rthstewart | Three Sentence Ficathon 2022

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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, withered flowers

Collins rambled once someone cared to listen, outpouring what seemed every dark feeling he’d kept bottled inside, like the tinctures in Harry’s medical case all tumbling to the shale at once. It pained Harry to hear, for there was little if anything he could do—until Collins’ breathless outburst turned to things he hadn’t seen in so long he’d forgotten what they looked like: the sheen of fresh apples at the market, flowers abloom, even the froth of waves beating a dockside.

Harry fetched a book from the bottom of his chest, as there was something hidden between its pages that might help: a pressed tulip, retaining its bright purple despite being plucked and flattened years ago.

When he placed the open book in Collins’ lap, he sobbed in astonishment, tracing a finger around the flower’s paper-thin petals.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, calming somewhat.

“You may keep them both,” Harry assured, knowing he would feel no greater joy from the tulip or book than he felt in this moment.

Ohhhh my heart, this is so lovely! <3 Collins deserves all the nice things!!

He does!! Thank you <3 <3

Everyone knew nothing really grew in Midgar, but Aerith could put the lie to that rumor with ease, make the slums bloom with everything from carnations to carrots. Now she was leaving all her flowers and their whispering voices behind, and would they wither without her, their voices slowly draining away into Midgar's reactors?

Aerith's boots paused along a dusty road outside of Midgar: by her foot was the shriveled remains of something that might have been a flower once. She bent to touch it, asking softly are you there? but all she got back was the rattle of a dead thing.

Edited (misspelling) 2022-01-18 22:53 (UTC)

Ouch, that hurts. The flowers depend on Aerith and she still can’t stay…

"Cabanela, is something wrong?" Alma asked when she found the man standing strangely still, staring at her ailing flowerbed--a busy schedule and an unusual heatwave hadn't been kind to the poor withering things.

He spun to face her and shook his head with a slightly too-bright grin, and said, "Nothing more than an ooodd thought, baby, don't worry about it."

"It's difficult enough to pull Jowd from the past some days without our partner joining that particular dance," Alma said with a soft, if worried smile, but her worries dropped away like flower petals as Cabanela suddenly swept her into a hug that was very present and spoke of nothing but certainty in this wonderful life they had now.

The thing Lyanna loves most in the world - after her brothers, her father, her horses, and her freedom - is her little plot in the glass garden, bursting with wildflowers rescued from the snows and seedlings Ned brought from the Vale as a gift for her and Lyanna’s very favorite, the winter roses.

Lyanna is as jealous of this garden as she is of everything she loves, pelting her brothers with clods if they try to interfere with her nurturing her plants, coaxing leaves and blooms out of the flowers and spending hours dirt-streaked and joyous while winter winds howl outside.

When he’s the only Stark in Winterfell Benjen tries to care for the flowers, he really does, but no matter what he does the flowers wither and wilt - as if they miss her as much as he does, as if they too have something inside them missing now that she’s gone.

Edited 2022-01-20 04:16 (UTC)

". . .I miss-" Susan broke off with a sigh. "There was a time this would have been easy, but handing him a bouquet of withered flowers is unlikely to be understood, here."

"I miss solving such problems with a sword in the face." Peter said cheerfully from his place stretched out on her bed, and Susan turned a harsh look on him.

"You were never supposed to do that," Susan said pointedly, though she was losing the battle with her giggles . . . and it wasn't entirely untempting, thinking of the rude boy who had given her a bouquet including violets, pincushion flowers, and lavender and claimed to mean them, "not in court."

In the Victorian language of the flowers withered flowers represent rejected love; violets represent modest love and faithfulness; pincushion flowers represent mourning, unfortunate love, and widowhood; lavender represents distrust - Susan's suitor does not know the language of the flowers, one supposes. >.>

*giggling*

I've always loved applying the language of flowers to anything, and it works so perfectly here in Narnia. Also, Susan, he could use a butter knife? Not as big as a sword, of course.

The varying languages/meanings of flowers are so much fun to play with! And Narnia is an excellent excuse to do so, I think. X3 I bet Peter could be terrifying enough to make it work with a butter knife if he tried. . .

(in the musical, alice missed her chance to go to wonderland when she was a girl, so hatter was created in her stead, and takes on all the pain and disappointment that alice experiences as she grows up)

“What a shame that they must wither and die,” spits the Hatter. She holds the flowers that she herself caused to wilt with a grip so fierce her knuckles are white, but she’s really talking about herself, a towering corpse made of abandoned and forgotten dreams.

Well, she’s turned out better than Alice could have hoped, so now she just has to do some pruning and deadheading and she’ll be ready to step into her reflection’s shoes.

ooh the metaphor and the imagery associated with it are both so wonderfully vivid, with the connection between the wilting flowers and herself, 'a towering corpse made of abandoned and forgotten dreams.' i also like the brisk practicality of that final sentence, continuing that metaphor and deciding if she's a bunch of withered flowers, then she'll just prune and deadhead for the next bloom. the plant survives even if the flowers don't.

Someone, and it's probably extremely fortunate that it isn't clear just who (Taylienth is a sweet-tempered gold and Tasyirth is just as well-known for his kind demeanor, but they are absolutely still parents), lets out a disbelieving, derisive laugh as one of the few remaining eggs loses nearly an entire half, end to end, and sends its occupant tumbling out of what's left in a rain of shards. It's not the less-than-dignified rolling ball resolving into an impressively-composed dragonet that got the laughter, although that spectacle was harmlessly amusing in itself; the derision, judging by the two or three pointing fingers and as many smirks, is all for the hatchling's coloration, because he's a creature of crackling petals turned the shade of warm weather's bitter end, brittle dried leaves, stems gone to prickled straw and drooping seed heads as seasons fade. He is the withered flowers brown, all else aside, and for that there's covetous interest from a reasonable number of candidates - many though not all of them boys - but it's the tall, blond nineteen-Turn-old handyman who stood twice without success at his home, Southern Barrier Weyr, before a Xanaduian blue took note of him and whisked him away, who careens out of the line as the hatchling approaches and is met halfway by his crooning lifemate, to the delighted trumpeting of his mother's blue and the cheers of his family from the ledges.

One of the first things Hashirama grew with his Mokuton was a huge peach tree that blood the largest number of enormous blossoms every spring; Tobirama had many childhood memories of napping in its branches with his brothers, when their busy schedules allowed, and it was honestly one of the things he missed most when the clan left their ancestral compound for the newly-built Konoha.

He still visited the old peach tree, though: once every month, missions permitting, to take care of his family’s graves like many Senju did; it was one such visit in spring when all the peaches were in full bloom that it happened.

Every single blossom on Hashirama’s peach tree withered in the same instant, falling to the grass in a blanket of desiccated petals, and Tobirama’s breath caught in his throat – he would have a new grave to care for, now.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022

no subject

Withered (The Terror, Collins & Goodsir)

Re: Withered (The Terror, Collins & Goodsir)

Re: Withered (The Terror, Collins & Goodsir)

FF7(R-ish), Aerith

Re: FF7(R-ish), Aerith

Ghost Trick, Cabanela, Alma

ASOIAF, Lyanna (& Benjen)

Mute Flowers (Narnia; Susan & Peter)

Re: Mute Flowers (Narnia; Susan & Peter)

Re: Mute Flowers (Narnia; Susan & Peter)

Wonderland the Musical, Hatter

Re: Wonderland the Musical, Hatter

Dragonriders of Pern via SouCon MUSH's Xanadu Weyr

Naruto Founders, Hashirama & Tobirama