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

[vialethe]

Trojan War Cycle, Aeneas/Cassandra, will you still be there for me/now i’m yours to obtain/now my fruits are for taking/and your fingers are stained

[betony]

When Cassandra finds him again, his hair is silver and so is hers; his cheeks are cracked and leathery, and so are hers; his bones are weary, and so are hers. But oh, his smile is just the same, and the steps to her side as she steps off the boat that of a much-younger man; and for once she thanks the visions that made it clear where she might find him, even after so many years had passed.

"It happens," she tells him, looking up at him and remembering Clytemnestra's sudden unexpected mercy in the face of all the gods have decreed, "that an Achaean might die as easily as any other; and a princess turn to adventure; and--" her trials are over, she reminds herself sternly, and she need no longer cloak her intent in riddles, "--and oh, my friend, you see I've come home at last!"

[vialethe]

Shadow & Bone/TGT, The Darkling/Alina, can you heal me, baby/i’ve been dancing in this fire for way too long/but i kinda like it/oh, i like it cause it’s more dangerous than me

[vialethe]

Shadow & Bone/TGT, The Darkling/Alina, let me in the walls you’ve built around/we can light a match and burn them down/let me hold your hand and dance around and round the flames

[vialethe]

Shadow & Bone/TGT, The Darkling/Alina, if you’re out there in the cold/i’ll cover you in moonlight/if you’re a stranger to your soul/i’ll bring you to your birthright/I want the storm inside you awoken now

[vialethe]

Shadow & Bone/TGT, Alina/The Darkling & Mal, you treated my woman/to a flake of your life/and when she came back/she was nobody’s wife

[vialethe]

Trojan War Cycle, Aeneas/Cassandra, i keep on sailing/to get to you/you keep on waiting/well, here’s the truth

[betony]

"We will know our new home," Aeneas tells his men, "when we find it."

They suppose him to be in search of a second Troy, and do not rail against him for his many rejections; they follow him back onto the deep dark sea, time and again, and wait for the gods and their gods-touched master to give his next command.

Aeneas know he will never find home, not if he searches for centuries; home is his hand caught between warm white fingers, home is the second of her laugh, home is long long dead.

[marquisguyun]

Heaven Official's Blessing, Xie Lian/Hua Cheng, Identity Porn

[marquisguyun]

Heaven Official's Blessing, Xie Lian/Hua Cheng, Wu Ming appreciation

[elementalraven]

Narnia, Cor/Shasta, Anastasia au (like the film)

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, colour of a mirror

Fallen London

[(Anonymous)]

Silver

The surface; light thrown back.

Press your palm against the cold glass of your reflection’s palm. Step forward, through cold glass, into the depths.

Viric

The edges; light through leaves.

Walk carefully here. Sleep is heavy in the air, and predators watch from the trees, tiger and serpent both.

Cosmogone

The sun that never was; lost light, lost heat.

Tilt your face up, and taste the scorched-honey warmth of nostalgia; remember what you left behind. Remember: you will need to leave it behind again.

[be_themoon]

mandalorian, din/bo-katan, slow dance middle of a knife fight / you get up and you, you give blood

Anger Is Just Love Left Out (The Mandalorian, Din/Bo-Katan)

[vialethe]

“Spar with me,” she says, a brisk command as though he’s one of hers and not some leftover she sees as other, lesser, apart. “Not over that,” she adds, as his hand drifts over the saber hilt at his belt, “just for fun - or is that one of those things you’re not supposed to have?”

That settles it for him - he’s not supposed to have a kid either, or a darksaber, or a face - and when he gets lucky, gets the better of her and pins her to the floor, he takes the chance to say, “Remind me to tell you about the other things I’m not supposed to have sometime,” before she heaves him off; it’s worth the blood on his lip her headbutt leaves him with.

[be_themoon]

mandalorian, din/bo-katan, someone's going to do something someone else will regret

There’s a Fix for Everything (The Mandalorian, Din/Bo-Katan)

[vialethe]

It’s easier for them both in the dark, she thinks, where his face can stay hidden and she doesn’t have to see herself reflected back in it, where they’re just two bodies sharing heat like twin suns, and nobody’s Mandalorian or not, nobody’s a fighter, nobody’s a traitor or a terrorist or a rebel.

The dark doesn’t smother voices, though, doesn’t stop his when he says, “It should be you - you’d be a good Duchess.”

Doesn’t stop the tide of sick shame those words rip through her, doesn’t stop the bitterness in her voice when she says, “You don’t know anything about me,” doesn’t stop her from gathering up her armor in the blackness, some sixth sense in her understanding his connection to his own even as she hates him; doesn’t stop her from fumbling her way out the door into a slice of blinding light, not looking back once at whatever he’s revealed.

[be_themoon]

locked tomb series, cam/&pal, i believe that the words that he told you are not your grave

[vindoletta]

Arcane (2021 Netflix show), any, “Siblings: your only enemy you can't live without.”

