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

Fill: Harry Potter

[syrena_of_the_lake]

Ron wished all his school essays had been so short

“There are more elegant ways to begin an essay,” Hermione said critically.

Rose rolled her eyes as she replied, “It’s a meme, Mum, it’s like a shorthand way to say you’ve practically written an essay already, after making the main point but before going on long enough to lose the reader’s interest, but making it clear that you have more to say should you be called upon to do so — and ending with wry, self-deprecating humor where you acknowledge you’ve indulged in something more typical of academic discourse than the traditionally economical language of online communications.”

Hugo and Ron smiled at each other across the table and finished in unison: “In this essay, I will...”

Re: HPverse

[syrena_of_the_lake]

OMG, your Hermione is excellent but Luna’s voice is simply superb! That closing line is a gem, I laughed out loud.

Re: Fill: Harry Potter

[ernest]

What a perfect fill! I love that Ron chimes in at the end.

[ernest]

“No, I’m Guilden the Sluagh, you’re a Boggan named Crantz!”

“We’re playing Changeling, not Stay-the-Sameling, so we have to switch out sheets once in a while, right?”

“That’s – that’s not – no, that’s not how anything works.”

[candlesinthewell]

Oh, nice.

Fill: intended as Caleb/Kopil

[candlesinthewell]

“I know you,” Caleb says, with the infuriating, absolute calm of a man who knows what it’s like to sit at the table with gods and deathless kings, casting dice and tossing jokes about like there’s no tomorrow. “And I know you don’t believe that sacrifices are ever necessary, but – “

Kopil’s hand closes involuntarily around Caleb’s wrist, bone on skin; it’s an effort to relax his grip, even though he knows that Caleb’s sudden stillness is pain, and a greater effort still to set aside reprimand and say what he really means: I don’t want to lose you too.

Re: Fill: Garak & Quark, Dangerous Bargains

[chevalblanc]

Guess I forgot to tell you how much I loved this! And I totally agree that Garak cares too much to be a proper Cardassian. Not so sure about Quark, his sexism is pretty hard to take, although he does seem acceptable to women who can totally kick his ass.

Re: Fill: Garak & Quark, Dangerous Bargains

[blackmare]

Yeah, Quark’s often a real toad to women. But there, too, he fails to live up (as he sees it) to the incredibly misogynist ideals of Ferengi culture. He really wants to fit, but he doesn’t.

Quark has a type, and that type is “Intelligent woman from another species who can and will kick my ass across the quadrant.” He’s supposed to want a naked, submissive female Ferengi, but I can’t recall seeing him show the slightest interest in that. The great love of his life is a rebel professor from Cardassia.

Re: Fill: Garak & Quark, Dangerous Bargains

[blackmare]

Thank you!

In some ways it seems everyone on DS9 is some kind of misfit. Odo and Garak are perhaps the most obvious, but they’re hardly the only ones. This may be why it’s still my favorite Trek.

Re: Fill: Garak & Quark, Dangerous Bargains

[blackmare]

Thanks! Very fun to write; I’ll likely polish it up a bit and post to AO3. Maybe after the Working Retail During Holidays madness has ended. :-D

Re: Fill: Garak & Quark, Dangerous Bargains

[blackmare]

Thanks! I like to think it shows when I’m having a lot of fun, and I was with this.

Re: Fill: Garak & Quark, Dangerous Bargains

[blackmare]

Hey, thanks. :-D

Never would have happened without the Ficathon, and I’d almost forgotten how it felt to really participate in things. I’ve missed this.

Re: Iron Fist, Ward & Danny

[maplemood]

"All you'll do is destroy your kidneys." Oh, Ward. :)

[ernest]

Eurydice can’t understand how his ring always stays indigo like nothing could ever
ruffle him, while her heart jangles like a train that refuses to pull into the station.

True, they had Summer once and the rain was not a thing to be feared, but he must know that snow is different and he’ll catch cold if he’s not careful.

She finally lays her in the earth and is dead to the world, in a way: her ring turns black as the tomb, and is all he finds of her once he finally goes looking.

[countlessuntruths]

The last time Joyce attempted knitting was a baby blanket when she was still pregnant with Will and the thing ended up being more holes and missed stitches than blanket.

El-- Jane opens the wrapping so carefully and her eyes go wide and surprised at Joyce's attempt of an (off white) snowman.

But before Joyce can tell her that she can just shove it in the closet because everyone knows that Christmas sweaters go there, Jane is pulling it down hard and fast and-- it's both too big over the shoulders but too short over the wrists (or maybe she's already growing up? Children do so so, so fast...) and then Jane is moving forward to hug her tight and fast, thanking her for her gift.

