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

Umineko, Beatrice(/Battler), I'm looking out for you but I don't think you want to be found out

Star Trek (any), any + Q, karaoke night

angsty yet lovely *_*

Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy in the muggle world, "Wait - did I actually grow up in a cult!?"

(I figure "I grew up in a cult" is a great all-purpose excuse if you've left or been kicked out of Wizarding Britain but still don't know popular TV references. Except if your parents are Death Eaters, well...)

Harry Potter, Hermione, things left unsaid

Calvin and Hobbes, Hobbes, independence

Calvin and Hobbes, Hobbes, protection

Calvin and Hobbes, Susie, tea parties

nice!
is this from a specific greek mythology related fandom or just greek mythology?

Thank you!

Orochimaru was more than eager to return home, and had only stopped to turn in his report at the mission desk first so not to have to leave it again for at least some days; he had known his mate had returned already, and he had already heard murmurs - outside the village as well as within - of the newly brewing war, but he had not expected to hear the mutters he was now.

Orochimaru stepped through the doors into the mission desk silently, his chakra raging under his skin, and waited for that to announce his presence; it didn't take long, with that acid weight spreading, but still long enough for Orochimaru to search out each voice laying blame on Hatake for saving his teammates and drawing Suna into war, as though he had done anything wrong, as though they were ever more than a breath from war, as though- Orochimaru hissed and stalked across the room to drop his report on the table, then whirled and left them behind; suddenly he had even more reason to be home. . .

It's from Supergiant's Hades game. :)

any, any, Are they autistic?

Professor Powers glanced at the drawing--a sketch of the neighborhood as it might have looked from the sky, the school and streets brief lines, far more detailed and neater than the scrawled assignments that Tobias turned in. "Your aunt in New York, has she ever taken you to see a doctor? Maybe one who gave you puzzles to play with or stories to read?"

Tobias laughed. "My aunt in New York is lucky if she remembers which school bus I'm supposed to get on."

Powers sighed. "This is a nice map. Could I keep it for a while?"

His eyes didn't meet hers, but they lit up as he said "Of course."

Edited (list the fandom) 2021-02-03 23:06 (UTC)

The stars rose and fell and rose, as did the Scribe's Herald, his feet and his song occasionally carrying him to the top of a certain waterfall or near to a tall, still tree in the moonlight, and he seemed to grow more pallid by the turns of the stars, the little color he'd had leeching ever more into his music. The Nightwings had been his function and their thread through his life stretched back through centuries; he'd never expected those who'd been his final friends to have sown and reaped so much tragedy. All he could do was put his all into his lute, strung white and pale pith-green, with never-lost hope that the music would hearten and the raiments would one day be worn once more by ones who would have the strength to try again.

The last place Horatio wants to be is Elsinore.

He visited once before, and found it primarily dull—he is not one to care about noble disdain for his spectacles and ink-stained fingers, but he sees nothing of interest in the pomp and circumstance of the court—and then after that visit he only heard of it through Hamlet’s complaints, from which, he gathered, it had only gotten worse; and he has research to do, a borrowed text just arrived, an article to review.

But Elsinore is where Hamlet is, and Hamlet has sent for him, so he goes.

"You're going to need a better name for these," says Mat, keeping the explosive devices at a respectful distance. "When people hear 'dragons,' they think of Rand."

"The Dragon is dead, but me, I am alive," Aludra grins. "In ten years these may be more famous, hmm?"

(Mat isn't completely sure Rand is completely dead, but he isn't about to dispute the point.)

wow, what an ending, it so perfectly encapsulates their relationship, and I love the detail that Horatio doesn't mind the people who judge him for not living up to their standards, because he just isn't interested in those standards. thank you so much!

His tutors all said the same things about him--what a smart boy, what a studious boy, he'll go far in the priesthood. Acatl supposed they were probably correct about that; he was smart, he was studious, and he threw himself into the rituals with a fervor that annoyed the nobles' sons who were only there for power. They didn't understand how he could ponder the codices for hours, how he could sit silent as the statue of Lord Death and watch the funeral pyres burn.

He didn't understand it himself, really; all he knew, in those moments when he contemplated the inside of his own mind, was that having it consumed by devotion to the gods felt right.

"These rules don't make any sense." Kakashi said, voice low, eying the baby ninja screaming as they chased each other around the yard outside the Academy, throwing up fallen leaves as they charged through heaps of them.

Iruka laughed, shoving his shoulder lightly against Kakashi's. "Maybe not to you - I'm sure any of the kids could give you a thorough lesson on how to play. Besides," he added, smiling as he watched over his class, "the scoring isn't the important part; they're putting new skills to use and training their bodies and minds, even if they're mostly having fun."

Time magic was extremely, extremely dangerous. There was a reason even the study of it was forbidden, aside from the smallest of spells such as Haste and Stop, which didn't interfere with the greater flow of time no more than a pebble could change an ocean current. Kuja knew this, but was never one to shy away from delving into secret places and pouring over proscribed texts.

