[Fic] Three Sentence Ficathon fills, part two

As always, here is the link to the current ficathon. Come make and fill prompts! The more people who play, the more fun for everyone (and the more chance you'll find fandoms that interest you). :D

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( 5. )

For silvr_dagger: Any, any, siren song, written 11/30/16 [AO3 version]

madly, deeply (150 words)

Foggy wonders, sometimes, if he was born with wax in his metaphorical ears, something that keeps him from hearing the siren songs that rule his best friends' lives: justice, vengeance, unvarnished truth, a million other shades of poison. He doesn't feel it's a flaw -- anyone who claims to welcome the disasters and heartache that Matt and Karen's respective obsessions lead them into is both crazy and lying -- but now and then he looks at his normal ambitions and modestly comfortable life and wonders if he's missing some kind of high (personal, social, whatever) along with the obvious lows, because his friends have made it abundantly clear that some vital spark in their hearts will wither and die unless they're free to dive headfirst into the treacherous waters they love.

He just wishes he could teach them to find joy on the steady shore (in safety, with him) instead.

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( 6. )

For deceivepolyps: great (misfire prompt), written 11/30/16 [AO3 version]

on the internet, nobody can do your emotional labor for you (200 words)

"Jaaaaaade," Dave drawled as he leaned against the back of the sofa, draping his arms over Jade's shoulders and resting his chin on her head, "I demand clarification of your response to my dinner invitation extravaganza; what do you mean by just writing 'great' without any context; don't you know you're not supposed to leave your words naked; they need punctuation and emojis to create the illusion of tone save me from having to do hard emotional interpretation labor; I'm no good at emotional labor, Jade, have pity."

"Nobody's good at emotional labor when they start out, but I learned how to interpret your writing without punctuation and emojis," Jade said cheerfully, a faint green light beginning to limn her form in warning of imminent teleportation; "Suck it up and deal, mister, or Karkat and I will go on our own private dinner date extravaganza while you loll around in abject despair over your inability to take words at face value."

"Great," Dave said into the minor rush of air that accompanied her departure, "real smooth, genius; you oughta borrow Jane's fedora for that move," and resigned himself to Karkat's inevitable laughter when Jade pulled the story out over dessert.

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( 7. )

For recessivejean: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Cimorene (& anyone), unnecessarily complicated walk in the woods, written 11/30/16 [AO3 version]

a real magic (225 words)

"Mendanbar, I don't mean to interrupt, but the forest does know I'm only a member of the royal family by marriage, and therefore unable to handle big problems by waving my hands and wishing very hard, right?"

Mendanbar glanced briefly up from the accounts he was reviewing (under orders from Cimorene, which he had protested mostly for show; he was perfectly well aware they were important, and anyway reviewing accounts someone else had drawn up was much less frustrating than trying to create them himself), smiled, returned to his papers... and then looked back properly at the train of princesses, knights, talking animals, and various other complications that had somehow found his wife on what was meant to be a short walk to see the spiral dance of levitating boulders that an artistically inclined witch had spelled into place two hundred years ago, and had then followed her back to the castle (incidentally tramping mud all through the corridors; Willin was going to pitch a fit).

"I think the forest may be throwing problems at you because it knows you have the common sense to solve them instead of waving your hands and wishing them away," Mendanbar said, wryly, as he rose to help sort out the inevitable chaos, "but I'll have a word with the sword tomorrow and we'll see if that helps."

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( 8. )

For celeste9: MCU, Clint/Natasha/Laura, whatever works, written 11/30/16 [AO3 version]

just as long as we're together (225 words)

"I am so sorry, Nat," Laura said as she stared at the charred ruins of the turkey; "I wanted to give you a perfect introduction to American holiday traditions, but apparently I should have spent more time bugging my mom in the kitchen than bugging my dad in the garage when I was a kid, since apparently cooking is not nearly as close to engineering as baking is."

Clint dropped a cheer-up kiss on her forehead and heaved the useless, smoking avian corpse into the sink; "The pie's still fine," he said, "and there's always takeout Chinese, which is actually more traditional in my family than any fancy home-cooked meal."

Natasha's kiss landed on Laura's nose, then slid teasingly down just to the corner of her mouth before Nat pulled back with a smile and said, "I've eaten turkey -- my trainers were very thorough about cultural details -- and while I appreciate the effort, I have to say I'd prefer egg rolls."

Laura sighed and let her husband and lover pull her toward the basket of takeout menus that sat in mocking splendor at the end of her kitchen counter; probably this disaster had always been inevitable, and if nothing else she'd have a funny story to tell someday (in carefully redacted form), but in the meantime, she had an argument over appropriate spice levels to mediate.

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Note: Yes, I know that one is four sentences. Shush.

