rthstewart | Three Sentence Ficathon 2021

Entry tags:

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

Oh, how I love Su/Ed Tashbaan fic. It can't go wrong. I love that here they've gone despite the danger, that Susan is there more than anything as a cover and support for Ed's spy work - and she knows he'd never leave her with Rabadash!! Happy sighs all around.

The greatest trial that the sentient beings of their quadrant of the galaxy would ever face, a battle with impossible odds against an enemy they could never hope to defeat, not even by cheating with borrowed power, and it wasn’t won by willpower or cunning, by intelligence or force, by might or telepathy; the key was there all along, they couldn’t win, and had they given up as a strategy to win, the Irapina would have sensed their deceit and countered their move; if they couldn’t win the battle, would have even less hope at the war, the only way to win was by not playing at all.

Love won at the end, an emotion foreign to Arivne and Irapina alike - their great psychological might believed itself above such feelings -, supposedly foreign to Vulcans as well, and Spock as a hybrid didn’t know how much of a lie that was; it was only when the stakes were highest - their lives, their mission, their galaxy - that he realized that it was love he felt, even if he could never admit it, and one so great that it wouldn’t allow him to see Jim dead - again by his hand, though this time there would be no last minute trick from the doctor to bring him back -, even if that meant laying down his life, giving up on the fight they couldn’t win and didn’t dare to lose.

The all powerful conquerors of galaxies, brought down because of the love of a Vulcan.

(I couldn't resist, Spock giving up the fight because he realized he loved Kirk and couldn't kill him and THAT being the thing that tipped the scales was golden)

He still saw them, his mother, dead on the floor before he even arrived, nothing he could have done, and his father, still alive with injuries he could survive, if only Bashir could fake him somewhere safe, instead of leaving him alone to die just to save himself, not even because he wanted to, but because there would be no hope for his sister if she was left alone.

Therapy helped, but it couldn’t make his ghosts go away, not when he was surrounded by triggers; he loved that he was finally able to return to his work, but being in a hospital was a constant reminder of what he lost, and of the guilt that came from surviving when it was just luck he wasn’t there at the time of the explosion.

The difference was that now he knew, it would do no good to run away, he couldn’t go back, and the only way forward was through.

The thought had been tickling at the back of Bethany’s mind for a while — since halfway through their “adventure” in Jumanji at the very least, though perhaps since the first moment she’d realized what body she was in there — and now, back home in her own formerly familiar body, it had come to the forefront and she couldn’t ignore the thought any longer.

She had always been sure of who she was, sculpting her body to fit that certainty with a discipline that was rarely expected or appreciated in teenage girls; and that was the crux of the problem, really, because for all of that, she wasn’t so sure she was a girl after getting to experience something so starkly different from the body and self she was used to and finding that perhaps she liked it, perhaps she felt like it fit in ways her own body outside of Jumanji never quite had.

Tomorrow, Bethany thought with determination, she would bring it up to the others after school and see what they they thought, see if they would help her try out some new pronouns and maybe some new names to see what fit her now that this thought and the urge to explore it — and the hope and excitement that brought — had become so irresistible.

From his apartment balcony, Eddie looked around at the city — the distinctive skyline, the lights and billboards, the streets full of people rushing from one place to another — and sighed heavily before turning to walk back inside. He’d lived in New York City for years now, ever since his mother moved them away from Derry when he was a teen, and it had always seemed like home to him, the place he’d always return to with fondness after vacations and business trips; but now, returned from Derry for the second time and with his divorce newly finalized, it all seemed so grey and dull and oppressive and suffocating in a way it never had before.

It wasn’t home anymore, he realized as he shut the door a final time on his now empty apartment, and perhaps the idea that it had been before was nothing more than a side effect of the loss of his childhood memories, but either way, as much as he loved New York, it wasn’t for him anymore and he just had to hope that this next step would be the upswing he needed to start really living his life for the first time in maybe ever.

Booker was a firm believer in repression, in the idea that if he pushed any negative thoughts and memories down far enough that they weren’t real anymore and couldn’t truly affect him.

(He was wrong and he knew it, but that too was something easily quashed until he could pretend that ignoring things long enough made them actually go away instead of merely lurking like a blight in the back of his mind.)

So now, truly alone once the others had handed down their punishment and gone their separate ways, he repressed the loneliness and guilt and tried to go on with life; after all, it was only a hundred years, but surely that was enough time for his problems to disappear this time.

!!! Two! Two different fills, oh my goodness, thank you!

I meant it both ways -- obviously also in the modern sense (Ozma/Dorothy & Susan! Oh my goodness, I love them all. I can only imagine what Susan, with her own history with talking lions, would think of meeting The Cowardly Lion.), but also taking from Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz, Baum's Oz comic strip. (Which I haven't read, but is intended to be queer-as-in-odd. Although I do low-key ship Scarecrow/Tin Man, personally.)

... where is your first fill from? I loved it (Ozma/Dorothy is my favorite ship, but Polychrome is my favorite of all, no contest, and I loved your description of her), but I don't recognize the characters or canon.

It was a great prompt! And now I kind of want to write any of the Pevensies meeting the Cowardly Lion, because that would be a HUGE jolt of cognitive dissonance.

The first fill is not actually a crossover, because I misread your prompt the first time round -- that's Button-Bright (whose canonical given name is, in fact, Saladin) taking Polychrome to visit his parents in Philadelphia.

