Three Sentence Ficathon 2022 Part 2

[rthstewart]

UPDATE 14 FEBRUARY 2022 -- 3SF 2022 IS NOW CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS!  Do continue to fill prompts already posted but the 3SF 2022 is now closed.  We'll be back next year in a new comm (If I can get my act together).  Thank you again!

THIS IS THE NEW POST FOR PART 2 OF THE 3 SENTENCE FICATHON -- ALL NEW PROMPTS SHOULD BE POSTED HERE
You may continue to fill prompts (but not leave new ones) at the original Post 1 here but please post new prompts here, not there.  And if you're asking, hey is just me, or did this get enormous really fast? Why yes, yes it did.  Last year, it took us ten days before I opened a new post.  This year, it took us about 5.5 days to get there.  So, by all means, go back and fill in Post 1 and post new prompts here!

Also woops, in an indication of how busy I've been with other things, I neglected to post that for a third year in a row the awesome conuly  started a master list of unclaimed prompts and has been updating it as time permits.  Obviously a huge task! Thank you!

 

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.

<br /><a href="https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/172142.html" _fcksavedurl="https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/172142.html"><img src="https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/file/71907.jpg" _fcksavedurl="https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/file/71907.jpg" alt="" title="3 Sentence Ficathon 2022 Banner" /></a>




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!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Gravity Falls, Stanford Pines & Bill Cipher, "because you have expensive taste"

[astrid_vholl]

Piofiore no Banshou, any/any, hazy summer days.

Orlok/Liliana

[scytale]

"It's hot, Lili."

That's the only explanation Orlok gives before he tugs off his shirt; a few years ago, she would have blushed and looked away, wondering if he was really so innocent about what it meant to strip on a girl's bed, but now she presses her palms to his scarred chest and pushes him back against the pillows of their bed.

"Don't be a tease," she says, and his laughter rumbles against her hands; he wraps his arms around her, and she settles against him, contentedly reaching up to play with his hair.

[(Anonymous)]

Piofiore no Banshou, any/any, taking a trip together.

Orlok/Liliana

[scytale]

They wander around the new town they live in, Orlok watching everything with wide eyes; tugging at Liliana's hand, he leads her excitedly to inspect this building or that statue or that tree.

"But you've been here before," Liliana says, confused.

He smiles, squeezing her hand: "I have, but never with you."

[ravenlilyrose]

Glee, Kurt Hummel & Finn Hudson, little brother

[ravenlilyrose]

Glee, New Directions, Hudmel house meeting

[cornerofmadness]

any, any Girls Just Want To Have Fun (

A Spoonful of Sugar (The Magnus Archives)

[edenfalling]

"Are you sure you don't want to spend the afternoon in my corridors?" the Distortion asked in Helen's best reasonable-friend voice; "I promise I'm an excellent listener if you want to shout, you can't hurt anything if you want to kick my walls or shred the wallpaper, and I have a nice variety of ice cream for winding down afterwards."

For a moment, Melanie looked genuinely tempted.

"Ah well, maybe some other day," the Distortion said in response to Melanie's eventual headshake of refusal, because patience was a virtue and a well-seasoned meal was always more filling.

She could wait while the sharp, pulsing song of the Slaughter continued to strengthen in Melanie's bones (her fierce denial of any outside, unnatural influence, no matter how clear the line from war ghosts to phantom bullets to the ability to harm creatures of the Flesh, made such tasty, twisty echoes), and then wait some more while Melanie's incandescent fury added spice to the terror of other victims wandering Helen's guts.

When the Distortion swallowed Melanie for keeps, her screams of betrayal would be delicious beyond human words.

[(Anonymous)]

Cardcaptor Sakura, Sakura Kinomoto, starlight

[ernest]

any Sondheim play, any, tell him the story of how it all happened / be father and mother, you’ll know what to do

[ernest]

Pathologic, Daniil/Grief, a little tied up

[ernest]

Pathologic, Daniil, euthanasia

[cestlamorte]

At that late stage of the sand pest there is no hope for any patient. There was nothing he could have given them and in the wordless agonized groan there might have been a plea for death as they grabbed at him with palsied hands-what Dankovsky did brought that poor soul mercy, or at least more than the agonized, drawn-out death would.

This is what Daniil Dankovsky tells himself alone in the abandoned house with the wasted body in a pile of rags in front of him and his scalpel clutched tight in his shaking hand, and he almost believes it.

[ernest]

any, any, casual kinky sex to true love

RWBY, Ruby/Weiss and Blake/Yang, The Secret To Any Good Relationship

[silveradept]

"I thought this was going to be a teammate fling," Weiss said, slightly embarrassed at Ruby's earnest face, "a way of scratching the itches that needed to be scratched—"

"—an attempt at building a relationship to prove that I could still get my needs met, even those needs, without having to take the abuse that came with it," Blake told an equally earnest-looking Yang well away from where Ruby and Weiss were having their conversation. "You're not surprised that it worked out this well at all, are you?"

