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 want vengeance,” Acamapichtli says. Even though he’s not quite looking at Acatl, his voice is like stone, and Acatl hears the unspoken vows behind it. Acamapichtli will avenge his clergy, and Acatl will be either at his side or in his way.

There was a time when he would have at least recommended caution. That was before Tizoc turned his attention to his beloved sister. The walking corpse they so foolishly placed on the throne hasn’t made his move yet, and Mihmatini herself is confident that she can handle it, but Acatl knows that the moment for caution is long gone. (Teomitl may have nobility and an army, but he has his own ideas. Knives are involved.) And so he nods and stands aside, motioning for Acamapichtli to enter the inner confines of his temple. They can speak privately there.

If Tlaloc and Mictlantecuhtli disapprove of Their High Priests planning regicide, They do not make Their opinions known.

“You spend too much time with the dead,” Xochiquetzal had told him. “You forget what makes you alive.”

For a time, he’d thought the goddess was wrong. He had his priesthood, his temple, and his gods. He was at peace. What more did he need? Anything else would be...messy. Unnecessary. A distraction.

He built his own tomb brick by brick, not even noticing the clay caught under his fingernails. But it was fine, he was fine, he didn’t need anything else. Love and lust were for other people, for men not sworn to the gods. They weren’t for him.

But Teomitl smiled, and his heartbeat thumped against the walls of his ribcage. But Teomitl took his hand, and he felt that touch in every inch of his suddenly-awakened skin. But Teomitl shucked his cloak and stretched like a jaguar in the sun, all dark skin and strong muscles, and he couldn’t tear his stinging eyes away.

Xochiquetzal was still wrong. Acatl still spent plenty of time with the dead, but he knew exactly what made him alive.

benedick! oh what a clever little difference, when benedick isn't busy with thoughts of love and beatrice he seizes on the first distraction he gets, and gets to be there with don pedro and claudio and make a small change. and of course he curses the fickleness of love, claudio is not improving his opinion of lovers being blinded by their passions, but benedick has a clear mind and a good heart.

Edited 2022-04-29 00:57 (UTC)

aah that kind of nostalgia for their scrambling days when things were harder but meant more is so right and true for charley, and i like the wry insight on fame and how now that they've gotten it, it's something they can lose. he really does love frank and care about his opinions, he wants to help frank say the things he wanted to say all those years ago, and it's such ... bittersweet irony that he cares so much he can't be with frank, can't join him on tv to help him say the things that were never their original dream.

thank you! i love charley and i'm sad about him, but you're so right that it's about the love, how even caring as much as he does isn't enough to make him be the friend frank wants him to be right now, because he loves what they used to be.

'benedick has a clear mind and a good heart' yesss! thank you so much, i shifted things around for this au, but that really is the one thing that's always true about him, he's so good!

For Kanon, the promise of the golden land was never something so abstract as the promise of rest after a hard day’s work, or the promise of eternity held in the gleaming curve of a ring — he wanted a new body, fashioned from some new and bright technology, and he wanted the right to live and be loved. Genji and Shannon could console themselves no matter which way the roulette spun, but Kanon had one chance to beat the house, to be a human.

“Kanon-kun is human,” Jessica insisted in her last breath, and his heart cried not enough of one, but for her sake he’d strike at the moon’s reflection until time stood still.

Edited 2022-05-03 16:18 (UTC)

A girl who cannot be a princess has no choice but to become a witch; a girl who was once a princess, married off to a loveless unhappy ending, has fewer choices still. The voice on the other side of the glass bids Goneril go deeper, and she must, for there is no path forward for her.

She has no choice, if she is to make Edmund her prince — no choice, but to seize his sword and make it hers and hers alone, hers in the ranks of death — and with it, revolutionize the world.

Lieutenant Kitsuragi could not possibly have expected the hungover wreck that is shambling down the Whirling’s stairs on Monday morning, but he knows all too well how to welcome the certainty that fills him at the sight, a feeling that is a known value, warm and trusted, the measure of his life: “stand by this man,” it says, “in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, for he is your half brother, and you owe a debt to this ancient bond, signed in blood.”
It’s a recording that has been stuck in the lieutenant’s circuits for a long, long time, going in stale circles until today, when it adds: “he will understand you,” a prospect which is neither known nor trusted, not normal, and shakes him like a sudden lick of herring-flavoured egg and liquorice ice cream.
“He will get under your skin and unmake you from the inside out,” the feeling states at last, and Kim lets a shiver run down his back before he stands to attention, alert, collected, stiff and imperturbable, waiting for his new colleague to make his move.