There are never enough blankets (especially after Hoth), but Cassian isn't prepared to find Jyn in their quarters, scowling over a giant patchwork of oddly sized fabric scraps of varying colours.

"You're better at sewing, help," she orders, haphazardly wielding a needle without looking up from her uneven stitches.

It takes ages for them to finish the strangest looking quilt he's ever seen, but as he sleeps under it with Jyn, Cassian finds he's never felt warmer.

His real name is Saladin?? *looks up*
Darn, I REALLY need to get around to reading the Trot & Cap'n Bill books.

I don't know the source, other than the trailers showing a gender swap and I really love how the prompt and your fill explore that next step. Thank you!

Do! They're great fun, and I've found they hold up pretty well to rereading as an adult.

LOL

Goddammit Booker! (Which was exactly the kind of response I wanted to have to a fill for this prompt!)

The White Witch remembers how this will go. She – Susan – had forgotten who she was, so wrapped up in telling herself a tale of grief and blank white days that she made it snow, and then she told herself another story to explain the cold.

Now with the boy’s – Edmund’s, his name is Edmund – eyes as hungry for knowledge and acceptance as they are for the box of sweets she offers, she just hopes she can be cold enough and cruel enough that he won’t want to come back.

He was already not going to get much sleep after that waking nightmare of a play shone a spotlight on all his crimes and none of his reasons for committing them. When he lifts his hands to shield his eyes against the glare, it almost looks like he’s clasped them in prayer, but really he does it because he’s just so tired and needs the kind of rest he will never be granted.

And then his nephew kills a man, thinking Polonius is him, and it doesn’t matter anymore that the weariness in his bones is not enough to drag him into oblivion, because he has to keep the watch and answer this bloody deed.

Edited (missing word) 2021-02-16 04:42 (UTC)

Natasha knew love was for children, knew love was just imagination that wasn’t worth the effort, knew love was a risk not worth the time, knew love wasn’t something she would ever have the chance for even if she wanted it, and yet… and yet, here she was, and there was no other word to describe it but love.

She hadn’t meant to fall in love — had done her best, honestly, not to — but Pepper had wormed her way beneath Natasha’s skin, found all the cracks in her heart and soul and for some reason stayed, and well, perhaps Natasha wasn’t really as strong as she’d always thought.

But if loving Pepper was weakness, she wasn’t sure anymore that she wanted to be strong, because she’d never felt so happy, so whole, than when she was in Pepper’s arms, and that was honestly worth anything.

Parker had never gotten a tattoo before because tattoos were memorable and easily identifiable and neither of those things were so good in her line of work and reckless as she often was, that was one of her safeguards. At least until Hardison had suggested that the whole crew get matching tattoos and with just a little convincing, the others had all agreed, and she really couldn’t say no at that point.

But if she was honest, she really liked her new tattoo — as small and hidden as she could manage — because it matched the tattoos the others had all gotten, tying them together, forever, into the family she’d never really had before (or wanted, but that had definitely changed too).

Oh, what a perfect response to the prompt! That she still wants to protect Edmund, and drive him away for his own good, hurts my heart. That she's forgotten so much but remembers the important, vital things. Thank you.

thank you! she really loves her family, and narnia, a lot, and as far as she's concerned the best way to love both these things is to keep them as far apart as she can. (to make it sad, there's a very real possibility that she doesn't succeed at driving edmund away, that jadis withholding affection was what kept him feeling the need to prove himself and be loved by her)

Susan powers down her blaster without looking at Obi-Wan, and then she pockets it while looking nowhere else. “It’s a completely barbaric weapon, she says, knowing he’ll agree, “give me the tension of a longbow any day.” Finally he can’t stand just looking at her, he has to reach out and convince himself they’ve both made it through this, but when she shrugs, his hands fall from her shoulders like water, and she tells him, “I’m fine."

yesss. Pretty much everything I want to write these days is witchy queer fantasy/paranormal tbh

Me, too, lol. Or if not witchy queer fantasy, at least queer. :D (With the occasional exception!)

Awww, Susan! It's okay to accept a kind touch from time to time! I approve of her hatred of the blaster, for sure, it's a nice touch. Thank you!

thank you! i'm so into this rowboat-sized crossover ship. susan really does deserve to accept a kind touch, and maybe later on she will, but for now she needs to keep her distance. and yesss, the blaster! i was thinking of 'so uncivilized' at first and then i realized that wait no, that's absolutely in character for susan, she'd just hate using it, even if she's also terrifyingly good at it.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 202 of 222

Three Sentence Ficathon 2021

Re: Narnia, Susan/Edmund, back when I was living for the hope of it all

Star Trek TOS (novels) - Planet of Judgment - Spock/Kirk

Transplant, Bashir

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: Natural History (Oz/Chronicles of Narnia)

Re: Natural History (Oz/Chronicles of Narnia)

Rogue One, Cassian/Jyn

Re: Natural History (Oz/Chronicles of Narnia)

no subject

Re: Natural History (Oz/Chronicles of Narnia)

Re: Elisa & Alex, Justice

no subject

Susan as Jadis!

Hamlet, King Claudius

no subject

no subject

Re: Susan as Jadis!

Re: Susan as Jadis!

no subject

Re: there's this butch/femme robin/marian i want to write someday

Re: there's this butch/femme robin/marian i want to write someday

no subject

no subject