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

Wow! I'm glad you like it! I haven't made it all the way through said "stupidly long narnia/merlin commentfic" yet, but what I've read so far I've really enjoyed!

“That would be hail,” Hugh says when one of the kids shrieks at that sickening shattering sound, like it’s nothing at all, like somehow it doesn’t tear at the heart of him.

But that’s what a parent is for, to shield them from the world and turn a terrifying experience into something they’ll be able to laugh about years down the line, so if Olivia has to shove down her own fear to help these precious children with theirs, that’s what she’ll do.

“Yep,” she says with cheer that has to be forced, “it is!”

Edited 2021-02-16 04:50 (UTC)

The dolls aren’t playing along like they should, which is just appallingly bad manners. But Teensy supposes it’s not their fault when they were never given mothers to teach them how to behave. They didn’t get childhoods either, so those silly creatures of sawdust and sackcloth are forced to make up their own rules to their own games, the sort of thing no real kid would ever invent, and will have to be reined in sometime.

You sing along with the karaoke track with everything you have, feeling the sadness and loss in your bones as the music plays loudly from the speak behind you, your eyes blinking quickly as you look over the crowd. Some of them are looking at you; a few are very pointedly looking away; one is standing close to you, watching, a small smile on his face as you sing.

Your soul is vast and great and encompasses all, everyone in the hostel and everyone in the city and everyone in the world, and as you sing and feel the tears stream down your face, you realize that you love them all.

The sword at her hip swings boldly enough to obscure the fact that she is missing one between her legs, and she takes a moment to revel in the appreciative looks she attracts, but Beatrice is a man on a mission.

“Thou,” she snarls, prodding Claudio’s chest with a finger, “Thou knave, thou has belied, slandered, and undone a sweet lady, and I will have my satisfaction.”

“I’ll – I’ll be his second!” says a voice surprised to hear itself speak, and she’s ready to scoff at Benedick for always taking the coward’s path, but it is her back he’s standing at, close enough to feel the warmth of his blush.

To begin reading a mystery novel – indeed, to begin writing one – is to enter into a social contract: “I won’t give you any puzzle that can’t be solved” meets “No matter what, I won’t stop trying to figure you out!” The two adversaries, hair dripping with blood and rain, finally shake hands and just like that Beato and Battler are partners, united in solving this thing they’re both a part of, even as they build it.

The tragedy of it all is that a question that is easy for one sleuth can be demonically difficult for a gumshoe working with a different context, and sometimes the challenged party ends up giving up on his opponent, and himself, and thought, and everything.

Goat-kun always knew he was destined for great things, even when all the other cadets were picking on him, because he held his sister’s words engraved on his heart. So maybe martial prowess would never be what he was known for, but at least he knew better than to keep up with the crush of bodies all making it harder for each other to get through the gate, and at least he knew how to guide Virgillia-sama through a shortcut.

Later, contemplating his humiliating defeat over a bowl of mackerel curry that’s not nearly as disgusting as he anticipated, it hits him that what he really wants to do is play violin at the kind of restaurant where new lovers go to prove to each other and themselves the depths of their commitment.

I don't, sorry! But the whole scene was still very amusing.

What fantastic imagery, I love it! Thank you for this fill :)

I really like the voices of Fujin and Quistis here - thank you, this is a great fill :D

the echoing halls of her fortress reflect no memories but her own

What a sad, even somewhat chilling, line! Thank you for this fill :)

Zanarkand had shook them all to the core - but Lulu, somehow, was the one who found herself completely lost.

She had always known how this would end, and she'd always known she'd be next to Yuna when she did - no matter what the cost, she'd fight her way through, she'd be with her when she defeated Sin. But it was knowing, now, what it had meant - that she would have chosen to be the Final Aeon, that she would have eventually become the force that helped tear down Spira and had to be defeated by the next Summoner, all so she could be by her until the end - that gave her pause. That was why she stood alone in the airship's corridors, still certain that she would have made her choice and now realizing what a ruinous choice it would have been.

She wondered which of them would approach her first - she had quietly hoped it would be Yuna, but she knew that she had her own crisis of faith to weather. Still, she couldn't deny feeling disappointed when she realized that she could hear Auron's heavy footfalls approaching her, his coat rustling around his shoulders. She'd always known that there was something odd about him, she thought, but not that he was Unsent. "Is she okay?" she asks, before he comes into view.

"Well enough." He puts a hand on her shoulder. "Are you?"

