Three Sentence Ficathon

[rthstewart]

UPDATE! EDIT!
 We're running into the Dreamwidth comment limits so all new prompts should be posted here Keep responding to and filling already posted prompts here, but all new ones should go to the new thread!

Someone did this banner for me a couple of years ago.  It's great, isn't it?  If it was you, please step up and take a bow!
It was st_aurafina!   Thank you again!


caramelsilver ran one last year on Livejournal and I did two over here a few years ago. We'll keep it open until January 31, 2019 which should give everyone time to play a little. This is a delightful part of the online fandom community.


What is the 3 Sentence Ficathon?
This is a challenge where you answer a prompt with a fic consisting of only three sentences. It's open to all fandoms and you can post and answer as many prompts as you like, as many times as you want.

What do I do first?
You post prompts! When posting a prompt please format it this way:

fandom, character(s), prompt word/sentence.

Only one prompt per comment please.  So, for example,

Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi, I don't like sand."

What else?
You answer other posters' prompts in three sentences (or more if you can't stop yourself) and fill as many prompts as you want, as many times as you wish. If you see that a prompt you loved has already been filled, go ahead and fill it again! Multiple fills of the same prompt are allowed and even encouraged!  (We get really fun stories going this way).

Can I still post if I need more than 3 sentences?  Or should I just abuse grammar in ways the English language never contemplated?
Yes.  Yes.


But I'm not a member of Dreamwidth
No problem. You can comment anonymously or through open ID

Can anyone play?
Yes! Please signal boost this to your flist, followers, and any other places you frequent. Come one, come all!
The more people who come and play, the better!

Can I spread the word? 
Yes, please.  I'd love to create a nifty banner with an embed code but I fail at it.  So if you create one, I'll post it and everyone can use it.

How long will it go?
Tentatively, we'll close it on January 31, 2019. 

Are there any rules about cross-posting?
Nope, you can post wherever you want, whenever you want. A lot of folks collected their responses together and posted them on AO3 under the 3 sentence fiction tag. 3SFs are a terrific prompt for remixes and could be helpful for Yuletide bears, too.

What about spoilers, content warnings, triggers, pairings, ratings, tags, and squick?
I thought about this.  It wasn't an issue the last 2 times I ran this but times change.  In my experience, this typically gets too big, moves too fast, and the stories are too short for content warnings and ratings. You should assume spoilers are fair game and that the initial poster and responder have opted to use no content warnings or tags. I've found personally that I can skim by stuff that, from the prompt, I can tell isn't my favorite flavor of delicious cake. Use your best judgment and be prepared to skip over things that aren't your thing.


And here, have some icons!










I'll start things off...

Edit to add on 12/18/2018 Please check out this update here. And this friending meme if you're so inclined here.

Comments

[rthstewart]

Star Wars; Obi-Wan Kenobi; “I hate sand”

[syrena_of_the_lake]

It was penance of a sort... that or irony, and Obi-Wan still wasn’t sure which. His old pupil would have laughed at the sight: a Jedi master, nearly naked in his barren home, beating sand from his robes in futile rebellion against the ever-encroaching desert.

He would have laughed even harder at the look on Beru’s face when she appeared with an ill-timed gift of bantha milk and wild honey, but Obi-Wan had never approved of his padawan’s weakness for ribald humor.

[rthstewart]

The Expanse (TV); Drummer; behind every great man is a better woman

[colls]

It wasn't really about her damned injury, she allowed Ashford to be the face of the Behemoth garnering the goodwill of the inners - she had other priorities.

Let men like him and Holden do all the talking and explaining while it was those like her and Nagata that got done what needed done, she thought just as the lift came crashing down.

"Now I know why you don't need to carry a gun," she called up to Nagata, "oh, that's a pretty trick."

[rthstewart]

Star Wars; Leia Organa, Amilyn Holdo (or Leia/Amilyn); non-linear thinking

[syrena_of_the_lake]

The situation was desperate, as always: Stormtroopers were methodically searching the area, the Rebels were scattered and time was running out — so naturally Amilyn stopped to visit the Obroa-Skai Archaeological Museum, where she wandered in ever-widening concentric circles further and further from the exit.

“We either need cover or we need to keep moving,” hissed Leia, only to be shushed by no fewer than a dozen curators; Amilyn promptly stopped in her tracks to point at a poorly lit diorama labeled THE CLONE WARS: The Evolution of Combat Armor.

“How about cover that we can move in?” asked Amilyn — and Leia had to take a deep breath and remind herself that it didn’t matter how Amilyn came up with her escape plan, or whether Leia could follow her reasoning... just like it didn’t matter that the curators looked at Amilyn’s interest with approval, and no one shushed her.

