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>

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Love it!

Nice!

Perfect (and now i have an earworm)

Great fill!

Thank you!!

Thank you!

Thank you! :)

Thank you! Obviously Susan and Lucy are the ones with hunting skills, which means the boys should cook. (The girls will then graciously wash the dishes, because the boys set up camp while they were out bringing home dinner. *grin*)

The Tlaxcalans were eying their borders like a pack of starving coyotes, three border provinces had singularly failed to deliver any of their taxes, and on top of that--as though Teomitl did not have quite enough to deal with, thank you--his brother was gearing up for another war. Not the yearly flower wars, mind you, but a full-scale re-invasion of Meztitlan, entirely as if he'd forgotten the way that city had handed them all their own asses during his coronation war.

Teomitl took a deep breath and rubbed his temples to stave off his building headache. It didn't help. Two more years, he told himself. We'll get through this, Tizoc's reign will stabilize, and then when I take the throne it won't break under me. He just had to be patient. He'd get what he wanted eventually.

He just had to make sure it stayed in one piece until he did. Grimacing, he bent over his supply lists again.

Her sweet, strong, foolish little brother says, "Acatl-tzin told me that I should wait. That trying to take the throne now will break us, worse than anything Tizoc's ever done." He's not looking at her, and though he stands straight as an arrow his voice has the faintest hitch of emotion in it.

She smiles and rises from her seat, gently tilting his head with a hand on his jaw until he's looking her in the eye. "And do you believe everything Acatl-tzin tells you?"

Teomitl turns a dull and unhappy brick red. "He doesn't lie."

"Mmm, no. But he doesn't respect you, does he? He sees only his precious little student, not a man who can make his own choices. He won't realize how wrong he is until we show him." She lets her smile grow. "And we will, won't we?"

When he nods, she knows she has him.

Every year, he sacrifices. Every year, he prays. And every year he hopes--that this will please the Storm Lord, that the blood and maize and precious lives fed to Him will bring the rains they need to strengthen the crops, that never again will He withhold His favor and see them starve and die for lack of water. The canals run so low this time of year that boats are sometimes stuck in the mud, and he searches the skies desperately for rain.

When dark clouds hang thick over the lake, he breathes a little easier. But it's not until the sky breaks in a crack of thunder--until rain's pouring down in sheets so heavy that he can barely see his own hand in front of his face--that he strides out, beaming, to join his priests and give thanks to their patron for His blessings.

"My lord..." he says as diffidently as he dares. If he's obsequious enough, flatters Tizoc-tzin's vanity enough, he can get away with criticizing him when he really has to--such as when the Revered Speaker of Tenochtitlan, in his infinite wisdom, proposes a certain renovation to the Great Temple that would leave Coyolxauhqui's prison exposed to moonlight even for a moment, giving her a chance to break out and destroy them all. "Might I suggest postponing the start of construction for a week or so? The supplies you requested..."

"Ah, yes!" Tizoc's eyes light up. "You've reminded me. Tell me, have the goldworkers received their orders? I want the top of Huitzilopochtli's shrine to shine like the sun, so that He will know I hold Him in the highest esteem."

Quenami takes a slow breath. Yes, he'd been the one to help Tizoc onto the throne. Yes, he'd been the one to bring him back to life. But after all...this, he's starting to have second thoughts. Maybe having young Teomitl as Emperor wouldn't be so bad after all.

When Mihmatini mentions her parents are dead, Teomitl's first reaction is sympathy. He's an orphan too, after all, and he knows how it is.

And then she tells him more, and his second and third reactions are anger. By the time she finishes telling him how they'd reacted to Acatl becoming a priest instead of a warrior--all but throwing him out of the house, his mother unwilling to reconcile even on her deathbed, when anyone with eyes and good common sense could see that Acatl is simply the best priest for the Dead anyone could ever ask for--he's actually shaking with suppressed rage.

The next time he sees Acatl, it's all he can do not to pull him into his arms and snarl something heartfelt and useless about how much he wants to kill the man's parents all over again.

...It comes out eventually, of course, when Acatl's woken trembling on the anniversary of his father's death, and for a moment Teomitl hates himself for even voicing the thought when it can't do anything to help--but then Acatl chuckles damply and murmurs, "Sweet, but unnecessary," and he feels much more validated in his fury.

Here, have another 'Summer Camp & Politics' installment. :)

-----

"The question is, do you want to run for reelection?" Sakura said, kicking her heels against the back of Hinata's desk. The solid wood made a satisfying clunk-boom sound with each impact, halfway between windchimes and a drum. It reminded Hinata of the water features in Father's garden, but in an oddly comforting way, not the choking, smothering weight that memory often carried.

"All of us will help with whatever you choose," Sakura continued, "but you should make sure you decide based on what you want to do, not just what you think you ought to do, or what might inconvenience your father -- and while we'd love to have you in the Assembly as a member of Great Bridge, I've never had the feeling you actually enjoy the work."

