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, Odysseus/Penelope, Walking with each other, think we'd never match at all, but we do

If I Didn’t Know You (Greek Mythology, Odysseus/Penelope)

[vialethe]

Sometimes she still does not believe, despite all the proofs, despite the bow and the bed, despite the reflections of her son in his face, that Odysseus has truly returned to her, that this rangy stranger who walks beside her might be the same man who left her a long score of years before.

Each moment of silence that passes between them reinforces it, for when was he ever silent, her king, he who chattered like a magpie, who loved the sound of his own voice above all things other than her own? Until - he looks at her sideways, slant, and says in a voice brimming with innocence, “I could use a new tunic, wife - will you weave me one?” and then, oh, then she knows him as her own trickster even as he breaks, even as the lines in his face come alive with laughter (even as he kisses away the protest of her open mouth, swallowing her suppressed giggles as a man starved).

[betony]

Hamlet, Gertrude/Claudius, But like everything I've ever known/You'll disappear one day/So I'll spend my whole life hiding my heart away

[smallhobbit]

Gertrude looked sideways at her husband at the dining table, and steeled her expression. She could not afford to show how much she loved him, for there was no way she could protect him should matters turn against him as they had her previous husband. And above all else, she could not let her son see how she felt.

[betony]

Hamlet, Ophelia, There was something in the water, now that something's in me/Oh I can't go back, but the reeds are growing out of my fingertips/I can't go back to the river

[smallhobbit]

She looked just as she had when they pulled her out of the water and laid her on the bank, before they had backed away, afraid that what had infected her might reach out and contaminate them. Laertes leant over her and sensed the despair which had brought her to that point. He vowed he would see her decently buried and then he would have his revenge on all who had brought her to the river.

[betony]

Historical RPF, Richard III/Anne Neville, I can't love you in the dark/It feels like we're oceans apart/There is so much space between us/Maybe we're already defeated

Far Too Ashamed (Historical RPF, Anne/Richard III)

[vialethe]

His shoulders are crooked, her mother’s ladies say, brows furrowed as they watch Richard move through the castle, and I don’t care, Anne thinks, stubborn, small, bursting with a child’s devotion.

He is an exile, Isabel points out, meaning only to be practical, and yet It doesn’t matter, Anne wants to say, still stubborn but old enough to hold her tongue, old enough to rein in a woman’s passions.

He is not forgiving, George tells her once she is Edward’s princess, Seek your forgiveness from Edward, if the time comes, for Richard will give you none, and almost, almost she says, He will forgive me anything, before she stops, too stubborn to admit there are things even love cannot forgive.

[betony]

Historical RPF, Richard III/Anne Neville, All of these words whispered in my ear/Tell a story that I cannot bear to hear

With My Heart on the Floor (Historical RPF, Anne/Richard)

[vialethe]

“King, Richard?” she says, all her breath stolen away, drowning in her own lungs. “They will destroy us, if you do this thing.”

Beside her, the shell of his hardened face cracks; for a moment, she sees the boy she’d adored shining through, determined but uncertain, aching for reassurance, for righteousness; hears it in his voice when he asks, “Then you will not stand with me?” and maybe it’s that which informs her answer, that which leads her to take his hand in both of hers, pressing her lips to it with the fervency of a saint before she says, “You have always been my only king, my love.”

[betony]

S&B/TGT, Darkling& Any, I'll be taking flowers to the cemetery of my heart/For all of my lovers in the present and in the dark

Nurture What I’ve Done (S&B, Darklina, past Darkling/Female OC)

[vialethe]

“Who was your first?” Alina asks, voice warm and muzzy, buried in the darkness of his bed, of satiated contentment.

He can’t bear to tell her about a girl with dark curls and bright eyes, a girl who could have charmed the whole of Ravka and certainly charmed him, a girl who was otkazat’sya, sweet and honest and uninterested in wearing his bones; a girl whose brow furrowed deeper each year she grew older while he did not, who had died and left him alone and bitter, the first of too many lessons.

And so he lies; tells her he can’t remember, kisses her bare shoulder and basks in the warmth of her body beside him, and tries not to wonder when she will leave him, too.

[betony]

S&B/TGT, Darklina, Don't you ever say my love opened up your heart

Turn Off the Lights (S&B, Darklina)

[vialethe]

“What would you have me believe, Alina,” he says too softly, a purr between gentle and menacing, his hands tight on her hips, “that you never knew love before I brought you out of the darkness? I’m not a child to be placated and fooled by fairytales and sentiment.”

It’s true and yet not, Alina knows; sees it reflected in his eyes, looking up at her with the too-familiar guarded hope of a skittish boy, and so she takes the one path open to her, the one he’s never been able to resist; lets her mouth speak to his without words, lets the light flare up at his unconscious call, and whispers, “Is that enough to fool you?” waiting for him to trust her - or fool himself once again.

