heliopausa | Entries tagged with three-sentence ficathon

In the last week or so of the three-sentence ficathon, I lucked into some wonderful fills to prompts!

I posted a few new prompts, a couple of which went unfilled (here I prompted: LOTR, Bree-folk,the pointy end of politics, and here: Kipling's Kim; Kim, any; twentieth century)
but then the fills began to roll in!
For the prompt: Sinbad (2012); Rina, Cook; what's cooking?,

meridian_rose posted this lovely snippet of interaction, where unspoken affection belied the spoken words.

Then for this prompt: Shakespeare's Macbeth, Lady Macbeth/Macbeth, "I have given suck, and know how tender 'tis to love the babe who milks me" vs "he has no children", came the stunning fill, "Such a heart in my bosom" , all in iambic pentameter, from

edenfalling . :)

My next prompt, Narnia, VDT; any characters; the voyage home, elicited two fills!
From

syrena_of_the_lake , "Disembark" , telling how Eustace, post-VDT, is still held by the memory of breathtaking loveliness and lifechanging insight.
and from

edenfalling , "To Breathe Free", a completely different take, focussing on the second, often overlooked,voyage in VDT.

and there were two fills, as well, for my next and last prompt: Narnia; Susan, Rabadash; "how meekly and courteously he consorted with us the space of seven days".

autumnia wrote "Behind closed doors", showing the true self that Rabadash was keeping so carefully hidden,
and

transposable_element wrote "Ridiculous", bringing out the terrible dangers inherent in the gulf between Rabadash's appalling arrogance and Narnian simple directness.

Very excitingly, there were two new fills by

syrena_of_the_lake taking the Sherlock!dragon story "Wings but no feet, cont." deep into the store-rooms of the Oxford Natural History Museum! Read all about it here and here! :)

I posted three new fills myself, as well. :)

For

rthstewart , who asked for Doctor Who, Donna, Fastest Temp In Chiswick, I wrote "Echo of a Time Lord"

For

syrena_of_the_lake , whose prompt, Harry Potter, Voldemort AU, His middle name was Bertram, and that changed everything, essentially set a fiendish anagram puzzle, I wrote first this: Last night at the Orphanage (in nine sentences), and then, in even greater folly, a second fill: And thus is equilibrium maintained...

And I think that's truly the last of this round-up of prompts and fills. The whole event was loads of fun, with a mind-bogglingly wide spectrum of creativity, from the most seriously jolting and poignant to the most wildly cracky - thank you, everyone, and especially, of course, instigator and maintainer

rthstewart !

(oops! I forgot "Siege Perilous", which I wrote to fill a prompt from wellinghall: Saki (HH Munro), Vera Durmot, seduction. )

Current Mood: happy
Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/38054.html

Does anyone know where is a recent/current prompt-gathering with a history theme? I saw it in a distracted moment recently, and posted a prompt for Anne of Brittany, and now I don't know where to look for it. (Now answered, thanks to

pulchritude; it's historyfest!)

Speaking of whom, it's nearly International Women's Day. :) Is there a woman you'd like to draw to my attention, as being someone I can cheer for on the day? Just a name, or a name and an internet link, if you like, or more, if you like!

The end of the three-sentence ficathon is getting very close - and I'll be losing a day and a half on a worktrip tomorrow and Saturday. I hope I can manage a fill or two more, or a prompt or two more before the end.

Current Mood: cheerful
Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/37200.html

I posted a round dozen prompts in

rthstewart's three-sentence ficathon, and had a great time seeing how the fills came out! Thank you, writers.

The first was: Swallows and Amazons, Nancy, more than one way to skin a cat
It was answered by marmota, with a story of a very determined Nancy struggling with a literal (defunct!) cat.

The second was: Agatha Christie; Hercule Poirot, Miss Lemon; amateur theatricals
That garnered two very pleasant and amusing fills!
One came from

wellinghall, and showed Poirot pondering the implications of a theatre prop.
The other was from an anonymous player, and offered a glimpse of daily life in Poirot's office

The third prompt - Wimsey Novels (Sayers), any, financial crisis - also received two fills:
one, from

adaese, was a gorgeously characteristic extract "From the diary of Honoria Lucasta, Dowager Duchess of Denver", and
one from

lizzrdgirl was a tiny and wonderful scene involving Bunter, Harriet and Lord St. George.

