Three Sentence Ficathon 2022

[rthstewart]

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.

<br /><a href="https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/172142.html" _fcksavedurl="https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/172142.html"><img src="https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/file/71907.jpg" _fcksavedurl="https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/file/71907.jpg" alt="" title="3 Sentence Ficathon 2022 Banner" /></a>




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!



      

Comments

[alexseanchai]

Miraculous Ladybug, Mylène/Ivan, courage is not the absence of fear

Mutual Support

[silveradept]

To hear Mylène tell it, she isn't brave, but Ivan is, his stoic strength and sense of humor a rock to climb upon when her anxieties assault her on all sides.

To hear Ivan tell it, he's not brave, but Mylène is, her gentle voice giving words to the things he feels but cannot express for fear that he will be seen as less of a man.

To each other they give their raw fears, from each other they draw the courage refined from them.

[alexseanchai]

Miraculous Ladybug, Alya/Nino, herding cats

[grandmemester]

The Long Dark, Mathis/Mackenzie, dog collar

[chasingkerouac]

The Mandalorian, any, new beginnings

[svgurl]

MCU, Sam/Bucky, "just say it"

[mad_madam_m]

"C'mon, man." Sam grinned. "You know you want to."

Bucky glared at him. "No."

Sam prodded him with his beer bottle. "Come onnnnn..."

"I'm not saying it."

"It's just two little words! And he did save your life. Just say it. Just say it. Just—"

Bucky scrubbed a hand over his face. "Fine! Thank you, Redwing."

Sam laughed and leaned over to plant a smacking kiss on the side of his head. "See? That wasn't so bad." He patted Redwing, sitting on the chair beside him. "We'll teach him manners yet."

[svgurl]

Gilmore Girls, Rory/Jess, dare

[demigodscum]

They've been sitting on the bridge for hours now, legs hanging over the side and hands laced together between them, catching up on the music they've listened to and the books they've read in the time they've been apart, but there's an answer Jess keeps dancing around and around.

"Come on, just tell me already," Rory whines, at once enjoying the game and tired of being patient.

Jess groans defeatedly, but finally he says, "All right, all right, I'll tell you. Jeez. I've... I've been listening to Norah Jones' Come Away with Me a lot, okay? Like, really a lot, because apparently... I missed you, I guess."

[svgurl]

MCU, Steve/Peggy, comfort in the silence

MCU, Steve/Peggy, there are goosebumps on my skin

[snacky]

She's so old, her life nearly over, and Steve, he's — well, he's old too, but he hasn't aged, not a bit.

Peggy wonders why he still comes to see her, why he doesn't let he go when he could be living his whole new life. But she doesn't ask, and Steve just takes her hand, squeezes tight, and there's both a comfort and a thrill in that touch, two things that have been gone from her life for so very long.

[svgurl]

Smallville, Clark/Lois, if at first you don't succeed

[peaked]

"You know what they say, Smallville," Lois says breathlessly, smiling through gritted teeth as she regards him with venomous kind of sweetness.

Clark furrows his brows as he regards her incredulously. "Stop?"

She laughs a little too loudly, slapping her hand against her thigh and ignoring how it stings. "No, dummy," she says, flexing her hands and doing her best to stand tall with her hips jutted out and her shoulders rolled back in her superhero pose. "When at first you don’t succeed, you get your big, tall and muscular alien husband who’s super, super strong to do it for you."

[svgurl]

Ted Lasso, Ted/Rebecca, why not

[senmut]

It was not where she had seen herself even a year ago, yet Rebecca stood in the hallway, waiting for Ted to emerge.

They had a spark, a connection, and even if they were from worlds that couldn't be more different, Rebecca was ready to try.

Nothing could stop them from starting now, and if it didn't work, she was sure he'd still be her friend, so why not?

[svgurl]

Elementary, Joan/Jamie, play pretend

Elementary - Joan/Jamie - Play Pretend

[vendettadays]

There was no one quite like Joan Watson—severe and stern in the pull of her brows when she disagreed; tempestuous and tense in her shoulders when she crossed her arms over her chest; ferocious and filled with fury when faced with injustices—who could bring down the mask of indifference Jamie wore like a second face.

Instead Jamie chose to pretend that it didn’t bother her, that the way Joan looked in a crisp white shirt, thin red tie, and tailored grey slacks hadn’t impressed itself into her mind and became a memory she returned to often; that the glittery black dress and strappy heels Joan once wore to a gala wasn’t an image that suffused heat across her pale skin whenever she thought about it.

So playful teasing became the marker of all their interactions, because there was no other way for Jamie to deal with a woman who had a burrowed her way under her skin, one who had an unwitting play on her heart from the moment she realised she had underestimated Joan Watson.

[dawen]

any, any, thunderstorms

Xu Xialing

[ruanchunxian]

When she was little, Xialing hated thunderstorms, the way the light warned her of what was to come, but she would flinch still when thunder came crashing in, echoing against the mountainsides. Stormy nights sent her to her parents’ room, where they’d let her hide under the covers with them, and sometimes Ge would join, and suddenly she was protected from all sides, and even the sound of thunder dimmed a little.  