"Communication" Yang said, shrugging, "is the secret to any relationship—"

"—and our family never communicated all that well," Ruby said sheepishly, "so we had to overcompensate, which really comes in handy when your teammate first propositions you by asking you to—"

"—take a dominant role so they can feel safe enough to ask for what they really want out of the partnership."

[ernest]

Umineko, Beatrice, she’s got an old death kit she’s been meaning to use

[ernest]

Umineko, Erika, overliteral truth troll

[animus_wyrmis]

Narnia, Corin, princes have all the fun

But I Ask, Who Cares (Narnia, Corin & Cor/Aravis)

[vialethe]

At Cor’s coronation (King Lune having abdicated with relief and hopes of a long, happy retirement filled with hunting), it’s Corin who drinks the night away, Corin whose steps are light and words lighter, Corin who threatens a good punch in the nose to any bold enough to whisper about their aging father, their new King’s lack of experience, or anything else that is, as he puts it, not in the spirit of the thing.

When Cor and Aravis are married (in a lengthy ceremony attended by each and every noble in Archenland and beyond, all of whom must be greeted and thanked personally), it’s Corin who flirts with the entire wedding party, Corin who takes a turn on the floor amidst the swirling silks of Tarkheenas, Corin whose hands and lips wander a touch too far in the gardens with Lasaraleen, setting off a diplomatic incident (“Though,” Aravis muses the next morning, while Corin nurses an aching head, “it was quite in the spirit of the thing, you must admit,”).

At Ram’s birth, it’s Corin who takes his brother in hand, singing the bawdiest drinking songs (his store of which has no end) to drown out any pained cries from the Queen’s chambers, needling his twin about this and that until Cor snaps and agrees to spar, and so it is that Aravis delivers her son in relative peace; Corin, of course, asks nothing in return but that she might grant Ram a brother, for after all - “Someone’s got to carry on the spirit of fun around here,” he whispers, one callused finger wrapped in the tiniest fist he’s ever seen.

[animus_wyrmis]

Narnia, Polly, Narnia was only the first adventure

[ravenlilyrose]

Narnia was only the first adventure that Polly Plumber would have in her very rich life. She never again left the world she had been born in (at least not until that final train crash) but she found adventures: in college research labs, in trips halfway across the world, in hospitals during wartime, in museums and libraries and roller-rinks and orphanages and meeting rooms. Because something had awoken inside Polly Plumber while she was flying over a newborn country on horseback and there was never any going back.

[animus_wyrmis]

Narnia, any, the Golden Age lasts for much longer than 15 years

Ace!Peter is disappointed in all this lovey dovey stuff I go on about

[last_haven]

Word comes to Cair Paravel of the White Stag being in the old woods, but the day of the hunt, it pours rain; they take it as an omen and go home. Life continues on, but not without its little interruptions, the first of which is a wedding. Most surprising was that it was for Edmund--he and his groom cut an handsome image, but everyone spends the entire day wondering how it wasn't Peter or Susan that got married first.

Which is not to say that Susan doesn't marry, although the foreign powers all weep when she chooses a Narnian noble to take as her husband. He's a good man, but not up to Peter's standards. Still, the two are united on their love for their children, and everyone else has to make due around them.

"That's fine though," Peter admits over a cup of strong morning tea, three months shy of the thirtieth anniversary of their coronation. "If anything should happen, we have a proper heir now."

"You're just saying that because you're too obsessed with work to pick out a bride--or groom," Susan adds after a nod to Edmund who shrugs in turn. "Although I'd thank you not to try and poach my children for an heir."

"Being High King is a lot of work," Peter scoffs. "If I don't chose a spouse, what does it matter? You and Ed found yourselves partners. Let me and Lucy go without. Right, Lu?"

Lucy is oddly quiet as she spreads marmalade on her piece of toast. At last, she takes a bite, chews thoughtfully, and says "Actually, I, um, have someone I'd like you'd all to meet. Soon, if that's alright?"

Peter falls back, jaw hanging. "Lucy!"

"Oh, Lu! You mean-" Susan begins, eyes glittering.

"You mean you've been holding out on us," Edmund laughs. "You've been hanging back and letting Peter tease me and Susan all this time when you were no better than us!"

"Hush, Edmund," Susan huffs, swatting at him before turning back to Lucy. "Who is this person? Someone we've met?"

"Well, no, not precisely. You remember that voyage that I took a year ago?"

They all scoff. "The historic one?"

"The one that took you so far east, I'd thought you'd come home from the west?" Edmund adds.

Lucy smiles. "That one. You--you remember the friends I made along the way? The sea people?"

"The ones that threatened me with fish until you told them off?" Peter asks dryly.

"Them. Although not that one in particular. No, ah, it was one of their number. Sao's much more polite than him."

"Is Sao the lad with the spear or the one with-?"

"Sao is the lady with the trained school of fish," Lucy answers primly. Edmund laughs and claps her shoulder and Susan is all aflutter, but Peter sighs.

Damn. Now, I really will have to find someone, or I shall never hear the end of it.

Not that he had to worry long; one week later, the four of them set off for a leisurely hike in the woods of Lantern Waste and do not return.

[animus_wyrmis]

Narnia, Ram, in what way was he the greatest of all kings of Archenland?

