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

[alice_pike]

This was the first prompt that made me !!!!! on this whole ficathon bc 'Keith, in the desert' was also the first vld thing I ever wanted to write. That being said, I'm cheating! Bc this fill is actually just the first sentences of the Keith fic I've been writing since, oh, season 6. The longer I work on it/sit on it the longer and more unwieldy it gets :/

The sky is red when you walk out of the Garrison the morning after your fight with Iverson, the rising sun slanting in your eyes and your dismissal papers tight in your fist, and you think you've never been happy inside those walls, anyway, not without him.

You walk away from the Garrison without a glance, without a thought, and the sun is warm on your skin.

The desert is immense and it makes you feel small, when you are miles away from the nearest person, the nearest cadet, the nearest instructor who looks at you like your borrowed time has finally run out and they will finally be rid of you, because without Shiro you are nothing, and a simulator score means nothing when the best pilot in the Garrison and his crew are dead. It makes you feel small, and unimportant, and for once that is a comfort: That you can exist without their prying eyes and the expectations you could never live up to, that you can be free here—free to grieve and to rage and to lose yourself, free to become something else.

[sawthefaeriequeen]

Sorry this so late - vacation ate me.

Keith in the desert is just hand-in-glove fitting, right? You can see echoes of it in the show the only 7 seasons of it, cough even when he says things like "I like it here, it's quiet" on Olkarrion and so on.

Anyway, oh man! This is so good.

the rising sun slanting in your eyes and your dismissal papers tight in your fist, and you think you've never been happy inside those walls, anyway, not without him.
I just love the rhythm of the words here, and how it goes exactly with the imagery.

The desert is immense and it makes you feel small, when you are miles away from the nearest person, the nearest cadet, the nearest instructor
MY BABY but I love how he uses the desert's immense size to put it all in perspective - if Shiro is lost to space, then he can be lost to the desert now

free to grieve and to rage and to lose yourself, free to become something else.
yessss, a do over, a new Keith. I really love how this happens all withOUT him knowing about his Galraness.

Thanks so much for this beautiful fill! I would absolutely be interested in reading the rest of it, if you ever get to it. :D

Also- the fact that you made this work and made this Keith all in second person POV?! Major kudos.

[alice_pike]

YES it's just so good for him, even with his lions--like he gets FIRE and SKY and I know and love the parallels between fire and his dad, and reclaiming an element that's taken things from him, but if fire and sky don't pretty much encompass the desert, I don't know what does. He lived there on his own for (an undetermined number of) years, and found peace there, so it's definitely a hardwired piece of his personality for me for sure.

Gosh, thank you for this comment. if Shiro is lost to space, then he can be lost to the desert YOU KNOW WHAT, this is basically what I'm getting at in the beginning, but I don't think I ever even thought to frame it that succinctly, but that's it, exactly. Shiro is lost to the greater universe, but Keith goes inward, for all that he is also in open space, and the desert is definitely a thing alive here, and there's a sure sense of Keith Going To The Desert in the same way that Shiro had gone into space, and obviously we see that it's all connected anyway, but even in the beginning those events are feeding off of each other, shaping each other.

Wrt his Galraness--it's for sure part of why I kept the second person POV (which, gOD, thank you--it's really really nice to hear that it works) bc I was gonna change it! I first started jotting it down in second, and was like 'oh I'll fix it later' but it just flowed in second; and then I got to drop hints about his mother and the Blade and it's a war you don't know you've always been a part of; and I realized I could do that in third as well, but idk, there's a pointedness to it that just didn't come across otherwise.

Anyway, enough rambling at you haha. I think I'm still at denial, but once I make peace with canon this is definitely the first thing I wanna pick back up, so hopefully it gets finished *fingers crossed*

[alice_pike]

HEY so I know this is a million years later, but I did actually finish this fic! lmao fINALLY.