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

Re: Iron Fist, Ward Meachum, "what's the point of having fuck-you money if you never say 'fuck you'?

[sholio]

Awwww, I'm delighted you liked this despite not being that familiar with the characters; thank you! ♥

[sholio]

Haha, this is great; perfect character voices. "That guy who refused to admit he was friends with Hood" ... LOL, yes. XD

Defenders/Iron Fist, Misty & Colleen, cold hands

[sholio]

"You look cold," is the first thing Colleen says when she shows up.

"I'm freezing," Misty retorts. She hates winter in New York sometimes. It feels like her left hand is a solid block of ice. The right one, the one she doesn't have anymore, still feels warm, the way hands and feet can get out of balance sometimes, except there's nothing she can do about it anymore. She can't clasp her hands together to warm them.

Instead she pulls off her left glove with her teeth and flexes the fingers to try to get some circulation back into them.

"Here, let me." Colleen closes her hand over Misty's icy fingers. A faint glow starts up under her skin, making the bones of her hand stand out like shadows, and tingling warmth spreads through Misty's fingers until she's warmed through and through.

Colleen lets her go with a grin. "Now I know why Danny's hands were always so warm," she says.

"Show-off," Misty mutters, but she's smiling as she stretches her warmer, limber fingers.

Iron Fist, Ward & Danny

[sholio]

"Enough," Ward pants, "stop it, I'm tapping out."

Danny salutes him with his wooden bokken -- Ward clumsily returns the gesture -- and lets it drop to his side. "You're doing great, for a beginner."

"Yeah, and I've found muscles I didn't even know I had. I'm done with swordfighting torture for today. I'm gonna go get blitzed on ibuprofen and pass out," and at Danny's alarmed look, "Calm down, it's a joke, you can't get high off ibuprofen. All you'll do is destroy your kidneys."

Danny manages not to ask if Ward has actually tried it. He thinks he might not want to know the answer.

Re: Human Brazier (Avatar: the Last Airbender)

[sholio]

Hahaha, this is adorable. XD

Re: Fallen London, Player Character/Quiet Deviless

[sholio]

Oh, this is lovely. What a perfect Neathy feeling. :)

[sholio]

Ahahaha. I love the outside POV here; this is great.

Life Again, With Another

[(Anonymous)]

Only Cleo and Nefaria knew that the long silences between them were in fact rich with secret pleasures.

Between them, they fill space with the soft rustle of laundry being folded from pile to pile, the low rumbles of footsteps across a thick stone floor, the turn of a page between transfixed thumbs, the brush of fingers barely dusting one's shoulder.

After eternities entombed in lonely castles, they find it a heady indulgence to pay mutual attention to such warm little signs, these indications that others take for granted.

(-Liz ♥)

[(Anonymous)]

Buffy fully expects Cordelia to drive her out of her mind within the first week, probably in obvious ways: loud music, long hours spent on the phone, complaint after complaint about her friends, or her taste in clothes, or whatever boy she dumped in the last month. Instead, she's forced to take a step back, to see the different ways they don armor and go into battle every time they both set foot out the door.

There's a chasm between them that's closing fast, and as her heart pounds at Cordelia's first shockingly genuine smile, Buffy begins to wish she knew how to express it.

Lady Cousland/Alistair, the Calling

[hawkeyesquared]

It was wrong. The lady Cousland knew that as surely as she knew her own name, or that of the man laying at her side, quiet, but not asleep.

He heard it too, she knew that. But it was too soon. The Call was always going take them eventually--that was, perhaps, the only thing about which Duncan had been open from the start. (Well, after the Joining, at least. No sense in telling recruits they were doomed to an eventful, short, and painful life until they were hopelessly committed, after all. And it wasn't as if she'd had much choice to begin with.) But it wasn't supposed to be happening now.

It sounded like... a song. Except that wasn't quite the right word, because it wasn't music she could hear so much as feel. And it was a haunting melody which she could almost understand, but true comprehension danced ever out of reach.

Was that what eventually drove Wardens to the Deep Roads, and to their deaths, in the absence of a Blight? This desperate need to know just what was being sung, why it resonated with their tainted souls?

"You're still awake," Alistair said--a statement, not a question. He knew as well as she the futility of sleep with that whisper at the edge of the mind.

She heard him sit up in there tent, and she turned to meet his gaze--the one thing, she thought, keeping her from following that Calling straight to the depths of the world. But they wouldn't be able to keep resisting--not for long. The rest of the Wardens had already begun to disappear. Vigil's Keep stood empty, and Andraste herself couldn't say what the Orlesian Wardens were up to. Something had to be done.

"...You're going to leave again, aren't you."

Cousland gave a deep sigh. "I have to," she said at length, looking back at him. "I need to find out why this is happening--and how to stop it."

"You know I'd follow you anywhere."

"I know. But I can't take you with me." The look on his face said he'd suspected as much. "I need someone here I know I can still trust--if all else fails, that fledgling Inquisition might even be of use. But I... it has to stop. There has to be a way. We didn't defeat the Blight just to let it claim us before our time."

Her conviction did not waver, even as the song swelled within her.

She'd beaten the forces of evil before. She could damn well do it again.