She would have laughed, if it wouldn't have been so inappropriate. "All this time, I've been following her, waiting for her to fall. I could have lived with that. It was what she wanted, after all. But knowing what would've happened after... that someone she cared would have had to suffer and die at the hands of the next Summoner? That so many people would've had to die at their hands first?" She shook her head fiercely. "No. I know why she did what she did. I just... wish I knew what came next."

"Then you understand why I came back," he says softly, and there's something like love and loss in his voice, and you wonder if he'd loved one of them more than the other. "I had to try to keep you all from living through what they suffered. It was the least I could do."

"I know." She bows her head sadly. "I'm with her until the end, you know. Even if it's not what she thought it was going to be."

She thinks he's smiling. "Good. She'll still need you."

He turns away - but she can't help but look after him, wondering if there was more to what he was saying. Wondering why he was speaking of the future, and not the present.

Edited 2021-02-12 01:16 (UTC)

Aw, I love their fond banter and how much history it obviously has for them! Thank you so much for this fill :D

"further up and further in than ever before" has been haunting me ever since I read this lol. Good fill.

Ouch. You almost have to feel sorry for Rabadash (who, I think, as a follower of Aslan, couldn't have justified what he did in canon?) instead of hating him here.

Aww, I love good-big-sister Susan! As well as a Lucy who needs help from time to time.

“Again,” Mara said, “But faster and I’ll be testing your mental shielding so don’t let yourself get distracted the way I did.”

Breathing hard, Jaina nodded wearily, lit her saber again and began moving through the complex, aggressive form that Mara had dug up from a holocron no one was supposed to know about and her own, even darker memories with Palpatine – Jacen – Caedus – her brother – knew all of her combat moves so Mara was making her learn and hone new ones.

An image of her mother and father, gutted and hung, burst through her concentration; Jaina shoved it away and advanced, raining down blows on the training droid; her brother had almost killed Mara with that trick and her Master was making sure Jaina knew how to counter that, too.

His tears feel like a balm when they land on Eddie's grimy skin.

I love it T.T

Oh Betsy, this Peter always at the age of violence is just ... well Magnificent. it truly is. thank you so much for giving this to us.

Awwwwww! Oh, wonderful!

Yeah!! Well, Link really doesn't remember much (although more than canon bc i say so) and definitely isnt the same person but... Zelda recognizes enough of the person Link used to be. Like the base is the same and Zelda is just happy to have her friend back at all, even changed. they're both going to be happy!!

you're welcome! i really enjoyed writing this, and i smiled at the prompt.

There is a memory in the back of his mind, of fear and fire and death, that drives him to hide what it is he can do. But it has been joined by new memories, of a pieced-together ship and long flights and a tall masked figure in shiny armor stepping in to protect him.

And now, on a new planet with a new person who can train him in how to use his powers, Grogu watches the stars and holds onto his memories of his father and the hope that they will see each other again.

Ohh, my heart! This is so lovely!! <3

"And that's where the Rogue Squadron got its name," Poe says, taking Finn's hand in his. "From a cargo pilot who defected from the Empire, and a group of rebels who gave us the knowledge we needed to take down the Death Star. They gave us hope."

Poe's voice is awed, reverent, like he's sharing a sacred story he's heard a million times, and Finn gets it, the real core of it: how so many of the heroes of the rebellion are not politicians or princesses or great Jedi warriors, but ordinary people who made the decision to do the right thing.

He leans into Poe and looks up at the stars sparkling in the night sky. "They gave us hope, and we pass it on, yeah?"

Poe rests his head on Finn's and kisses his forehead. "Yeah, we do."

Valeriu really hated it when the KGB came to take their prizes and trophies. The Soviets were all greedy pigs and always looked down their noses at the Romanian Securitate, like they were Slavs or Turks. But it was the Romanian secret police who had found the Imperialist spy creeping about the Sovromcuarț in Băița. It was such a joke – they called it quartz, but everyone knew you didn’t want to hang around that mine very long if you ever wanted to have kids. The Soviets weren’t taking quartz out of Romania, but uranium, for their nuclear program it was whispered. It was just more Romanian wealth that Prime Minister Gheorghiu-Dej was giving away to Khrushchev.

Along with the spy we caught.

At their shabby jail that afternoon, it was just him, and the spy, and the clerk behind the desk pretending to work and pretending to answer a telephone that also didn’t work. You pretend to work and they pretend to pay you. He’d drawn the duty because he’d lost the poker game last night so his supervisor and his supervisor and the rest of the team were still at the restaurant for lunch – Stoica had brought a whole Coke bottle of his home brewed țuică and the kitchen had said they’d kill a chicken instead of the usual porc. And porc. And sausage that was mostly cereal and dirt.