Hinata gnawed her lip as Sakura gave her space to think, glanced down at the papers and tablet on her desk, glanced out the window toward the opposite wing of the Capitol where the Assembly chamber stood in all its elegant, intimidating glory, and sighed, because Sakura was both right and wrong. She hadn't enjoyed her work at all, when her work was to serve as Father's mouthpiece, and she suspected she'd never enjoy confrontation -- but while the half-year remaining in her term wasn't enough to decide if she would enjoy actually serving Fire Country as she thought best, she wanted to try.

"I think," she said eventually, "that I won't know if the work and I will suit each other unless I try. I would, however, like the opportunity to find out, and if that means standing against Father, I know I won't face the challenge alone."

Sakura smiled. "That's fair. Do you want a hug?"

Hinata shook her head. "Maybe later. For now, I want to know what you and the others have been plotting in the campaign strategy meetings you think I don't know about."

"How--" Sakura started, then grinned ruefully and shook her own head. "Right, we should have known better than to try hiding from Hyuga eyes."

Or hiding from someone who had spent the majority of her life controlled by other people, and therefore had a vested interest in uncovering any secrets relating to her. Hinata knew Sakura was perfectly well aware of that aspect -- she couldn't decide if it was more kind or annoying that Sakura tended to avoid mentioning it.

Someday she might want to confront that issue. But not today. One challenge at a time was more than enough.

"Yes, you should," Hinata said in her best imitation of Hanabi's serene self-confidence. "But I'm sure you won't make the same mistake again."

"Neither of us would have made it this far if we were in the habit of repeating mistakes," Sakura said wryly. "But enough reminiscing. Let's look toward the future."

She drew a tablet from the briefcase sitting beside her on Hinata's desk and leaned back to show Hinata the latest polling data from Byakugan Province.

One does not ask a tiger for cuddles, of course, but Lucy had thought sometimes that it must be wonderfully soft and warm—before she stopped herself, because surely that would be terribly disrespectful, and she was a Queen now. It hadn’t ever occurred to her that the tiger might want them.

But when General Bitterfang the Grim, who had fought bravely against the White Witch, heard the news that her son had been slain in combat with the giants, Lucy would never have turned her down when she sought out her Queen for comfort, and the sort of healing that could not come from a cordial.

Thank you! It was an excellent prompt, and I really enjoyed the chance to let Tina and Janet develop their own moment of connection over badly-constructed words and annoyance at boys. :)

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

After their lessons and the necessary bloodletting, Acatl always bandaged his wounds. It wasn’t necessary--he was a warrior, he knew his way around the results of sharp knives on thin skin--but Acatl insisted, and he...well. Sometimes it was nice to be taken care of, to have Acatl gently press herb poultices on his cuts and wrap the wounds so that all he had to do was occasionally hold a knot in place while his teacher tied it off. And it let them talk--about what Teomitl had just learned, and about other things.

Today it was one of the ‘other things.’ “You never even played ball in the calmecac? Really?”

Acatl snorted and sponged away a bit more blood. “Peasant’s son, remember? They would never have let me.”

He made a face. True, the game could be rough, and he hated the idea of Acatl risking himself, but it was also fun. Acatl deserved fun in his life. “There’s going to be a small match next week--my cousins are setting it up. You should come watch!” Then he thought he’d probably been a bit too eager, and added, “If you’re free.”

“Will you be playing?”

He hadn’t planned on it, but...he flexed his injured arm. Yes, it would be healed by then, and he’d be able to put on a proper showing. He nodded. “Mm.”

Acatl smiled at him. “Then I’ll come.”

If it was regular magic, Teomitl could help--if nothing else, he would gladly pour all his power into whatever spell Acatl cast, letting it blaze until the blood and light illuminated an approving glint in Acatl’s eyes. But the monster that the Tlaxcalans had torn a hole in the world to summon could only be banished by the High Priest of the Dead, and even though he’d been able to help set the ritual up--clearing the room, fetching the sacrifices--he was firmly dissuaded from attempting to take on some of the burden of channeling all that power. Ezamahual had had the nerve to comment that “it’s alright, Teomitl-tzin, we aren’t even allowed to help,” and he’d fought the urge to snarl at him. You’re his priests, he’d wanted to say, but I’m the one that loves him. So instead of doing anything actually useful, he stood on the sidelines and seethed.

And then Acatl begun his chant, and all he could do was stare.

He’d seen Acatl perform devastating feats of magic plenty of times. He’d known, intellectually, that this was the man’s element. But knowing and seeing were two different things; Acatl’s skin was black glass, his bones moonlight on water, his flesh smoke, his hair a cloud of midnight. There was blood up to his elbows. He’d never looked more untouchable, cold and remote as the moon above. He’d never looked more beautiful.

Finally, after an eternity, the spell was over, and even Teomitl felt the snap in the air as the world mended. Acatl wasn’t even breathing hard as the color rushed into his face, but his eyes still looked a little lost. “...It’s done.”

“Acatl.” He swallowed roughly. Wreck me, came the breathless thought. Sate yourself in me until you know you’re alive again.

And now Acatl was looking concerned. “Maybe you should have waited outside—"

“No.” The spell was over. It was safe to cross the circle. There was nothing stopping him from striding over and pulling Acatl down into a hard, messy kiss.

So he did.

