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

You're welcome. I'm glad you don't mind that I brought in Kat and Mandella's friendship, but that was the idea that came to me.

She prays for the station and for Bajor, for protection against the threats she knows of and the ones she does not. She prays for wisdom for her commanding officer, but also for the Emissary. Kai Winn, though - today, again, Kira settles on entreating the Prophets for the grace to pray for her as easily as she did for Kai Opaka.

Oohh, I love this take!

Aren't you dead?

That's a very strange question to ask.

Oh? Are you the only one allowed to ask strange questions, then? Can't you answer a few once in a while?

I don't think that's quite the same thing.

And why not?

Because... because when I ask strange questions it's to get answers. Detecting, you know. This feels like weirdness for the sake of weirdness.

Oh ho! Maybe it is, but then again, you've got to think about these things sometime. We so rarely talk anymore, since the nightmares started again. Although I have to say, you're doing extremely well, now that you barely remember who she is. Although...

'Although?' Can't we just leave it with the compliment?

Oh, Harry, don't you realize? You're physically unable to take a compliment without doing something ridiculous to play it off. It makes you break out in cold sweats. Haven't you noticed, or are you forgetting about that too?

I think you're making that up.

We'll see what happens next time, then.

But now I'm thinking about it, and - and - that's not fair!

It never is. And you're avoiding my question. Aren't you dead?

I -

Oh, stop confusing him. This is ridiculous! Of course he's not dead! He's still breathing, isn't he? Still gets hungry when it suits him, too. Not for lack of trying, mind you - he doesn't always listen - but he's definitely alive. If he was there'd be nothing for me to do!

Say, yeah. I can't be dead or I wouldn't be talking.

Hmm. I can see I need to be a bit clearer. Yes, there's a you there, and yes, you're talking to us. That means that someone's alive in here.

So what are you getting at?

Yes, what ARE you getting at?

Well, Harry, what about the person you were? The person that most of your fellow officers avoid, when they see you coming and forget that you've forgotten him? The one that your old partner still sees when he looks at you from the corner of his eyes, the one he constantly insults? The one that I think you hear sometimes when you speak, when it makes you shudder? What about him? Isn't HE dead?

I... but...

Did he deserve to die? Do you really think you should get to make that choice? Or did you just do what you thought would be best for yourself, and murder him in his sleep?

This... this is... I can't engage with this. This is way beyond me. Just stop.

I'm not asking you, my dear friend.

I...

It's all right, Harry. You don't have to answer me right away. Just... think about it. Isn't that what you're best at? Thinking?

You BASTARD.

Don't worry, Harry. Maybe it's all for the best. Maybe you should hold a funeral for yourself. That would help, wouldn't it?

"Just stop -"

(You sit up, realizing that you're alone in the little room, that it's dark and quiet and lonely, that you've been talking to no one at all. You lie back down - there's work to be done in the morning, people to talk to, questions to ask - but the wind is fierce past the window, and it takes you a very, very long time to get back to sleep.)

Jin Zixuan had arrived at the Qiongqi Path to the sight of his cousin leading an alarmingly large number of cultivators in battle against Wei Wuxian, who, even more alarmingly, commanded a single fierce corpse against them, and far more successfully.

Horrified, he had been about to confront Wei Wuxian (he had to save his clanmates dammit!) when a small brown blur ran past him, pressed its nose to Wei Wuxian’s knee, and the battle ended then and there with a blood-curdling scream.

Jin Zixuan hadn’t even realized his dog had tagged along; good thing though – with Wei Wuxian cowering meekly behind the Ghost General, it was much easier to get explanations from everyone and drag them back to Lanling without anyone else getting killed.

~~I was going to something like this with Fairy, but then I remembered Peacock Jin *also* had a doggie!~~

They weren’t very good with words – some even accused them of being completely emotionless.

But on the battlefield, their true feelings shone through easily, and upon arriving in Askr, they were ecstatic to discover others like them willing to spar in lieu of small talk.

And thus, the Society for Torrid Ardent Bladesmen was born.

~~I am so sorry~~

Edited 2021-02-20 21:15 (UTC)

"So I have to ask, Lieutenant," Jean asks him a few days after he starts the transfer process, "why in the world did you just accept that you'd be working with a crazy amnesiac drunkard on the Hanged Man case, instead of calling up the station and demanding a new partner immediately?"

