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

[paxilam]

any, any, lying on the beach

let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality (Umineko, Beatrice, Spoilers for Episode Three)

[ernest]

“It is definitely dead,” Beatrice said about her own body lying twisted at the bottom of a cliff, and then she started talking immediately about sunlight and shrines, but it is the uninhabited dress that Battler sees when he shuts his eyes. Is this casual disregard for her physical form the reason she takes the death of his family so lightly, or the result, or is there something darker behind both those things?

He wonders, too, how long that ruined piece of nature stayed on the sand before the waves took it or the seagulls picked it apart or someone on the island came across it – maybe in a story she can make it vanish with a wave of the hand, but if she expects him to believe there really was a human girl named Beatrice, there must also be a human explanation for whatever happened next.

[paxilam]

any, any, a christmas valentine

Doctor Who, River/Eleven

[(Anonymous)]

"You don't call, you never write," says River as she wanders out of the corridors and back into the console room.

The continuation of a conversation that the Doctor is distinctly sure he hasn't had yet, makes him frown a bit, and shift one of the dials on the console--a strange blip sounds, followed by a ding (she's always got his back for him, his TARDIS), and he grabs for the laminated card that's popped out, "Will you be my Valentine? Rubbish holiday, I know, but--"

"It's Christmas," she says, while still taking the card and turning it, a half-smile on her lips, "for your present, you're coming with me."

Trips by vortex manipulator are the absolute worst, but seeing the Ponds is an excellent present, could cover multiple centuries, even.

[paxilam]

any, any, we ride alone

Primeval New World - Mac faces fate

[(Anonymous)]

Mac doesn't think about what has to happen, instead, he focuses on the last time he saw Toby's grin, and how alive she was. If Cross never starts down his road, Mac will never meet Cross, and will certainly never meet Toby--and even though he is leaving her behind, she is alive, and if he doesn't leave--well, that's not a chance he's willing to take.

Crossing through the anomaly, he listens; in the distance is the roar from the T-Rex, and Mac smiles a little, as he knows the circle is about to complete, time has a way of catching up with you and he's not fighting it anymore.

[raisedbymoogles]

any, any, shared pain is lessened; shared joy increased

[ravenlilyrose]

They found their balance eventually, the three of them: Rose, the Doctor, and Jack (or Team TARDIS, as Jack and Rose had taken to calling them, much to the Doctor's annoyance). And as they found it, they all discovered things: Rose discovered that the nightmares of Jimmy Stone hurt less when she left her bed and went and sat between Jack and the Doctor on the couch in the library instead of staying alone in her bed; Jack discovered that when he had flashbacks to things he couldn't remember he could go to find Rose or the Doctor and they could cook or work on repairs of play a game and he could talk and they would listen or he could not talk and they would fill the silence and slowly he'd feel human again; and the Doctor discovered that as he told his human companions more about his planet and his people, the remembering hurt less. And they learned other things too: that a laugh brought more joy when others were laughing too, that if you stopped hiding your joy and shared it with your friends, their joy would bring you only more joy, and most of all, that together they were stronger, happier, and hurt less than they ever had when they were alone.

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, sacred dance

Obsidian & Blood, Teomitl

[notapaladin]

There are unexpected complications to becoming Revered Speaker. The new septum piercing, for instance, which itches abominably and hurts when he sneezes. The difficulty in finding any actual privacy for longer than an hour. The part where he’s expected to have concubines, which wouldn’t be so bad except that he has no idea what to say to women who are trying so painfully hard to fawn over him. The sycophancy in general, really. Is it too much to ask for honesty from the people around him?

But at the moment, the worst part is that the Revered Speaker is expected to lead sacred dances at certain festivals. And he...well.

“Again,” says his instructor with a sigh as the musicians begin drumming anew.

He has to learn the steps eventually, right?

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, water mirror

Obsidian & Blood, Teomitl & Chalchiuhtlicue

[notapaladin]

“Look at yourself,” She of the Jade Skirt whispers, and Teomitl can do nothing but obey. He is acutely aware of Her presence behind him as he’s been aware of nothing else in his life, even though all She’s doing is standing over his shoulder as he kneels to peer down into Her crystal-clear waters.