In the library of Daguerreo, where even the most heinous knowledge was preserved, if stringently restricted, Kuja managed to find what he was looking for. His iron body was weakened, his existence almost spent: he needed more time. When he found a passage about the theory of moving through time like a ship through the air, he dismissed it as interesting but unhelpful to his predicament. Kuja needed a way to extend his own time, not hop about.

As his search for prolonging life dwindled, however - he was hardly the first to dream of thwarting death, let alone preservation of the soul - Kuja returned to the idea. He was thoroughly knowledgeable, of course, with an excellent memory and skilled at planning and campaigning. Could he not use what he knew now to prevent the worse of events? Why - he even knew how to counter his greatest terror, the motivation that started him down the bloody warpath.

Zidane had taught him that.

*~*~*

Had he always been so young?

Intellectually Kuja knew that his past self was thirteen, already achieving the sort of skill and independence most Gaians had at twice that. Heavens above, he remembered all too well this part of his life, still struggling to recreate the Terran production of bodies with merely Gaian resources. Still, as his past self and he stared at each other, Kuja couldn't help be baffled at how much a child the other still was, even elbow-deep in viscera.

"So... Are you going to help me make these soldiers?"

His past self recognized him immediately; Kuja would know his own borrowed soul in a sea of others. That made things much easier, but did no erase the doubt and caution his younger self had: Kuja expected no less. No, his past self assumed his future self came back to accelerate his plans, perhaps accomplish them better. After all it would be another year before his efforts bore real fruit and not merely piles of meat wrapped in cloth requiring yet another autopsy to see what went wrong this time.

"No," Kuja had thought about this, about his responsibility and not inflicting harm to succor his own. "No, not only that. I came back to prevent war." Expecting the dubious expression on the other's face, Kuja continued on, "Because I know how to thwart Garland returning us into a vessel."

His younger self dropped a misshaped kidney, the wet slap of raw meat on raw meat loud in the silence of that bolt of revelation. His younger self was for once, speechless, choking on hope.

"We have to make friends."

Edited 2021-02-03 23:35 (UTC)

". . .there's what in my eyeshadow?" Jupiter demanded, putting a hand to her head and wavering a little as she looked down at the shimmery powder in the array of dishes she'd been brought to prepare for the ball. "This is crazy!" she said, shaking her head and turning to look at Caine, sitting on the floor by the doors and waiting patiently for her.

"I grew up and belong in a kennel, Mistress," he pointed out, shrugging, "the foibles of Entitled are beyond me."

Edited (fixing typo) 2021-02-03 23:28 (UTC)

Emotional Transference

Jim's been choked out by a lot of people in his life, but there is definitely something unique about the experience when it's Vulcan hands around your throat. There were no Vulcan cadets to grapple with at the Academy, so he's only known about Vulcan strength in theory; he's certainly getting well-acquainted with the reality now. This might be one of those calculated risks where, in fact, his math is wrong.

Got you to show you're emotionally compromised, he thinks fuzzily at the other Spock, the old Spock. But this all might end over my dead body.

As the pain takes on an edge he recognizes as the precipice of unconsciousness, and he wonders if he might end up with permanent damage to his windpipe, he experiences a moment of weird vertigo. He feels a neck under his hands—fragile, human—and looks down at a man through a red haze of bloodlust while the merciless sun beats down on his naked back. The man stares up at him from a shockingly familiar face, but his eyes are hazel, not blue. Like Sam's eyes, except this is unquestionably not Sam. This man is him. This man is...his friend.

The fuck?!

Before Jim can work it out, though, the hands are suddenly gone. Spock backs away from him, looking horrified. Things move fast after that, and Jim sets the probably transferred memory aside to deal with later, when he can have a long talk with old Spock about what else, exactly, he has to brace himself for thanks to that mind meld.

It's harder to set aside the inside experience of Spock's rage. Spock's passion. Jim's hunger for it.

"Believe me, Jim, I'm emotionally compromised," old Spock said for both versions of himself.

Well. That made three of them.

Narnia, original Groundhog character, tired of getting blamed for six more weeks of winter

Narnia/Ratatouille, Remy, the novelty of having humans understand him when he talks

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Page 93 of 222

Three Sentence Ficathon 2021

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Re: Fill: lotr, éomer (& any), dealing with a lost horse

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Re: [Hades] In Solitude

Re: Fill: lotr, éomer (& any), dealing with a lost horse

Hushed Hatred (Naruto; Sakumo/Orochimaru)

Re: [Hades] In Solitude

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Animorphs - Tobias

Fill: Pyre, Tariq

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Wheel of Time - Mat/Aludra

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Obsidian & Blood, Acatl

Lessons and Games (Naruto; Kakashi/Iruka, Iruka's class of baby ninja)

You Will Not Be Alone (Final Fantasy IX, Kuja)

Makeup Madness (Jupiter Ascending; Jupiter/Caine)

Emotional Transference

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