rthstewart | Three Sentence Ficathon 2021

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Three Sentence Ficathon 2021

We have now opened a new post, for new prompts! Please leave all new prompts there. You may continue to fill existing prompts here. If you didn't get a prompt filled here, feel free to post it on the new post!

Welcome to the Three Sentence Ficathon!
2 Feb. 2021 See important edit below regarding where to find unfilled prompts.

What is the 3 Sentence Ficathon?
This is an open exchange where you answer a prompt with a fic consisting of only three sentences. It's open to all fandoms and you can post and fill as many prompts as you like, as many times as you want.

What do I do first?
You can start 3SF by posting 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."

Open ended and anthropomorphic fills are popular too, such as:

Any, Any, "I don't like sand."

or

Earth geography, sand, "I don't like humans very much, either."

What happens after that?
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

I'm really overwhelmed by all the prompts and how much there is and how fast it goes. I can't read 1,000 prompts and fills. It's too much.
I hear this a lot and it keeps a lot of people from participating. The 3SF is big and it moves fast, especially at first. I get overwhelmed, too, and I'm hosting the thing. With 2020 and 2021 sucking so badly you don't want something that's supposed to be fun cause you anxiety. I have a couple of suggestions for managing the 3SF volume.

First, really, you don't have to read every prompt and fill on every page. You can start at the last page of this and just go forward, or back a page or two. It's fine.
You can come and go as time and energy allow, you don't have to participate the whole time, and it drops off quite a bit by mid-February.
Even after the 3SF and new prompting end, people fill prompts all year long.
You can fill an already filled prompt and you can can leave a prompt that's already been prompted before. People do it all the time.

Always make sure you're looking at top-level comments only, not threaded. That helps a lot. Your screen should look like this.

But shouldn't I read everything to see if someone already prompted the same prompt I want to leave if someone already filled it?
No. Prompt as many times as you want, as much as you want. It doesn't matter if someone prompted the exact same prompt. Go ahead and prompt again!

I left a prompt and no one filled it. Can I prompt it again?
Absolutely!

Can I spread the word?
Yes, please. I generally fail at creating banners and embed codes but if you create one and make it really idiot-proof, I might be able to post and share it. Feel free to cross-post this entry. If you create your own banners or icons, let me know and I'll share!
Please share the 3SF with your followers, friends, and any channels and comms you are active on. I'll post on fandom calendar, Tumblr, and Twitter, but I don't have many connections in other spaces such as Discord.

How long will it go?
The 3SF closes to new prompts on February 28, 2021. The entry stays open permanently and people post fills all year long.

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 and archive warnings, triggers, pairings, ratings, tags, and squick?

I thought a lot about this. It boils down to reader beware. In my experience, this typically gets too big, moves too fast, and the stories are too short for content warnings and ratings to even apply. It is too big for me to moderate in this way. You should assume spoilers are fair game and that the initial poster and the responder have opted to use no content warnings or tags. This means AO3 content warnings for dubcon, violence, canon character death, underage, etc. COULD be present. I've found personally that I can skim and scroll 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. In this format, the obligation is on you, the reader, to protect yourself from triggering content.
Some posters do include warnings and spoiler tags in subject lines or include spoiler space, but they don't have to do so.

Why is 3SF split among several posts? That seems confusing.
It is confusing and we always lose momentum once we have to move to a second post. The reason is because at 5,000 comments to a single post, DW installs a human test CAPTCHA, which is a pain for users. So, once this entry gets to the upper 4,000 comments, I open a new post. If you've been waiting until things slow down to participate, when we open a second post is often a good place to join.

If I have questions, what do I do?
I'm rthstewart everywhere, here, Twitter, Tumblr, gmail and AO3.

A special thank you to

conuly .
Last year, Conuly started logging all unfilled prompts.
This year's (2021) unfilled prompts are here.
Last year's (2020) unfilled prompts are here.

Conuly asks that you not reply, as they want to be able to edit and add more prompts to the list.
Conuly does this just because they are an awesome person but should you want to write them fic in thanks, you can find a birthday wish list here.

Here is the 3SF 2021 Friending Meme to show of your new DW account.

