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

yess, that was such a striking moment all the times i've seen it, where you and daniil have both been trying to believe something else is going on, but nope, he's just dead and it's time to come home. i'm pleased to have captured that feeling for you, thank you!

oh man, i hadn't even thought that deeply about the layer where everyone knows to fear a gun! thank you for always making my fics even better than i intended! and thank you, i liked the line about the door, too.

Students loved to gossip about their teachers, Firenze realised, and he learnt to pretend he hadn't noticed when the younger ones solemnly informed each other "he's a centaur," or when the girls in his OWL classes blushed and giggled at the merest hint that he paid them any attention. But there was one whisper that always made him ill at ease, no matter how often he overheard it: the reverential, almost frightened declaration that "he lives in the Forbidden Forest."

Why should the Forest inspire such ominous tones, he wondered; why did Dumbledore insist on never allowing the students to have anything to do with it; why was it shrouded in such mystery, and made out to be so terrible? The Forest was his home; it housed so many wonderful creatures, and he hoped that one day the scholars of Hogwarts might be interested in that, and might seek to build a relationship with Firenze and his compatriots that wasn't forged on mutual suspicion.

thank you! i love beatrice and the person behind beatrice and how they're all trying to be a guide or a trap but don't know which one they want to be more.

I laughed. :)

"This," says Darill, brandishing her cigarette holder, as she looks out over Kohlingen, "is the hill I want to die on."

Setzer frowns, and can't help asking, "You know that's an expression, right? It doesn't literally mean, the actual hill -"

She glowers at him, says, "Yes, it was a joke, wasn't it? Don't think I was being romantic," and stomps off to smoke in peace.

ugh, you've described both of them so perfectly, ow! these sad bruised hearts, brought together by tragedy. i really do believe they'll reach out and talk to each other, it'll just take a bit more time.

thank you! i love grace and how full she is with love and care, even if her priorities are different from most.

Aww, this warmed my heart and made me smile. I love Pepper getting past Natasha's walls and Natasha accepting and the two of them loving each other. So sweet.

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
I especially love those two lines.

Great job! Thanks for picking and filling my prompt! :D

Thank you! :)

I am looking forward to the series conclusion with mingled dread and breathless anticipation. *bites fingernails*

So glad you like it! I always love making up stuff about very minor characters, so your prompt was brilliant for that! Thanks for prompting, I really enjoyed it!

thank you! i love genji a lot and i'm sad for him, and he's very good at observing and untangling meaning.

heee, i'm so glad you could hear 'worldend' playing while you read this! every time i hear it i remember this scene, and as you know i called it 'george and shannon's theme' for the longest time.

but wow yes, that idealism really is dangerous and sad, because it's hopeful and it's what shannon needed right then, but it also makes them both less inclined to think about the outside world or worry what would happen when one of them dies. ugh, my feelings about george are so complicated but i really do like him a lot.

heeee, thank you! her laughter is such an important character note!

She's dealt with far more bodily fluids and waste than she particularly cares to think about -- even more since poor Midwife Mimsy died and left her as the only available hag -- but this, Hagitha thinks, staring at the bedpan laid on her examination table, is not something she has any experience with. The furred stranger who the Veiled consigned to her care (her keeping, more like; you don't keep a patient unconscious with poppy milk, but some folk might treat a prisoner with that kind of disregard) breathes and bleeds and pisses like any other person, but her poop is shaped into neat, dry cubes.

Still, whether the square poop is a curse or something natural to the stranger's people makes no real difference -- she's never heard of a demon that needs a bedpan at all, and maybe the next time she explains that to the Veiled, she'll pull together a good enough imitation of Midwife Mimsy's authority that one of them will finally listen.

'the metaphors build on each as the truth does' yes that's exactly what i was going for, thank you! i really loved working with the structure of this fic.

"Well, I suppose you'll be killing me, then, for all the destruction I've caused," Gabriel said as his transformation fell.

"As much as I would enjoy burying the hatchet in your skull, my Lady said no and that we should forgive our enemies," Chat Noir said icily, before touching him on the shoulder.

"Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto," Gabriel heard, realizing the mistake of his arrogance too late, the rush of Butterfly energy filling him, "you're going to spend a very long time making amends with everyone you harmed as Hawkmoth, aand you're going to enjoy every minute of it."

The crowd in the Zocalo parts before the Iron Fist of God herself, the hustle and bustle of the merchants deciding that their profits can wait for the time it takes for Ivanova to cross the space to her destination.

"Coffee, black, now," she says to the barista, who moves swiftly to fill her order.

After she has had the first cup, she turns to G'kar and smiles, leaving him with the distinct impression of being run through with an icicle, and says "What can I help you with, Ambassador?"

