rthstewart | NEW POST FOR PROMPTS AND RESPONSES - Three Sentence Ficathon Part 2

THE THREE SENTENCE FICATHON FOR 2020 IS OFFICIALLY OVER!

PLEASE DON'T POST ANY NEW PROMPTS!
SAVE NEW PROMPTS FOR NEXT YEAR!
DON'T POST NEW PROMPTS AS THEY ARE UNLIKELY TO GET ANY LOVE.
DO CHECK OUT EXISTING PROMPTS AND KEEP FILLING THEM AND COMMENTING ON THEM! (Seriously, I still get notifications of 3SF fills from the exchange last year! I'll get them all year and that's great. But posting a new prompt isn't likely to get any attention and, at some point, we all move on in our lives (until next year!).

A huge thanks to conuly for posting and updating all unfilled prompts in a separate post. Link below.

Thank you everyone and we'll see you next year!

THIS IS THE NEW POST FOR PART 2 OF THE 3 SENTENCE FICATHON -- ALL NEW PROMPTS SHOULD BE POSTED HERE

Welcome to the Three Sentence Ficathon!

At over 4600 comments and responses to Entry 1, it's time to move to Entry 2. Please post all new prompts and responses here. You can still respond to and comment on old prompts here.

To that end, the incomparable [Unknown site tag]conuly has collected all unfilled prompts, organized them by fandom, and linked them back so you can search that list for anything that you missed and fill it!!! a huge thanks for doing this [Unknown site tag]conuly!!

Please post all your new and unfilled prompts here.

What is the 3 Sentence Ficathon?
This is a challenge where you answer a prompt with a fic consisting of only three sentences. It's open to all fandoms and you can post and answer 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 else?
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

Can anyone play?
Yes! Please signal boost this to your flist, followers, and any other places you frequent. Come one, come all!
The more people who come and play, the better!

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 manage it. Or we can just cross-post. If you create one, I'll try to post it and everyone can use it.

How long will it go?
Until February 29, 2020. But the entry stays open permanently.

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 wasn't an issue the last 3 times I ran this. 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.

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/157880.html" _fcksavedurl="https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/157880.html" _fcksavedurl="https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/157880.html" target="_blank"><img src=" https://i.imgur.com/ECFSgT2.png?2" _fcksavedurl=" https://i.imgur.com/ECFSgT2.png?2" _fcksavedurl=" https://i.imgur.com/ECFSgT2.png?2" alt="" /></a>

the incomparable

alexseanchai made these gorgeous banners

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Any, any, making amends

“Zecheng told me about how you knelt at the palace gates for one whole night and one whole day to demand justice from His Majesty for me,” Gu Tingye said softly, after all the chaos had settled (the Emperor’s power was now secure; his conniving stepmother had died – a gruesome death he would not have wished for even her, but there was no point in mulling over that now; even in his wife’s family, there was something like peace).

Minglan turned onto her side so she could look at him, saying, “At the time, it felt like the only thing I could do; I would have knelt there for longer, if the Empress did not finally bring me into the palace and told me the truth about how you and the Emperor had a ruse going on.”

Tingye reached out to stroke Minglan’s hair and wondered at how she could speak of her deed of bravery with such nonchalance; he berated himself for all the times before this when he had acted to purposefully to annoy her or rile her anger so that he could see her direct any intense emotion towards him, for how he had initially rejoiced that she had risked her life in annoying the Empress in order to visit him in prison because it was proof that despite her practiced serenity, she cared for him enough to make such a fuss – he knew now how cruel and wrong it had been to push her, to test her if it would accumulate in her risking her life and her health pleading for him for a whole long day and night only a month postpartum; he no longer rejoiced in how she had allowed herself to suffer for him, and his heart only ached as he pulled her close and kissed her forehead gently, hoping that it was enough to begin to make amends.

He tries, in whatever small ways he can - no one ever invades her personal space; things she’d thought lost for good mysteriously reappear in her office when she turns her back; mechanics never malfunction in her presence; not a single grain of sand ever sticks to her skin, sliding away like it was silk.

It’s not enough, of course. It can never be enough, but still, Anakin tries, ghost-blue hands hovering invisible over Leia’s hair, as if he could touch her; as if he could reach her, and let her know, before he hesitates, and lets them slide away too.

Oh he's trying SO HARD in death to be a good father.

It's sad, Anakin would have been a great (for a certain, massively overprotective version of 'great') dad if he wasn't such a trainwreck failure.

"Do you really think you can fix this? Make it better? You killed his brother!" Hashirama yelled in his memory, scathing and sharp and resentful as he had been since Izuna fell to his blade and Madara spirited him off the battlefield.

