rthstewart | Three Sentence Ficathon 2022

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Three Sentence Ficathon 2022

This post is NOW CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS! PLEASE POST YOUR NEW PROMPTS HERE, IN POST 2! Do continue to fill prompts here but please put all new prompts in Post 2.

Welcome to the Three Sentence Ficathon!

Here's a Friending meme!

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 at bit after about 2 weeks and especially once we open a new post because this one is approaching 4,500 comments.
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.

Here's my attempt at a text box that might go horribly awry.

How long will it go?
The 3SF closes to new prompts on February 13, 2022. The entry stays open permanently and people post fills all year long. (There were a bunch of new posts to the 2021 3SF this week!)

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 (and much more). 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, protect yourself, 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 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.

Here, have some icons and banners and let me know if you've created your own!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Aw, thank you! That's very sweet.

There is a litany of scars that Andy does not have. Nile walks her fingers across unblemished skin, even as the stories Joe and Nicky have filled her with tell her this is where a sword gutted her messily and the axe wasn't sharp enough, her arm hung on with meat and sinew and two arrows through the head, and she got back up, beheading their king.

Beside her, Andy shifts, head turning to burrow under Nile's chin; perhaps there will be scars soon, once Andy convinces them to let her into the field again.

This is so perfect. (especially her dragging him off, I have such a thing for her dragging Fred off)

*cackles* Of course she's still sore about that. YOU TELL HIM, AMY. Also, he went and brooded. Smack him for that, too.

Keep the firing in reserve, Lester.

This made me laugh, and sounded exactly like something that would happen. Idiots that they sometimes are, I suppose they can't exactly control the anomalies.

She's getting very lax at studying those around and should have caught it from the beginning. But it takes Vala far too long to realize that Teal'c is there, always at her back to keep her steady.

Having someone to catch her when she falls gives her the impetus to move forwards, not worried that either of them will fall now.

loz has a hole filled story and lazy, formulaic writing but i am here to piece something out of the scraps dammit. i really like thinking about the world and stuff and thinking about how it'd all work, what would motivate people... its just boring and stupid if all the evil people are evil "just because". i do like the yigas' comedic tone but i wanted to really dig into the previous games' sheikah lore to fuel this. i played oot as a kid and the shadow temple has haunted me since. the implications!

on the other hand i didnt want to do a total reverse of "actually the yiga are Secretly Good and the good guys are Bad", since i think that's just as lazy. rather than good or evil, i thought about what might make people turn away from gods who are very real. i think about these things a lot when playing, thats why i love this writing meme, so i can get my gamethoughts out!

lastly, i wish i had yakisoba and fried bananas... they're both so good.

Mwahahah. Of course she knows (and knows he's wondering).

The Americans are being loud and obnoxious, and Evelyn is quite aware of what her mother would have said about her sneaking around, trying to get a glimpse of disordered soldiers; though this was not her intent; she is far more interested in their talk of the treasures they saw whilst in the desert.

Hiding from a group of them doesn't quite work as one of them stumbles into her little alcove--the alcohol on his lips when he kisses her in the dark startles her but a moment before her heel ground into his toes breaks her free of his embrace.

The tingling of her lips is something she'll never think of, she tells herself quite firmly (which is a lie, of course, and her mother would be quite appalled).

She's forgotten how to be around him--it's awkward and strange, even as he sweeps her into his arms, dancing her around the kitchen.

Our dance, he'd said, beaming at her.

The silence fall around them, and she closes her eyes, letting it swallow the uncertainties--those can be deal with in the morning, when she's convinced herself this is the truth of her life.

Diana is so very hesitant, but Anne perseveres in her quiet pleas. She knows her own secrets are already burnt into Diana's skin (and pressed into her own), kisses and bruises, that tell of such passionate attentions. When Diana kisses her so very sweetly, Anne is far more gentle in her receptions.

*giggling*

I've always loved applying the language of flowers to anything, and it works so perfectly here in Narnia. Also, Susan, he could use a butter knife? Not as big as a sword, of course.

asdsdfasdfgkjh. My heart. My feels. My everything. (I am not the prompter, and this is perfect)

Hilda would never be wholly comfortable on boats, too conscious of the weight of waterlogged feathers, but it was worth a small battle with her nerves to see how happy her children were when she joined them in the middle of the lake, balanced in a coracle she'd purchased secondhand from a local Weasel family and equipped with a tablecloth sail since a paddle was dreadfully awkward to handle with either her feet or her beak.

"Mama, Mama, look, Tawny says she's going to fly, really and truly this time!" her daughter Glimmer shouted, beating her own wings (remnants of baby down still fuzzy around her new-grown flight feathers) against the water in excitement; "Come watch, come watch!"

As Tawny flapped and kicked her way across the lake, straining until an inch-thin gap opened between her belly and the water, then widened and widened until she was truly airborne, Hilda clucked to herself in satisfaction for a job well done.

"Hey Hunk, what's—" Pidge stopped and gaped at the fuckton of bread, pies, and cookies spilling all over the counters. "Holy shit."

"Hey, Pidge!" Hunk popped up from one of his ovens with another pie in his hands, grinning slightly maniacally. "How's it going? Do you want some cookies? I've got a lot."

"Yeah, I can see that." Pidge very slowly eased around the counter so she wouldn't accidentally send some muffins tumbling to the ground. "So you're not worried about the restaurant opening at the end of the week?"

"Pfft, ha, of course not!" A timer went off, and Hunk dove for another oven and came up with a pan of cinnamon rolls. "Why would you think that?"