Kim almost doesn't answer; he doesn't want to believe that an answer is necessary to such a question, but Jean shows every indication that he expects one regardless, so he finally speaks. "To be honest, Officer Vicquemare, I've seen more than a few perfectly competent and sane men broken by this job in a matter of days, but I have also seen madmen and fools pull themselves together when it matters most, and the difference is usually in whether or not they had anyone willing to put their faith in them," he says - and only later, after Jean had been silent for too long, had he realized he'd said something that might have been unkind.

Edited 2021-04-22 16:14 (UTC)

They all saw it, not twenty-four hours ago: the spy’s gun still smoking as blood bloomed on Cabanela’s side, pooling against the coat’s belt for an uncertain second before ultimately overflowing and dripping down the white fabric, strength leaving the Inspector as if the gods had lifted their hands from him, out of grace, he dropped to his knees as the squad followed pursuit, he did, they saw it happen, they were there.
Today he twirls into the office, tapdances to a halt, bows them good morning. The coat is spotless, not a mending nor stain no matter how much they look, and he knows that they are looking, and everything is as it should be.

Very fun! Hee!

"Do you think Leslie is autistic?" April asked Andy, looking down at her hands.
"I don't know," he said, scratching his head. "She's not obsessed with spreadsheets like Ben is. Or meat, like Ron. Or gore, like you."
"Oh my God, babe," he said, and April looked up. "Everyone here is autistic."

Oh goodness. That's it, that's the show.

That is lovely.

Thank you!

Great job! It actually makes total sense Susan would be better at hunting than Peter and Edmund, swords aren't really made for catching prey. Also, given Eustace's love of Natural Sciences, I wouldn't be surprised he'd be good at finding edible greens.
I've now got one burning question: did C.S. Lewis portray Jill Pole as Jamaican? This is the second characterization of her I've seen as Jamaican, and am beginning to wonder if I just never noticed. (If I didn't shame on me!) I'd better get out my copy of the Silver Chair and check this...

He still watches the girl from the island, now that the harbor has fallen into chaos; there is no other beauty left in his life, so what else can he do, what else does he have to keep himself going? She stands, smoking a cigarette, staring back at her now-empty bed where the defiler had fallen over her, and he can sense she is waiting... biding her time.

The last time he goes to look at her, the day before she vanishes, he lifts the scope to his good eye, hoping for a single glance at her lovely blonde hair, her red lips... but instead he sees her staring back at him, her eyes narrowed and angry and fierce, and he almost drops the damned rifle in his irrational haste to get away.

Edited 2021-02-21 17:44 (UTC)

No oiolossë grows in Middle-earth. Instead they take pine twigs, holly, whatever they can find that does not die in winter, to make their wreaths, and set lit candles in them with a murmured prayer. The candles burn for a night and a day, going out one by one in the grey evening, and another year has passed since Númenórë’s drowning.

Nie Mingjue always scorned gossip and those who engaged in it. One hand on his saber as he strode along, he declared, “A strong man does what is right and pays no heed to idle chatter.”

“But I am not a strong man, dage,” Nie Huaisang whispers to an empty tomb, and sets whirling rumors into motion like a flock of tiny birds.

They could spare one fish, Gollum thinks resentfully; the pool is full of them. He makes sure to keep his prize firmly gripped in his teeth as the men in armor drag him along. He hates them, Precious!

(more sad Nie brothers, sorry?)

“It’s too hard, I really can’t learn it!” he wails. To his brother, who grumbles and orders him back to saber practice; to Lan Qiren, who sighs and gives him a lecture on proper motivation.

But Lan Qiren was right after all, because Nie Huaisang will willingly apply himself for years of patient, meticulous, unrelenting effort, as long as it takes to avenge his brother’s death.

Edited 2021-02-21 20:59 (UTC)

“I will leave offerings at your tomb and mourn for you,” Ismeme says hopelessly. Antigone is determined to cast her life away, and there’s nothing she can do.

Antigone shakes her head and says with a crooked smile, “If I die, little sister, be angry.”

"I can't believe I got dragged into this with you," Lan Xichen lamented, rubbing at his stinging knees. “Mingjue-xiong, you can’t beat up a guest from another sect, just because he said something like that."

“Why not?” Nie Mingjue challenged; kneeling next to him before the ancestral shrine, about as repentant as a rock – they were not going to be allowed to leave anytime soon.

Lan Xichen didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or start searching through his family’s rulebooks in the vain hopes his best friend could at least understand a written rule more than he did common sense.

