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, how to cope when you're surrounded by idiots

Hour two of the board meeting: Scarlet and Hojo bitched and argued and did everything short of actively trying to rip each other's throats out; Heidegger bawled his terrible laugh and egged on whoever he thought was winning at the time; Palmer was doing much the same, albeit in his own oily obsequious way; and President Shinra presided over it all, watching the proceedings like a sports match but doing little in the way of refereeing.

Reeve just... kept his head down and sketched a model of Midgar with a few improvements he was working on designing. And if a couple of small stick figures were to be sketched flying off the edge of said model of Midgar... well, that was nobody's business but his own, wasn't it?

As a doctor Bones knows that no matter what you do crewmembers will always attempt to get themselves killed in new and creative ways, so he just sighs and makes sure to have plenty of hyposprays on hand.

Spock simply raises an eyebrow and refrains from invoking logic at every turn because there is a certain sense to acting according to one’s nature.

And Jim smiles broadly with the ready answer that no one on his ship is an idiot because they’re family.

<3 You've described the three of them perfectly!

:DDD

aaah this is so good, both your fondness for the characters and their fondness for each other really comes through. family!

Kaoru gave one look at the boys dragging Shadow into their conversation, skimmed the area around them, then pulled up the mobile coding interface on his phone as Carla trilled from his wristband and he sank into the engaging work.

Warm hands slid over his back to squeeze his waist, and Kaoru hid a smile as he finished the expression and tapped out of the interface. "I'd apologise for leaving you alone in this company," Kojiro said, and Kaoru snorted, tilting his head just in time to catch Kojiro's kiss on his cheekbone, "but I'll eat my board if you've spoken to anyone but Carla since you got here."

Edmund snarled in frustration, hurling a dagger at the wall of carved wooden paneling across from his desk. It landed with a satisfying thunk, and he got up to retrieve it, then threw it again. His skill was no match for Lucy’s, but it didn’t truly matter when he was only trying to cope with the piles of idiotic diplomatic missives on his desk.

Susan stuck her head around the door carefully, making sure that she was out of the line of Ed’s throwing before stepping into the room.

“What did that wall do to you?”

“Nothing,” Edmund snapped. “It is what the Tisroc’s ambassador is doing to me with his blatantly fawning, completely obfuscating reply to our trade proposals. It is what the Lone Islands treasurer is doing to me by losing their record of last year’s tax tribute to Narnia - which I have a copy of, of course, but now I have to spend time creating and sending him another one. And then there is Corin, and the endless merchant bills and swooning creatures he leaves in his wake every time he comes to Narnia!”

Thunk.

Susan eyed him. “I’ll bring you some of the Brown Bears’ honey mead. It will at least make writing the replies less painful.”

Edmund nodded appreciatively at her as he pulled the dagger out of the wall again. “Thank you. Hopefully I get through them before I am too drunk to hold my quill - or my tongue.”

Susan gave him a knowing smirk before disappearing, and Edmund put the dagger back in his boot. He walked back to his desk, running his hands through his hair with a sigh and sitting down again. He pulled a piece of parchment and his quill back toward him with a scowl.

“Most Honorable Ambassador of the Tisroc,” he began to write. “As per my last letter . . . “

Edited 2022-01-18 03:19 (UTC)

"How," Tobirama moaned, face pillowed on his forearms, "how can you deal with them - we're surrounded by idiots!"

"Oh it's very simple," Izuna smiled at his rival, "I set things on fire."

Tobirama lifted his head just enough to direct a disbelieving stare at the man who had become his friend, "you must be joking."

"Not at all," Izuna's smile became a smirk. "It's a wonderful stress reliever, especially when I burn all of my paperwork."

Tobirama grabbed the nearest dish of sake and poured it down his throat.

He'd always known that the Uchiha were going to be the death of him.

He just didn't know it was going to be through complete and utter exasperation!

"I'm just saying that there's no actual proof that Superman is from another planet," Emmett said.

"His spaceship crashed outside Smallville!"

"And what proof do we have of that? Did the Kents keep the spaceship?"

Michael threw up his hands. "It was... it's the... they don't need to... We just know!"

Emmett raised a perfectly manicured brow. "I'm just saying-

"Brian, help me out here," Michael pleaded.

"XANAX! I need a XANAX!"

“Sometimes I envy you,” Acamapichtli muttered.

Acatl nearly inhaled his mouthful of grilled duck. When he stopped wheezing—grateful that the noise of the banquet they were both stuck at had covered the noise, though it hadn’t stopped Quenami from raising an eyebrow at him—he asked, “Why?!”

There was an expansive gesture. “Your priests are sensible, hardworking people who do what they’re told and don’t stutter over their hymns, and as far as I know none of them are planning to unseat you. The new ones I’m dealing with...” Acamapichtli shook his head, an action that spoke volumes. “I have my doubts.”

Quenami was deep in conversation with a nobleman on his other side, so Acatl felt safe in lowering his voice and murmuring, “Well, if you can deal with him, you’re fine. How do you manage it, anyway?”

Acamapichtli made a face. “Largely by ignoring him. Obviously, that won’t work on my underlings.”

“Hm.” Acatl took another bite of duck. In a roundabout way, it seemed Acamapichtli was asking him for help. A shrewder politician would be thinking of advantages to be gained, but frankly having a decent clergy of Tlaloc went beyond mortal concerns. “Have patience, then. They’ll find their footing. And if you’re firm and fair, they ought to respect you.”

“Patience? Easy for you to say,” Acamapichtli grumbled. “They’re just so stupid. They can't even scheme competently.”

Acatl raised an eyebrow. “They can’t be worse than what we already deal with.”

He didn’t need to look towards the Revered Speaker’s gilded screen; Acamapichtli caught his meaning anyway.

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022

no subject

FF7, Reeve & Shinra execs

Star Trek TOS

Re: Star Trek TOS

Re: Star Trek TOS

Re: Star Trek TOS

Acceptable Companionship (SK8; Joe/Cherry)

Chronicles of Narnia

One Man's Fool

Queer as Folk (US), Brian, Michael, Emmett

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl & Acamapichtli