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

[betony]

Queen's Thief, Heiro & Any, a monstrous regiment

[betony]

Howl's Moving Castle, Howl & Abdullah, "I feel I got to know you rather well."

[betony]

Fullmetal Alchemist, Riza/Roy, holy palmers' kiss

[betony]

Greek Mythology, Deiphobus -> Helen, in your eyes I must fall second, but better that than nothing at all?

[betony]

Greek Mythology, Melantho & Penelope, betrayal is never as simple as it seems

Distaff

[woodmr]

The black of night hid the secret work of two women torn apart by suspicion.

One wove lies in the beds of men that another might chastely undo her charade’s threads.

Neither could trust the other with the truth, even if they hoped for salvation in the end.

[betony]

Greek Mythology, Eros/Psyche, the care and keeping of wings

[kaminagi]

They're lovely, painted rose and gold and morning blue, more butterfly-like than bird, but even as she feels they are a part of her, Psyche still finds them strange.

"Mine look so fragile compared with yours," she tells him as he lets her gently straighten his errant feathers, each pleasantly quivering from her touch.

"They are delicate but stronger they look, for they are a reflection of yourself," he assures her, and as he tenderly strokes her wings, something in her flutters, and she can feel that they will not fail her, their strength is true.

[betony]

Collegia Magica, Anne/Dante, once I knew myself/and with knowing came love
/I would know love again if I had faith enough

[(Anonymous)]

The contours of Dante's mind had been familiar to me almost from the beginning - his curiosity, his pride, his foul temper, his awkwardness - all things I possessed in equal measure, could he but stop praising me long enough to recognize it. When he closed that mind to me, which of us was he rejecting? That warmth, that closely guarded joy - did neither of us deserve it?

[betony]

S&B/TGT, Any, our faces like a mirror showing us our secret sides

How I Could Make You Bleed (Grisha Trilogy (S&S), Darklina)

[vialethe]

“What do you want from me?” I ask, and if I sound desperate, it’s because I am; every rocking motion of the ship pushes us closer, the light in me straining out for him like it’s natural, like my skin longs to be under his hands.

“The more interesting question is, what do you want, Alina?” he asks, raising one perfect eyebrow, cold and impeccable and infuriating, riding the waves with unconscious grace, even as I stumble against him. “I see it in your face,” he adds, tipping my chin up with one finger, and even that’s enough to make me overflow, a glow spilling out of me, “your curiosity, your desire - you want me to make you scream, don’t you?” and it’s all I can do to breathe, watching the flicker in his eyes, knowing he’s seen the raw, bare need in mine.

[betony]

Greek Mythology, Hektor/Andromache, Let me uncover the silver in your dark hair/The weight of your bones/I want to witness the beauty of your repair/The shape you've grown

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

[vialethe]

“I did not realize they had married me to an old man,” she teases, lying beneath him in the clear light of early morning, fingers playing through the thatch of his beard, giving the rare silver hairs buried among the dark a tug. “Soon you will be a greybeard as wise and venerable as your dear father.”

And he laughs - oh, how she loves his laugh, warm and throaty, vibrating through his throat beneath her fingers - feigning inspection of her own rich mane of hair, promising, “Not until your hair turns silver as the Scamander, my love-”

(-in another life, Andromache grasps the dull grey of her hair, shearing it away until its length is too short to pull before her eyes and prove him a liar).

Oh no, I made myself sad.

[ultra_fic]

Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Rey/Ben, hold me in your arms

[ultra_fic]

Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Rey & Ben, meet as children

[ultra_fic]

any, any, laughing like children/living like lovers/rolling like thunder under the covers

Harry Potter, Fred/Hermione

[helsinkibaby]

Hermione’s always been quiet, studious, serious, but when she’s with Fred, she’s anything but; he makes her laugh until her stomach aches, until tears roll down her cheeks and he pulls her against his chest, his own shoulders shaking with laughter too.

Hermione’s always been one for order and control, but living with Fred isn’t like that - they sleep late and go to bed early, he leaves crumbs in their bed from when he makes her breakfast, she’s nearly burned herself way too many times when she’s cooking and he slips his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder and muttering sweet nothings into her ear and yet, she’s never been happier.

Hermione’s kissed other boys, has been with other men, but it’s never been like it is with Fred, the pleasant swirl in her stomach when his eyes catch hers across the room, the goosebumps on her skin as his fingers casually ghost along her body, how she arches against him as their bodies move together and he wrings release after release out of her already sated body - she could spend the rest of her life like this and she thinks he could too.

[ultra_fic]

any, any, laughter is the best medicine

Squid Game, Junho

[kiestan]

When Trainer slipped as he stepped out of the shower, the expression on his face was the closest to startled Junho had ever seen in their months of sharing a room.

The man caught himself with a palm on the tiled wall, settling back into the perfect picture of composure, but it was too late.

Junho could remember the sound of his own laughter -- a chuff, really -- but not the sensation bubbling in his chest and out of his throat, low, odd, yet real. The dissonance struck him, and for a moment he believed himself dreaming, except his dreams never let him feel this light, so this was reality.

He pushed that off-kilteredness aside though, because Trainer was looking at him, his otherwise expressionless gaze tinged with the barest hint of amusement -- and something else, something Junho doesn't quite dare name.

Fanwork for a squid game fic, Pretty Eyes by DarkPanda

[elementalraven]

the queen's thief, Gen's mother, in the hands of the god

I am convinced--given what we learn about Gen's grandfather--that he must have learned....

[betony]

(...his Thiefly ways from his mum, unofficial though she was)

The Queen Thief knows her fate: her father might not have chosen her, but the god has, and she feels his breath on the back of her neck always. There is another way, than the brutish, bloody traditions Father follows, than the fear she sees in her youngest son's eyes: countries rise and fall on her smiles, factions collapse on a stolen trinket, and the god draws in a breath with surprise.

