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]

Narnia/Leverage, Hardison, much of the premise of Rick Cook's Wizardry series is that applying the principles of computer programming to magic makes for one powerful wizard

(it's probably not more colonialist than the premise of the Narnia series itself…)

while making sure I had the author name right, I learned he died this week

[petra]

You didn't say "and I have the best icon possible for making this post".

I squeed shamelessly!

[demigodscum]

*Blows you a kiss*

[demigodscum]

The bottom of the ocean, where there is water to be removed. *Nods firmly*.

[word_devourer]

Any, Any, "I just wanted to get paid."

[demigodscum]

*Grins* I gotta have something to surprise my audience with. <3

Macbeth

[syrena_of_the_lake]

“Eye of newt, check,” muttered the First Witch, “and toe of frog, and what was the third thing?”

“Wool of sheep,” said the Second Witch confidently, but the Third Witch spoke over her: “Knees of bees and hair of the dog!”

By unspoken agreement, when the three met again, none of them spoke of the Birnam Wood Incident (and if Lady Macbeth was still sometimes seen licking her lips like the cat that caught the canary, well, surely that could be attributed to her own nature rather than the ill-advised addition of a cat’s meow to the witch’s brew).

[astrogirl]

This is lovely. I was thinking this would be a perfect prompt for Doctor Who, but I couldn't come up with anything nearly this good. :)

Re: Keep Moving (Hollow Knight)

[(Anonymous)]

Excellent.

[word_devourer]

Any, Any, "Now, let's see if we've got the facts straight."

Re: Narnia: The Dread Pirate Shasta? (AU)

[cofax7]

Oh, nice catch on the secondary consequences!

... I wonder what they'll do with Aravis, but if she's traveling as a boy they may just hang onto her. She and Cor grow up as pirate buddies, and steal their own ship?

Pathologic, Artemy Burakh

[ernest]

Artemy’s father’s house has shingles. It shouldn’t, it is a respectable building of wood and stone, but the pattern of blistering skin is unmistakable, and worse, it seems to be spreading across the rooftops like… well, like a rash. Not for the first time he thinks, Oh Dad, what have you done?

[demigodscum]

I know nothing of Discworld, but I love this very much.

Re: Narnia: The Dread Pirate Shasta? (AU)

[animus_wyrmis]

I expect she would be traveling as a Calormene lady (maybe as a tarkheena? Maybe as a servant?) so in that sense I think things might get complicated -- but perhaps they hang onto her anyway, or perhaps Cor helps her get to Narnia and meets up with her again much later.

[demigodscum]

*Sniffles* damn right <3

[ernest]

“Why won’t you just do as you’re told!?” snarls the lord of the manor. He curls his claws under the edge of the table, almost four hundred pounds of solid oak, but he does not manage to upend it before a hand halts its progress.

“Now sir," says his guest, sweetly baring her teeth, “I think you know that’s no way to behave, and I also think you owe your servants an apology for spoiling the feast they took such pains to prepare.”

[scytale]

(...I misread the prompt a bit, but um! We'll call it creative interpretation?)

Sometimes, he wishes Wei Wuxian's spirit would haunt him. A ghost may be dead, an abomination to be banished, but at least it can be talked to, fought with, seen. In the quiet of the night, Jiang Cheng has only memories.

[word_devourer]

Any, Any, "Stack the deck, I'm letting nothing fall to chance."

[Miraculous Ladybug, spoilers/speculation for "Kuro Neko"] cat masked

[alexseanchai]

He leaves the cardboard cat costume in a heap on the restroom floor, wondering why he made it, why it took so much longer for him to figure out how to transform again than it did to figure out who he would be when he did and why he needed to hide his face, if Ladybug helped him, if Plagg left him.

He leaves the ring on a rooftop and sneaks through an access door he doesn't quite close and thinks about making a black cardboard colombina mask just to burn it, wondering why Ladybug sinks to her knees when she sees the ring, why she takes it and leaves without turning and without making a sound, who will replace him, who will feed Plagg if he won't.

He puts the ring back on in his bedroom, wondering if Ladybug chose him or if Plagg did, if this mask will prove as flimsy and ill-fitting as the others, whether this mask should be anything more than black face paint and a cat-ear headband over his own face as Adrien, whether Adrien himself is anything more than a life-size cardboard standee concealing nothing because there's nothing underneath or behind it after all.

Re: Appreciation (Naruto; Kakashi/Shisui)

[kalira]

Thanks! X3

Umineko, Battler/Beatrice

[ernest]

“Beatrice, it’s okay, I understand everything now. Don’t you know you’re allowed to rest?” Battler shakes her shoulder and when she doesn’t respond he knows it’s up to him to tell the story of who she didn’t want to be so that she can walk away from herself.

Re: Narnia: The Dread Pirate Shasta? (AU)

[cofax7]

Lasaraleen hadn't had much ready money on hand, and it would look suspicious if she sold too many of her jewels, so Aravis was traveling as a boy in the steerage hold. It was, she decided, more interesting than it would have been if she'd been trapped in a cabin like the Terebinthian lady and her maid. She was able to walk the deck, talk to the hands--many of them Calormene--and learn a little bit about how the ship was run.

When the pirates were spotted, she was on deck, and rather than hide below with the ladies, she ran to her bunk and pulled out her brother's sword from her bundle. She would at least defend herself, for she had heard that these northern pirates were merciless, and she could not hope to be ransomed.

Father would be too shamed.

It was less of a battle, however, and more of a negotiation. When the pirates drew near, Aravis saw that they far outnumbered the crew of the Sea-Camel, and were much better armed, as well. Within a few moments, the Galman captain had gone over the side into a small boat, and pulled out to meet a similar boat lowered by the pirate ship.

Within an hour the thing was done.

"Well, then," said the captain, returning in company with three extremely tall men with long yellow braids, and axes on their backs. "The pirates are being merciful, after their kind."

"Merciful?" quavered the Terebinthian lady, gripping the hilt of a knife at her belt (Aravis considered her with some approval). "What shall be done with us?"

"Oh, you'll be ransomed, my lady," said the captain, with a nod. "The crew can choose to join the pirates or be ransomed, and they'll set me ashore with a small boat and my sword. It's a pity, but can't be helped."

Aravis swallowed. She was meant to go North, to Narnia, with Hwin! And now she was cast among pirates instead?

[scytale]

Just wait a while, Jiang Cheng! You'll feel so much calmer when Wei Wuxian finally figures out how to heat up the tea!

[scytale]

OH, cute and wistful. <3

[word_devourer]

Oh, now that's very nice indeed!