Pidge sighed and grabbed a cookie; she might as well get something out of this. "Oh, no reason. Mind if I take some of these to my parents?"

"Help yourself! Please."

Amusingly, this team is actually more competent than they were with their memories.

Ended up just over three.

Duke and Nathan are sniping at each other again, and Audrey has finally had enough; it's not as though she hasn't considered the idea in the dark of night when she's half-awake with her hand between her legs.

"If you two don't kiss in the next ten seconds, I'm shooting one of you," she says, standing, gun in her hand and steady as she trains it back and forth between them, "and then you get to kiss me."

She's stood on the edge of a cliff before, this is simply another moment when someone has to drag her back from the edge--Duke goes in first, hands catching in Nathan's shirt before Nathan's own come up to his face.

Her gun drops to the deck as she is pulled between them, and all of those late night fantasies are nothing like the real thing--for one thing, there are a lot more elbows in noses and hands in faces at the wrong moments.

One of the more impressive regional fashions that Cliopher occasionally saw in the Palace of Stars were the peacock-feather robes worn by the theocrats of Selrhav, a minor southern archipelago in Colhélhé: not only were the great tailfeathers layered into cloaks of shimmering green, blue, and gold, but the smaller, scale-like feathers at the top of the train were worked into tunics that mimicked the appearance of mail, and the brilliant blue body feathers embroidered onto soft slippers and braided into the priests' and priestesses' hair.

Upon discreet inquiry, Cliopher learned from the assistant secretary to one lesser priestess's personal secretary that the people of Selrhav held peacocks to be messengers of the gods (most particularly of the Sun and of a local goddess of the underworld), and so clothed the gods' intermediaries in the feathers of the sacred birds, which were raised in temple gardens specifically for that purpose.

"And then we eat the carcasses, of course, for the gods abhor waste and to feed the body is as important as to tend the soul," the assistant secretary said. She touched her fingertips to her lips, then pressed them to the bright, unmistakable tuft of peacock blue threaded into a single one of her many braids, and Cliopher, his efela tucked hidden beneath his Astandalan secretariat robes like a shameful secret, his name and his home mispronounced and disregarded, ached with envy like the ocean ached for the Moon.

They were Very British heroes... so this sort of thing would happen yes :)

It takes Mirabel a little while to recognize that while the melody is the same, the singer is different, and it's beautiful, even as it makes her want to run outside and hug Luisa until things are better.

"He told me / that the love of my dreams / would only come after the strife.
But after / all that the village has seen, / who would take me as a wife?"

"I do not understand this instruction, Counselor," Data says, "for I do not understand why I should 'tell your girl how good she looks' when the braiding is incomplete."

"That's because hair braiding, especially among human women, is a time for gossip and intimate compliments," Troi replied, "or for confidence-boosting before someone does a potentially embarrassing thing like asking someone out on a date."

Data processed this for 2.13 seconds before responding, "I am certain you will catch Commander Riker's attention with this hairstyle, Counselor."

They always claim to want the truth.

But from my lips, the truth always falls, and their ears are closed to it, and their minds recoil from it, and their swords and spears demand me to stop speaking it, and they go and fight each other so as not to make what I have uttered chime true, and in so doing, they hasten it.

They always claim to want the truth; this is the first lie they tell.

Yesss perfect!

"Humans have no imagination," the Doctor grumbled, fiddling with the dials at the TARDIS console, "and so when someone mentions brings that come from another planet, you come up with little green men in aerodynamically inefficient flying saucers!"

"As opposed to grumpy old Scots masquerading as professors in aerodynamically impossible police boxes?" Bill said, extremely amused at the comparison.

"Ah, but you see," the Doctor said, peering around the central column with a twinkle in his eye, "I have the advantage of actually existing, and humans did get one thing right: truth is stranger than fiction."

For a moment, she can hear it—all of it: The priest performing a christening, Luisa building a better donkey pen, Isabela singing to herself while she made the plants grow, the rushing of the stream, the settling of the mountains, and the unmistakable hiss of sand, rats chittering, and one man trying very hard not to be heard as he ran through the casita, trying to patch any cracks that came up while he was there.

Then, as soon as it was all there, pounding through her ears, deafening her and giving her perfect clarity at the same time, it was gone, and Mirabel nearly screamed at the sudden quiet of only having her own hearing and her own mind inside her head.

"Dolores, why is Tío Bruno hiding in the walls of the casita?" she asked.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 218 of 247

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022

Re: So Many Dreams on the Shelf (TWW, Josh/Sam)

Movieverse - the stories they don't tell

Re: Harry Potter, Fred/Hermione

Re: Doctor Who, Eleven & Amy Pond

Re: Primeval, Lester and Connor

fill: observational frailties

no subject

Re: SG-1, Record-Keeping

(I can never resist a cliche)

MCU, post-Endgame

implied carnal relations

Re: Mute Flowers (Narnia; Susan & Peter)

Re: BSG Kara/Lee, it's braver sometimes just to run

How Fast They Grow

Voltron: Legendary Defender, Pidge & Hunk, He's a Little Nervous

no subject

Haven, Duke/Audrey/Nathan

To Thyself Be True (The Hands of the Emperor)

Re: Primeval, Lester and Connor

Encanto, Mirabel overhearing Luisa

Tell Her How Good She Looks

Cassandra of Troy, Truth Hurts

Re: Cassandra of Troy, Truth Hurts

Twelve and Bill, Little Green Men

Mirabel and Dolores, Awkward Questions