Here, have some icons and banners and let me know if you've created your own!

text box you can try to cut and paste

<a href="https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/166704.html" _fcksavedurl="https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/166704.html" _fcksavedurl="https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/166704.html" _fcksavedurl="https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/166704.html" target="_blank"><img src=" https://imgur.com/f3B21LX.png?2" _fcksavedurl=" https://imgur.com/f3B21LX.png?2" _fcksavedurl=" https://imgur.com/f3B21LX?2" _fcksavedurl=" https://imgur.com/f3B21LX.png?2" alt="" /></a>

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Pole knows things, some of the other girls start to whisper, and soon quiet, bullied Jill Pole is being passed notes, sought for advice, finding little thank you gifts shoved under her door.

In the classroom, she draws them in with strategic ink-stains, pencils sharpened into needles, a queer far-away look in her eyes when the teacher calls on her.

In the woods, at night, she becomes the teacher.

Never liked Lavinia before, but now - poor her.

I love this prompt

“We Will Not Thump Quietly Into the Long Night: A New Study of Dufflethumping Erasure in World Erotica,” coming soon from Paravel Press

(Forgive any canon mistakes, it’s been a bit)

Ward sold the penthouse where Harold had lived while not actually dead, because he couldn’t deal with having to deal with it, but first he went over it with as much of a fine toothed comb as he could manage.

He didn’t let Danny come, so he wouldn’t have to deal with Danny’s reactions to anything they might find or with Danny’s comments, or worse, just his eyes, seeing and knowing too much, every time Ward thought he saw Harold back again, lurking.

And then he sat through a whole evening of Danny and Colleen being cute and cuddly while watching a movie, so he wouldn’t go to a bar and try to drown out the ghosts in a way that didn’t even work, and then relented and let Danny show him a few more self defense moves like he’d wanted to the other day

Ooh, I love this!! Oh Jack, what did you do?

(this motherfucker was NOT going to be limited to three sentences no matter how I try to replace periods with semicolons so I just gave myself free reign to ramble sorry!!!! XD)

Barret sets the steaming mug of tea down with a clunk, and orders, "Drink, you moron, or you're gonna hate yourself in the morning." Reeve mutters into his collection of empties and Barret prods him suspiciously. "What?"

"I said," Reeve says, only barely slurring, "too late." He nudges the mug aside with his knuckles. "Don't like tea anyway."

There's a lot of things Barret wants to call him. Ungrateful bastard gets top billing, along with dumbass and coward, but Tifa told him to make an effort so he's making an effort, goddammit. "I can dump half a jar of honey in it if you want," he offers instead, and gets an almost-amused snort for his efforts. "What? You think that's not how I take mine?"

Reeve lets his head fall forward, thumping against his arm and against an empty glass that Barret quickly rescues. "Just let me have this," the last of the Shinra execs pleads. "Just one night. I know you've got a conscience, don't act like you've never drowned your ghosts in alcohol."

Which might be the nicest thing Reeve's ever said to a terrorist, but Barret isn't about to point it out - instead he sighs, leans on the bartop. "Never had the luxury," he says, low-voiced. "Had Marlene to think of." Reeve makes a wordless noise of acknowledgement. "Won't say I wasn't tempted."

"Nh."

"Besides, what're you feeling guilty about? You did everything-" Damn, but you did everything you could sounds like a condemnation with the smoking ruins of Midgar looming behind them, with the ghosts of everyone Reeve couldn't save gathered in the abandoned bar. "You did everything right," Barret finishes, and even that doesn't feel like the right thing to say.

Reeve snorts again. "That's me, Mister By-The-Book." He lifts his head, just enough to prop it on his arm. "Maybe if I'd had the guts to do a few things wrong none of us would be here."

That's - way too much to take on one set of shoulders and even Barret knows it, but he'd have to out himself as a hypocrite if he brought up Corel now. Besides, what's he think he could've done - sit on Sephiroth? Organize a coup? It would've been the world's only coup with clipboards-

Reeve snaps a glare at him and Barret coughs to try and recover from the laugh that snuck up on him. "You woulda made a shit terrorist, that's all," he explains, and hall-fuckin-lujah that actually gets him a watery smile. "Maybe you better leave the rule-breakin' to me."

In demonstration, Barret reaches over and picks up the last glass of Cosmo Canyon tequila in front of Reeve. "To doing everything wrong," he announces, and drains it dry.

As he coughs for real - because fuck tequila, that stuff's terrible - Reeve laughs and picks up the cooling mug of tea. "To doing everything right."

I love your Jill and I love this idea that she comes back from Narnia as a Witch -- and think about how Tirian says she must be part wood nymph! that's magic. Wood magic. Something GREEN. Wonderful. Now, what does witchy Jill do to Them?