Xialing still does not love thunderstorms, not because she is frightened still – it is useless to be frightened now, when not even her shadow against the lightning provides comfort; but these days, Xialing waits for the thunderstorms which hide the sounds of her training instead.  

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, unexpected mercy

Guardian; Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan

[presumenothing]

It's an undeserved kindness, the way he doesn't recall any but the briefest snatches of being buried all those years.

Not that Shen Wei has any trouble extrapolating from the recollections he does have, but the blankness also means there's nothing to immediately overwrite the memories of Kunlun into something faded.

(Another unexpected boon, but if nothing else Shen Wei has learned that what mercy the universe gives it can take away just as easily – not that he can bring himself to say as much aloud a small eternity of a lifetime later, when Zhao Yunlan finds the sketches upon sketches of Kunlun that Shen Wei had drawn trying to make something tangible of that remembered face, but the words hardly seem necessary anyway.)

[grandmemester]

Arrowverse, Ragdoll, claustrophobia

[goodbyebird]

Wheel of Time, Moiraine/Siuan, pufferfish.

[goodbyebird]

Wheel of Time, Nynaeve, tools.

[primeideal]

She watches Perrin carry his hammer, and knows it will help him build in places where an ax could only destroy. She sees how Lan wears his hadori, not because it or any weapon could make him any more imposing a swordsman than he already is, but because it reminds him of what he avenges; there is something he fights for, not only against.

So let the Aes Sedai mock the herbs she carries with her, even now; they are the tools of a Wisdom of Emond's Field, and they will serve her even if the Power--or the women who claim mastery of it--refuse to.

[goodbyebird]

Wheel of Time, Lan & Moiraine, shield.

[be_themoon]

This is his job - no weapon reaches her. No arrow, no sword, no glancing blow. Moiraine Sedai can bring an army to its feet given a chance.

Lan is that chance, is the place where the world against her meets stone and waits for her to break it.

[topaz_eyes]

Any, any, they got a midnight voice like some beckoning saint

Collegia Magica, Dante/Anne

[scytale]

In Eldoris, an astronomer has measured the movements of stars; another has discovered stars that dance in the heavens as pairs, which nonetheless follow de Vouger's law of celestial bodies. Merona's Collegia Medico has published a paper which sorts blood into eight genera, each with a different keirna; by determining the genus of the blood, a doctor may transfuse blood to a patient based entirely on the principles of science and keirna--not, of course, for the outdated, perverse practice of blood transference, but for the humane purpose of prolonging a life.

Leaning into Dante's shoulder, Anne reads the letters from their correspondents in a soft, measured voice, pausing now and then to let him think through the mathematics and the theories: the arc of her words traces for him the movements of the heavens and the order of human bodies, and this, too, is a way of seeing.

[goodbyebird]

Wheel of Time, Liandrin, exile.

[goodbyebird]

Arcane, Jinx & Sevika, shopping. (I MEAN)

[kiestan]

Unfortunately I don't know Arcane so I can't fill this prompt, but I think the link for "I MEAN" might be a wrong one? It links back to this page.

[schoolsasaint]

Arrow, Nyssa/Sara, linens and silks

[shipperslist]

The Untamed/MDZS, Lan Wangji & Wen Qing, tea

Unreal

[marquisguyun]

The last time Lan Wangji had shared a table with Wen Qing, they had drank water. There had been no tea to be had in the Burial Mounds.

Sharing a pot of high quality white tea together in the Cloud Recesses, with Wei Wuxian safely asleep in the Jingshi, felt almost unreal to Lan Wangji. He took another sip from his cup, grounding himself in the heat of the drink.

[shipperslist]

The Untamed/MDZS, Lan Qiren, perfume

[torch]

No sensible cultivator wears a scent to go nighthunting, announcing their presence to anything with a nose and a sense of smell (of course the Jin do, powdered and perfumed from the moment they rise from their beds, and how they ever get anything done is a wonder); Lan Qiren has a quite decided opinion on the matter. And no, wearing white and playing an instrument isn't at all the same thing, and questioning that is questioning Lan tradition.

Cangse Sanren smells like lightning and rain, clear and fresh and strong, a scent so distinctly hers that he should have woken at once when she made her sneaky way in to shave his beard off -- but he didn't, and whenever he complains about perfumed cultivators being too easily noticed by their prey, she just laughs.

[shipperslist]

The Magnus Archives, any, "This is not what a goat should look like."

[shipperslist]

Wolf 359, any, "What do you mean by that's not rat poison?"

[shipperslist]

MCU, Clint & any, "I HAVE BEEN BETRAYED!"

War Games

[ultra_fic]

"I have been betrayed!" Clint Barton roared, rising from the ground, shaking his fists towards the sky; "I must avenge myself!"

The kids all screamed and laughed uproariously as they scattered in three different directions, and Clint laughed too, happily giving chase.