When her foot slips on the foot, she knows better than to weep or plead; she can only hope she's managed to teach Eugenides something.

[elementalraven]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow, power

[cornerofmadness]

Power was addictive. She'd learned that the hard way. Willow's friends had pulled her back from the edge but yet wanted her to keep toeing the line. She didn't blame them. Buffy's job was insane. Willow had the power to help and how could she not? She could save people so much suffering.

All Willow needed to do was control what she did with the nearly limitless power magic afforded her. She thought about the teachings of the coven Giles had taken her to so she could heal. She called up his stories of his own stumbles and mistakes.

She could do this. It was just a matter of control.

[elementalraven]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, any, fantasy/medieval au

Buffy the Dragon Slayer

[slowmercury]

"But we don't actually need your help?" the small blonde girl said, tilting her head sideways to stare at the knight, "'cause, see, the most of the magical folk around here are basically of the harmless, and the ones that aren't unthreatening are generally of the friendly — so it'd be like super rude to go around trying to kill any of them."

"Impossible," replied the knight, "all magical creatures, even the weakest and most pathetic, are sinners; sinners are links to hell, and links must be severed — such is the will of the gods."

"Well, it's a theory," the blonde said, and then she turned into a dragon and ate him.

[elementalraven]

any, any, daemon au

You Are My Glory

[ruanchunxian]

Yu Tu forced himself to step deeper into the night, trying to not think about how very unnerving it was to be frowned upon with disapproval by an owl, even more so when that owl was your own daemon (she had never looked and felt so disappointed in him before); they eventually came to a halt at a bus stop, which, of course, included a large advertisement panel dominated by her face, looking upwards as if preparing to transcend to Heaven, while Feng Jiu nosed her cheek.

As the white electric bulb over the ad flickered, buzzed, then died, Yu Tu tried not to notice how his own daemon continues to stare longingly at her nine-tailed fox even after the image has sunk into darkness.

“I hope Feng Jiu can forgive us – forgive me – one day,” Zi Wei said into the night, as Yu Tu could only bow his head, “he had an inkling it would turn out like this, and begged me to make you see sense, because we’ll just end up regretting tonight in the end.”

[elementalraven]

any, any, sense8 au

[vialethe]

Trojan War Cycle, Aeneas/Cassandra, maybe it’s all gonna turn out alright/oh, i know that it’s not/but i have to believe that it is

[betony]

"The latter, of course," says Aeneas, when Cassandra asks, chin in hand, whether he'd prefer a pretty lie or an unhappy truth; she only laughs, weary and unsurprised, and when he challenges her to prove him wrong, she takes him by the hand.
"What you want most," she tells him, "will never come to be"--and he starts, and realizes he has been staring at her lovely cheeks too close, has been twining her fingers through his own, and chides himself for his own folly.
She stops him halfway through his halting apology; instead she shakes her head, and laughs at herself, and says, "You see, you may be made of firmer stuff, but I am not; and I depend on an instant of foolish hope as much as any other."

[vialethe]

Shadow & Bone/SoC, Inej/Kaz, I’m like the water when your ship rolled in that night/rough on the surface, but you cut through like a knife

[peaked]

"You should have used the net," Kaz Brekker murmurs, gaze down and his fingers flexing tightly in his lap. Inej does her best not to look, keeping her focus on repairing herself and managing her bleeding but her gaze wanders to his hands flexing by his sides with a longing for him to reach out and bat her hands away. Dirtyhands, for all of his power, for all of his bravado, for all of his plots and plans, still hasn’t worked out that she wants him to reach out and touch her as Kaz Rietveld.

[vialethe]

Shadow & Bone/TGT, The Darkling/Alina, look at this godforsaken mess that you made me/you showed me colors you know i can’t see with anyone else

Shadow and Bone, Darklina

[caramelsilver]

Sometimes she wished she never met him, never found her gift, never left her whole life behind for this new Grisha world. In her mind, if she never met him, she never would be Grisha, and if she wasn't Grisha she would never have met him. And if she never met him she wouldn't know that the world would light up and sing when he touched her, and make all other feelings feel lacking.

[vialethe]

Shadow & Bone/TGT, The Darkling/Alina, don’t you ever tame your demons/but always keep them on a leash

SAB, Darkling/Alina

[caramelsilver]

He was her demon, never far from her mind, sighing, or laughing og shaking his head at everything she does.

"Now, really Alina, are you sure you should do that?" her demon whispers, and she shudders. She shudders and does it, because if he doesn't like it, it must be the right thing.

[rthstewart]

Shadow and Bone (TV), Jesper, Milo, True wealth is the friends we make along the way

[peaked]

"Milo, Milo, Milo," Jesper singsongs between kissing behind the goat’s ears, the top of his head, and the corner of his nose, "oh, Milo. My only friend; my dearest, most beloved—"

Inej sighs loudly and, without amusement, declares, "We’re right here, Jesper."

"And kind and gentle friend," Jesper continues, voice purposefully loud now as he kisses behind the goat’s ears and holds him close to his chest. "How I missed you."

[rthstewart]

Shadow and Bone (TV), Any, emotional support goat

[betony]

The negotiation, already troubled, goes rapidly downhill once one of the Lions catches sight of Milo; "So, lads, who fancies a bowl of kid stew for dinner tonight?

A click; a shot; a thud--and Jesper Fahey comes into view, calmly blowing invisible smoke of the barrel of his gun.

"Beg your pardon," he tells the fallen corpse pleasantly, "but that's my emotional support goat."

[wingedflight]

Only Murders In The Building, Tim Kono, righting wrongs