"Perhaps not," Tobirama said, and leapt out of the trees to walk up to the gates of the Uchiha compound, "but someone has to try."

Madara himself opened the gate when Tobirama reached it, looking angry, shocked, and confused; Tobirama would have been amused, any other day, he thought, as he lowered himself to his knees and bowed his head, prompting a yelp from his brother's dearest friend and his clan's worst scourge.

Robin Goodfellow restores amends because while Oberon is only too happy to chide him for every minor mistake, no matter how hilarious it was, he also doesn’t care for the tedious details of cleanup afterwards.

Anyway, Puck doesn’t mind this kind of work, and finds sweeping meditative, and the glimpse past the fourth wall is fodder for future mischief. “Now, to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,” he says, while flicking out his own with a smirk.

Oh wow - love that reference to the fourth wall, but oh dear the trouble that portends!

When fall comes, Persephone opens up her speakeasy again, down at the edge of town where Hades's guards don't go.

Hades's workers find her, the way they always do. They line up in her bar, and she pours them gin and moonshine. She tells them stories, tales of the world above and of the time -- not so long ago -- that a singer came down to defy the king of the dead -- and fall turns to winter. She and the workers raise their cups to Orpheus; they try to forget and they try to remember.

Back in her husband's palace, she and Hades circle each other like wary cats. They aren't fighting, and that's a mercy, but they aren't talking either. And anyway, he's busy building his new foundry. Maybe things would have been different if Orpheus hadn't looked back, but he did, and she figures this uneasy armistice between her and Hades is as good as it'll ever get.

She's mixing drinks one day when the bar suddenly falls silent around her. When she looks up, she sees Hades at the door, every worker in the bar looking away, trying to avoid his attention.

Hades ignores them all. He steps up to the counter, his footsteps loud against the floorboards, his expression stony, his eyes fixed on her.

Persephone already knows how this story will go. He'll board up her bar and she'll spit fury at him, and they'll go on hurting each other until spring sets them both free.

But he doesn't say anything. The look that flashes across his face looks like weariness, looks like despair — and like something else entirely that she can’t quite place.

Hades takes his hat into his hand. "Is there room for one more?" he asks.

His voice is low and intimate, meant only for her, in spite of everyone else around them. And for a moment, it seems like it’s just the two of them in here, the same way it was when the world was young. Him asking, waiting for her answer, giving her his heart to hold.

But he’s a king now. If she says no, if she denies him in front of them, she can ruin him.

The silence stretches between the two of them. At last, she breaks it.

"There's room for everybody here," she says.

She sets a glass in front of him on the counter, and she pours him a drink.

Edited 2020-02-14 17:59 (UTC)

"I'm sorry," Allison said tightly. "I know it's not enough, I know I can't make up for it, but...I really am sorry."

Erica's first instinct was to walk away; there were some things you couldn't come back from and as far as she was concerned, a barrage of arrows was one of them. But they were trying to be a pack now, trying to make amends, and...

With a sideways glance at Boyd, Erica cautiously held out her hand. "You're right. You can't make up for it," she said to Allison. "But trying is a good start."

Villanelle packs the suitcase herself, of course: Takes all the clothes out of their boxes, tucks every item away just so in the cheap nylon pockets, makes sure the tags are flat and facing right side up and that the ribbons and wrappings are as neat as they can be, because if she's ever learned anything it's that presentation is everything, especially with a gift. She puts the perfume in last, nestles it in under the sweater—shakes the box a little before laying it down just to feel the solid, satin-softened clunk of the bottle, just to hear the faintest rattle of the note's cardstock against the sides.

Eve will appreciate this, she knows; Eve might not forgive her for taking the suitcase, but she will appreciate the clothes, the perfume, the note most of all; it's this knowledge alone that lets Villanelle zip and fasten it closed and leave it on her doorstep, that lets her walk away even as everything in her demands to stay and watch that blazing light come to life in Eve's eyes as she realizes what she's been given.

NEW POST FOR PROMPTS AND RESPONSES - Three Sentence Ficathon Part 2

no subject

The Story of Minglan

Don’t Say You Ever Cared (Star Wars, Anakin & Leia)

Re: Don’t Say You Ever Cared (Star Wars, Anakin & Leia)

Re: Don’t Say You Ever Cared (Star Wars, Anakin & Leia)

Amends (Naruto; Tobirama, Madara)

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck

Re: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck

Hadestown, Hades/Persephone

A Good Start - Teen Wolf - Allison, Erica, Boyd

je pense à toi [Killing Eve | Villanelle(, Eve)]