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

"I already did today yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and the day...." O'Neill saw the blank look on the faces of his teammates, waved one hand - the one holding his p-90 - and ignored the way Carter ducked and Daniel frowned and Teal'c did that... Eyebrow of Judging You thing. "It was always Tuesday."

Carter and Daniel and Teal'c all knew, like he did, that bad things tended to happen on Tuesdays, so one was bad enough but six in a row?

And if he had to watch Daniel die - at 2 pm sharp again on that godforsaken planet at the ass-end of the galaxy - the seventh Tuesday was going to end in someone or something alien paying big time.

Edited 2022-03-11 01:58 (UTC)

This is lovely :)

Ezra again: and he looks okay and says he's 'unincapacitated', but Nathan has learned not to take chances, and f'sure not to after hearing what went down in the saloon tonight and seeing him carried in, half-senseless and babbling about 'another uncalled-for altercation'. Pupils, pulse, quick check of all limbs and if there's any blood...

Nathan breathes out his relief and starts composing the rant that will be expected and Ez deserves to be awake enough to listen to, about damn-fool cheatin' gamblers and keepin' of the way of maddened mugs and marks and is the few dollars made worth all this, and next time Nathan won't be so willing and ready to patch his fool sense up again...

"Hey, Ez, y' okay?"

"But of course, Mister Wilmington... why would you assume there is something amiss?"

"Oh, I dunno. Mebbe the way you skooted 'cross that roof like a darn alley-cat on hot tin, where the vermints we're supposed to be - what's the word you called it?"

"Apprehending?"

"Nah..."

"Subjugating? Q-quelling? V-vanquishing? "

"Nope, none of -"

"Squash like the h-heinous insects they..."

"Yeah, that sounds 'bout right. Where they c'd see ya clear as day. An' mebbe the way y sorta jerked -"

"M-mister Wilmington, Ah might vellicate or flinch, or in an ill m-moment recoil, but Ah do not jerk, Ah have n-never -"

"Yeah, ya did, Ez. And..."

"And?"

"There's that big old bloody hole in your sleeve."

"What hole? I n-never noticed a-a..."

"Ez?"

"Oh ....................This h-h-hoooooole?"

"So ya don't look real okay to me... Ez, Ez, y'not gonna faint on me now? Ez!"

"Looks 's if you're right, Ez, 'nuthin wrong with you but a couple'a bruises, but y'gave me a right scare there. Sorry 'bout the yellin', and ruinin' y'pretty shirt tearin' it off like that, guess my huntin' knife weren't delicate 'nough to cut it dainty-like, but I needed to check y'all weren't hurt bad... quit the belly-achin', your pants are still in two, okay mebbe three pieces, okay mebbe shredded a bit but better them shredded than you.

"Hell no, I didn't panic too much, y'got other shirts but as the boy's all tell ya, we ain't got and we don' wanta need another Standish."

"Easy, Ezra easy, stay still and hold on, it's gonna be okay..."

Though it sure don' look anything like okay right now. You're tryin' to hold him still, pressin' down with one hand on the hole in his blood-soaked side (please, please not anywhere fatal, you can't lose him, you can't lose any of them) while you try to gently - gently but that sound he makes - prod at what has to be a broken leg, broken in two places you think.

His face is whiter than that fancy frilled collar of his, and smeared with his own blood from your hand, but you can't be botherin' with that right now, there's so much more blood on your hands now as you press down with both, afraid he'll bleed out before Nate and the boys (where the hell are they, where the hell are they?) get here, and you can't pray, you haven't been able to pray for years, but if you though it'd help Ezra, you'd pray to every god in heaven and history... because please god, any god, you can't lose any of them.

You can do it, O'Neill.

Thanks for a great prompt: I've meant to write Sherlock Holmes FF for years but never quite found the right inspiration, so it was a pleasure to get my toes in the water as it were.

If he's pissed off enough, there ain't much he can't do... thank you :)

Beautiful snippet! Bittersweet

sisters! oh isabela, always watching for her next mistake — of course she envies what mirabel has and takes for granted, the chance to look on without being looked at. and of course she has to laugh off the thought as soon as she has it!

Ophelia has taken a liking to night tempests, which she has resolved to treat with respect, so she refers to them as they are, by the names they give themselves and not in any human tongue. Her traveling companions get worried if she goes off after midnight to feel the lightning arcing white-hot from one knuckle to the next, even though it’s none of their business, and even her brother, who ought to understand better than anyone. This is why she usually travels alone, along with a growing distaste for chatter and casual touch.

