rthstewart | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Any, any, off the path and into the woods

She didn't want to go into the Dreaming alone. She could lose herself here, walking out of her meadow and into the forest, following winding paths with no anchor to haul her back into the real world.

But she didn't come here on purpose. Sometimes sleep steals her away, plunks her down in the middle of the meadow, and this time there are no shadows in the trees. Del sees clearly, the paths reaching away from her, beckoning to her, begging for her to explore.

She starts down one path, and in the distance she sees lights flickering. They dance joyfully, and she skips along the path in time with the flickers, twirling and shouting, singing a bright tune that echoes the motion of the lights.

When she reaches the small clearing, there are no more paths, but the lights still flicker in the distance, still beg for her to come play.

Never step off the path. She knows this, remembers this even in the dreamfog that slips through the cracks in her mind, filling her with joy and pleasure. She has to reach those lights.

She steps between the trees, and begins dancing again, whistling as she skips.

She never sees the shadows coalescing behind her, never sees the darkness that swallows the way back to sanity and home.

Oh my gosh, this is gorgeous and creepy, and absolutely perfect for the prompt. I love it. I don’t know this fandom at all, but if it’s anything like this ficlet, it sounds right up my alley, and I may have to check it out.

Thank you so much!!

If you're curious, Welcome to PHU is a serial that posts over on Tumblr. It doesn't have that kind of a creepy tone over all, though. This piece was inspired some dreamscape scenes that occur near the end of one of the books currently posting.

Thank you for the information, and even if the creepy tone isn’t there in canon, I love anything to do with dreamscapes and dreaming.

The girl wearing a red, fur-trimmed coat had turned away from the sunlit path, and the dark-coated wolf who waited for her could not fathom why; she was a bright little thing, meant for skipping in the dappled sunlight, and as a rule he disdained bright little things who knew nothing of the deep, dark wood.

But the girl was not skipping now — she slipped from tree to tree like a shadow, stroking bark and tracing the patterns of lichen and stooping to press her dainty pale hands into the damp springy moss — and the wolf followed.

“I know you’re there,” her soft voice was barely louder than the whispering leaves, and there was no scent of fear or threat or arrogance, no grandmother’s frailty or woodcutter’s steel in her voice, and the hood of her cloak was dark like dried blood in the shadows, and so the wolf stepped to her side and nudged her cool hand with his cold nose, and together they walked deeper into the wood, making their own trail through the silent watching pines.

Edited 2018-12-23 19:29 (UTC)

This is beautiful, and oddly peaceful too. I really like the sense of silent kinship between the girl and the wolf.

Ooo, I love this so much. It's beautiful and very immersive and curious.

They are running out of crumbs. Gretel doesn’t tell her younger brother, because knowing that they will soon be lost will not help him; in the meantime she keeps an eye out for a place they can rest.

The woods feel darker without a path.

Oh, this is good – concise and effectively unnerving. I love it.

Thank you so much! I'm a fan of unnerving.

John frowned, watching Stiles hop the ditch and scramble over the low tumble of rocks to disappear into the woods with not only grace but familiarity - he followed anyway, hand resting on his holstered gun by habit. He opened his mouth to call out to Stiles - he'd stopped not to trail after his son but because he'd seen Stiles's Jeep suddenly pull over in the middle of nowhere and been concerned - but was thrown by the lack of . . . any sign anyone had passed this way.

He stiffened, alarmed, as an echoing, mournful wolf's howl echoed through the woods from far off.

This is great – fantastic look at a worried father’s perspective, and it really comes through how eerie all this supernatural business must be from the outside.

Thank you! It twisted a bit from what I originally pictured but I think this drove it home more, with the eerie feeling. Poor Sheriff. >.>

The old story of Hansel and Gretel always told of how they wandered off the path and into the woods, leading them to the house of sweets.

As Henry Mills watches his old friend Jack, who he now knows to be Hansel, being taken away by Rogers, he wonders at what point in his life he had wandered from the path and down the road that led him to become the Hyperion Heights serial killer.

If Jack had felt able to confide in Henry about his past, would there have been anything Henry could have done to save him?

Ooh, this is nicely dark, and I love seeing the old fairy tale applied to more real world concerns.

Three Sentence Ficathon

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Welcome to PHU, Del

Re: Welcome to PHU, Del

Re: Welcome to PHU, Del

Re: Welcome to PHU, Del

Fill: Fairy Tale - Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

Re: Fill: Fairy Tale - Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

Re: Fill: Fairy Tale - Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

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no subject

no subject

Into the Woods (Teen Wolf)

Re: Into the Woods (Teen Wolf)

Re: Into the Woods (Teen Wolf)

Once Upon A Time, Henry, Hansel/Nick/Jack

Re: Once Upon A Time, Henry, Hansel/Nick/Jack