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

Eastrail 177 Trilogy #9

[(Anonymous)]

Glass (2019), David Dunn, Water

Eastrail 177 Trilogy #10

[(Anonymous)]

Glass (2019), Mr Glass, Mother

Eastrail 177 Trilogy #11

[(Anonymous)]

Split (2016) or Glass (2019), any, "Use your own toothbrush!"

Eastrail 177 Trilogy #12

[(Anonymous)]

Split (2016), Any, Yellow

Eastrail 177 Trilogy #13

[(Anonymous)]

Glass (2019), Joseph Dunn & Casey Cooke, Orphans

[elementalraven]

Narnia rthverse, Susan, relations with the Mer Nation

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, The words of the prophets are written on the subway wall, and tenements halls.

And the sign flashed out its warning (FFVII, Barret)

[(Anonymous)]

Barret’s not the only one who knows.

Everyone these days can feel it, in the doomsday graffiti sprayed across support pillars, the empty spaces beneath industrial thunder and powerline hum – that subthreshold resonance rolling up through his feet, telling him a change is waiting.

One way or another, the Planet’s going to take back her own; all AVALANCHE can do is try to make sure humanity survives it.

[(Anonymous)]

Final Fantasy VII, Aeris & Sephiroth, You got a fast car/I got a plan to get us out of here

[raisedbymoogles]

(follows this fill)

Zack took over driving after they picked him and Cloud up; Sephiroth had taken his turn after that, and since Cloud was disqualified on account of not having his learner's permit yet, driver duty defaulted back to Aeris.

("Guys, I'm a country boy, I've been driving since I could see over the wheel," Cloud had protested.

"So that was, what, two weeks ago?" Zack had quipped, and after that there was a brief scuffle.)

It was well past midnight by then, Sephiroth having determined that it was not yet safe to stop and rest; Cloud and Zack, having worn each other out, were spark out in the back seat while Aeris in the driver's seat was keeping herself alert with swigs of some kind of fizzy drink with borderline illegal amounts of caffeine. She reached for her drink and happened to catch Sephiroth's eye, and smiled briefly before returning her attention to the road. "You should try to sleep too, you know," she murmured, so as not to wake up the boys in the back.

"I can't sleep," Sephiroth admitted. "Too much to think about." Aeris hummed a 'go on?' note. "...the future. How to evade Shinra for good. We can't keep running forever. ...even if it is a very nice car."

Aeris's eyes crinkled as she suppressed a laugh. "It's a very nice car. ...so, any ideas? Maybe bouncing them off me will help."

It was not how Sephiroth usually operated, preferring to keep his thoughts to himself until he had something worth sharing; but Aeris was not his subordinate, and so he didn't need to worry so much about the boundaries of command. "...Wutai is an option," he said. "Not a very likely one, but if I am now an enemy to Shinra, they may find me useful. Likewise, several pockets of resistance still exist in out-of-the-way places on the continent, and they might be persuaded."

"...is joining one army or another the only way?" Aeris asked quietly.

Sephiroth gave the matter due consideration. ".....we could run up to the North and raise chocobos?"

This time Aeris had to press a hand to her mouth to muffle her laugh.

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, palindromes

Round About (Sherlock Holmes)

[woodmr]

“This code is more baffling than the dancing men Holmes, what can it all mean?”

“Read simply, very little. But the unusual frequency of the words ‘noon,’ ‘civic,’ and ‘Eve’ are suggestive: removing these and any other palindromes may reveal what our mysterious messenger wishes to keep hidden.”

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, enchantress of numbers

Umineko, Maria

[ernest]

It is nothing at all to go from one to one hundred, one quadrillion, or even infinity: all you need is the ability to expand upon what’s already there, and the patience to keep on doing it until the work is done.

But to get one out of zero, something from nothing, a beginning out of the void, is something else entirely. Most witches wouldn’t even be able to imagine doing such a thing; Maria doesn’t even need to think twice before she’s created a friend for herself where once there was nothing, so she gets a title as special as she is: The Witch of Origins.

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, lanterns by the shrine at sea

Sunless Sea, A Zailor's Ritual

[(Anonymous)]

Beyond the sight of land, the night is absolute until it isn’t: there are lightships and lures, phosphorescence and sigil fire — and there, outside the beam of the prow light, a line of lanterns strung between the black crags of two forsaken islands.

It’s dangerous to get too close to strange lights at zee, but faith is currency out here, and Salt is the god of lost things and travelers in the dark; you don’t know if this shrine is his, but it’s him you say a prayer to as you light a candle of your own and fold a ship of paper. Row out, then, to the arch formed by rock and light and the reflection of light, and hold your breath as you bend low to set your little lamp adrift on still waters; draw near, but do not pass beneath.

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, armillary spheres

The Last of Us 2, Ellie, post-canon

[felis]

Ellie rifles through the dusty gift shop until she finds what she hoped would be there: a miniature version of the broken armillary sphere she'd discovered in the ruins of the History of Science museum, buried under bricks and splintered wood with other astronomical instruments, long-forgotten. It goes in her backpack, together with a little explanatory pamphlet. Flying to the moon seems endlessly far away these days, but that doesn't mean she has to lose sight of the stars altogether; navigation is still hard, but keeping her eyes up seems like a much better idea than circling a flame at least.

[(Anonymous)]

Any, sny, bowl of mixed berries

Fill

[swirlsngirls]

She plucks up a strawberry from the bowl of glistening fruits, and, lifting it to her lips, daintily sinks her teeth into the luscious berry. The stem is discarded to the side, and she smiles, the plush curve of her mouth slightly redder than before. You wonder what she will look like when she eats the rest of the fruit, and wait with baited breath as she twirls a finger around the bowl, deliberating between blackberries and blueberries.

