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

[vialethe]

The Mandalorian, Din Darjin/Bo-Katan Kryze, and he closed his eyes and heard no sound/but her breathing warm against his mouth

pls continue to be this rude

[be_themoon]

This is a dream. It must be a dream, he thinks, swimming hazy in a pond of memories.

And then he surfaces, brutal and sharp and sudden, and Bo-Katan is there holding his face in her hands, her own face stricken in a way he didn't know it could be, her words like a memory still processing.

"You come back," he hears, and he hears it again and again and he starts to push himself up. The armor is the weapon. The body is how you use it.

"I'm here," he says, and it's distant too, but it's real.

[vialethe]

Narnia/GoT, Susan/Jon Snow, arm kissing

[syrena_of_the_lake]

Harry Potter, Luna Lovegood, "I've connected the two dots"

The multidimensional griffin in the room

[chanter1944]

"Mind you, it took me well over half a day to manage the return trip," Luna said breezily, "since the griffins were perfectly helpful but the snaggle-clawed sandworms admitted they'd sooner see interlopers dead, and the ice sliders wanted nothing at all to do with any of us."

Harry and Ron both squinted at their Ravenclaw friend, newly wind-weathered in a fashion she hadn't been at breakfast, amethyst flowers still braided haphazardly into her hair and one navy blue feather tucked securely behind one ear, but it was Hermione who asked the tentative question that was the, er, griffin in the room. "Luna, when you say you connected the two dots, you do imply that both those dots were within... this universe, don't you?"

[vialethe]

Narnia, Susan/& any, cold patrol

Winter Diplomacy

[edenfalling]

As Edmund slipped back into the royal tent, snow dusting the hood and hem of his cloak, Susan stifled a shiver at the cold draft and said, "Was aught amiss, or was the sound, as I told you, merely a branch cracking under the weight of ice?"

"The weight of ice and an Owl who misjudged her landing, so we were both correct," Edmund said, then held up his hands, one bare and one still gloved, and added, "Peace, the message was nothing ill; merely our good Ambassador Coltsfoot sending word that we are warmly awaited in Vashnoi, and that the King of Vinyedvyeri seems most amenable to the plan for a joint strike at Harfang come spring."

"So long as the good Owl is uninjured," Susan said, and quirked an inquiring brow -- ("Merely dazed, and grateful for a warm perch out of the snow") -- "then I was more correct than you; as forfeit, I sentence you to warm your feet by the brazier (for I have no wish to share a bed with a block of ice) and reflect that a king who cannot trust his people to manage a night patrol without his presence at every minute is a foolish king indeed."

"As you command, Su," Edmund said, and neatly caught the cushion Susan tossed at his face.

[cofax7]

Star Wars, any, war crimes investigation of the massacre of a Tusken settlement

Press Release (Draft), for release, University of Mos Espa

[cofax7]

The history of the Late Republic Era on Tatooine is poorly documented, like so many planets in the Outer Rim, although Dr. Moss Benetto of the University of Mos Espa (Anchorhead Campus) has been running field schools every winter season for the last five years in the Jundland Wastes, in collaboration with the F!ting Clan of De-yan (formerly referred to as "Tusken" peoples, although the De-yan never used the name for themselves, as De-yan means The People).

These field schools, which admit students from multiple off-planet universities as well as native (settler) and De-yan, have excavated multiple village and camp sites in the region, developing an ethnography of hunting practices and folkways that had been lost to the De-yan.

However the most recent discoveries have necessitated a striking change in protocol, and Dr. Benetto has requested assistance from the Tatooine Enforcement Bureau and the Outer Rim Forensics Institute. Dr. Benetto's team of undergraduate and graduate students, working long days in the winter sun, have discovered a mass grave, containing as many as thirty individuals, and early research indicates that at least several of the individuals may have been killed by a lightsaber.

