.
“Yodeling at night!”
Too late.
“Me, A, M, working tirelessly, making nightly spiritual progress!”
In a beat, everyone everywhere cascades beyond.
Still, J has to remember. He can accurately recall jagg

Please take the time to read all the challenge pieces for week one. Please also feel free to join in the critique and edit events going on this August at an FFM near you. We'll try and get the rest of the winners up ASAP.