rthstewart | Three Sentence Ficathon

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Three Sentence Ficathon

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.

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HA! perfect Amos. Blood red heels that make his ads look great and not any worse than mag boots. Perfect. Thank you!

Heh, I love this! Poor Miles...he’ll get the hang of it eventually. :D

Nope, pure coincidence. But that is a very cool song; thanks for the link!

I'm so glad we got an Erik fill. This is so powerful. I especially love the contempt he has- perfect Erik voice - and the terrific final lines.

Yeah, there is just NO WAY the Beavers had the supplies to put on the meal they served the Pevensies if they didn't collaborate occasionally, and also have very good black-market connections.

Thank you! I'm glad his voice sounds like him. I've only written him in one other fic, so that is a thing I always worry about. :)

Aw, boys. <3

"It's two people working together to pull off a bigger prank than either one could manage on their own," Dave said as he flicked his fingers against Terezi's shoulder and dropped the remote control on John's head. "You, stop making everything sound more complicated than it really is just to annoy him, and you, stop playing dumber than you really are just to piss her off. Also, congratulations, you just pulled off a successful cahootship -- at least assuming your goal was to drive everyone else out of the room so you could carry on your disgusting pitch-flirting in echoing isolation -- and on that note, no gross biological fluids on the couch, other people have to sit there, and try not to be bleeding too obviously when you come down for dinner."

The difficulty with having a known location you return to on a semi-regular basis -- all right, a home; I'm not actually allergic to words, even if that would make an intriguing plot twist -- is that it gives people a way to find you. As a Sec-Unit, I'm predisposed to interpret that as a threat, but it turns out that sometimes people try to find each other for reasons that are more annoying than dangerous.

Which is a long and roundabout way of saying that ART sent me a postcard yesterday. Not an electronic transmission. An actual, physical piece of processed wood pulp with a glossy picture on the front and neat binary typeface on the back, because ART has a terrible sense of humor and earned their name for a reason.

The picture was of a nebula, which is not something I've ever paid much attention to. Nebulae are unlikely to exhibit direct hostile intent toward humans, and when they're acting as passive environmental hazards, their visual appearance is generally irrelevant compared to things like magnetic field interference. The colors didn't clash horribly, though.

The message said, "You don't have the instruments to fully appreciate this nebula, but neither do my crew and they tell me this color-enhanced still image is aesthetically pleasing despite the lack of microwave emission data. They also tell me that some cultures engage in a tradition known as 'housewarming gifts,' which I have verified through judicious sampling of media feeds. I note that several characters on Sanctuary Moon engage in this tradition, and therefore hypothesize that you're also familiar with it. Please consider this a housewarming gift and display it upon a suitable flat vertical surface for public admiration."

I thought about asking Dr. Mensah for advice.

Then I decided that if I couldn't handle a social interaction with this degree of both physical and temporal lack of proximity, I should probably give up on the whole independent entity experiment. Well, not really. But you get my point.

I fastened the postcard to Mensah's son's cold storage unit with a magnet I borrowed from one of the broken household appliances her daughter likes to collect and occasionally attempt to repair. This is, according to my understanding, the traditional response to childhood art projects.

I took a still image of the postcard on the storage unit, scrambled the data file, and sent it out to ART's home university. I figure whenever it arrives, they'll appreciate the joke. If not, oh well. I did say their sense of humor is terrible.

"The thing is, see-- the thing is, once you realize the entire universe is basically frog guts, then all the little jagged bits on the edges of scientific theories, the parts that refuse to tie down neat and tidy and symmetrical in beautiful loops of math, they all start to make sense. Of course it's nonsense; biology is always nonsense; and biology made up of motherfucking computer code is even worse, because who ever heard of a computer language that didn't glurge itself up into gibberish given half a moment's leeway, right?

"But getting back to the point," -- here Dr. Lalonde pauses and exchanges her empty champagne flute for a fresh one from a passing waiter's tray -- "the thing is, once you have a working theory, you can make predictions and even adjustments -- rewrite the fabric of reality itself! -- yeah, go on, imagine a good mad cackle; I'd do one myself but I never really got the knack -- and that is what I want to hire you to help us do at Skaia Labs."

It's true the Rings are gone, melted and burnt up in the crucible of the train as it smashed into the station. But there are other ways into the Wood if you knew where to look: grubby tradesman's doors instead of the grand front entrance, or a tunnel hacked through a hedge of thorns before the century curse's terms were met: secret ways and small, where the story's lord would not think to look or set a lock.

Susan crouches and stumbles her way through the roots, feeling her way through the dark earth with bloody fingers and feet, until she finds the drying echo of a pool that once held her heart entire, and knows, at last, that there is no more way home.

