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

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, gen, post-canon, Garak

[spyrograph]

Cardassia Prime is a beige and gray marble in the bottom right corner of the viewport; Garak presses his forehead against the transparent aluminum (it’s unseemly, but he doesn’t care what the other passengers think because he’s home— he’s home and he is not slipping in under cover of darkness, over pain of death, around the back of his childhood home like a thief) and he watches with baited breath as the planet grows larger.

Cardassia Prime is a melon, discolored and discarded by careless shopkeepers; Garak blames himself (it’s irrational, but he cannot shake the feeling that he could have prevented all this— if only he had remained in Enabran Tain’s good graces or if only he had been a little faster with rerouting the Defiant’s weapons systems or if, or if, or if) and he knows his hands are too small to wipe away the filth of two gory empires.

Cardassia Prime is a convex shape that fills the entire viewport when the transport’s re-entry protocols pull down shutters like cold eyelids; Garak closes his eyes and counts backwards from three thousand because the cabin is suddenly too small and shrinking fast (it’s all in his head, but that doesn’t stop his pulse from racing headlong into memories— the suffocating weight of blood-soaked rubble on Tzenketh, the airless crawlspace in Internment Camp 371 which stank of Enabran Tain, the tiled floor of the kitchen pantry where he had first learned to fear...) as the ship makes it’s final compromise with the planet’s gravity and settles onto the landing pad.

Cardassia Prime is the ground beneath his feet, the dust in the air, the travel-weary people queued for security screening, and the task-weary agent who makes the same demands of Garak as she does of every traveler: identification documents, travel permissions, place all your possessions here to be scanned... Garak doesn’t interrupt her by presenting his newly-issued credentials (it’s sentimental, but he can think of no reason not to indulge himself in this little lie— the simple pleasure of being a stranger among people who speak his native tongue, of being merely one more task in a line and handled just as impersonally as the man in front of him) but then his clearance is granted and there is no escaping her deferential gaze.

Re: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, gen, post-canon, Garak

[d_generate_girl]

*Oh*, this is lovely. It has been so long since I've watched any DS9, but this is such a stunning look at Garak. I love his voice here, how it swings from anticipatory to regretful to panicked to amused, all of the facets of him (exile, spy, refugee) you include.

Re: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, gen, post-canon, Garak

[spyrograph]

Thank you! That's my favorite thing about Garak-- he's such a complex character.

Re: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, gen, post-canon, Garak

[spyrograph]

I just googled the lyrics and oh boy did I ever interpret those two lines differently out of context LOL

Re: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, gen, post-canon, Garak

[d_generate_girl]

That's why I love Cohen, you can look at lines in the context of the song, but they also work well on their own. You can look at it as the narrator and his failure, but he never says if he was a "dreamer" or a "man of action". I think this works so well for Garak.