[rthstewart]

Narnia/MCU; Rilian, Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (or Rilian/Bucky); “They've promised that dreams can come true - but forgot to mention that nightmares are dreams, too.”

[metonomia]

When the King of Narnia dreams, he feels his arm cold as ice, as stone, as metal torn screaming from the earth. He clenches that raging, deadly hand against the orders whispering and marching through his head.

When he wakes, Rilian is freezing from the sweat of nightmares; it’s pure peace, though, for them to be Bucky’s rather than his.

[rthstewart]

ASOFAI; Sansa Stark, Arya Stark; masks

[senmut]

For Arya, the mask had been held in Winterfell whenever Mother insisted that she be the perfect little lady, while Sansa had been true to herself in that setting. The years passed, though, and Sansa learned the value of a mask to hold to all others, cloaking her intent as well as Littlefinger ever had. Arya, however, found that she could let the wolf be seen, even as she crafted a number of masks for use as needed.

[rthstewart]

Narnia; Susan Pevensie; there’s no problem with Susan

[katharhino]

"Susan is interested nothing nowadays but lipstick and nylons," said Peter with a frown - "She likes subtle schemes and secret codes and mysteries. She's fascinated by trades and travel and trampling injustice; and most of all, she likes disappearing at important moments - Susan! - oh, there you are -"

"I'm always where I most need to be," she snapped in reply.

[syrena_of_the_lake]

Star Wars & Harry Potter; Amilyn Holdo & Luna Lovegood; astrology

[scarletcorvid]

"So why does the astrology professor only tell us about the nine planets, Aunt?" Luna inquired the pink-haired woman sitting beside her.

Amilyn smiled gently. "Sometimes it's hard for people to accept the world is different than what they thought it was. That's why people like you, the ones that dare to think outside what everyone has accepted as fact, are so important to this world, my Luna."

[syrena_of_the_lake]

Thomas Crown Affair; all those guys in bowler hats; what did they think they were doing with those briefcases in the museum?

[marginaliana]

Performance art by the museum, they told him, an ode to Magritte; yes, the suit and hat and briefcase provided were fine work, expensive, but there was a grant.

It had to be the truth, Marvin reassured himself, and he knew that the others he met in the museum that day were telling themselves the exact same thing.

The precepts of small-time actors applied to them all: never work for free, never turn down a job, and never, ever, ask questions.

[kayim]

Star Trek (reboot), McCoy, I'm a Doctor, not a [any choice here]

TOS/AOS fusion

[yeomanrand]

Grumbling, he braced himself against the crimson stone of this barely earth-like planet, classifications be damned. Because Jim asked it of him, he reached down from his precarious perch, hand extended to the exceptionally gravid first lady of Kul'tuaur, but he wasn't above sassing the captain.

"Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not an escalator."

[kayim]

Star Wars Rebels, Hera, Being the team mom was hard some days

[rthstewart]

The Ghost crew all stare at the new list of Ship Rules, guiltily avoiding catching anyone else’s eye, for this is a shared punishment and for their collective crimes, Hera has put the Holonet password behind 12 layers of personal encryption

*No clipping toenails in the lounge (Zeb, this means you especially);
*No, Sabine, you may redecorate the common areas without Captain’s express, written prior approval;
*Anyone who doesn’t put the toilet seat back down will be cleaning the head (and the landing gear, exhaust systems, ventilation, and Chopper wheel housing) for the next month;
*Since someone (Ezra, I know it was you) ate all my frozen chocolate cream, there won’t be any more on the ship until we eat all the fermented, curdled thala-siren milk… and so on.

As they peruse the very long list, Sabine muses, “I could try to splice through…” but Ezra shakes his head and points at the final warning: “If anyone even tries to hack my security, I’m cancelling our premium channels and it will be basic cable until Coruscant Prime goes supernova.”

[kayim]

Expanse, any, fire

[rthstewart]

Jim remembers reading in one of Father Ceasar's real books with paper pages about how humankind once thought of fire as a gift. The faded red and orange illustration with flaking gold leaf on the edges was of Prometheus delivering life-giving light and warmth to shivering humans in the cold dark; the next page, a lesson in the perils of defying authority, was stark black, white and red, with Prometheus chained to a rock and Zeus' eagle tearing his liver out.

In space, Jim thinks Zeus was right to mete out punishment for fire is the enemy, not the lifesaver, as lethal as the cold and dark of the hard vacuum outside the Roci's hull and he feels only relief when the suppression system cycles from the worrying yellow of malfunction to soothing green and hears Amos call, "Looks good, Cap!"

[kayim]

DCU comics, Dick Grayson, fear

[shippingfleetadmiral]

Most people either thought Dick had no fear, from the way he threw himself into everything with his whole heart or just thought he had normal fears, like losing his family(again) or the end of the world.