Historical data, incomplete as it is, does not record any major military action on Tatooine during the Clone Wars or the Galactic Civil Wars which followed. Further archaeological research may reveal more about who these people were and how they died.

[syrena_of_the_lake]

Any, any, Cards Against Humanity as played by nonhuman species

Star Trek: Voyager. At Tuvok's house after the ship's return

[archersangel]

The game had been a birthday gift from Tom Paris and, reminded of Paris' idea of fun, Tuvok was reluctant to play it. But his son Sek suggested it after dinner. Having read the instructions out loud and distributing the required number of cards, Tuvok's daughter Asil placed a black card on the table with the question of; "What never fails to liven up a party?"

Tuvok wondered if her Kolinahr discipline was slipping as his wife, T'Pel, Sek, & his two other sons set their cards face down on the table. He randomly took one of the ones he was dealt and tossed it on the others.

Asil picked them up, shuffled them briefly and read them aloud; "A Phaser on overload. A bear. Sex on a Starship doing Warp speed. A game of Fizzbin. My ex-wife." She arched an eyebrow at the options. Tuvok closed his eyes, it was going to be a long game.

[syrena_of_the_lake]

Narnia, any, misconceptions about human procreation

[last_haven]

Susan knit her eyes shut and tried not to sigh, while next to her Lucy giggled helplessly from mortification into her hands. Finally, Susan managed to clear her throat. "No, Lord Jackatooth, we and our brothers will not be separating this spring--humans do not go into heat. There's no need to worry about... in-breeding."

"Oh!" the retriever nodded, "what a relief that will be for the builders--I'll cancel the proposal for the new rooms at once."

"See to it," Susan managed as Lucy slid right out of her chair and hid under the table. She wished very much to join her and pretend that conversation had never happened in the first place.

[syrena_of_the_lake]

Firefly, any, space sirens

I Remember What We Said (Firefly, River/Mal)

[vialethe]

“My lil siren,” Mal calls her once, offhand, tossed to her, a live ball of feathers alive with possibility, so River gathers opinions.

“Temptin’ nekkid ladies,” Jayne says; “Something ‘bout songs, I think?” Kaylee offers, and both of those might fit if she squints, but they’re not quite right, not the proper shape.

“Knowledge,” Zoe says, her eyes fathoms-deep and dark, “that’s what they offer, all the things a person wants to know but shouldn't,” and that - well, that fits him and her too, all too well.

[(Anonymous)]

Any, anyone who never got involved in superwholock and know only of it, "wait, I thought the super was for Superman!"

[syrena_of_the_lake]

DC Comics, Bruce Wayne & Harley Quinn, the best friendships start with hyenas

[topaz_eyes]

Any, any, the skin around every city looks the same

The Murderbot Diaries; Murderbot, ART

[presumenothing]

Human-inhabited areas do tend to rather resemble each other after a while, ART commented while I was downloading the city's transport gridmap, because it was not at all above complaining about boring scenery even when it was my visual feed it was riding on.

At least that gave me something to include in my subvocalisation routine aside from the usual archived dialogue: Pretty sure you think that about everything that isn't also a hyperintelligent overequipped ship.

Hardly – what would be the point of scientific research otherwise? came the immediately affronted reply, and right, of course that would be ART's main objection here.

@loveandrockmusic, ahem

[vialethe]

Pellinor, Maerad/Cadvan, HOT MAKEOUTS

[elementalraven]

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Xu Xialing, she is both her mother and her father's daughter

[ruanchunxian]

Her mother named her the soul of summer – such a delicate little name that holds so many other meanings beneath the surface. She is also the intelligent child born in sweltering heat of July, screaming with enough strength to rival the roars of the Ten Rings her father once wore upon his arms; she burst into the world with spirit wild that can only to be tamed by the soft hands of her mother teaching her to guide the qi through her body, to allow the calmness that can only be found at the centre of every storm to engulf her and carry her as she learns what a delicate summer girl must face in a tempestuous world ruled by men.