There is a war and then a draft, Dickon cannot escape it. When news reaches Mary, he doesn't see hide nor hair of her until the night before he's called to training. She arrives like a thief in the night, looking as wild as any animal he's ever kept with only a thin shawl falling off her shoulders to keep her warm, but still her hands burn his as she clutches him.

"You must come home," she murmurs and there's none of the spoiled little empress she'd been as a child, not that he ever knew her to be such. They both know that he is not to be commanded, but still, she has run across the moor in the dark new moon night and he doesn't think even he could resist her. Her voice burns like his father's cheap whiskey and he smiles as he presses a kiss to her knuckles.

"Aye. Tell me once more and I don't think even the angels could stop me coming back."

Her eyes are wide as she leans forward. "Then come home to me," she says once and her lips burn like whiskey too, sealing the promise, like a fool swearing himself to a fae princess.

He will come back now; she's laid her spell and he'll crawl back if he has too.

"It's roast leg of bludibeest, sirs. We're planning to make it into bludibeest burgers."

The Marine in charge of what, here in Atlantis, is being turned into a mess hall spoke blandly as he and his two superior officers stared at the massive haunch of blue and green 'meat' that had to be threat assessed before it was offered as Thursday's main course. "The Athosians swear that that it's some sort of giant dog-pig-thing they eat on a lot of planets these days, and it should taste good with the pickled purple... whatever they are that she brought back from her scouting trip."

"You sure of this?" Sheppard said finally, trying to work out the size of the animal this must have come from.

"Miss Emmagen is, sir. She brought the whole carcass back to Atlantis from the mainland." There was a note of awe in the Marine's voice. "There'd be three, maybe four meals in it."

Which was good, because the MREs and prepackaged 'food' they'd brought through the Stargate wouldn't last much longer, and they do have to start eating the local cuisine, no matter how it looked. Or smelled. Or tasted.

Speaking of which...

"Have you tasted it?" Bates cocked a skeptical eyebrow.

"We thought it better that the officers in charge do sir." One of the other Marines offered helpfully, not even blanching at the look his two superiors gave him. "Or maybe the geeks."

Sheppard tried to imagine McKay or any of his people agreeing to put blue-green burger in their mouths, but his imagination paled.

"Or maybe Ms Weir, as civilian commander of the expedition, would like the honour."

Suuuure, she would... not. Sheppard sighed, reminded himself that he was a big, tough Colonel in charge of big, tough Marines, and took the forkful of bludibeest that was held out to him. His big, tough Marines watched in awe as he opened his mouth, shoved it in, chewed for a minute...

And choked.

"Not burgers," he managed to wheeze, after he'd spat it out and Bates helpfully whacked him on the back a few times. "Definitely not burgers."

"Pizza, maybe?"

"Some sort of hash, we..."

Sheppard shook his head. "Try cake," There was a blank silence, "or ice cream, everyone likes ice cream, even if it is fake. But leave the purple pickled whatevers off."

"Sir...?"

Sheppard managed to crack a grin. Might not feed the soldiers, or get main meals out of Teyla's bludibeest, but he'd been around McKay and his geeks long enough to know that it would prove pretty invaluable when the supplies from Earth ran out. "It tastes like coffee."

Edited 2022-03-20 23:06 (UTC)

Jim could feel the ghosts the minute he walked into the place, and he could see them the minute he entered what must have been the most over-pink-wallpapered, over-chintz-decorated, over-floral-carpeted room he'd ever seen in his life: dialling down the senses to near-zero didn't help one bit from the sheer visual pain the mass and muddle of sugary color and pattern caused his inner Sentinel, and he could still see, and sense, the ghosts.

The were three of them - little old ladies, like the Ghosts of Bad Family Reunions Past, Present and Please Christ Not the Future - all dressed in fuzzy, muzzy shades of pink, sitting primly on... well, on nothing, probably long-gone armchairs. One seemed to be knitting something that even a Sentinel couldn't see, the others had their hands folded neatly in their laps, and all three watched him with beady colourless (at least not more pink, he thought) eyes.

He winced; all that pink did not go with the red-brown stains on the over-floralled carpet, or the crimson-spattered kitchen knives neatly arranged on the (embroidered?) tableclothed table, or the massive, bloody gashes on all three ghostly bosoms....