Wonderful!

Kat and Mandella haggle over Kat’s title: maid of honor (no, but Kat has to suck it up when Bianca is the bride), chief wedding attendant (no, because Kat laughs), best woman (acceptable compromise). They negotiate over whether Kat will get to make a speech (very little of it, strictly speaking, is in iambic pentameter and most of it is advice from Kat to the groom, which somehow makes her oldest friend cry). Kat takes her time deciding whether she’ll take up Mandella’s suggestion that she brings Patrick along as her plus one (she does, and he grins as she and the bride pogo to Sleater-Kinney ).

Thank you! :)

"Commander," Odo said, interrupting the conversation happening around Worf, "if I recall correctly, you were the security chief on board the Enterprise, and thus familiar with the correct protocols for detaining a target likely to cause a diplomatic incident, correct?"

"I am at your service, Constable," Worf said immediately, and followed Odo across the Promenade.

"My thanks, Constable," Worf said after they cleared sight lines, "I presume you do not actually require me to arrest the Ferengi for his latest attempt at acquiring latinum through illicit means. "

Oh, do I know how that feels.

awh, this is lovely! of course Kat doesn't want to be maid of honour (but can't change Bianca's mind), and the detail of part of the speech being in iambic pentameter. thanks for filling my prompt!

(yup. filling my own prompt. RIP me.)

They were passing through the markets when Teomitl stopped, shuddering so expressively that his cloak rustled with it. By his side, Acatl paused. The trips to Tenochtitlan’s various markets served a dual purpose—making sure Teomitl could correctly identify needed spell materials as well as teaching him to haggle. While the first was something his student regularly passed with flying colors, the second...well, Teomitl was the Emperor’s brother, and nothing Acatl could try and impart regarding the value of frugality would change that no matter how hard he tried. Still, he’d never seen a reaction like that. Curious, he followed his student’s gaze.

And found his head turned away, every line of his body broadcasting that there was something he very much did not want to see in the other direction. But when Acatl turned to look, all he saw was an animal vendor hawking cages of monkeys.
Teomitl was still shuddering, and now that he studied him a bit closer he could see disgust and fear in his face.

“...Really?” It slipped out before he could stop himself.

Teomitl flinched and mumbled something. Acatl waited. He wasn’t disappointed.
“It’s the hands,” he muttered. “And the faces. They’re like—like little people, it’s creepy. Don’t you dare laugh!”

Acatl blinked at him. “I wasn’t going to.” In fact, he rather wanted to set a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but he refrained. He wasn’t sure how Teomitl would take that. “It was only a surprise.”

Teomitl’s eyes narrowed. Of course he’d take offense anyway. “Because I’m a warrior and Tizoc’s brother?”

He managed, somehow, not to smile. “Neutemoc is terrified of grasshoppers, so no. I would have thought nothing could be creepier than the ahuitzotls.”

“Ahuitzotls aren’t creepy!” Teomitl huffed. And then, at his raised eyebrow, amended it to, “...Not that creepy. At least they just mostly look like otters.”

“Terrifying giant otters with clawed hands on their tails that drown people.”

“...Fair point.” They walked on in silence, but Acatl didn’t miss the way Teomitl drew a little closer to him, as though his presence was a comfort. As though they were friends. It made something go warm in his chest.

After a moment he asked, “But really, grasshoppers? Why grasshoppers? They’re delicious.”

And that was a story Acatl had to tell, complete with hand gestures, and by the time they found the vendors they’d come for, Teomitl seemed to have quite forgotten his fear.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 206 of 222

Three Sentence Ficathon 2021

Re: Pathologic/Marble Nest, Daniil Dankovsky

Re: Umineko, EVA Beatrice and the Chiester Sisters

no subject

Re: Fill: Umineko

Re: The Expanse

FF6, Setzer/Darill

Re: Hamlet, Claudius/Laertes

Re: Fill: Pathologic

no subject

Re: This Feels Like a Metaphor for Something (The Magnus Archives)

Re: Baby Number ?

Re: Umineko, Genji and Kinzo and Beatrice

Re: Umineko, George/Shannon

Re: Umineko, Beatrice & Battler

Stranger and Stranger

Re: Umineko, Ushiromiya Battler

Restoration [Miraculous Ladybug]

Morning Routine, Ivanova be G'kar

Re: Eeling Contrary

Fill: Kat, Mandella (Kat/Patrick)

Re: Eeling Contrary

Manufactured Emergency

Re: Manufactured Emergency

Re: Fill: Kat, Mandella (Kat/Patrick)

the thing about monkeys