(Kim's EDC is ridiculously high so it's only fair he gets his own first impression! And maybe his EDC is also a bit confused about what constitutes a feeling of brotherhood. Ice cream flavour courtesy of the normal cop thought)

Well, I definitely wouldn't complain if you did (explore it further) ;)

eee i love d&d ophelia so much, and this is so much of what i love about her, the respect she has for tempests, on their own terms and by their own names, the way she relishes the lightning arcing white-hot from one knuckle to the next. (and her brother of all people should understand.) there's something beautiful in the independence of her new life, and also a little sad, as she draws away from others and casual touch. even so, i want the best for her.

thank you so much! i love ophelia too, and she's a little sad and potentially lonely but i really think she's making the best of her life. she's so good, and it's a lot of fun to write her perspective as a storm lord bard.

kanon!! oh this wonderful, brave, determined boy! and he doesn't care about the abstract, he wants the right to be loved! and i love jessica tooooo, she's so firm in her insistence that he's human and deserving. kanon, please let yourself be cared for, she'll love you no matter what your body is ;__; thank you so much, i love this fill immensely.

eeeeee!!!

i wrote this prompt with you in mind because i knew you'd do something incredible with it, but i was still unprepared for it to be goneril, gosh this is perfect!! 'a girl who was once a princess, married off to a loveless unhappy ending, has fewer choices still'. just. yeah. yeah, that's goneril's whole deal, and then the only way she sees to have edmund is to take him.

thank you so so much!!

eee thank you! i had so many ideas for this prompt, and when i finally got the idea for goneril, it all just clicked into place -- i'm so glad it worked, and i'm so glad you enjoyed it!

i love! kanon! and i'm glad i could translate some of my kanon love into 3sf form for you. thank you for prompting and for reading~

The first time Gary appeared in full superhero regalia to a surprised meeting of shady dealers and mobsters, it was everything a crime fighter could hope for: the ne'er-do-wells were stunned speechless, their fear palpable in the close confines of their lair, and the Flame cast a long menacing shadow over them in righteous fury.

When one of them stumbled backwards and almost extinguished the small fire they had been hovering around, through which the Flame was still in the process of morphing through, it not only diminished his shadow but caused him to trip and land face first at their feet.

He didn't have much time to reflect while battling it out with the emboldened thugs, but decided afterward that a quicker entrance—while perhaps less impressive—would be far more effective in the future.

Author's note: I didn't originally post this one since "The Flame" is such an obscure comics reference, but hopefully it stands up as generic superhero even without further context.

Very little of Linda's previous life experience had prepared her to work for a private detective, but thank goodness she had some basic first aid training and volunteered at the local hospital some, as she didn't break down into complete hysterics when the car they were running to exploded; instead, she only gasped while tearing off the burning remains of Gary's coat and flung it far away, then forced herself to face him, trying not to think too hard as she searched with mounting anxiety for the burn that would need to be treated.

"No time for that now," and he hurried her to the road, both of them dashing to flee the angry criminals hot on their trail.

It was only later, after they gave their statements to the police and were looked over by a doctor, that Linda realized her boss was not even warm to the touch, let alone singed.

Author's note: I didn't originally post this one since "The Flame" is such an obscure comics reference, but hopefully it stands up as generic superhero even without further context.

*weeps*

She will need an heir eventually, and given how sluggishly magic flows in this new world, the best she can do is tweak biology rather than bypass its demands entire -- and while the man is a deluded fool with a weak body and a displeasing face, he does have magic in his veins; he will do for seed (carefully winnowed and sieved) until she finds something better, or his nephew grows old enough to be useful.

Such a pity, Jadis reflects, that his sisters had not been born male; either of them, even the softer one fading on her deathbed, would have made a vastly preferable consort -- perhaps even one she might tolerate to stand by her side in battle rather than lock in a well-furnished chamber to await her reluctant attentions.

Ah well. Lilith started with less when she came to Charn, and Jadis will outdo her ancestor in this as in all else.

Brilliant!

Thank you! :D

"Mother had to leave her bees at the dower house when she married Mr. Buchance," Jemis said as he and Jack ambled through the coppice wood of Arguty Manor, his words puncturing one of the slightly awkward silences that still fell between them more often than Jack wished. They were on the far side of the grounds from the house in question, so the statement fell groundward even more abruptly than it might have done in another location.

"That's a pity," Jack said, casting his mind back to the simpler days of his youth. "She brought a hive from the Woods Noirell when we married. The bees were irritable that first year, no doubt missing the limes and the magic of the Woods, but your mother spent hours in the garden singing to them and to a wild hive that had nested in a lightning-struck oak nearby. She told me she had brought a hive without a queen, both because her mother would permit no breeding queen to leave the Noirell hives, and because it was easier to broker peace with the local bees if she could promise new blood for their lines without the presence of a potential usurper to agitate them."

He paused, attention briefly focused on avoiding a swathe of icy mud that had swallowed several lengths of the path. Green buds might haze the tips of the maple and poplar branches, but winter still fought a fierce rearguard action against the coming of spring, and he had no wish to lose a boot or spend the rest of the walk with a sodden, filthy sock.

"I had never considered that bees might have politics as complicated as ours," Jack continued, "but your mother treated them with as much dignity as the Good Neighbors, and they respected her in return. They might sting me, if I startled them, but never her. And never you, either -- did that change, after the Fall? So much else failed, or went awry, and I was hardly home long enough to ask much of anything."