[countlessuntruths]

With four children, before she had to send her children away for their safety, life was always a little chaotic, full of mischief and screaming that Mrs. Pevensie thought she would give anything in her power for a little peace and quiet and instead her children whisper through the house now: no running, no pushing, no screaming.

Lucy sits by her dolls and the miniature tea set that she inherited from Susan, but she doesn't tell stories, just keeping a stuffed animal over her lap; Susan helps her with no complaints, tuts at the prices for meat, negotiates at the market for bargains; her sullen Edmund turned thoughtful, offering to do the dishes for her.

Peter smiles at her, but from afar, from a place where she can't reach him, can't reach any of her children, this place full of whispers and quiet stares and nostalgia her children inhabit now and he answers her when she asks: "I think we just grew up, mum."

[countlessuntruths]

They put their wands over the frame of door, "just in case", and make a half a promise and half a dare to see how long they can go without using them.

The first week they flood their flat after leaving the water running to wash their knickers and the whole floor ends up soapy, they give up on bed sheets because they cannot seem to make the fitted bedsheet to actually stay and the only thing they've eaten are the leftovers that Ginny's mum keeps sending over.

Late at night they turn off the lights and open the windows and sit on the floor covered in blankets, and Luna kisses her after the first shooting star runs through the midnight sky.

Critical Role

[neverseenher]

"Well, you know what they say," Beau drawls, sliding a mug (of milk) over to Jester, "misery loves company, right?"

Jester frowns, muttering, "You being horny and sad doesn't make me any less horny and sad, actually. It kind of makes me even sadder... and hornier?"

[rosaxx50]

That last line!! The muted, hidden pining is wonderful.

Re: this is mixing up helios and apollo simply because it works better, i admit...

[rosaxx50]

Ooooh, this is really intriguing, and I do love Cassandra's thoughts on the various gods' romances. Her bitterness absolutely seeps through - love it.

Re: Fullmetal Alchemist

[rosaxx50]

Roy/Riza!!!

This is a really interesting look at the prompt, and I love this... internal thing that separates them. And the line about Riza's change through the war hits hard.

[countlessuntruths]

She wears her brightest, glossiest red lipstick the day she buries her family: she's mother and fatherless, sister and brother-less, cousin-less, full of they-should-mind-their-own-businesses.

Her hair is primly curled, her gloved hands rest on her knees, her black dress (actually, her mother's, Susan didn't use to have just-black-dresses) is perfectly ironed because Susan has learned (had learned, quite young, as a queen) that if you give people something to focus on, then they won't focus on what you don't want them too.

They talk about her bright lipstick, her shiny shoes, how she doesn't cry, and they don't mention the redness of her eyes and of the tip of her nose, the quiver of her lip: she pretends she can't hear what they say about her the way she used to when she was a queen, the way she has done since she came back, the way she will keep on doing so, head held high, back straight, staring forward, because once a queen, always a queen.

[countlessuntruths]

Choose a star, Tom used to tell her, months and years before his mission, her head pillowed over his shoulder, both of them lying down on the back of his pick up, while his finger traced imaginary constellations for their own little world.

Choose a star, he said, and promised with a twinkle in his eye that one day, soon, soon, always so soon, he was going to go to pick it up for her, put it on a chain so she could wear it as a necklace, Orion's belt made a jewelry piece for her and only for her.

Choose a star, Tom told her before he left, helmet beneath his arm, and she kissed him, and kissed him, and tried not to cry, and she just told Tom that she didn't need Sirius nor the North Star, that the only thing she needed was for him to come back.

Re: Holding on for Dear Life

[rosaxx50]

Aaaah, this is wonderful, and oh no I have all the feelings now. *goes wandering about for happy fic about these two*

[countlessuntruths]

1. Their kisses are wine heavy, their breathing frantic, hands pulling at clothes that won't give enough room for skin to breathe and touch and cling to, laughing between kisses and trying to shush one another lest they be found, lest the shadows be enemies, lest Harrow stop nibbling at Viren's lips and when he asks, Viren falls to his knees in front of him gladly.

2. Harrow's eyes are still dark and -- some would say surprised, but not Viren, he who knows him better than anyone: sorrow hasn't quite settled just yet, so it's just shock, at the moment, that his king hasn't managed yet to hide; when Harrow turns to look at him, Viren hates that he has to be wizard and not friend, not when they are in public, not when he has to make sure Harrow is respected so he can be safe, but he does as he must and he puts knee to the floor, hand to his chest and claims, "All hail King Harrow!"

3. Viren thinks "I would have given my life, my soul, my magic for you" and the pain of his grief, any other time, would have been enough, but the wound at his pride is too big for him not to retaliate: Harrow orders and Viren, for one last time, obeys.