~~the one he beat up was a jin cousin~~

Edited 2021-02-22 00:13 (UTC)

The ninja world measured strenght in the feats of men, recorded them for posterity, booasted their achievements as both bragging rights and intimidation tactic.

The clans measured strenght in numbers and secret techniques guarded with zeal, men taught to never have sex outside marriage, women kept safe in their houses as brood mares, and bastard children ruthlessly cut down.

Ino's skills, as essential as they were to Konoha, had never been the type to be flaunted or appreciated by those who only cared about brute strenght, nor was she interested in settling down with a husband and have his babies.

As she laid in her futon with Tenten's naked body pressed over her, she knew one day she'd have to fight against the powers hiding behind tradition. Tonight, however, she was simply going to enjoy her lover's calming presence and tender affections.

After all, she knew better than most that not all battles are fought in a battlefield.

WOW. I never would have thought of this crossover in a million years, but it's amazing! <333

Thank you! I firmly believe that Eustace is All About salads. :)

Jill being Jamaican/having Jamaican parents is a bit of headcanon I picked up from

rthstewart -- I don't think there's anything in canon that contradicts it, but nothing to directly support it either.

Walker-Smythe had, during one of their earliest lessons, cautioned that good intelligence work was often dull, which Edmund had superb tolerance for, and that success often depended upon building solid relationships, which was where he’d often come up short. As he’d explained to Jalur so long ago, it wasn’t that he minded human interaction – he just always wanted it on his own terms. Susan, Tebbitt,, Guy Hill, and the still absent and much-missed Lowrey had all excelled at this more intimate part of the job and so he just had to figure out how to do what they did, but play to his strengths as it were.

He started taking a sandwich at lunch to the tony men’s bars and private clubs – places like the Mayflower and the Cosmo, the ones he knew Tebbitt and Lowrey had frequented, and where Guy had come to know the backroom staff – the busboys, cigarette girls, coat-checkers, cooks, doormen, waiters, and what the Americans referred to as “bouncers.” He never went when there many people about and he’d play up the young and befuddled Englishman, confused about American coins and sport and missing his girl (that part wasn’t acting). He’d just have a glass of water or milk, eat his sandwich, and leave a really large tip and sometimes a Hershey bar he’d gotten through Shirley in procurement, who got real chocolate from the office girls at the Pentagon.

Returning to the same places at night, they would be smoky, crowded, loud, and filled with men from the Embassies, Capitol Hill, the U.S. State Department and the different War Departments at the Pentagon. Edmund still tipped well, his coat was always the first time come, the bartenders would water his drink when he asked, and he’d help the bouncers rough up the drunks who got too familiar with the girls.

He'd started the night at an Embassy party, joined the chaps for rounds at the Cosmo, then dancing at the Bali, and now, the last hardy few were staking out tables at the Mayflower. Edmund found he was sitting, again, next to Davies. Davies did something vague with the Foreign Office that had him traveling frequently between London and Washington and what Edmund assumed was intelligence.

Knows all the right people Walker-Smythe had said.

Something pricked at him and Edmund was very glad he’d had nothing but soda water the last three hours.

“Men flirt differently with other men than they do with women,” Abnur had told him so long ago, and then demonstrated how to crowd, grope, and squeeze to get a man's attention.

But how do men flirt when it’s illegal and sleeping together would get you tossed from whatever plum position you have?

Where, exactly, was this going?

Edmund put his elbows up on the back of the booth they were sharing and pushed back into Davies’s space.

“So, Linch, where did you say Walker-Smythe swept you up from?”

“I didn’t, Davies. But London, as it happens. You?”

“From Cambridge, recruited right into the civil service, over ten years now.”

A pub, a summer day, rat and crow exposed, and Major al-Masri warning to study at any place other than that esteemed university.

Davies raised a hand -- it was third time he’d tried to get Nancy’s attention, which wasn't like her at all.

“Damned louts,” Davies muttered. “You there! Do your job or I shall speak to someone.”

Nancy came over and Edmund’s wariness rose further.

Something’s wrong.

“You’re a rum man, right, Linch?” Davies said, preempting anything Edmund could say. “Two, neat.”

“Of course, sir.”

Davies leg moved closer to his own under the table.

“What does Walker-Smythe have you doing?”

Edmund watched Nancy go back to the bar and share some worried words with James, the bartender.