Three more Swallows and Amazons prompts came next.
Swallows and Amazons, James Turner + Missee Lee, unexpected meeting was met by a snapshot from a breathless thriller "Running from Mainland China", by an anonymous player.
Swallows and Amazons, Roger, engine trouble was also filled by anonymous, who wrote a terrific character study of Roger being very Rogerian.
There was a fill (by

learnsslowly) for the prompt Swallows and Amazons, Dick, the only way to find out, which got lost in transit, which was a pity!
But there was also a fill for it by

wingedflight, an eerie, lovely snippet breathing untold possibilities.

Then came my first Narnia prompt: Narnia, the Kangaroo, any (but maybe especially how come there's a kangaroo in Narnia?).
This was met with two fills,
It began with

rthstewart, who opened everything up with a wonderful creation-time story reaching between worlds
and then

syrena_of_the_lake went spinning off from there with "Babbling billabong", and from there, much followed, from many different writers on many different pages! :)

syrena_of_the_lake also provided quite a different fill for the prompt, with an unexpectedly upbeat incident in wartime Spare Oom, France, 1944.

A second Narnia prompt: Narnia, Erlian, there were Giants in those days, yielded a sad, convincing sketch by

syrena_of_the_lake showing the impact of Erlian's death on his young son.

I was surprised and delighted when someone picked up a prompt for a very small fandom: The Changeover (Margaret Mahy); Winter Carlisle, Miryam Carlisle; any;

supertights wrote a terrific fill evoking the intense, harsh complexities of the Carlisle household.

And a prompt for Historical fiction, Edward VI, delicate negotiations was met by a small, gently humorous slice-of-life piece from

archersangel.

I might put up a couple more prompts this weekend. :) In the meantime, if anyone feels like venturing into some very small fandoms, I have two prompts still unfilled:
C.S.Lewis SF Trilogy, Grace Ironwood, "she comes more near the earth than she is wont",
and
Sinbad (2012); Rina, Cook; what's cooking? -

Note to those who were so kind re: the coding yesterday: :D Thank you! and see how I have profited from your help!! You are all super!

Current Mood: drained
Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/36815.html

The Three-Sentence Ficathon rolls along merrily, though more quietly in the working week. I've added a few fics, and a few prompts - I'll tell about the great fills for those tomorrow. I've added the newer fills by me to the three separate files I'm keeping on AO3.

In the Narnia file:

"My lords, I appear before you today..." in response to a prompt from

ruanchunxian0 Narnia, Edmund and/or Peter in Spare Oom, the tailored suit is the armour of a modern knight.

"...the Mirror shows many things..." in response to a prompt from

syrena_of_the_lake : Narnia (Susan? Eustace?) and/or LoTR (Gandalf? Galadriel?), the sleep of reason produces monsters

In the Tolkien file:

At the edge of the tombless sea in response to a prompt from

vialethe : Narnia/The Silmarillion, Susan/Maglor, all my books are lying useless now/all my maps will only show me how to lose my way

In the everything else file:

Cruel as the grave in response to a prompt from

samparker : Little Women, Jo & Laurie, Amy is jealous of their friendship.

Incident on the green in response to a prompt from <user name=wellinghall site=livejournal.com> : Dorothy L Sayers, Lord Peter Wimsey, acerbic comments on the standards of a cricket match

The charter of her worth in response to a prompt from

betony : Arthurian Legend, Mark/Brangaine, the ones history forgot

Jist one more crack at Cumberland's men in response to a prompt from an anonymous prompter: Doctor Who, the Brigadier & Jamie, Culloden

*and one more frustrating failure at linking names. :( Or umpteen more, I should say, because I haven't cracked the code on AO3, either. I've tried two different methods here, the one recommended on DW, and the one which work last time, and neither is working.

Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/36524.html

...and everybody's preparations are done, and now people are mostly back in their family home. I feel very much like sleeping, but may yet see it through to midnight, and fireworks all around. Tomorrow will be very quiet indeed. (As befits the year of the restful, meditative Goat?)

In terms of Wednesday reading, I have no books to report, only lots of three-sentence fictions. :D

And I've managed to post most of my own 3SF fills so far, too, over on AO3:-

There's a round-up of more-or-less Narnia fills - four so far

and a round-up of Tolkienish fills - two so far

(These leave me with the problem of where to put the Susan/Maglor fic - Narnia or Tolkien? I haven't put it in either so far.)

and a round-up of everything else, ranging from Antigone to Bertie Wooster.