A novice priest of Huitzilopochtli and the Emperor’s least warlike (and therefore least favored) brother are as far apart as an ant is from the moon, but now a priestess has gone missing and it’s not as though Ciquacen Acatl can ignore that, not when everything he sees in the stars says a great calamity is coming, so off he goes to the calmecac to find someone who might know more than the useless scraps of gossip he’s picked up from his brothers. He doesn’t find anything so useful as an eyewitness, of course, but when Ceyaxochitl hears he’s on the case she bids him wait while she fetches someone she insists will want to help.

“This,” she tells him as she ushers in a young priest, “is Teomitl. He’s swearing there’s been foul play and we’ve arrested an innocent man.”

“You have,” the boy snaps. He can’t be more than eighteen, proud in the way of the young, and he barely bows at all to Acatl-tzin. “My lord,”--the respect is honest enough, at least--”I saw Elueia before her disappearance, and I don’t think the Jaguar Knight came to kill her. Not with the way she was acting.”

He gestures for someone to bring him paper and ink and a reed pen. He’ll want to take notes. “Tell me everything you saw.”

Things between them hadn’t been good for over a decade, not since Acatl had joined the priesthood and crushed their parents’ dreams, but he’d thought they’d been getting better. He thought they’d been getting better. They’d been speaking, at least, and Neutemoc had been fighting alongside him. There had been space for something new to grow out of the shattered remnants of what had been.

And now he was lying in the mud, cold and still and not breathing why wasn’t he breathing--

Teomitl’s presence at his side was a bonfire in the drizzling rain, but his voice was as careful as a man picking his way through obsidian shards. “I can bring him back, I think,” he murmured. “He’s not so far gone. But...there will be a price.”

Acatl sucked in a sharp, painful breath. “I’ll pay it.” His voice hitched on what was almost a sob. “I’ll pay it, just--please--he’s my brother--”

Teomitl closed his eyes. “Alright.”

When he opened them again, they were jade from end to end and Chalchiuhtlicue’s voice echoed from his lips. Yes, there would be a price, and Jade Skirt was a cruel and capricious goddess. But Neutemoc was curled over and throwing up stagnant lake water, so Acatl would worry about that later.

Thank you! <3

Poor babies! But Martin always gets through to Jon and vice versa. I'm so not ready for the last episodes...

Oh nooo, this hurts to read. Thank you.

Jean stares at Harry's folder, the one he's keeping his paperwork in while he's confined to the desk (he hates being stuck at a desk, and hates being there in the office, and Jean knows damn well that part of it is because everyone's treating him like he's a bomb that's about to go off even though he's doing his best to behave, and yet he can't seem to stop himself from doing the same damn thing,) and he reads the note that Harry scribbled on it in red marker-pen across the front of the folder.

Something Beautiful Is Going To Happen, it said, in bold red letters even his (temporary) partner from before would have been able to read from any distance away.

Jean wants to sigh as he looks away, resisting the urge even though he knows that Harry won't see him (he's gone for the day, probably to find somewhere to spend his time that wouldn't tempt him to drink any more than usual, perhaps la bibliothèque,) because... because he wants to believe that a miracle really has happened to him, too.

Edited 2021-03-03 18:38 (UTC)

The end of the story always puzzled Dina -- "And the briars became red roses and the woodbine became white roses, and they cast petals and perfume upon the air as the castle woke from sleep," her grandmother would say, with a firm nod of her head and a callused finger pointed toward the castle walls, so thickly covered in leaves and flowers that they seemed more like a hill grown soft and natural from the ground than anything humans built on purpose -- because the point of the briars and woodbine was to fence people out with thorns and interwoven vines; the curse's end should have softened those defenses, but the royal roses still had plenty of thorns.

Come to that, woodbine was just a fancy name people used for honeysuckle when they didn't want to tiptoe that half-inch too close to nursing livestock and other bodily functions -- and nobody ever said honeysuckle wasn't pretty or smelled anything but sweet, so there was no need to look elsewhere for perfume either.

These days, Dina peered at the thick tangle of greenery and thorns every time she hauled firewood through the castle gates, and smiled to herself to see the quiet gold of honeysuckle still twining amidst the roses and their blood-tipped thorns.

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Page 216 of 222

Three Sentence Ficathon 2021

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Re: Fill: She tells the world about herself (Little Women, Beth)

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Re: Fill: She tells the world about herself (Little Women, Beth)

no subject

Re: Mirror, Mirror

Re: Hunt and Gather (Chronicles of Narnia)

Obsidian & Blood, Teomitl

Obsidian & Blood, Teomitl & Chalchiuhnenetl

Obsidian & Blood, Acamapichtli

Obsidian & Blood, Tizoc & Quenami

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl/Teomitl

Serenity, Courage, Wisdom (Naruto)

Narnia, Lucy

Re: It's All Greek to Me

Re: Fires, Walls and Halls

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl & Teomitl

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl/Teomitl

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl & Teomitl

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl & Neutemoc

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Re: FFX, Auron/Braska

Miracle (Disco Elysium, Jean + Harry, SFW, alcohol mention)

Thorns and Honeysuckle (original)