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

[betony]

Greek Mythology, Hesione, a heart divided

[betony]

Greek Mythology, Hera, others see her actions as vengeance; Hera sees them as conferring protection upon her chosen.

[betony]

Greek Mythology, Hektor/Andromache, the AU where she's from Achaean Thebes instead of Cilician Thebe

[betony]

Greek Mythology, Penthesilea, politics makes for strange bedfellows

[dariaw]

Fear, anger, even respect - this is what Penthesilea sees in the eyes of an enemy confronting her vicious brilliance in batter - but once in a while, she sees that this acumen in bloodshed makes her enemies long for her, make them crave.

A killed enemy is power in hand, but a seduced enemy is power for years to come, and power for years to come is what is called politics.

She delights in the clean of a blade, but she knows that the strength of her arm is but a tiny fraction of her strength; she wields every bit of her power well.

[betony]

Historical RPF, Anne Neville/Richard III, And with each passing day/The stories we say/Draw us tighter into our addiction

[betony]

Hamlet, Gertrude/Claudius, No one here can say a word of my native tongue./I can't be among them anymore./I fold myself away before it burns me numb.

[little_lady_d]

‘Tis common, all that lives must die, mothers and fathers, queens and kings, reaped all alike by the ravening plague, and the new court had no place for an orphaned princess; it was safer, kinder, to send her to Elsinore to be with her betrothed prince, and Gertrude cannot begrudge her brothers the hard work of succession and statehood, though Danish still hangs heavy on her tongue.

Her brother-in-law, Claudius, lingers in her steps like a shadow (shy, she thinks, and smiles to ease him) and bids her good morning in halting, practiced words from her homeland, so clearly lifted from a book. Her heart swells as she pictures him bent over the pages, dark hair falling over his eyes, and she forgets to hold herself apart — she steps forward, and sweeps him into a hug.

[betony]

Historical RPF, Anne Neville/Richard III, These are the scars that silence carved on me

The Name We’ve Long Held Back (Historical RPF, Anne Neville/Richard III)

[vialethe]

On their wedding night, Anne freezes; the dim light, the great bed, the feel of a man beside her too much, her fingers like stone digging into the bare flesh of his arms.

She comes back to herself with Richard murmuring her name, petting her hair, his dark eyes like a wound in his beloved face, wide and searching and haunted; “What can I do, Anne?” he asks, and that helps, she thinks, for certainly Edward had never bothered to ask, not that or anything else.

“Just speak to me,” she says, and tries not to think of Edward’s preference for silence, of his smothering hands; instead, she wraps herself in the safety of Richard’s sweet voice, and knows: It is you and I, my love, we are here together, and lets herself slip into his easy rhythm.

[betony]

Shadow and Bone, Kaz/Inej, You pulled me in and together we're lost in a dream/Always in motion/So I risk it all just to be with you

[peaked]

They stand at the starboard side of the boat, her hands curling gently around the delicate edges of her ship’s side and Kaz’s hand on his cane; Inej doesn’t dare look at him, watching the sea as it gently rolls in. He studies her as if she’s the endless night sky, sparkling in all of its dark glory.

"What about your city, Kaz?" she asks quietly, keeping her fingers flexed and relaxed despite wanting to tug on the edge of her ship for comfort. The ocean is her kingdom, her city of endless opportunity and freedom; it’s nothing like Ketterdam with its small, dark alleyways and its cruel monsters lurking in the dark waiting to thieve little girls and boys into its deep and rotting belly.

Kaz shrugs a sharp shoulder, never taking his eyes off her profile. "What about it?"

[betony]

Shadow and Bone, Darklina & Ulla, The Little Mermaid AU

[betony]

Shadow and Bone, Darklina, Towers of gold are still too little/These hands could hold the world but it'll/Never be enough

[peaked]

Her power desperately reaches for him, slithering along the darkened earth and burning the uproots of trees into ash.

Aleksander stands in the centre of darkness and hides from her, watching as Sankta Alina summons him as if he’s a demon to be beckoned. And he supposes he is; giving in to the temptation to be near her once more, he steps forward, the tip of his shoe almost brushing against the burning light as she extends her power as a hand waiting to be held.

The Darkling smothers the light in shadow.

[betony]

Shadow and Bone, Any, I've told a million lies but now I tell a single truth/There's you in everything I do

Inej/Kaz

[arveldis]

Inej felt Kaz with her no matter how far she sailed from Ketterdam: She felt him as she stood at the wheel of the ship he had bought her and remembered the shape of his hand in hers as they had stood in Fifth Harbor looking at her ship; she felt him each time she withdrew his knife to splice ropes (a lesser purpose than he had intended it for, but surely he would not mind that now); she felt him as she climbed the rigging of her ship, laughing to herself that it was a miracle he hadn’t had the ship fitted with a net beneath the rigging.

She heard his voice in her head, warning her to have backup plan—several, ideally, and several more after that—as she planned with Specht and her crew how they would attack their next target, and she could imagine the furrow in his brow as she steered her ship headlong into danger and justice.

She had been at his side too long to cleanly extricate herself from him—and she didn’t want to: Kaz Brekker was as much a part of her as her knives or proverbs, and everything he had taught her had molded her into the capable and feared captain she was, the Wraith released from the shadows and transformed into an instrument of justice.

[betony]

Shadow and Bone, Inej (/Kaz), When the days are cold/And the cards all fold
/And the saints we see/Are all made of gold (This is my kingdom come)

[peaked]

cw: kaz trauma re drowning and touch.