Her mother dies, and it is her father’s rage that burns in her heart, forcing her to put one foot in front of the other and pass each day seemingly darker than the last in expectation of some retribution at the end of it all (against the murderers? against her father for bringing the murderers upon them? against herself and her brother for standing by and letting it happen? which of those she expects, she really does not know), but in the darkest of moments, Xialing closes her eyes, and it is Mama’s spirit that whispers to her, reminding her that she is the sun and she shines through it all.

(LISTEN, there really is SO MUCH to parse about the individual characters used in Shangqi and Xialing's names, how the characters work separately and together in their own names, how their names mirror and complement each other. But for the sake of this little bit: xia 夏 = summer, ling 灵 can have a variety of meanings/connotations related to spirituality, but also refers to intelligence.)

[elementalraven]

Narnia, any, ladies with swords

[cofax7]

It didn't seem so heavy at first; less than the weight of a full teapot to be carried into the drawing room for Mother's tea with Mrs. Hazelton, but more than the Greek text that Edmund so regularly left behind when he returned to school.

Lucy shifted her feet, then stilled under the keen eye of Silversharp: the Centaur had only turned the sandglass twice, and there was some time yet to go.

The sun glinted off the edges of the sword, and her muscles burned, and she ignored the whispers around her from the Dwarf guards and the stable staff as sweat trickled down her back--but still she held her pose, as the sword grew heavier and heavier.

[elementalraven]

any, any, a coven

FF7-R, Mirielle, Marle and Elmyra

[raisedbymoogles]

The house smelled faintly of smoke and herbs when Mirielle eased her way in; she gave the kitchen's sole occupant a worried look and got a shrug in return. "Ghost followed Aerith home," Elmyra explained, in a low enough voice that the invocation of her name wouldn't wake her daughter up.

"Hn. Could be worse," Mirielle commented, and Elmyra agreed.

"Did you get it?" Marle asked from the living room, and Mirielle displayed her palm: letting the little gold cufflink she'd stolen from President Shinra's sleeve flash in the dim light. "Oh, clever girl," she said approvingly. "I'm almost done with the runes, then we can get this curse show on the road."

[rosage]

Last Legacy, Anisa/Tulsi, polish

[rosage]

Last Legacy, Anisa/Saaros, huddle

[rosage]

Last Legacy, Saaros/Azimuth, a joyous premonition

[rosage]

Last Legacy, Anisa/Tulsi, favorite customer

[rosage]

Last Legacy, Saaros/Azimuth, stargazing

[rosage]

Last Legacy, Saaros and Anisa, trust

[raisedbymoogles]

Breath of the Wild, Zelda & (or /) Ganon, "your eyes can be so cruel, just as I can be so cruel."

[militarypenguin]

There were times when she'd let her magic slip past its intended purpose. He'd let out a strangled cry that suggested surrender, and a sensation like ice would spear her chest, signaling her to temper the spell. She would look into his eyes, the glow from them faded, and see only herself.

[raisedbymoogles]

Breath of the Wild, ensemble, high school AU

Prom

[word_devourer]

Link never wanted to be prom king, never expected he would be, but apparently he is, and now, they've got him up in front of the rest of the student body, and he's supposed to say something to kick off the dancing, a thanks or a 'let's party' or *something*.

His eyes meet his friends, looking at him with a mixture of trepidation and encouragement, and he just hopes that Zelda's followup will be enough to salvage this.

He clears his throat, and "HaaAAHH, HEH HIYAHH!"

[raisedbymoogles]

Breath of the Wild, Zelda & Impa, Sheikah training

[ruanchunxian]

Narnia, rthverse,

I’m not saying Edmund Linch but I’m saying Edmund Linch

[ruthchinn]

The crows caw outside the Embassy, in the trees and on the roofs.
The Major shifts his eyes to his young aide, called "Crow" by his sister in her cleverly coded correspondence. Edmund Linch grins.