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, and all of us who dare to love are brave

Neptune - SJ Tucker

To forgive is divine, but like miracles, Juri doesn't believe in divinity in a theological sense. Courage is majestic and fraught, betraying her whether she walks to love or away from it--not exactly what she'd call saintly. Courage fails her, but fear is just as trying, so she makes a decision not to run.

Taking Shiori's hand doesn't feel like heaven, but it's the most alive she's felt in years. It'll have to be enough.

omg, I'd almost forgotten about Utena, thank you <3

Once more, we were on the Lánczhid. And as this bridge we walked upon joined Buda to Pest, so it now joined Imre to myself--yes, we were not unlike these two cities wounded by men, by fortune tried, as the poet says... but always brave, always unmasked, always holding hands in the dark.....

Below us, the water of the Duna sparkled and shimmered, mirroring the city lights--it leaped and laughed, its voice loud and clear, echoing the heartbeat of the warm Magyar night--that kindred soul!--as it cradled us close, and offered all its stars to light our way, to watch over our rest, to burn aglow like truth, like life, like love.

i love your use of language in this

Thank you! This book is full of beautiful language (and long sentences too, it's perfect for this ficathon, hehe!)

He knows Nyx - Max, regardless of how little they use their given names - at this point almost better than he knows himself, knows her old wounds and how close she plays her cards to her chest, how tightly she holds onto herself in fear that letting anything in will mean the end of everything she's worked so hard for.

He knows the words she just said - so seemingly small, so light, as bright and as broken as the slowly dying body of hers he's holding - he knows how much it took for her to say them.

"Hold on," he tells her rather than answer, his thumb against her wrist where it can feel the stuttering fading of her heartbeat. "They'll follow the beacon, they'll come for us. You just have to hold on a little longer. I'm not letting you leave yet."

He'll be brave later, when she's safe. There is too much fear in him now for anything else.

awww, I'm rooting for them!

neither of them dies here!

i'm sure they'll be fine

Shuddering as he wakes from a nightmarish swirl of memories - lightning, blood, falling rock, all darkness and screaming and tears - Kakashi draws himself up, leaning against the trunk of one of the trees surrounding their camp. He looks over the quiet little heaps of his genin sleeping - barely more than pups, for all their skill and their ambitions; for all they think of themselves - and his heart wrenches painfully, his breath catching in his throat.

He never wanted them, but they're his now, and he only desperately hopes he won't lose them . . . as he's lost almost everyone else.

Kakashi ;_;

Poor Kakashi has had entirely too many traumas. ;;

He runs into Harry as they are clocking out for the day and he is hit by a crackling tension in him, an ache, raw and dismal, that may have been mounting when Kim wasn't looking or may have crashed at once, as realization are wont to do: now that they are back into the fray, away from their little bubble of an investigation at the end of the world when it was just them making their own rules, the detective is stretched thin by a job that sees a dead man in his eyes and expects him to bend and twist and fit a strange mold that's all edges.
Something in there is about to break along old frayed lines, a cyclical tragedy long in the making, and Kim makes a guarded offer to go grab a bite together, knowing full well that his own cautiousness is a ruse, that he won't let Harry risk a relapse in the solitude of his apartment.
So if that means staying the night, so be it, if it can give Harry some space to be vulnerable and unwound and safe, so be it, and if someone has to struggle against the temptation of doing something really, really stupid tonight, let it be Kim, and he'll see this through.

Kim is a good... friend? Boyfriend?

...he is a good egg.

He is not a coward. Not a warrior—he will never be that—but not a coward, either. He has faced gods and ghosts and emperors, and he has not backed down, knowing that this was what he must do.

But holding Teomitl’s hand in the sunlight, kissing his mouth in the moonlight, hearing soft and tender words and returning them, even though the sheer vulnerability of it all sends his heart into his throat—he thinks those might be the bravest things he’s ever done, because they’re for himself and himself alone. There’s no rationalization about the fate of the world, no terrible sacrifice he must prepare for.

There’s only Teomitl smiling at him as they lay together in the cool dark safety of his room, murmuring, “When I am crowned, I’ll make sure all the Empire knows I love you.”

He should be cautious. He should dissuade him. But Teomitl has inspired him to new heights, so he kisses his shoulder instead and breathes, “I can’t wait.”

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022

no subject

Revolutionary Girl Utena, Juri/Shiori

Re: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Juri/Shiori

And all of us who dare to love are brave (Imre: A memorandum).

Re: And all of us who dare to love are brave (Imre: A memorandum).

Re: And all of us who dare to love are brave (Imre: A memorandum).

original project

Re: original project

no subject

Wounded Heart (Naruto; Kakashi & Team 7)

Re: Wounded Heart (Naruto; Kakashi & Team 7)

Re: Wounded Heart (Naruto; Kakashi & Team 7)

Disco Elysium, Harry/Kim

Re: Disco Elysium, Harry/Kim

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl/Teomitl