OH MY GODDD????? "it's okay, they don't really hurt anymore" oh my fucking god my heart. this is so SAD?! POOR EDMUND. This is so brilliant. I know what will be haunting my insomnia from now on!

*ahem, also, don't think i didn't notice those rippling shoulders of Aslan's, yum yum

**ETA, shame

I don't know why I keep prompting and filling ways to torture Edmund more at the hands of the Witch!! Perhaps pandemic has sharpened this particular kink?!

I've also never seen the full movie, but the parts i saw as a child TERRIFIED me. I can remember being very young at my grandparents' house and getting completely freaked out.

Oooh!!! Where tf is Aslan!! If he can give Reep a tail he can give Gobie some wings! True love finds a way!!!

Jack sees the other guy’s face do something and realizes he’s gone all unnaturally still and that his own face must be doing a thing and he tries to relax, though he’s not sure how effective it is. And then the other guy, Richard, Jack thinks, that’s his name, says “So I was wondering...” in the way that suggests he’s repeating something he already asked but Jack has no memory of, but isn’t going to make a big deal out of it. And it’s both utterly nerve wracking how much Richard can apparently read him, and he’s going to have to keep an eye on that and also weirdly a relief to know that this guy somehow knows that something’s going on in Jack’s head right now-damn Stark and tiny Russian assassin kids still causing problems.

(Here have a sort of a bit of the big Jack/OMC fic I will eventually actually write more than tiny bits of)

When Caspian meets High King for the first time, he thinks Peter may be the most sarcastic, most arrogant, most frustrating person he’s ever met.

Most beautiful too, with his golden hair falling across his piercing blue eyes, and when he smiles — well, none of that escapes Caspian’s notice either.

And the saddest, he thinks, after the raid on the castle goes wrong, and Peter leaves the Narnians behind, unable to hide his grief and anger at costing his people their lives.

And when Peter Pevensie pushes him against the wall of Aslan’s How, leaning in to kiss him hard, all teeth and tongue, Caspian has to add most dangerous to that list.

One of the first things Georgie did, after she regained enough of herself to feel -- not better, no, but like better might be a possibility someday in the future -- was look up a local RSPCA branch and volunteer to help socialize rescued cats.

"I have limited mobility right now," she said, "but I grew up with three cats, I can provide a warm lap and act non-threatening, and I do very good 'stop that' body language and hisses when kittens get too enthusiastic with their claws."

"Indoor work, then -- can you manage three to six on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons?" the volunteer coordinator asked, and that was that.

After a couple months of socializing traumatized cats, forcing herself into gradually extending daily walks, and slowly dipping her toes back into contact with her emotions (except fear; for some reason fear hadn't started to reappear, even in an attenuated, washed-out form like her other emotions had when they began to seep back), Georgie asked if she could switch to fostering instead. "I think I have enough energy back to give one or two cats my full attention," she told the volunteer coordinator.

Her first assignment was a pair of kittens, both gray tabby and fluffy enough to withstand an Arctic winter, who had been found in a box floating in circles on top of a storm drain. The rescuer had called them Dreadnought and Torpedo, on account of their nautical exploits.

"Those are terrible names," Georgie said as the male kitten (slightly fluffier than his sister, but distinguishable mostly by the widow's peak mark on his forehead whereas his sister's stripes didn't start until between her ears) cheeped in protest that she wasn't instantly refilling his dish of kitten-safe wet food, "not dignified enough or properly silly, and I refuse to use them. We'll call you Sir and your sister Dame until I think of something that suits. What do you say to that?"

The newly renamed Sir yawned, displaying his tiny, needle-sharp teeth, and squeaked.

"Quite right," Georgie agreed, and plopped another dab of food into his dish.

It was humbling, being responsible for two tiny lives -- and also made her feel more fully alive than anything else. Yes, the moment she died would feel exactly the same as this present moment, all things would end, and the universe was ultimately a machine slowly losing tension and winding down to futile silence, but here and now there were two kittens cheeping and purring and getting into absolutely every corner of her flat. Georgie knew it made no deep, existential difference if they died now or twenty years later, but she told herself firmly that those years certainly made a difference to the cats in question, as well as a difference to her... and for the first time since the corpse had spoken, she halfway believed it.

By the time the kittens were scheduled to be spayed and neutered, Georgie had settled on better names. The female kitten, now revealed as a daredevil with a penchant for escaping into the building hallway and loudly accosting Georgie's neighbors for adoration sessions, was the Pirate Queen. The male kitten, quieter and more dignified (insofar as any kitten had any sense of dignity), as well as more standoffish and prone to watching events from the top of the bookcase, was the Admiral.