[betony]

S&B/TGT, Kaz/Inej, To be loved and love at the highest count/Means to lose all the things I can't live without/Let it be known that I will choose to lose

[peaked]

cw: references to past sexual abuse

When Inej returns from scouting shaken and unlike herself, Kaz sits with her on the edge of his bed and wraps his arm tentatively around her. She flinches beneath his touch despite bowing and curling in towards him with her hands over her face.

She doesn’t sob as he expects her to. He’s seen it before, the way she comes back to him sometimes haunted by the ghosts of the Menagerie. He doesn’t need the details, only a name and description before he sets the crows to hunt down a previous client of Tante Heleen’s.

[betony]

S&B/TGT, Any, It's so cold out here in your wilderness/I want you to be my keeper

Don’t Pretend That You Don’t Want Me (TGT, Darklina)

[vialethe]

She knows he feels it, the moment she opens that connection that goes both ways, the moment she reaches inside him with fingers made of light and grasps pure power, grabs hold of everything he has to give, but she still asks, if only for the pure pleasure of it, “Do you feel that?”

“Yes, Alina,” he says, cold and calm as ice, though his eyes glitter, though he doesn’t move, as though he’s afraid it may hurt, “of course I feel you, my clever little pupil.”

It takes her by surprise, then, when he grasps her hand, when he brings it to his chest, where she can feel the pounding of his heart even through his layers of armor; when he leans closer and speaks, soft and fervent, “What will you do with my leash, now that you hold it in your hands?” and something within her sparks at the look in his eyes, at the longing blended with relief she sees there; at the weight of shadow pressing down, all around her.

[betony]

Queen's Thief, Gen/Irene, And I give in to my pretendings/Which forgive you each time/Without me knowing/They melt my heart to stone

[betony]

Queen's Thief, Gen/Irene, Give me a memory I can use/Take me by the hand while we do what lovers do/It matters how this ends/'Cause what if I never love again?

The Way We Remember Us (Queen's Thief, Gen/Irene)

[vialethe]

“They might take you at any moment,” Irene says, her hand gripping his, her body hovering over his in their bed as though she might take an arrow for him, a knife in the back, any blow from above that would come, “and how would I bear it?”

“I have never met a woman more able to bear anything, my love,” Gen says, and believes it, just as strongly as he believes he will not fall, not today, not tomorrow, not while he still has her to serve, to protect.

“A thing can be both strong and brittle, Gen,” his wife says, and he closes his eyes against her truth, burying himself in her so he doesn’t have to think of the love of the gods, so ironclad, so poorly tempered.

[sincereously]

any, any, everybody's got the right to their dreams

[ravenlilyrose]

Being a Slytherin is... difficult sometimes; even though the prejudice from the wars had faded over the decades, there were still a lot of people who equated ambitious with evil.

But that's not what Slytherin is: Slytherin is the girl whose ambition is to cure the cancer that killed her mother and will stop at nothing to find that cure no matter who tells her it's impossible; Slytherin is the boy who wants to become the best singer the world has ever seen and will use every free second to make that happen (and maybe even borrow a few moments from unimportant things like sleep or meals or classes); Slytherin is the pair of twins who were ignored as children and want to make something of themselves; Slytherin is every child that ever had a dream and the determination to make it happen.

So that's what Slytherin is, because ambitious does not equal evil and everyone has a right to their dreams.

[sincereously]

any, any, I wish

lotr, éomer thoughts

[paxilam]

'I wish I could hurt you, Wormtongue' thought Eomer, as he was being held by Wormtongue's thugs. 'And I wish I could hurt Saruman too, ten thousands times more, slowly and pitiless, pouring all my hurt into each blow.'

He heard the thugs laugh loudly as his face hit the stables' soil.

'Saruman, the cause for bringing pain and death to my people, for obscuring my uncle's mind and extinguishing more and more the light of life in his eyes, for digging scars where only kind hands should be permitted to dwell.'

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, treasury of princesses

Sailor Moon, Luna & Artemis

[raisedbymoogles]

(dragon!cat AU)

There's little enough Artemis and Luna can do to help their princesses, small and powerless as they are. They can support; they can advise. Now and then they can infiltrate and eavesdrop, if the mission would take place in a location where an unaccompanied cat would be unremarkable. But in the end, it always comes down to the same thing: they must send their warriors out to do battle, and all they can do is pray they return safely.

Now and then Luna and Artemis dream of reclaiming their true forms. It has been centuries upon centuries, and the Earth as it is now would not bear their presence, but... perhaps someday, in the distant future when Serenity is queen, they will be Themselves again, and oh, they will house their princesses in steel and gold and never see them go out to war again.

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, treasury of mermaids

Siren's Dirge (My Last Duchess by Robert Browning)

[woodmr]

The Duke ne’er looks on any prize–
neither hair nor scales–in his grand collection,
save his late wife’s unconquer’d smiling eyes.
Neptune receives the odd nod, frozen midrise,
occasionally. But not we, mere skeletons
of bygone glory, in marble immortalized.

[(Anonymous)]

The Queen's Thief, Eugenides/Irene, nightfall and daybreak

[betony]

Even now the married Queen of Attolia goes to bed alone; and half her court thinks it a pity, and the other half an outrage.