[vindoletta]

Any, any, Grief is just love with no place to go.

Grief is just love with no place to go (The Terror, Bridgens/Peglar).

[theseatheseatheopensea]

You are my loved one, he had said. And it was true--it will always be true. Now, without him, there is nothing left and no place to go--no place but the cold ice, the frozen sea, the sad, empty world out there.

[(Anonymous)]

Stardew Valley, any, it will also somehow give you electric blue glowing piss

[(Anonymous)]

any, any, before the elephants took over.

Inception, Arthur/Ariadne

[kaminagi]

"This is on me," Arthur says apologetically, as he and Ariadne wander around her otherwise perfectly designed night market maze, "I shouldn't have mentioned that anecdote."

At least the projections don't mind, happily distracted by eager merchants selling their wares, vendors with delicious food, and various other bright attractions, though now all centred around one theme.

"I was hoping for a cute giraffe, but I'll accept this," Ariadne says mildly, plucking a soft elephant plush from a booth, as Arthur takes in the elephant-patterned scarves and elephant-shaped pancakes, "but that--" she points to a live elephant meandering through the crowds to Arthur's resignation, "--that's definitely on you."

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, those cats were fast as lightning

Fallen London, Catching Cats

[(Anonymous)]

It’s a simple job, the Spite folk say, a rite of passage and a proof of skill: catch a cat, and they’ll tell you their secrets. You’re not so keen on climbing and leaping, with your leg the brittle way it is, and quiet as you can be, it’s only gotten you just close enough to let their tails tickle your face as they slip through your arms – but it seems to you that anyone as means to be a spy should know more than one way around a problem, and rules are only rules so far as you can’t bend them.

You sit on the sill of a gabled window with a skewer of roast fish, and you stay quiet, and you wait; eventually, wending her wary way past chimney pots and along steel railings, the lean old tabby who rules this rooftop comes to you.

[harmony_lover]

White Collar, Peter/El/Neal, why did it take us so long?

[dariaw]

"Why did this take us so long?" Neal said as he lay there contentedly, between Elizabeth and Peter, all three of them spent.

"Well, mostly because of your career as a thief, then your repeated running away, your faking your death-" Peter listed.

Elizabeth kicked him lightly in the legs, going over Neal's feet, and said, "Honey, that was a rhetorical question."

[harmony_lover]

White Collar, Neal, back from the dead

[harmony_lover]

White Collar, June & Mozzie & Neal, found family

[(Anonymous)]

Leverage/Ocean's 8, any, trading stories

[senmut]

Nine Ball stared at Hardison like he'd grown two more heads or something. "You want me to hit the River, so you and your crew can hit a two-bit hustler company like Acme?"

"I'll even pave the way in, and make it sweet," Hardison told her, and the gleam in her eyes said he had her hooked on the idea.

[(Anonymous)]

Loki the series/Narnia, Sylvia, she's already killed one immortal being, why not more?

My Wounds Are Nicely Salted (Narnia/Loki TS, Sylvie & Jadis (& Loki))

[vialethe]

“You’ve got something that I want, ice witch,” Sylvie says, grin as cutting as the edge of her blade, held at the ready, for all this tall, cold, black haired woman - too much like a Jotun for her comfort, really - seems to care, or even notice.

“Ah, your brother, yes?” the White Witch says, tilting her head, something like a smile on her red, red lips. “I’m afraid he’s been…detained, and you will never see him released without-”

“-My brother’s not here,” Sylvie says, tired of talk, ducking under the witch’s pathetic excuse for a guard, slicing her throat before the woman can speak another word, “and I think I can handle whatever silly little petrification enchantment you’ve put on Loki, thanks.”

[type_wild]

Miraculous Ladybug, Chloé, bee sting

Strike Once And Once Only

[silveradept]

It does her no good to strike someone who does not have the allergy to venom that will ensure they stay out of commission for long enough to ensure their defeat.

If she makes herself attractive again, a honey pot, a flower with irresistible colors, a flame burning brightly in the landscape, he will come to her, moth drawn by instinct without recognizing the trap.

The bee that commits to stinging commits to her own destruction; if she stings, she cannot fail to take him with her.

[ernest]

any, any, I never knew him as this man / just a boy, cap in hand / take me out in borrowed shoes

MDZS, Jin Guangyao

[(Anonymous)]

Sisi doesn't recognize him at first; heavy golden robes made of brocade (like a noble), a gauze cap (like an official), and his eyes glinting with malice (like a criminal), so different from the boy she had once known (plain hand-me-downs, a scruffy hat and scared but curious eyes)

What she does finally recognize is his trademark dimpled smile; once upon a time used as a protection from those who may try to hurt him, but now used to hide something sinister, she suspects.

"A-yao?" She tries and her guess is confirmed when his head jerks in her direction.

When 3SF ends I will post this to my AO3: Sundream