"That way you both command your own fleets," Georgie told them, "and you can work together or against each other depending on the tides of politics, which explains both your spats and your cuddlefests." The kittens, busily engaged in a mutual grooming session, ignored her until she danced the bedraggled remains of a sock over the heads and they collapsed in a tangle of legs and eager chirping.

Georgie laughed.

She kept moving the sock on autopilot, too surprised by her own laughter to pay attention to her body. She would have expected it to sound rusty, awkward, like a battered engine coughing its way to ignition. Instead, it sound normal. Like she'd never forgotten how, like joy had been lurking within her all along.

The Admiral dug his claws into the sock and tried to climb it like a rope. The Pirate Queen stood on her hind paws and swatted at her brother.

"You're a heavy boy," Georgie said, and dropped the sock so the kittens could squabble over its possession.

The Pirate Queen won and trotted off with her spoils of war. The Admiral claimed Georgie's lap in compensation, and let her pet his belly, fingers sinking deep into his soft grey fluff.

"I think you've been claimed," the RSPCA vet said when Georgie hauled the two kittens in for their procedures.

"What?"

"Look at them -- she's off charming the world, but he's stuck to you like a burr," the vet clarified.

Georgie glanced down at the Admiral, who was, true to the vet's description, huddled in her arms like she was a knight in shining armor ready to defend him against the dangers of this strange, loud, bright place, purring up a nervous storm. Meanwhile the Pirate Queen was making love to the assistant vet tech's ankles.

Inexplicably, she felt herself flush. "I didn't mean for either of them to get attached."

The vet shrugged as the tech lifted the Pirate Queen onto the examination table. "It happens -- sometimes people adopt cats, other times cats adopt people. Is there any reason you couldn't keep him long-term?"

"I'm going back to uni this fall," Georgie started, then paused. "But he'll be old enough by then that I can leave him alone while I'm in class, and I can work to make sure I have a long break around lunch. Do you think I'd be approved, if I asked to adopt him?"

"So long as his health is good and your flat checks out, I don't see why not," the vet said. "There's always a percentage of foster placements that turn into forever homes, and you probably weren't going to continue fostering while attending university anyway. I can put in a word, if you're worried."

"I think I'd like that," Georgie said. "Yeah. I'd definitely like that. Thank you."

She scratched behind the Admiral's ears, and smiled when his purr rumbled through her slowly refilling heart.

Oooooh, yes, I love this!

I love this!

I’m assuming Edward Scissorhands is kind of sad?

POOR EDMUND. And imagine when he goes back to England and is like, fuck, hands? They’re back?

LOL omg I swear I was just trying not to over anthropomorphise Aslan!! But no shame, only sad Edmund! It’s a brilliant prompt.

A mudskipper can breathe air! Out of water! Egrets are water birds! It would totally work!

Really Larm, it's me. I researched which fish can live out of water for a time, and mudskippers top the list. This is totally doable.

Susan and Lucy learning some spells on the down low, just to keep Narnia safe!

Poor sweet, innocent Caspian, with no idea of what he was getting into. There's a reason they call him Magnificent!

(Perfect title choice.)

He’s my favorite! <3

Film LOTR, Eowyn, Aragorn, Fix It Cook-off (because you know that scene and you hate it)

Wow, this is so good.

Caspian is a total puppy in the face of Peter’s top dog.

(And it worked so well!)

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Three Sentence Ficathon 2021

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Re: Fill: A Little Princess, Lavinia + Sara

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Re: i am so sorry

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Re: He Looks Better In Red

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Re: WHY DO YOU DO THIS

Re: WHY DO YOU DO THIS

Re: A bird and a fish sitting in something other than a tree, K I S S I N G

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Narnia, Peter/Caspian, I’m In A State / Nothing Can Touch Us, My Love

Re-Socialization (The Magnus Archives)

Re: MCU, Thor & Loki

Re: A Few Small Repairs

Re: WHY DO YOU DO THIS

Re: A bird and a fish sitting in something other than a tree, K I S S I N G

Re: A bird and a fish sitting in something other than a tree, K I S S I N G

Re: fire in their bones

Re: Narnia, Peter/Caspian, I’m In A State / Nothing Can Touch Us, My Love

Re: the bravest of them all

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Re: Re-Socialization (The Magnus Archives)

Re: Narnia, Peter/Caspian, I’m In A State / Nothing Can Touch Us, My Love