“I honestly have no idea,” Edmund barked with a rough, over-loud laugh. “Typing and filing his correspondence, pouring his drinks, attending his meetings. Bag carrier. Notetaker. I’ve half a mind to request a transfer.”

“Walker-Smythe has done first-class work,” Davies said. “Word is, he’s got a line on some of the codebreakers in the U.S. Army. A young, ambitious firebrand like yourself could learn a lot from him.”

And?

“True,” Edmund replied carefully. “But it’s dull work.”

“If you are interested in a transfer, I could put in a word for you back in London.”

In exchange for what?

“That’s awfully sporting of you, Davies, I…”

Dorothy appeared suddenly, with her tray of cigarettes. “Mr. Linch, would you like your usual?”

She knows I don’t smoke.

“Thank you, Dorothy, yes please.”

She handed him a book of matches and two Luckies.

Edmund fingered the matchbook cover, glancing at what Dorothy or someone at the bar had quickly scrawled on the inside cover, Mickey Finn.

He made sure Dorothy saw that he’d read the message and then slipped the matchbook into his pocket.

“Cigarette, Davies?”

Davies was patting down his own pockets. “I prefer a pipe and damn, I seemed to have left it in my rooms.”

Oh yes, I’m sure you did.

"Perhaps after our drinks, we can go back for a smoke?"

Nancy returned with their drinks and set them on the table. They looked identical, except his glass was chipped.

Edmund reached for it before Davies could.

He wanted to see how this would play out. He didn’t know if he was the target for the recruitment Major al-Masri had warned him of. By whom? For what? Or, maybe Davies was interested in just how close Walker-Smythe was to the U.S. Army Signal Corps and where the OTP had led that they'd taken from the spy who killed Guy Hill last year?

Or, was this just some pathetic man hiding his homosexuality and using knockout drugs on young men in Washington bars? In which case, the stupid venality of it was galling – he was lonely and he might have even slept with him, if he’d asked. But Davies was a villain.

I’m not ready for this tonight.

“Well, cheers, Davies!” Edmund lurched to the side and upended his drink right into the man’s lap.

Davies bellowed like an injured bull and bolted up from the booth.

“Great Scott, Davies, I’m so sorry! I’ve obviously had too much tonight! Nancy, some soda and towels please!”

In the mess, of trying to apologize and dry the man off, Edmund managed a squeeze of Davies's own thigh that Abnur would have been proud of – and deeply appreciate – then jostled him so hard, the man’s own drink and the club soda went down his front.

He poured the slurping and sloshing Davies into a taxi. “Lunch, on me, or dinner, next week,” he promised, slurring his words and letting his hand linger too long on Davies’s arm.

“Yes, that would be splendid, Linch. I say, do you want to …”

Edmund slammed the taxi door. “Ta! Cheerio!”

He went back into the bar – James would have put the rum and all the soda on his tab, but he owed Nancy and Dorothy a thanks – and a big tip.

Maybe, next time, he could just recruit them outright. Davies could get his own Mickey Finn, and then there would be some sort of follow up involving ladies’ lingerie, lipstick, and a photograph or two in the alley behind the hotel…

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 207 of 222

Three Sentence Ficathon 2021

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

Fill: Entreaty

no subject

Dead (Disco Elysium, Harry + Ancient Reptilian Brain + Limbic System, SFW)

The Untamed, Jin Zixuan, An Unexpected Interruption...

Fire Emblem Heroes, the stoic swordsmen, You've heard of CHOP now get ready for...

The Benefit of the Doubt (Disco Elysium, Kim + Jean, SFW)

Ghost Trick, Cabanela

Re: When Home Economics meets magic...

Autism and Recreation [Parks and Recreation]

Re: Autism and Recreation [Parks and Recreation]

Re: Fill: A new albatross in the World (Piranesi).

Re: Fill: A new albatross in the World (Piranesi).

Re: Hunt and Gather (Chronicles of Narnia)

The Last Time (Disco Elysium, SFW, MAJOR endgame spoilers)

Fill: Silmarillion, Numenorean survivors

Fill: MDZS, Nie Mingjue & Nie Huaisang

LOTR, Gollum & Faramir's men

no subject

no subject

Nat 1 Diplomacy

tw mentions of sexism, infanticide, homophobia

no subject

Re: Hunt and Gather (Chronicles of Narnia)

Chaos and Inspired Genius -- TSG AU (Edmund, attempted dubcon, homphobic period)