Irene--if anyone thought to ask-- has grown fond, over the years, of watching the sun descend in silent contemplation, of filing through the litany of what must yet be done, of the startling singular pleasure of silence; and besides, there will be more enough time come daybreak, which brings a tap at her window and the rustle of the sheets as Gen slips between them, home from his latest nocturnal misadventure.

Irene finds herself content.

[(Anonymous)]

His Dark Materials, Lyra/Will, rose garden

[(Anonymous)]

The Old Kingdom, Sabriel, music

[arveldis]

S&B/SOC, Inej/Kaz, if the heavens ever did speak / she’s the last true mouthpiece

[peaked]

I'm sorry, I'm back again like a bad smell.

"You needn’t pray to your Saints for me, Inej," he rasps quietly, peeling his bruised and swollen eyes open. Lying on his back in his bed, he peers over at her and ignores the lightning strike of pain along the length of his neck. In the stark light of his room, she’s softly silhouetted in the shadows. "They’re not my Saints."

Inej rolls her eyes, peering down at him with fond exasperation. Gently and tentatively, she lifts her hand and softly brushes the side of her small finger against his temple. When he doesn’t wince, she brushes his damp hair away from sticking to his forehead. "I know, Kaz," she says gently, "you don’t believe in Saints."

He shakes his head, smiling softly up at her. "I don’t," he confirms quietly. "I believe in you."

[arveldis]

S&B/SOC, Inej/Kaz, the only heaven I’ll be sent to / is when I’m alone with you

[peaked]

Inej stays close by his side, the wing of her arm brushing gently against his. Kaz is tall and regal in his black coat and top hat, and she looks like someone who exists in the shadows and in the tales one tells their children to hush them to sleep. But what those stories fail to capture is how his calculating fingers brush against the heel of her palm tentatively in a quiet, uncertain invitation, and how the shadow woman's hand unfurls like wings to intertwine their fingers firmly together.

[arveldis]

S&B/SOC, Inej/Kaz, I couldn’t utter my love when it counted / but I’m singing like a bird about it now

[peaked]

"I love you," he says, smiling widely at the way Inej covers her face with her hands. "I do," he says, practically singsonging it as she bows her head and tries to hide beneath the waterfall of her loose hair.

He’s found her weakness; it isn’t her Saints or her big, beating heart—nor is it her knives when they’ve become bloodied and the hilts nicked. It’s him and his smile, the way he admires her so openly; Inej blushes so deeply behind her hands that his chilly bedroom swarms with heat.

"I love you, Inej," he smiles, ducking his head to try and spy her between the cage of her fingers, "and perhaps one day you’ll do me the honour of not blushing like a maiden when I tell you."

[arveldis]

S&B/SOC, Inej/Kaz, we’re slaves to any semblance of touch

a little nsfw

[peaked]

She glides her naked fingers against the bared skin of his neck and shoulder, down the muscle of his bicep and to the crook of his elbow. Kaz sits before her, watching her patiently, his sharp eyes dark. He breathes shallowly as she sits before him, tracing the tips of her fingers along his sharp collarbones, the planes of his chest, the dip of his belly where he sucks in his stomach.

Inej chuckles. "Who knew Kas Brekker was ticklish?" She smiles up at him, liking the way his cheeks tinge red.

"No one," he says, smiling widely at her. There’s shyness and softness to the way he keeps his hands folded in his lap, in how he allows her to touch him so openly and vulnerably. Not once does he flinch; not once does she recoil.

"But what of Kaz Rietveld?" she cocks her brow, slowly smiling widely. At Kaz’s shrug and cock of his head, she brushes her fingers against the bared bone of his hip and discovers that Kaz Rietveld is more sensitive than either of them ever realised.

[(Anonymous)]

Harry Potter, Snape/Lucius, call me a traitor one more time

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, You where so focused on if you could, you forgot to ask if you should.

Miraculous Ladybug, Gabriel Gets His Wish, Exactly As He Asked.

[silveradept]

He has rebuilt his life so he is successful and surrounded by his loving family, and defeated his enemies permanently so that may not spite him or undo his utopia.

It is only after his wish completes that he realizes the error of his thinking, for in wishing for the nonexistence of his most hated rivals, he has also erased the existence of his son. Only he remembers, so only he is cursed with the void of knowing that there should be one more person at the table partaking of paradise, and only he knows that he has forever closed the door on being able to rectify this mistake.

[paxilam]

any, any, hands down

Harry Potter, Regulus Black

[ernest]

Regulus suppresses a shudder as the rowboat carries him and one of the only real friends he’s ever had across a lake lit by no discernible light source, and tries not to look too hard at the shadowy figures beneath them, tries not to notice how humanoid the silhouettes are. Not much further to go, then he can do the one good thing his life will amount to.

Kreacher cannot disobey a direct order, not even one that will force him to keep his master driving himself into the madness of grief and regret, until at last the lockets have been switched, and when the countless hands of the Inferi finally pull him down to the bottom he just thinks “Of course,” and then he thinks no more.