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, not quite fate

"Is there nothing you can't do?" she asks, and desperately wants him to admit to some sort of limit, wants to see any hint of the man who had been sorry, so very sorry, because he knew that there were lines he couldn't cross.

When he says, "Not anymore," Adelaide hates this man, the one so quick to divide them into big and important versus small and insignificant, and she will not be saved by him.

"I'm already supposed to be dead," she reminds herself as she pulls the trigger, "and he cannot take that from me."

The Greeks said character is fate, and they meant that for as many chances as you get to choose a different path there is really only one path for you because you couldn’t do something different at that turning point and still be the same person. Thus, if you shuffle Hamlet and Othello, the one’s credulity and the other’s impulsiveness will solve each other’s tragedies and no one will have to die.

But: circumstances form character, so who knows what would happen with an Othello who did not have to struggle to prove himself at every turn just to overcome perceptions of his complexion, or a Hamlet with only his good name to live up to and not that of a whole line of kings?

This is great! The possibilities are intriguing!

mm love that greek philosophy right at the top. it raises and explores some really good questions, and i like the little twist at the end, fate is character but what is character without all the varied fates that formed it?

thank you! they're some of my favorite questions, and the fact that the exploration is often more important than the answers themselves is also delicious. i love the phrasing of 'all the varied fates that formed it' that's exactly what i was going for.

"You thought I wasn't serious." Tobirama said behind him, and Madara tensed, a snarl rising in his throat as Tobirama caught his arm - just above the grey shadow of his once-vibrant soulmark - and pulled him around.

"Perhaps things are different among you," Madara said, restraining the urge to lash out and trying to think, heart aching, how he could trust someone who would ignore a soulmate, "none of my clan would abandon-"

"My soulmark;" Tobirama offered his arm, showing a great, twisting tree with a hollow at its centre opening on a broad ocean, "I would never abandon my brother, but I am serious about you, Madara . . . if you'll have me."

When Eko hears Claire talking to Locke about the psychic back in Australia who had told her she must not allow another to raise her baby, and wondering if he had sent her on Flight 815 knowing it was going to crash, he realises she is talking about the same man he had met shortly before boarding, the man who had confessed to Eko that he was a fraud.

He briefly considers telling Claire his own history with Richard Malkin, but decides against it. It will not do anything for Claire explaining that this was most likely not fate after all, but coincidence that had brought her here, just as it was coincidence that had led both Eko and Claire to meet the man.

It was madness to think that their love was anything meant to be—the Eldar and Edain did not wed each other—but something had swept them into each other’s lives; something had strung the thread between them that wound them closer and closer together, spinning them around the edges of all the things that threatened to draw their love to a swift end.

Caranthir did not know what drew them together, what power forestalled for the moment their inevitable sundering, but he cared little—did he not have two heavier dooms ordaining the path of his life, one that commanded him to ever pursue death and destruction, and one that damned him for every life he had taken from his kin?—it was enough that he and Haleth had been granted the time they had, before death came for her and judgment came for him.

Their love was not meant to last, but it lasted for the moment, and that was mercy enough for one such as he, beholden to the Oath and condemned by the Valar.

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022

no subject

Adelaide; Doctor Who; cw: canonical suicide

Hamlet and Othello

Re: Hamlet and Othello

Re: Hamlet and Othello

Re: Hamlet and Othello

Choices (Naruto; Madara/Tobirama)

Lost, Eko

Silmarillion, Caranthir/Haleth