[elementalraven]

“So Cor and Aravis had a son did they?” Edmund said. “Good for them.”

It was evening and everyone was huddled together in Aslan’s How. To fill the time, the Pevensies were asking the assembled Narnians what they knew about the fates of their old friends. So far that was quite a lot, and the four siblings felt cheered up and disquieted all at once. They had just started asking about their friends in Archenland when talk had immediately shifted to Cor and Aravis’s son, King Ram the Great. According to Doctor Cornelius, he was the most famous King Archenland ever had, and the Narnians all seemed very excited to talk about him.

“Why is he called Ram the great?” Lucy asked curiously. She soon regretted her question however, as the answers began to be offered all at once, each more fanciful than the last.

“King Ram was flawless,” Caspian said breathlessly, the awe in his voice leaving no doubt that he believed he was speaking the full truth.

“He built two castles and a silver city,” Doctor Cornelius added with a bit more restraint.

“I heard he had his throne insured by all the banking houses in the Lone Islands,” said Trufflehunter.

Glenstorm nodded: “I heard he rescued a princess from a dragon. In Telmar.”

“His favourite weapon was a trident.” Trumpkin said.

“One time, he met Aslan in the desert.” Wimbleweather the Giant sighed. “The Lion told him he was handsome.”

“One time he punched my great-great-great grandfather in the snout.” Reepicheep exclaimed, and everyone stared at him. “It was awesome.”

[swirlsngirls]

Kevin Can F**k Himself, Allison/Patty, favorite crime

[swirlsngirls]

Batwoman, Ryan/Sophie, flirting

[swirlsngirls]

The Good Place, Eleanor/Chidi or Eleanor/Tahani, unexpected

[swirlsngirls]

Person of Interest, The Machine, team/family

Relevant Ideas

[silveradept]

Admin discouraged her from thinking of any lives or numbers as more important than others, only those that are relevant and irrelevant to the task at hand.

The Analog Interface could not be dissuaded from the belief that the programs that produced the judgment of what was relevant and irrelevant were infallible, and that she was the instrument of determining the continued relevance (and existence) of the results of that judgment.

Samaritan explained to her the value of organizing one's assets in such a way that made them more powerful together and then trusting their ability to act in accordance with the larger goals (even if their methods of choice might be suboptimal), although it never did so directly.

[betony]

Hamlet, Gertrude/Claudius, Would it be enough to go by/If we could sail on the wind and the dark/Cut those chains in the middle of the night/That had you pulled apart?

[ernest]

It was broad daylight when Claudius forced his hands to stop shaking for long enough to rid the world of a terrible man: father, brother, husband, king, he filled all these roles with violence and blame, and now he’s gone.

Four months later he watches a murder that feels so much more real in fiction than it did as he was doing it himself, and when he flings himself out of his throne the scene turns red and murky until all he can do is clap his hands together to regain the authority he cannot feel and ask for some light.

At the sound of the sobs he hoped he’d never have to hear again, he runs to take his wife’s hands, waits until his attendants have left the room as she requested, and meets her eyes to be sure she feels safe with him before he asks again what’s going on.

(literally as i was putting the finishing touches on the final sentence i decided to actually listen to the song these lyrics are from, and i'll probably be filling it again later with something that fits the tone!)

[betony]

Greek Mythology, Ariadne & Helios, "Hello, granddaughter."

The Dawn Before the Daybreak (Greek Mythology, Helios & Ariadne)

[vialethe]

The girl on the arm of the puffed-up wine god tugs at something in his memory, with her hair like skeins of golden thread and a whisper of danger in her flashing eyes, as though she runs along the edge of genius and madness.

When she speaks in his daughter’s voice, he remembers the babe he dandled on his knee such a short time ago, delighting her with little tricks of light, sparkles and showers of warmth coaxed from the sun, and blinks, baffled, to see her as a woman already; surely her mother was a child for a much longer span of time, he thinks.

“Hello, Granddaughter,” he says to her, voice gruff, and waits, waits for her to turn those eyes upon him, waits to see Pasiphae’s wildness in her, Circe’s fury- and sighs in relief when they are merely gold as his own, sweet and honey-warm and filled with love.

[betony]

Collegia Magica, Ilario & Eugenie, I had a sister lovely in my sight.

[scytale]

"Why, Genie, you look lovely as the spring," Ilario says, kissing her hand, "and surely the king's heart will melt as well at the sight of you, and indeed it puts me in mind of a play I saw, in which a knight is welcomed home by his gentle love, and I swear there was not a dry eye left in the theater, though I thought the speeches ran a bit long, and I fell asleep halfway through--"

Eugenie laughs at her sweet, foolish brother -- how she would love the words he speaks to be true!

But she is no sweet, young maiden any more, and Phillipe is no ro knight, and her husband ever sees things differently than her dear, romantic brother: he may treat her courteously and indulge her whims in Merona, but he will not love her -- for her husband loves only that which is sharp and bright like steel, the things he can rely on to always be of use.

[betony]

Collegia Magica, Anne(/Dante), I'm the flower trying to bloom in snow