He glanced sideways, still unsure how Jemis would react to the memory of that wrenching month when he returned home to find Olive married to another man, his reputation in tatters, and Jemis a tight-wound ball of misery.

Jemis ducked a stray branch, one hand on his hat brim to steady it, then shook his head as he rose. "Not anywhere in South Fiellan. I don't recall much about the bees of Morrowlea. The university had dozens of hives, of course, but after my first year, I was rarely assigned to tasks that required patience and careful hands, or that would keep me away from-- that would keep me occupied for more than an hour at a time." He grimaced, and Jack ventured to set a comforting hand on his son's shoulder. Jemis shot him a grateful smile.

"Do you want to purchase a hive or two for our new tenants?" Jack asked, returning to Jemis's original statement. "Or see if you can sweet-talk your mother's swarm into returning?"

Jemis shrugged. "Perhaps. I wouldn't know where to start coaxing a feral swarm back into a human-built hive. Mostly I wanted to--" He paused and looked more intently at his footing than the lightly graveled path required.

Jack walked beside his son and hoped his silence conveyed support and acceptance rather than the judgment Jemis often seemed to expect.

"It's difficult to keep bees in town," Jemis said eventually. "The neighbors complain, especially if they have small children. I hated that we had to leave the bees, but Mother was happy with Mr. Buchance. I've been happy living in Ragnor Bella, and I feel out of place here and in the Woods Noirell. But Arguty Manor will be mine someday, which means I'll have to reaccustom myself to the grounds and accustom myself to the main house."

Jack silently cursed Vorel once again for the wrongs he had done to Olive and Jemis. Lady Flora bore much of the blame there, but Vorel was nonetheless the one who had married her and eagerly taken her words to heart, racking up mountains of debt and dabbling in black magic while his nephew and sister-in-law scrimped and starved, barred from the very house that should have been Jemis's birthright.

"I wondered if a hive might make Arguty Manor feel less unfamiliar," Jemis finished. "It was an idle thought, not a proper plan or request."

"But a thought from the heart, and those are never foolish," Jack said, once again resting his hand on his son's shoulder. "We can make it a proper plan together."

Jemis's answering smile was shy and slightly embarrassed, but held an echo of the unbearable joy that still shone in his eyes now and then when he spoke of the Woods on the border of the Lady's country, where the pain of death transmuted into peace -- the same joy that had spilled from Jemis as he passed on messages from Olive and Rinald and Benneret Buchance, promising that Jack had not failed as a man or a father, that they cherished and respected him, and Jemis felt the same.

Jack pulled his son into a hug, and swore that he would live up to that faith.

Why, here’s a balmy riddle to confound
The gathered company of either land:
Who shall we blame, whose guilt abound,
For so much death and waste of fair Britain?

This man, unseemly and untimely born,
Schemed with those got in royal beds;
And neither sex nor blood nor age is shown
To ’scape the carnage where it led;

But whether was more fault of fate or men,
The pull of Mars and his vengeful demands,
Or mere mortal jealousy, spite, and sin,
’Tis naught to grief but futile mute commands.

So tragedy is raised by heedless acts,
Sown in base luxury, reaped with regrets.

Sorry, not betaed and English isn't my first language!

Elizabeth brings them cups of egg nogg, asking them, how they like the improvised christmas party so far.

"The mead could be stronger and less creamy" is what Ronon wants to say after taking a gulp, but doesn‘t, because Teyla wants to know more about the greenish twigs that are hanging mostly in doorways or on ceilings and people seem to be excited about; Ronon furrows his brows about Elisabeth's explanation: she pulls him then under one of the twigs and kisses him on the corner of his mouth – it doesn‘t have to be a romantic kiss, she says amused, at his confusion.

Teyla also hides her smirk behind her hand, musing if Kanaan knows about this interesting tradition – she hopes nobody showed it to him yet; Ronon leaves both women to laugh at him and decides to and check if there’s one of the twigs hanging somewhere in the sick bay.
__

Thanks, btw, I'm going to turn this fill into a proper fic, to get my writing mojo back!

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Page 243 of 247

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl & Acamapichtli

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl/Teomitl

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Re: Merrily We Roll Along, Unrequited Charley/Frank

Re: Merrily We Roll Along, Unrequited Charley/Frank

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Disco Elysium, Kim/Harry, Esprit de Corps handshakes go both ways is all I'm saying!

Re: I went a little D&D with this one? Also, more than three sentences, dang it.

Re: Hamlet D&D AU

Re: Hamlet D&D AU

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Less Than Shining (Gary Preston aka The Flame, Fox Features comics)

Cool Under Pressure (Linda Dale and Gary Preston aka The Flame, Fox Features comics)

Re: The Resistance In Your Broken Heart (Trojan War, Andromache/Hektor)

Family Planning

Re: Sei Shonagon

Re: Sei Shonagon

A Metonymy for Love (Greenwing & Dart)

Epilogue by a Fool (the Fool)

Stargate Atlantis, Christmas Traditions