Two and four seem very paltry numbers to have separate sections to themselves - I'll have to go and look for more Narnia/Tolkien prompts to fill. I do have a couple more fills written (not Narnia, not Tolkien) which haven't been posted yet, but they'll get AO3'd eventually. :)

And on quite a different tack, a good news story from my home country, for no good reason - I just liked the gumption of the boy:

"And then it just sort of hit me that my life isn't going to be all coins, so I thought I'd better make things a little easier, and easier for others as well."

and I like that it paid off! :) A sucker for happy endings.

Current Mood: sleepy
Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/35848.html

It's all

rthstewart 's fault, said

autumnia (here), and indeed it is! meaning, the ever-evolving three-sentence ficathon, place of wonders and many, many bypaths. I'm not quite keeping up, but then I don't think anybody is keeping up totally. I'm about to head out for the day, but I'll try to get to properly reading through this evening.

I've posted fourteen fills, of which four are arguably Narnian, and two are distinctly Tolkien, and one is a crossover of the two, but I've also had great fun with older fictions of various sorts, and new fandoms that I don't really know, and in general have been feeling again the fun side of writing, and a sense of community at play. :) I'll post them on aO3 (and linkto this journal) when the weekend is done, and the reading/writing/posting slows down for the working week, before next weekend's probable new flurry of additions. :D

Meantime, thank you, Ruth, and everybody, for it all - not just the prompts and great ficlets, but also the way it leads to undiscovered books and tales, by way of prompts unknown - such as the book The Leaky Establishment, which I'd never heard of, and which sounds a must-read, and the Czech Cinderella version called Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella, which has set my mind off running after all the stories of women using nuts (mostly hazelnuts?) to solve dilemmas. (Does anybody have any of these? - I know of another Cinderella-ish one, and Kate Crackernuts, but I'm sure I've read more... ) and the opening up of new fandoms of things I've read or seen, but never, never thought of writing in! (Bertie Wooster! terrifying Greek myth! pictures!!)

The Fairy-feller's Master-stroke

and on a quieter note,

halfamoon has come to an end. I don't feel I ever quite connected with what was going on, but I managed to post a single story, and then at the last minute posted as well a list of those stories from NFE 2014 which were specifically female-centric.

Current Mood: excited
Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/35656.html

Phew! This is meant to be the quieter time of year - in between the solar and the lunar new years. But this year it seems not so - or not right now, anyway. Still, there's time to note a few odds and ends...

( Trustees strain at gnats )

The Three-Sentence Ficathon offered to everyone by kind and lovely

rthstewart is rollicking along - as it has in other years, it's producing some enormously funny fills, and some stunningly beautiful, or sad or inventive or grim or all-good-things fills and some brilliantly provocative prompts (ie provoking ideas and writing, not arguments!)

halfamoon is on, too - still four days left to post female-centric fics or vids or recs or anything! (Maybe I should put some links to the female-centric fics from the last NFE?)

transposable_element has passed on that the New Yorker magazine has published an unabashed work of fanfiction - and it's not for the first time, either!

It's nearly the end of the Year of the Horse - just one week to go! Today the excitement starts; it's the day when people release goldfish into rivers and lakes, to transform into dragons for the kitchen gods to ride to the court of the Jade Emperor, to report on the year's doings in each household. Then with the New Moon, the year changes! :) So - does anyone have the lowdown on what are the influences to be expected in the Wood Year of the Goat?

It's raining! - for which, cheers, because it means I feel I'm able to skip morning exercise group with a clear conscience.

Current Mood: lethargic
Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/35402.html

So much is happening! For starters, the wonderful

rthstewart is running a three sentence ficathon, which is bubbling like crazy, in a ferment of creativity ranging across more fandoms than you can poke a stick at. (Moominland! I'll have to find out about Moominland!)

It's loads of fun, and you don't have to be a member of Dreamwidth to join in, so... :) now's the time!
(I've so far posted prompts for Swallows and Amazons, and Wimseyworld, and Hercule Poirot> - any takers?)

And simultaneously there is the halfamoon: 14 days of celebrating women festival happening, with fics nd vids and .... all sorts of fannish female-focussed activity. In celebration of which, I've just posted a story relating to today's theme, Transformations. :)

And as well, there's the Once Upon a Fic Exchange, which is still open for nominations! I'm not too late! Hurry, helio, hurry!

