Three Sentence Ficathon 2021

[rthstewart]

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>

Comments

[fallen_stage]

You're welcome! I look forward to More comment :3c

I'm glad! honestly i was surprised by the prompt but homura being a savescummer punched me in the face and this blossomed. i thought that both girls would gel on having like, big heavy tramatic Things they tacitly agree not to talk about, but still have some understanding. even if they wouldn't exactly cry on each others shoulders, it can help sitting with someone who also gets how much shit sucks. you can tell homura is sorry bc she rephrased her blunt wording. the food was an easy thing for homura to give as a peace offering and an excuse for kyoko, but its the company they both come back for.

it was fun to write! i unexpectedly had Feelings, and i really enjoyed how it turned out.

[vindoletta]

*blows on hands and rubs them together* Okay then! I'm going to highlight some of the parts that I liked or thought they were insightful (which is hard because I loved it, and all of the fic is).

So, I didn't know what savescummer was but I could guess from the fic. And it's *such* a Homura thing to do, just like Kyoko and her item hoarding, it reflects their own fighting styles and their personalities, and it was a brilliant detail.

"Homura had brought bags bulging with food, like she personally cleared out a konbini, so Kyoko only groused and nothing more."

I wouldn't be surprised at all if that was the case and she had used her time stop to do it. In my mind she doesn't spend all that much time and energy on every day things, preferring to focus instead on planning/eliminating threats/preventing Madoka from contracting/setting up the battleground against Walpurgisnatch/etc. Lots of things to do when you're a lone child soldier fighting against the world, so eating warm, varied, or healthy foods becomes a secondary priority.

"If I were to die ten times in a row, then I am ill prepared and need to restart and level more."

Again, her fighting style shows through, but also - how she takes up all the blame on her shoulders. If she fails it's only because of her own personal faults, in her mind. The only solution she can think of is to control and micromanage everything personally.

"No, Homura didn't say, just as Kyoko didn't talk about how she ate and ate, keeping the food safe in her stomach rather than risk keeping it out too long, to get lost, to rot, to get stolen."

That's them. That's them summarized in just one sentence. But it's also interesting how it shows their attitudes at risk-taking vs safety and survival, too. Homura is cautious most of the time but she risked everything in her life for her wish, and disregards everybody (including herself) but Madoka. Kyoko didn't initally risk everything in her life yet she lost it all, so while she might have get into messy situations "for fun" she won't risk her own survival. I wish the show or the movie had delved deeper into their relationship and how they are similar enough to understand each other and become allies, yet different in their ways of dealing with things.

"I like seeing effort pay off."

Cost-sunk fallacy, anyone? No wonder she went the route of "identifying all that I am with my trauma and try to find meaning in it no matter the cost" and did what she did in Rebellion.

"So Kyoko didn't mind sharing what little she had, including her old gameboy. Thing was a brick, and could survive getting dropped or stepped on or whatever."

Kyoko's personal brand of friendly overtures is sharing, usually food. I love that Homura picked on this and brought her food.

Kyoko sharing her things, especially food is even more significant when one remembers she lived in poverty for a while. She didn't have much, still doesn't. I can imagine her being hungry when her family was still alive, yet sharing her food with her little sister. But it's important too that the thing she shares won't be destroyed if something happens to it. I guess it's not just because it's one of the few things she has, but also because she might not trust Homura completely, yet.


And that's it! I missed the detail of how Homura corrects her wording to be more euphemistic, thank you for pointing it out.

Personally, I love the relationship between the two of them. It's really interesting to compare Kyoko's and Homura's interactions on the anime with Kyoko's and Sayaka's interactions. Because Sayaka represents her old idealistic self, while Homura represents her jaded, pragmatic current self. I think Kyoko and Homura can connect because of their circumstances, the things that they had to endure - they are both survivors, and like you said, they get each other. They support each other. But Kyoko and Sayaka connect with each other because of who they are/were, once they get past the absolute hatred caused by seeing the worst of you reflected in another. I wish the anime and the movie gave Kyoko a bit more of depth, but alas. :(

[fallen_stage]

holy Shit you weren't kidding! what a lovely long comment! <3 what a nice surprise :D

yes!! it reflects how they approach things and it was that parallel that punched me in the face and made me Sad so i knew it would inspire emotions too. :3 im glad the term was clear in context, I didn't think it would need to be explained. do the kids call it savescumming anymore...

Yep! that was the implication, but i didnt want to make it explicit in case a reader didn't want to think homura shoplifted. either way, you're right that homura is very laser focused and probably eats a lot of ready-made stuff. i mean, since shes so likely to just reset, its not like she has to worry about the longterm effects of any nutrient deficiency, so as long as she eats a vegetable thats good enough. i bet she eats those like. nutrient gel packs too. That said, konbinis can have a pretty wide selection of stuff, and heating up bentos and things are very common. so at least she isnt always eating cold stuff, poor kid.

That's homura's approach in one! Poor kid, she kind of treats the situation like a VN, or a resource management game, because if something goes wrong (and its been going wrong so many, many times) then clearly its because she did something wrong, didnt plan enough, didn't allocate enough resources, overlooked some factor. i got into pathologic lately and it has similarities w homura's situation because like the real world, events will happen with or without you, but unlike a game, homura feels the need to be everywhere at once.

Yes!! so a lot of things are written here not as deliberately for xyz reason, per se, but it feels right. so im really happy you managed to put why what i wrote works into words. i remember reading a fic where kyoko's past starvation resulted in some serious food security issues, to the point where she'd rather eat rotten food than let it go to waste, and it had like, the idea of the food being stored safe in her stomach. it really stuck with me.
I agree definitely that for their different approaches, homura and kyoko have very similar goals and attitudes. i can see why you'd want more content! theres a lot to dig into here.