But Dick had been through those fears, conquered them, stood on their dead corpses, and persevered to the other side.

Dick's fear was more insidious, and one he'd never been able to even face, his own darkness and his own capacity to do exactly what his villains did.

[syrena_of_the_lake]

Harry Potter; the Dursleys; there was a hidden message in their miserable Christmas presents

[(Anonymous)]

"Ugh, why would you keep this rubbish?" Ron wrinkled his nose at the worn down and stained box.

Harry shrugged, "At the time, it was MY rubbish so that made it worth keeping. Suppose I can throw the lot out now, though."

"Hold on just one moment," Hermione leaned over Harry with a pensive look. "Can you put these in order? By the year you got them? I think...I think there's something more here."

[alexseanchai]

Miraculous Ladybug, Marinette, puns

[capribornio]

"Ugh, how people can like Cat Noir's puns? Have they /heard/ them?" Marinette frowned at Ayla.

"I heard you make three puns this morning only" her friend smiled.

"The difference is that mine's are funny."

[katharhino]

Oxford Time Travel series (Connie Willis); Polly and Sir Godfrey; the moment he guessed

To His Coy Mistress

[adaeze]

Had we but world enough ant time, this coyness, lady, were no crime. An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart. But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near.

[katharhino]

Oxford Time Travel series; Eileen; her memories go both ways

[littlestclouds]

Star Wars: The Clone Wars; Ahsoka; "I felt you leaving / before you'd even gone"

[senmut]

She doesn't need to look him in the eyes in the hologram. Ashoka has only been back to having Rex at her back for a short time, but she knows he knows her intentions. It's why he asks her to wait for him, to protect her, and yet, it's why she tells him no.

[syrena_of_the_lake]

Harry Potter; Herpo the Foul; experiments in hatching a basilisk

If at first you don't succeed...

[edenfalling]

Trial 1: Failure, the toad refused to stay put on the nest and the egg got too cold and died.

Trial 2: Failure, used a paralysis spell on the toad and the egg began to grow satisfactorily, but then abruptly sank in on itself and oozed bloody fluids when the rooster got into the hutch and crowed in alarm; clearly some kind of pharmakon relationship exists between chickens and this offshoot, which I must research once I get the blasted thing to hatch.

Trial 3: Failure, put a silencing charm on the rooster but was interrupted by neighbors coming over to complain about sudden flood of spiders moving from my yard to theirs and the toad escaped before I could renew the paralysis spell; am beginning to think I won't ever get anywhere unless I remove the neighbors; must check notes to see if I have any experiments that need a pair of fresh human souls.

[syrena_of_the_lake]

Star Trek; any; future scholars trying to decipher Kirk’s logs like another Voynich manuscript

[yeomanrand]

The stardates are the only accurate part, they think; the only sensible part by far now that they've broken that part of the code. The rest, though: sentient stone, a stolen brain, super men, aging heroes, the veil, a god, many gods, an apotheosis, the days when nothing happened, days into hours, hours into days, a planet reborn and a friend besides...

...Nonsense, all of it; a code uncrackable by modern minds.

[sewn]

Twin Peaks, Laura/Josie (or Laura & Josie), truth and lies

[sewn]

Twin Peaks, Audrey & Johnny Horne, sibling love

[syrena_of_the_lake]

Chronicles of Narnia; Susan Pevensie; she met the Witch first

[metonomia]

The white Lady is beautiful - she looks strong, self-contained, safe, and Susan hasn’t felt safe in a long time.

But, “Come into my sleigh, lovely girl, come to my House and I will make you a Princess,” the Lady says. And Susan knows she is still far from safety.

[sewn]

Twin Peaks, Tammy Preston & Albert Rosenfield, "Agent Preston gets car sick" - hurt/comfort

[rthstewart]

Artemis Fowl; Artemis, Holly; roommates

[wingedflight]

The tea chest is on the highest shelf again, which means Artemis is in a crabby mood. This, in turn, means Holly will soon also be in a crabby mood from having to deal with him.

Mulch taps his chin once and then decides that maybe he'd better vacate the premises before either crabby roommate turns their bad mood towards him.

[sawthefaeriequeen]

Voltron Legendary Defender, Keith, desert

[kayim]

[My absolute first time writing anything Voltron related, although I mainlined every episode a couple of months ago! I hope this is okay!]

He doesn't exactly love the desert, but he can appreciate the silence that fills it; so different to the constant noise surrounding him in the Castle of Lions. In the desert, he can be alone, but not lonely; even if the others are around, their voices are lifted high above the dunes.

After a short while, the silence becomes deafening, the privacy turns to abandonment, and he becomes desperate for his home - and his friends - once more.