Inej wraps her front to his back, her bare hands flat against his naked chest as she sleeps quietly behind him. In her presence, he’s forgotten how to flinch; when she had gently sloped her palm against his cheek or when she had touched his bared skin with her naked hands, he hadn't felt repulsion curdle sickeningly in his gut. Her body is warm and alive, and Kaz doesn't fear drowning; he melts into her, knowing she won't sink beneath his touch.

[(Anonymous)]

Anne with a E, Diana Barry, that moment her parents tell her she can go to Queen's

[kuwdora]

The Witcher, Francesca/Fringilla, trust

[kuwdora]

Star Wars, Sabine & Ahsoka, downtime

[ravenlilyrose]

It seems sometimes that they have either no downtime at all or that their lives consist completely of downtime with no in-between. It is during one of those long stretches that are only downtime and there is nothing to do that Ahsoka finds Sabine tucked into a corner of the ship, fiddling with her weapons with skilled, though bored, hands. Sabine reminds Ahsoka painfully of herself and her boys sometimes, so she sits next to the girl and starts to tell her stories of another time teenagers barely past childhood were pulled into a war not of their creation and improbably found a family.

[kuwdora]

Mythic Quest, any, learning from mistakes

[kuwdora]

Mythic Quest, any, hooplah

[kuwdora]

Foundation, Gaal Dornik, aubade, and at the center of the self, grief I thought I couldn’t survive

[kuwdora]

Foundation, Brother Dusk/Brother Day, untenable

[topaz_eyes]

Any, any, they loved the lines around their mouth

They loved the lines around their mouth (The Terror, Bridgens/Peglar).

[theseatheseatheopensea]

John's books have changed his life in endless subtle ways, all for the better--and so has John himself, Harry thinks, and smiles at the understatement. Now, he doesn't really have to look in any of these books anymore. All the answers are here, in the lines on John's face--all the maps and all the constellations, all the journeys and all the homecomings.

[kalira]

any, any, animal brides/bridegrooms (e.g. selkies, swan maidens, etc.)

Two cloaks hang by the fire

[syrena_of_the_lake]

The Selkie’s sealskin is a soft and slippery thing: it disappears from its hook at any time of day, reappearing at odd intervals to drip seawater on the hearth, droplets to hiss and steam and disappear while the woman reclined and remained — for a time.

The Swan Maiden’s cape is… soft, yes, but also prickly: the white feathers that were so stiff and mantled every morning whispered over each other every evening to reveal the woman — for a time.

When those times coincided, the two women rejoiced in each other and in bare skin, dextrous fingers, tangled tresses, entwined limbs — and other times, the Swan and Selkie cavorted in the waves, splashing between cold spray and warm sun and reveling in the knowledge that soon, they would comb the salt from each other’s hair while they dried by the fire, side by side.

[kalira]

any, any, brushing and/or braiding someone else's hair

Shadow and Bone/Six of Crows, Inej/Kaz

[arveldis]

There was one form of touch Inej and Kaz had discovered he could manage with little difficulty: brushing her hair and braiding it into its usual long rope, if a little looser than when she did the task herself, since he held his hands carefully above her scalp—her skin tingled each time at the nearness of his touch, but she contented herself with the progress they were making.

Kaz sat behind her, his legs carefully placed around her so that their bodies did not touch, and he moved the comb slowly through her hair, his movements methodical and precise, working out the tangles from the tips of her hair up to her roots until her hair slipped between his fingers like the rippling silks she had worn when she performed with her family.

He began to braid her hair, moving even more methodically now (he understood the process better once she had explained braiding hair to him as having a pattern to it that was similar to releasing the pins of a lock in the correct order), and his fingers brushed against the back of her neck, fleeting, but she knew it hadn’t been a mistake—Kaz didn’t make mistakes like that—and she smiled to herself as he continued to braid her hair.

[kalira]

any, any, bedtime stories

Rogue One, Jyn/Cassian

[kaminagi]

"I don't know any real ones," Jyn whispers, semi-panicked, "I forgot the ones my parents made up and Saw only told me war stories."

Cassian shakes his head, no gentle tales came to his mind either, for the tiny cooing baby in his arms.

"We can tell her our own then," he murmurs, and Jyn smiles when their baby yawns and closes her eyes, perhaps to dream about the stories she will hear for next time.

[(Anonymous)]

Doctor Who, any Doctor, looking in on a past companion

[ravenlilyrose]

He would take a few moments sometimes after he dropped the Ponds off at their house to just...look in on a past companion. He never said hello--half of them wouldn't know who he was and some of them he had to see before they met him--but it comforted him to see them happy and living their lives. Because he liked to pretend to forget, but there wasn't a force in the world that could make him truly forget any one of them.

[(Anonymous)]

Doctor Who, any companion, remembering their time with the Doctor

Donna

[felis]

The first thing Donna does afterwards is yell at the Doctor. Obviously. She feels a bit bad about it later -- must be they grey hair reminding her of granddad somehow, although that's very much where the similarities end as she soon (re)discovers -- but only a little.

The second thing she does is hug him. He seems much more surprised by this than he was by the yelling. He also seems a bit lost as to what to do with it, which is kind of new and Donna feels a sudden exhilaration that she is able to tell.

The third thing she does is get a good look at him. "Say, is it a requirement of being you to look like a stick insect or just a personal choice?" (Of course he takes her to a planet with sentient stick insects after that, where they end up on the run because one of them fell in love with him or thought he was a rival or something - and while Donna can't say she missed the running (mostly because she didn't remember it), she definitely missed his mad grin.)