He’d expected a bigger party when they showed up, but there were only three people. Still, they were pretty impressive and very Russian. The woman was blonde and skinny and wearing a lot of red lipstick and a fur coat – the real kind, mink he thought, not cat or rabbit. There were two men. One was tall and blonde, looked pure ethnic Russian and didn’t say anything but was the sort of KGB muscle who had probably killed a thousand Nazis in Stalingrad. Tall and Dumb, Valeriu decided, and he'd rip my spine out if I say the wrong thing. The other was a shorter, slimmer dark-haired man who gave him a cigarette – a real American Marlboro -- and asked him, in Romanian, if he wanted some chocolate or a condom – Valeriu took both. This goon was Not Tall-Not Dumb.

The men were both carrying Kalashnikovs – his own pistol was cheap, East German, and didn’t have any bullets. He did wonder how the Soviets had gotten to their dirty little Securitate jail in Băița. He didn’t see a car. Maybe they’d flown and landed at the local airfield and someone had given them a ride. He didn't think the woman could have walked very far in those high heels. He would have liked to have seen their car if they’d driven – maybe it was a Mercedes.

He was wondering how this would happen since he didn’t speak Russia, but since the woman and the dark haired man both spoke Romanian, with pretty heavy Russian accents, it was fine. Their paperwork was in order for the prisoner transfer. They even had real staples for the stamped and ribboned file – only the Securitate headquarters in București got staples; here in the wilds, they had to use straight pins or a needle and thread to hold official documents together.

Valeriu led them to the spy. They’d gotten orders not to beat him too much because Moscow Centre wanted him unspoiled. So the tall, skinny blonde man just had a black eye and two broken fingers.

He unlocked the cell and the man looked up from the bench he was chained to and cried, “Irina!”

The woman stalked into the cell like an angry lion, hauled back and slapped the man across the face, then swung back and slapped him again, this time with her nails raking his cheek and leaving deep scratches.

Valeriu didn’t know the furious Russian that spewed from the woman’s mouth but it was filled with profanity. Irina – he knew that wasn't her name -- spat something else out, grabbed the man by the filthy shirt and planted a vicious, angry kiss that they probably felt all the way to Oradea. She dropped his collar like it was a hot poker and pulled back, leaving a smear of red lipstick across his face that mixed with the blood trickling down his cheek.

Not Tall-Not Dumb barked a rough laugh and said in Romanian, “He really shouldn’t have fucked her and then fucked her.” He held out his hand and Valeriu gave him the keys.

Irina jerked her head and said in Romanian, “Just unlock him from the chair. Keep the manacles on.”

The spy said something else, with a grin that Valeriu thought was very dangerous.

Proving him right, Irina spun back around, perfectly balanced on her high heeled shoes, and hit him again.

At least we didn’t break his nose.

Irina marched out first. The goons, Tall and Dumb and Not Tall-Not Dumb, unlocked the spy and hauled him to his feet.

“I can get our car and take you to your transportation.” The Dacia even had a little petrol though the Soviets would probably laugh at it. The bottom was rusted out and they’d have to keep their feet up.

“Thank you, yes, please,” Irina said. “We’ll wait out front.”

But by the time Valeriu got the keys from the safe and moved the dogs and pig that were blocking his exit out of the yard where they parked the Dacia, the Soviets and the spy were gone.

Edited 2021-02-12 04:21 (UTC)

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Page 193 of 222

Three Sentence Ficathon 2021

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Hill House (TV), Olivia Crain

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Vast and Great (Disco Elysium, Harry, SFW)

Re: much ado about nothing - crossdressing

Umineko, Beatrice/Battler, Episode 5 Spoilers

Umineko, Goat-kun, Episode 4 Spoilers

Re: Fill: Chuubo's Marvellous Wish-Granting Engine, Hugh Rosewood and Entropy II

Re: Earth's Children/The Old Guard

Re: Quistis and Fujin

Re: Narnia, jadis

Waiting For A Star To Fall (FFX, Lulu/Yuna, SFW)

Re: Kin And Kith (LoZ: Breath of the Wild, Link + Zelda)

Re: nsfw

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Create a monster to fight a monster

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Re: much ado about nothing - crossdressing

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Hope

Re: Hope

Heroes

A băga mâna în foc pentru cineva (put your hand in the fire for someone)