"It was quite clever of you, dear," Miss Marple said in her gentle, relentless way, peering at the murderess as she continued to knit, "to substitute that sugar rose on the totally harmless birthday cake with a poisoned one, knowing that Evadne-Ann, known to be such a greedy girl, would sneak into the dining room and eat it before the party, so that everyone would naturally think that it was meant to kill the birthday girl... you.

"You hated her so very much, didn't you?"

Evadne-Anne's friend sank down in the over-stuffed armchair opposite, and put her head in her hands. "Since we were at school together, and yes, she stole food even then."

The creak of the floorboards made Thoma look up from the counter he was wiping down. Ayaka stood there in the doorway, her arms crossed over her middle and wearing a pretty lilac yukata. “Thoma, what are you still doing up? It’s almost midnight.”

“It’s alright,” he said, giving her a tired smile, “I couldn’t go to sleep knowing I had unfinished work.”

Ayaka suppressed a yawn and smiled at him, she knew full well why he was still awake and it had nothing to do with unfinished housework and everything to do with her brother still not being home yet. She would let him have that though, and inclined her head to him. “Well, don’t stay up too late, you were going to escort me into the city tomorrow and we were going to have tea, remember?”

“Of course I remember, and don’t worry, I won’t be up much longer.”

“Make sure you’re not. Goodnight, Thoma.” She quietly left, leaving Thoma to finish cleaning the counters that he had already cleaned earlier that evening. He then tidied the pantry and made note of things that were running low and finally sat down at the table. Perhaps he should just go to bed, but… he just couldn’t. Not until Ayato returned home and he made sure he didn’t need anything.

It wasn’t for another hour, when Thoma has nearly fallen asleep at the table, head resting on his folded arms, that he’s gently shaken awake.

“Huh?” Lifting his head he blinks, looking around as his vision comes back into focus. Why was he in the kitchen..? And then he sees him. “Oh. Oh! My Lord, you’re finally home.”

“Thoma, why are you not in bed?” Ayato asks as he looks down at him, exhaustion all over his face.

“I was… finishing up some work.”

“At one in the morning?”

“I… yes.” Thoma decided he was sticking to that story no matter what.

“I see... Well, as your master I’m ordering you to bed now.”

“How did the meeting go?”

“It went as expected. Be careful, in the city tomorrow, Thoma. As you know the vision hunt decree is getting underway…”

“I won’t let anything happen to Ayaka.”

“Good. And make sure you don’t let anything happen to yourself either.”

Thoma nodded and was surprised when Ayato extended a hand to help him up. Without much hesitation, Thoma took it, enjoying the warmth of his master's hand clasped firmly around his own. That alone, Thoma thought, had been worth staying up for.

The perfect crime story in 7 lines!

Love it!!! :D :D

Heee! I liked it!

Oh, I liked that!

Thank you!

I'm so glad :)

Thanks so much :)

Thank you! I'm tempted to use the idea of poisoned birthday cake again for a story...

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Page 239 of 247

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022

Stargate SG-1

Re: Modao Zushi/The Untamed: Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian

The Magnificent 7 (TV) - Ezra and Nathan

The Magnificent 7 (TV) - Ezra and Buck (Sorry, not nearly frantic enough but it's just... them :)

The Magnificent 7 (TV) - Ezra and Vin

The Magnificent 7 (TV) - Ezra and Chris

Re: Stargate SG-1

Re: An Ignoble Certainty (Sherlock Holmes, Holmes & Watson, case review)

Re: Stargate SG-1

Re: The Witcher, Geralt/Ciri

no subject

Hamlet D&D AU

It's been a while since I read this story sorry if I'm wildly off character /shot

Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard and Marines (and waaay over the 3 sentence thing :)

The Sentinel, Jim Ellison

Miss Marple...

Genshin Impact, Ayato/Thoma

Re: Miss Marple...

Re: Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard and Marines (and waaay over the 3 sentence thing :)

Re: Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard and Marines (and waaay over the 3 sentence thing :)

Re: Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard and Marines (and waaay over the 3 sentence thing :)

Re: Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard and Marines (and waaay over the 3 sentence thing :)

Re: Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard and Marines (and waaay over the 3 sentence thing :)

Re: Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard and Marines (and waaay over the 3 sentence thing :)

Re: Miss Marple...