Current Mood: excited
Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/35243.html

I gave myself a day to play about in the Three-Sentence Fiction game, before I thought I needed to turn to Other Serious Stuff - and in fact I stayed more than a day, so that now:
behind me, I can hear
Time's chariot hurrying near,
and yonder all before me lie
desarts of vast not-having-done-things-in-time.
So it's time to stop. :)

Still, I managed three fills, and a prompt, which was promptly and happily filled in its turn. They were...

A prompt from betonyb:
Much Ado About Nothing, Beatrice's mother, No, sure, my lord, my mother cried, and then a star danced, under that was I born--what ever happened to her?

A prompt from wingedflight21:
Narnia, Lucy & Tumnus,ghost-hunters

A prompt from psyche29:
Narnia, Rabadash, Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin "You are weighed in the balance, and found wanting."

And the prompt which I offered, which was most satisfyingly and beautifully taken up by autumnia:
Doctor Who, any, just somebody that I used to know

Thank you, all writers, prompters and commenters, and thank you caramelsilver, for running this.

Current Mood: satisfied
Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/17136.html

I put up the first six 3SFs I did a while back, but after that I went on, and managed another four, and... here they are. :)

( for betony: Child Ballads, Janet (Tam Lin) & Lady Isabel (Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight), advice )

( for ailavyn_siniyash: Narnia, Mr. or Mrs. Pevensie, and then what happened? )

( for tiny white hats: Any, political AU )

( for wingedflight: Narnia, Eustace/Jill, chasing memories )

Thanks to everyone involved, and especially, of course, to the wonderful rthstewart, instigator and host. :)

Current Mood: cheerful

Well, there was writing, and thinking (but not nearly enough) and in all I guess that was a mildly productive week of writing. I've posted a third chapter of 'The Ivory Merchants', on ffnet, with two (two!) new characters, and managed four more three-sentence fictions, just squeaking in at the nearly-last minute with one fill. That's been a lot of fun (thank you, Ruth!) and has also opened up to me lots of fandoms and stories I didn't know anything about, to be chased down eventually.

I'm storing away possible prompts for next time, too; does anyone know the television series Last Tango in Halifax? I've only just come across it, and I would have posted a prompt, but wasn't sure that enough people would know it to want to fill it. It's a UK series, kicking off as a late-in-life reunion of childhood sweethearts, but opening out to take in much more; some terrific acting. Has anyone seen it?

Current Mood: okay

I managed six. :)

( Prompt from wingedflight21: Narnia, anyone, water tastes sweet at the end of the world )

( Prompt from metonomia: Narnia, Sea-Girl, first sight )

( Prompt from rthstewart: Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader: the one he left behind )

( Prompt from Betony: Narnia, Cor/Aravis, marriage negotiations )

( Prompt from metonomia: Narnia/The Ruin, Eustace and Jill, city of the giants )

( Prompt from with-rainfall: Any, any character/dragon, sparks )

Many thanks to Ruth for bringing us all so much fun and wonderful fics, and managing the whole thing, including the friendship meme, and to the prompters, whose minds range awesomely, and to the writers, who were just brilliant!! :) Truly wonderful ideas and writing. (and has also made me aware of whole new books and much else I didn't know about - the Lymond Chronicles sound appealing.)

Current Mood: organising

Oh, come on, scriptwriters! Three evildoers die in beatific Great Spiritual Realisation in four episodes?? Can't you think of anything else to do with them?
There was:
the Cardiff-Mayor-Slitheen -- terminated in ecstasy on perceiving the heart of the Tardis (lightshow);
trampoline woman -- terminated in ecstasy on perceiving the frailty and loveliness of humanity (no lightshow), and now;
werewolf -- terminated in ecstasy on receiving the hyped-up blast of moonlight (lightshow, and Christ-like posture)
This is pretty blinking lazy scriptwriting.

And I still don't like this hyped-up, my-way-or-the-highway Doctor. Who is he, to decide who lives or dies? It's not as if he doesn't make mistakes, ever.
On the other hand, I did like Queen Victoria shooting the bad monk (I like capable women!), and I was very intrigued to gather that Torchwood (which I've never seen any of) is anti-Doctor!

And... I've practically drowned trying to read through in the three-sentence ficathon, but have managed three sentences, and right now, having been given an unexpected two hours off work, I will go and add three more, and then see if I can sort out the second chapter of The Ivory Merchants. :)