literature

FFM: Day 20 Challenge

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The femme fatale fell from the balcony with a strangled cry of horror. She died on impact.

She had been a nuisance, though to be fair, she had done it purely by accident. It was all horribly cliched.

Rosin didn't care what he had to do to obtain his objective, his intentions were entirely selfish, the result would not be even remotely justifiable by his actions, but he didn't care about that either. Obstacles were to be removed as and when they arose.

The difference engine was set to begin the countdown at midnight, and when it stopped, the face of London would be transformed. Exactly what form that transformation would take was difficult to say at this point. The calculations were a little vague. Rosin had brought along some goggles, just in case.

He settled back into the armchair he had placed on the balcony, perfectly situated with a view of the city skyline, and retrieved his pipe. The cake had gone over the edge with Sylvia, which was unfortunate. Rosin was fond of Black Forrest, indeed he had been looking forward to it all evening.
The infernal woman had a lot to answer for, interrupting his vigil, dragging his cake to an ignoble end on the cobblestones below. To his mind defenestration had been the only logical course of action.

To be honest, most of the time he felt like he was the only sane person left in England. The toxin had turned the majority of the population into raving lunatics, including the sultry vixen who had recently departed via the balcony. And to think they called him mad.

People these days had a very warped view of scientists.
:iconflash-fic-month: Day 20 Challenge. It was quite a wopper. It sparked a rebellion. There were riots, and cake, and extended deadlines.

We had to write a story that includes elements of Steampunk, where one of the characters is a Femme Fatale, where one of the themes is whether the ends justify the means, and one other writing convention of your choice (genre, character, theme etc.)

One is to be inverted, one is to be subverted, one is to be lampshaded, and one is to be played straight.

I desperately wanted to write something excellent for this, impossible though it might have been. Indeed I wrote two excellent things.

The first lacked a Femme Fatale and there was no conceivable way to introduce one. The second piece did have one, but it quickly became clear to me that it was more of a 3000 worder than a flash fiction, and even then it didn't necessarily guarantee that all the required inversions/subversions/lampshading/tropes would be included in the appropriate fashion.

Both were derived from a book I'm 'writing', and I couldn't bring myself to mangle the fundamental nature of the characters and setting to make everything fit.

So instead I did this! I'm not sure it meets the requirements either, but I don't hate it, so that's alright.

For reference:
:bulletblue: Steampunk- Played Straight
:bulletblue: Femme Fatale- Lampshaded
:bulletblue: Mad Scientist (my choice)- Inverted
:bulletblue: Ends Justify the Means- Subverted (or inverted, or parodied, or any number of things really. OR MAYBE NONE OF THEM. In which case, woops)

Also there is cake. :dummy:
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