rthstewart | 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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Any, any, unexpected mercy

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.)

The Halls of Waiting were a place of deep silence, Andreth found, as she wandered through their dark corridors, peering at the tapestries lining the walls whose images seemed to move, if she looked at them long enough; no one spoke to her as she moved through the Halls—the spirits of Men passed out of the Halls as quickly as they arrived, and the spirits of Elves (how remarkable that she could see them, for were not Elves and Men sundered eternally after death?) did not acknowledge her, daughter of Men.

Except for one, whom she recognized in spirit as readily as she had ever recognized him in body: He burned, as ever, like a flame, sharp and blinding and beautiful, and he turned at once at the whispering footfall of her steps, sorrow etched on his face, as he asked, little more than a breath stirring the air, “Andreth, how came you here?”

She stopped in front of him and pressed her hand to his ghostly cheek—under her touch, it flickered to something almost substantial, and she laid her palm upon his chest, which wavered and trembled underneath her hand until it felt nearly solid—and she whispered into his ear, “We have been granted a moment together; should we not seize it?”

This is so melancholy and sweet.

". . .why would he have spared Miraz?" Peter demanded, putting aside his goblet of wine with a grimace.

Edmund couldn't blame him; the Telmarine wine was a far cry from the faun wine they'd gotten used to, even if it had been more than a year since they had drunk any. "He's an idiot?" he suggested, propping his feet on his brother's desk. "A noble idiot raised on fairy stories - including of us, because a thousand years is apparently long enough to forget the blood that soaked our reign - by an idealist . . . in an all but openly backstabbing court."

“Rey, no, stop tickling!” Laertes squeals, a rare development because unlike any other lover Reynaldo has had, he can’t get enough of being tickles and usually screams for more. Rey grins deviously and tests it just a little further, but the moment Laerts is able to catch his breath his hand darts out to seize his wrist. “I said stop,” he says with a growl at the back of his throat that turns Rey’s knees to jelly, “but I’m feeling merciful so perhaps your punishment will be enjoyable for both of us, hmm?”

cuties! love that it’s laertes showing mercy to rey rather than rey showing mercy with his tickles, and of course that growl in laertes’s voice turns his knees to jelly. good boy!

laertes is the best boy, and he's good at showing mercy (when that's what rey's in the mood for, of course). thank you so much <3

"Don't waste your pity on me," He says between his teeth, even as Raine's healing artes wash across his wounds and even as Presea bends to retrieve his battered sword, even as Sheena wipes the back of her hand across her eyes and tries as hard as she can to seem furious instead of devastated.

Lloyd just looks at him like he's an idiot and offers his hand more firmly, as if Zelos simply hadn't noticed it the first time. As if Zelos hadn't been trying to kill them all only moments before.

"I kinda like her," are the first, almost surprised-sounding words out of candidate coordinator Sherna's mouth on catching sight of the newest green to grace the sands, and her reasoning is plain enough as the hatchling sorts wings from feet from tail and stands; her base color is aloe, while weeping willow leaves climb each of her limbs and drape both her wingspars and sails - she may not be the most flashy dragon ever to be shelled, but it's still no wonder Sherna's eye was drawn.

"I do too," E'lan agrees warmly, "subtle thing, she is--does she have someone in mind already, or is she just investigating those candidates closely?" As it turns out, it's the latter; she had been inspecting a cluster of mingled boys and girls with seeming care, but a sudden, almost surprisingly graceful dodge to port takes the little dragonet around them and away, into another clump of white robes - the same bunch the perilous tides green had so recently hissed out of consideration - and it's there that the unexpected mercy green halts, gazing up with complete certainty at a lean Seabreeze Trader girl with fluffy dark curls who stares, gobsmacked, and then drops to the cavern floor, streaming happy tears.

Acatl forgives him. Acatl forgives him. Or, well, tells him there’s no need for apologies and shares his food with him, which amounts to much the same thing. Teomitl honestly can barely believe it. He’d thought, after what he did—what he failed to do—the way he’d treated everyone—that he’d be shunned at best. At worst...he doesn’t like to think about the worst-case scenario. Mihmatini’s already furious at him. He’s not sure he could survive it if Acatl hated him too.

But instead there’s this. The temple steps, the sunset. Drinking chocolate side-by-side, close enough that he curses the caution—alright, the fear—that had led him to wear his full armor, because if he’d dressed normally he thinks he could lean against Acatl’s shoulder. He thinks Acatl would let him.

Acatl is smiling at him.

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022

no subject

Guardian; Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan

Silmarillion, Andreth/Aegnor

Re: Silmarillion, Andreth/Aegnor

Not Mine to Take (Narnia; Peter & Edmund, Caspian)

Hamlet, Laertes/Reynaldo

Re: Hamlet, Laertes/Reynaldo

Re: Hamlet, Laertes/Reynaldo

Tales of Symphonia, Zelos & Ensemble

Dragonriders of Pern via SouCon MUSH's Xanadu Weyr

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl & Teomitl