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, the terror of knowing what this world is about

Fill: Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine

[runespoor]

"The Wish-Granting Engine is broken?" Leonardo couldn’t believe his ears.

Mutely, Chuubo nodded.

Leonardo frowned. At another time, he’d have crowed and claimed for all to hear that this was the proof that his own Nightmare Science was superior by far! At no point had his glorious inventions ever done anything so mundane as to stop working.

But this… That Chuubo’s machine stopped working after Chuubo’s heart had been tampered with by Death, he, the Headmaster of Bleak Academy himself, and Leonardo’s former mentor, filled Leonardo with a sense of… frustration. Dread?... Frustration! And after Chuubo’s daring rescue by Leonardo (cameoing Chuubo’s friends, amongst whom Leonardo definitely shouldn’t be counted), too.

Chuubo, Leonardo couldn’t help but notice, looked crestfallen. His chin dipped on his chest as though he’d just learned his favorite tayiaki flavor was being discontinued. By making Chuubo unable to call upon that silly toy, the Wish-Granting Engine, the Headmaster had struck Chuubo worse than Leonardo had ever been able to.

This would not do, Leonardo decided.

"Fear not!" Leonardo declared. "I, me, I, the great Leonardo de Montreal, will see that your children's toy works just as well as it ever did – no, even better! The Wish-Granting Engine will be fixed to the utmost of my capacity and its powers will surpass everything you ever dreamed !"

Surprisingly, Chuubo failed to gape in adoration at Leonardo’s selflessness. (He wasn’t being selfless, he reminded himself: he wanted the Engine to work so he could prove to Chuubo his own Nightmare inventions were better. If Chuubo wasn’t impressed, it just went to show he was a little less dumb than he was back when Leonardo was his friend. This was a good thing, Leonardo told himself firmly.)

"…I don’t thiiiiink Nightmare Science should be used on the Wish-Granting Engine," Chuubo said.

Leonardo scoffed. "Obviously you misunderstand the full range of my genius."

Chuubo’s eyebrows rose, and if Chuubo acting ironical wasn’t a serious sign that up was down and they were careening off the rails and into seriously uncharted territory, Leonardo didn’t know what would be. For the sake of his sanity (dignity ?) he ignored it.

"I’m going to fix it by hand, dumbass," he explained, "and you’re gonna help me, I don’t know how you fixed up your thingamajig in the first place."

Chuubo’s lips quirked, and Leonardo’s stomach did its usual flip-flopping of 'urgh when am I going to Show Chuubo up'. Down, stomach. We are going to fix the Wish-Granting Engine, and that’ll definitely show him this time!

"Thanks, Leo. That means a lot to me."

For some reason Leonardo’s cheeks picked this moment to go on fire - only metaphorically, but unpleasant enough.

Leonardo turned away, buysing himself with looking for Chuubo’s tools through the capharnaum that was his basement.

"Yeah, whatever. Just as long you don’t forget I'm the one who's your rival here," he grumbled.

Original, superhero/supervillain

[sandrine]

"I don't know how you keep getting yourself into these situations," Shadow Man chides Jake while working on the ties that hold his feet in place, and Jakes tries hard – so hard – to focus on important things like a witty comeback or how to defeat the as-of-yet unnamed villain who captured him, but it's not easy when all his attention is soaked up by how long and clever the other man's fingers are, what quick work they make of the bonds.

"Do you and whatshisname have some kind of turf war going on?" Jake wants to know, too curious for his own good, "like... don't get me wrong, Declan, it's not that I'm not grateful for the rescue and all, but helping the hero escape isn't exactly in the villain handbook?"

"The only person who is allowed to defeat you and tie you up is me," Declan says with an uncharacteristic hint of petulance in his tone, a possessiveness that should by no means be endearing (but totally is), but before Jake has a chance to power through the inappropriate rush of fondness and come up with a suitable response, they're being shot at and running for their lives.

[sandrine]

Madam Secretary, Stevie/Russell (or Stevie & Russell), after-hours

[sandrine]

Arrowverse, Coldflash, cold fingers, warm skin

Re: Welcome to PHU, Pawel & Janusz

[tryslora]

Pawel is having a rough time of it, yeah. Rumor has it that things will improve for him when he finally gets that vacation (but it'll be crazier before it gets better). Thanks!

[nurseshark]

Revolutionary Girl Utena, Anthy/Utena, lessons in gardening

Re: Leverage, Eliot & Hardison, The Hogwarts Job

[mad_madam_m]

Thank you!! :-D

[glorious_spoon]

Star Trek TOS; Uhura/Chapel, language lessons

Re: Iron Fist, Ward & Danny

[tiggerann]

Ah, someone just not getting it.

[glorious_spoon]

OH NO. This is really good, thank you!

(and of course Max and Lucas would be the sensible ones here. ouch.)

[shallowness]

This is beautiful.

[liquidtears]

Absolutely LOVE all the other fills to this prompt! Well done alice_pike and setsuntamew!!

Re: Warmth in the Winter (Naruto)

[kalira]

^.^

Re: Taxonomy (Enchanted Forest Chronicles)

[kalira]

Excellent! I love Cimorene and Kazul and this is so them. XD