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( 9. )

For mermaids_feet: Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton/Any, Bachelor AU, written 12/1/16 [AO3 version]

would smell as sweet (125 words)

"I'm not supposed to warn you, Alex, but I care too much to make you be gracious extemporaneously," Angelica murmured into Alexander's ear, the wild curls of her hair disguising the movement of her lips from the ever-present cameras; "I'm going to give John Church my last rose tonight instead of you -- and don't try to change my mind, because I have something so much better in store for you."

For once wordless, Alexander could only hope she correctly interpreted the code of his eyelashes as he blinked away his disappointment and confusion.

He shouldn't have worried; they were in sync as always, though equally as always, Angelica managed to surprise him when she said, between another series of kisses, "Let me tell you about my sister Eliza."

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Note: The Bachelorette is functionally the same idea, right...? :)

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( 10. )

For silvr_dagger: Any, any, sunlight and shadow, written 12/2/16 [AO3 version]

under a bushel (125 words)

Eliza would say she's spent her life in shadows, effortless outshined by first Angelica and then Alexander as they stride forth in the strength of their convictions. They try to convince her otherwise, tell her again and again that she's the sun itself that brings light into their worlds and lets them flourish unafraid, but the sun, she thinks, should be bold and free and effortlessly visible in the world, not happily veiled and distracted by the curtains and concerns of her domestic life.

When they die, first Alexander and then Angelica, Eliza clothes herself in black, but instead of dousing her light she throws open all her windows and doors and begins to shine for the world as she always shone in their eyes.

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Eventually I will get these up on AO3.

I can has light!

Landlord Dude arrived at 10am, looked at the light, said words to the general effect of 'yeah, that's about what I expected,' opened the fixture with great struggle (it is not quite properly aligned, somehow), extracted one bulb for comparison shopping purposes, drove off to the local specialty lighting store (yes, there is such a thing), came back and installed the newly purchased replacement bulbs, and closed up the fixture with more struggle.

Meanwhile I raked four bags of leaves from the back yard and driveway, which he duly loaded into his truck and took home to mulch his garden.

Success all around, I'd say. :)

from the department of things I should maybe write someday...

For reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I was reading through some of my old journal entries and I came across the following comment of mine, which I am going to quote here in slightly truncated and edited form:

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Yeah, that weird cultural sex-is-worse-than-violence skew is one of my main reasons for considering ratings pointless. The other is that those ratings are aimed at an audiovisual medium, and are therefore maladapted for a textual medium. Like, if I show you a clip of a person shooting someone else point blank in the head, that's pretty gory and upsetting and should presumably get a relatively high rating. But I can write something like this:

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"So be a good girl, and drop the gun." Joe smirked again, like he had every option closed off and she had no choice except to play along.

Leah shot him, point blank, and threw up her arms to ward off the backspatter of blood and other things. Then she hurled herself into the cover of the overturned minivan and hoped Fatima would have time to run before Joe's goons inevitably killed her.

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and move blithely along giving you no further details, and while that's not a nice scene, it's not so graphic that I feel a need to slap a huge warning on the fic as a whole if that's the worst thing that happens. Ditto sex: showing our heroines from the previous snippet getting hot and heavy onscreen is a lot different from saying:

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Leah and Fatima fell onto the sheets, fingers slipping on buttons and zippers in their haste to pull off each other's clothes and press skin to skin in desperate confirmation that they were still alive.

"Oh god," Leah panted into Fatima's shoulder, between sloppy, open-mouthed kisses against the crook of her neck, "I thought I'd lost you, I thought--"

"I know," Fatima said. "I know. But you didn't," and her hand finally slipped under the waistband of Leah's jeans and pressed up against the damp cotton of Leah's panties.

Leah sobbed with relief and did her best to reciprocate the favor.

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and then cutting the scene and jumping to next morning. You know? Like, that little snippet is not something parents would necessarily want preteen kids reading, but it's hardly what I'd call graphic, not to mention that it's really easy to skim past text in a way one can't replicate with audiovisual media.

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I suddenly have an intense need to read the rest of the story that connects those two excerpts. Alas, it does not currently exist and probably won't ever exist unless I write it. Perhaps in 2017...

stuff done: Wednesday-Friday

1. Took (and passed) the exam for Tuesday's Not the IRS continuing education course, go me!

2. Brought old newspapers home from the rental office to use in a project I am doing that will become Mom's Christmas present (or maybe her birthday present; we'll see how labor-intensive it winds up being).

( more items under the cut )

12. Wrote thirteen Three Sentence Ficathon fills. (Okay, technically two of those were on Tuesday, but whatever, I only mentioned one of them in my last 'stuff done' post so I am using this post to make an accurate count of my productivity thus far for the entire ficathon.)