Yep :,) spoilers i didnt actually watch the movie bc i couldn't handle homura suffering even more. what made pmmm good and worthwhile was its happy and hopeful (wistful?) ending, that even if it was bittersweet it really ended on hope. by tearing that down it just felt like more suffering porn, and the girls' misery lost all meanging in favor of, idk, cheap moe and shock factor. im sure the movie has good parts and could even be meangingful too, im just a weenie and cant handle it lol.
Point is, homura is Absolutely into sunk cost fallacy bc she's 1. so deeply unhappy 2. isolated emotionally and physically 3. like 12, so of course shes more prone to poor decision making.

Absolutely!! i imagine homura is like, notices that she's constantly snacking, figures getting her sweets would be an appropriate overture. then the offerings become greater since kyoko really responds to food gifts.

Yep! we see her split an apple with her sister in a flashback, and that hunger is a huge part of her personality. her own stomach may be "safe", but someone elses stomach is also "safe"; especially if that other stomach is someone she cares about. i imagine kyoko really wanted to help her little sister, and it was her sisters hunger more than her own that made kyoko desperate enough to catch kyuubey's attention.
And like you said, Kyoko shares something less risky first, since she doesnt trust homura 100% yet, so its like a test. i had the original gameboy and gbc when i was a kid and they really are nigh indestructable; we joked about "nintendium", jokes about testing durability by chucking em off a roof, and one memorable magazine letter about a gameboy that got left in a horse stall during a blizzard that came out the other side. so kyoko does like viddy games, but an gameboy is much more reliable than something more modern and fragile. it also means her gameboy cant get smashed by a witch so easily too.

You're welcome! i liked that detail bc i think homura doesn't want to be as cold as she comes off, but is just feeling so burdened and miserable she goes like, well, as long as things turn out well its okay to be disliked. so despite her attitude, homura is holding out an olive branch by trying to be sensitive when she makes a comment on a tender spot. kyoko does notice, and its anotehr notch in her favor.

Yeah!! like most ppl i do love the interaction between sayaka and kyoko, the contrast between the idealism and cynicism. i mean, kyoko felt sayaka worth of sacrifice because she saw so much of her past self in sayaka, and her anger was a lot of displacement of anger at her past naive self. I think the contrast with homura makes it even better, and i think kyoko is definitely worthy of having her deeps explored. I'm glad i could contribute! it was lots of fun writing in her voice, deciding how to "translate" her colloquially.

Thank you so much for the lovely comment! it's really made my day and im so happy you sank your teeth into it. ive been really prolific on this meme and im proud how ive managed to make such toothsome, meaty bites that other people appreciate too. its been a fun exercise of how to pack in a lot of meaning into a short piece.

[vindoletta]

I've never thought about Kyoko possibly having food security issues but now that you say it it'd make a lot of sense! And how she doesn't mind sharing food because it's also "safe" on the stomachs of her loved ones, or it helps them be safe. I agree she probably made the deal with Kyubey in the end due to her family, even if there was other elements there too (assuming what her father would want, perhaps even gain his approval, preserve his ideals, not being shunned by others).

I know it's not the most common opinion, but I loved Rebellion while the anime left me feeling more depressed. ^^' It's a very important movie for me for personal reasons - I watched it while I was depressed and suicidal because of PTSD, and seeing that experience reflected on the screen through Homura was cathartic and, even though it may sound strange, very hopeful. It kept me going when I had no other reasons to. Though if I watched it now that I'm in a much better place, I'd probably think the same as you.

Lol, Kyoko and her "trustworthiness tests" reminds me of cats in a way. First she shares space with Homura, then she comes closer but is still wary, then she does a friendly but reserved gesture, not quite relaxing while observing how the other reacts and judging if this person is safe.

I agree with Homura just resigning herself to be misunderstood! It happened in the anime with Mami and Sayaka. And in the movie with all the other girls. I think the only ones who see through it in the anime are Madoka (but Homura can't never bring herself to be completely cold-hearted when it comes to her) and Kyoko (who's also misunderstood). I think Kyoko noticing that detail in your fic makes her savvier and more aware of interpersonal nuances than how she was portrayed in canon, and I love it (she's portrayed as a bit more oblivious in canon imo, although not entirely ignorant).

You've definitely succeeded in packing a lot of meaning in a short story here! There's a lot that could be further developed. Thank you for this ficlet!

[fallen_stage]

Well, in her flashback she and her sister are eating a meal of just half an apple so... not very hard to connect the dots there. Kyoko made the wish for a lot of reasons, but I think the source of the wish, the spirit if you will, is that she wanted her family to be happy and healthy. Unfortunately Kyubey is very literal and children aren't good at noticing these kind of tricks or consequences.

Really? Thats very interesting! I'm glad the movie hit at a pivotal time for you. I read a summary w some theorizing and apparently Urobachi just wanted to end it with homura in mg heaven with madoka, lol. I think with more distance now, I could watch the movie and enjoy its messy and messed up, ambiguous ending.

Something like that! Kyoko doesn't trust easily bc she cant be Vulnerable!! but she can be close to people who make the effort to understand her. the food also helps.

Poor kids... homura is definitely cold as a trauma response, just repeating "its fine if i can save madoka" to herself to justify her suffering. If Kyoko is more insightful here it's because she can recognize the sort of suffering she's gone through in others, and also because they've established a rapport. They have a lot in common and it's nice to explore that, as one traumakid to another. since kyoko has the new context of "wow homura really thinks shes responsible for the whole world", she cottons on more about homura's seemingly callous attitude really being from a place of hurt.

Thank you! I'm glad I succeeded and I'm glad you liked it!