[ernest]

Narnia, Edmund &/ Susan, an apostate and an agnostic walk into a wardrobe...

On the Threshing Floor (Narnia, Susan/Edmund, TLB AU)

[vialethe]

“I don’t believe I want to hear the punchline of that jest, Ed,” she says, voice soft as the old, satiny wood of the wardrobe standing before them, the last inheritance of a family now gone.

“That’s just it,” he says, catching her raised hand, his fingers tracing along the path of a great tree alongside hers; for a single moment, the wood feels alive under him, a breathing, beautiful, unfathomable thing waiting to enfold them both in the green glow of new life, of an ever-blossoming spring.

But she gasps, his sister; a quick, sharp sound like she’s been stabbed by a thorn, so he pulls back, his fingers guarding hers, and says, “I can’t decide who was the true punchline in the end, them or us.”

[ernest]

Hamlet, Gertrude, Well, you don't believe but you have to believe / It's still crumpled there in your back seat. / Were you the hero or the worst kind of coward back there, / Putting pavement back under your feet?

[smallhobbit]

Gertrude wouldn't admit it to anyone, not even Claudius, and certainly not her son, but sometimes she wondered whether she'd done the right thing. Not that she didn't want to be with Claudius, but what effect the speed of the wedding would have on others. Could she still manage the balancing act she had always previously maintained, or had she finally tipped too far in one direction?

[ernest]

Hamlet, any,
I think my fate is losing its patience
I think the ground is pulling me down
I think my life is losing momentum
I think my ways are wearing me down

[smallhobbit]

It had seemed so simple, put on a play and entrap the king. But then he hadn't followed up his knowledge and Claudius still lived. Perhaps he would just confront his mother, and that way he could regain control.

[dariaw]

Venom (movies), Eddie/Anne/Dan(/Venom), who brings it up first

[dariaw]

Venom (movies), Eddie/Dan(/Venom), smutfic of any kind

[dariaw]

The Originals, Klaus and Marcel, 3 ways that Marcel made Klaus a better person that Marcel doesn't even realize

[dariaw]

The Originals/Teen Wolf, Derek/any male from The Originals, alpha (any interpretation is fine - someone is surprised at how Derek acts as an alpha, someone likes alpha attitude during kinky times, whatever you like)

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, gable hood or French hood

Contrasting Views (Northanger Abbey)

[woodmr]

The gallery at Northanger Abbey was an ostentatious display of finery, with the many paintings having been framed and rehung many times over the years as the family’s fortunes rose, although the redecorating had produced strange bedfellows. Even young Eleanor, barely out of the nursery, questioned the wisdom of exhibiting slashed sleeves and rich gable hoods next to the austere Puritan blacks of a generation later.

Her brother Henry observed that shades who could not abide each others’ portraits were unfit to share more heavenly dwellings, and thus unworthy of any serious consideration.

[ernest]

any, any, Your heart is a slow train coming, I’m afraid to make my move / If I keep running back to you

Ophelia

[smallhobbit]

She had thought Hamlet loved her - he certainly gave her that impression. But now, as she approaches him once more, she starts to wonder. Does he love her, or is it just the thought of being in love which appeals to him, and will he cast her off again for failing to conform to his standards?

[paxilam]

any, any, protective action

Historical RPF 18th Century; William, Henry, and Ferdinand of Prussia

[felis]

The three young officers crept around the corner of the hallway, making sure the coast was clear - it wouldn't do to be discovered too early when they were on the way to protect their young King from an assassination attempt by a group of Austrian and Saxon agents. While William waited for Henry's sign to attack the enemies lying in wait in the King's study, he took a couple of quick bites from the bread and cheese provisions he'd organized earlier; it couldn't hurt to keep his strength up.

When Ferdinand finally stormed the door with a loud yell, brandishing his epee and startling one of the rather monkey-ish looking assassins, William followed, all thoughts about possibly being too old for games like these forgotten in the ensuing commotion. (He'd still have to remember to tell his brothers not to mention any of this back home, though, especially the "young King" part of the scenario; there were more dangerous foes in the land than imagined assassins, for both them and their future King.)

(technically, this is a prequel to this one from last post)

[paxilam]

the witcher, any, aggressive creature

yennefer/geralt, netflix-flavour, a little nsfw

[peaked]

"Yennefer—Yennefer!" Geralt turns his head away abruptly, his hands resting against her bare hips with a sharp pinch. He’s breathless, his throat burning; she remains bowed against the crook of his neck, her teeth sharp pincers as she nips and bites at his skin without any mercy.

He holds onto her tight, liking the way she wraps around him like a lethal vine. He laughs, "Whatever happened to being gentle?"

[paxilam]

any, any, broken shield

Aslan doesn't come back to life (Narnia)

[elementalraven]

Susan picked her way across the battlefield, searching for any sign of Peter; she had left Lucy behind with Edmund, who hadn’t woken up yet when she’d left, but the cordial likely took some time to work, Susan thought fixedly, it must-, it would work.

Sunlight hit her face from a low angle, but the sun stood high above her (they should have left the table sooner, Susan thought, perhaps if they had, then Edmund-), so Susan looked around for the source of it.

She found the light reflecting of the edge of a broken shield- a silver shield, painted with a red lion, and behind it, – Susan’s legs buckled – behind it a head of golden hair.