Edited 2019-01-01 04:42 (UTC)

1. There is only their mother to see them off from the train station, but Susan is not surprised; most of their school friends have already been evacuated and have already said their goodbyes. There is an emptiness, however, where Laura should have been--Laura who ran faster than any of the boys, Laura who laughed at even the silliest jokes, Laura who pressed a kiss to Susan's cheek after Janice poured paint on Susan's dress and sneered. Kind, lovely Laura, whose house disappeared into a crater after the bombing one night.

Let Peter and Edmund grumble about being sent away; Susan is glad to be leaving London and only hopes the hole in her heart remains here as she travels to the countryside.

2. Lucy's cordial can't save everyone after the battle is done; the dying are spread too far for even the most lionhearted girl to reach them all. That's what Susan reminds herself as she cups the handful of petals left behind as Sinoe disappears from her grasp, the spear in her belly falling with a dull thump against the grass. She'd only just got the epimeliad's head onto her lap when she breathed her last without a single word passed between them. She remembers Laura, bright and smiling, and remembers whispering, soothing Sinoe, and wonders that if maybe she could have just gotten to either of them sooner, then maybe this emptiness wouldn't be chewing away at her insides.

3. They all come tumbling out of the wardrobe, like falling ninepins; Susan needs a moment to collect herself. She turns and looks back at the wardrobe and thinks about how Mister Tumnus is going to be sitting down to the tea party she'd invited him to and wonder where they were. She thinks about Owain, who was the best dancer in the court, who had kissed her so sweetly, who she whispered to Lucy about in a fit of girlish glee because if there was any man she would take as husband, then it had to be him. She thinks about all the people who are going to be wondering just where they are right about now and she feels the emptiness yawning open inside her again.

4. In spite of the fact that she did wave and wish them well, Susan still feels cheated and empty when she gets the phone call of the derailing, the most horrific train crash in recent memory they say. She got to kiss Edmund and Lucy's cheeks, give Peter's hand a passing squeeze, and hugged her parents before they left, but as she sits at the funeral, she wants to wrench the coffins open and demand something more. But there's only this--five coffins, one of which only really contains pieces, and that sticks in her craw too--and the emptiness.

One would think she would be used to this, but that's a foolish thought, because it can never be enough.

It's more what you'd call guidelines. (Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Turner.)

You are making me have a lot of emotions and I don't wanna

I don't want these emotions, take them back

In my defense, this prompt just begs for some good feels to come out of it. Thanks for commenting.

It occurs to me that I completely reversed what the prompt actually asked for I AM SO SORRY, OP. MY BAD.

My kingdom for a Like Button

Not to be presumptuous but I suspect OP Syrena will have no problem at all with all the Susan feels. (Of course this means that you must turn your considerable skill to a happy Susan story now, am I right?)
This is lovely and most of all so grounded. Susan is an expert in good byes, she would have to be. The Blitz was terrible and of course she's been down this road before. I also love the easy way she moves among her friends and loves, girl, dryad, man, family. It's just so Susan. Thank you for sharing this.

Yeah, go ahead, Liz. JUST MAKE IT WORSE

That's the trouble with stories, isn't it? They can't be unread.

Perhaps all books should carry warning labels: reader, beware, for what you find within these pages may affect your mind and heart in ways that you find difficult to bear.

Sorry not sorry? :(

thank you!!

it was an ominous prompt, glad it worked for you!

thank you! ♥ i'm partial to it myself if i'm being frank haha

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Page 188 of 202

Three Sentence Ficathon

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Re: Into the Spider-Verse

Re: Cold and Light

Re: Erik Killmonger, Black Panther (movie)

Re: White Lies

Re: Any fandom, any character, a hot shower and a change of clothes

Re: Any fandom, any character, a hot shower and a change of clothes

no subject

Truth Rising From His Armchair To Shame Some Hatefriends

ARTs and Crafts

Mad Science Recruitment Pitch

A Long Time Ago on My Grave (Narnia)

I have trouble following rules, so you get a lot of four sentence pieces

Re: I have trouble following rules, so you get a lot of four sentence pieces

Re: A Long Time Ago on My Grave (Narnia)

Re: I have trouble following rules, so you get a lot of four sentence pieces

Re: I have trouble following rules, so you get a lot of four sentence pieces

Re: I have trouble following rules, so you get a lot of four sentence pieces

Re: I have trouble following rules, so you get a lot of four sentence pieces

Re: A Long Time Ago on My Grave (Narnia)

Re: A Long Time Ago on My Grave (Narnia)

Re: A Long Time Ago on My Grave (Narnia)

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no subject

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