He sees—himself. Just himself. There’s his curved nose, his high cheekbones, his dark eyes. His hair is growing out, thick and dark and still too short to do anything with. He doesn’t look like a warrior or a prince or a future Revered Speaker. He just looks...normal. Ordinary. Mediocre, hisses a voice in the back of his head. Mediocre, even with Jade Skirt’s patronage.

He blinks back an unruly tear, and his eyes are jade from lid to lid.

He tilts his head, and an ahuitzotl sitting across from him mirrors the motion.

Over his shoulder, Chalchiuhtlicue smiles.

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, skyscraper

Sky High and Smiling (Leverage, Parker)

[ultra_fic]

They think she only goes there when she's sad or wants to be alone, but they're wrong.

Parker always loves to be high up in the world, not just for comfort or the rush of power and freedom, but because it is her place in the world, making her feel even more right and in-tune than even her makeshift family can.

With a hundred floors of high-rise underfoot and nothing but the wide open air above, she is anything she wants to be and everything she ever dreamed of being, sky high and smiling, always smiling.

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, crystal

A Land Serene (Labyrinth, Sarah/Jareth)

[ultra_fic]

She finds it in a thrift store, totally by accident, not even looking for anything special, but the second it catches her eye, she can't look away, has to reach out a hand, let her fingertips touch the cool glassy surface of the perfect crystal orb.

It's just an ornament, nothing more, nothing less, and yet, the second her hand makes contact, Sarah knows that's not true, not even close.

A crackle like electricity, like... pure magic, and within the crystal she sees those beautiful mismatched eyes and that smile, the face that haunts her dreams in the best way, and she knows the sign she's been waiting for has finally come - time to go home to the Underground.

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, celestial globe

King Lear, Edmund and Gloucester

[ernest]

Edmund has watched his father try to plot the past and futures of everyone around him like points on a map his whole life; and he’s finally sick of it. It’s even worse than a map; even the four-dimensional chess of drawing connections over the surface of a globe, like Edmund would do if he believed in fate and other nonsense, would imply some degree of agency. No, the Duke of Gloucester uses an orrery to claim that the stars control their character and the most anyone can do is trace the path that’s already been set out for them, so Edmund counters by tracing one of his own.

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, cabinet of wonders

Cabinet of wonders (The Terror, Goodsir).

[theseatheseatheopensea]

The world is unexpected, wide and awe-inspiring, he thinks--not unlike a cabinet of wonders. And even if it's cold out here, even if it's bleak and hopeless, even if it hurts... there is still so much beauty to cherish, to treasure--to look at with the eyes of a child. He would like to describe it, to write it all down--but even if the cold gets to him, even if words fail him, it will be all right: he will cradle it in his heart, like a keepsake, like a memory, and, perhaps, a bit like a dream.

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, earth, metal, water, wood, fire

Avatar: the Legend of Korra, Korra, the Expanding Power of the Avatar

[silveradept]

Earthbending was splintering into so many specializations: metal, lava, wood, gems, sand, and many more things. She'd thought that water and fire would have stayed more static, but it looked like the tribes and the Fire Nation were both innovating as many new ways of working with their element as they could. Even though she'd brought peace, it felt like everyone was only waiting for another excuse to start fighting each other again.

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, plum blossoms and cherry blossoms

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, unexpected betrayal

Obsidian & Blood, Tizoc & Quenami

[notapaladin]

Quenami was supposed to be the loyal one. Tizoc had appointed him, after all, and he knew where his power ultimately derived from. He would never do anything to jeopardize that, and that was why Tizoc could trust him. Quenami had helped him to the throne. Had brought him back to life (oh, the other High Priests had helped, but they would have gotten nowhere without Quenami and everyone knew it.) He was very possibly the closest thing the Emperor could have to a friend.

And so Tizoc was smiling as he accepted the bowl of spiced chocolate and raised it to his lips. It had been a dreadfully long time since he hadn’t had to fear poison.

“What do you think, my lord?” Quenami’s voice was soft and smooth as always, a balm to his soul.

He took a deep draft. “Wonderful.” It was wonderful, rich with vanilla and honey and chile. There was an odd spice he couldn’t place, though, so he opened his mouth to ask Quenami what it was—

And then he blinked, spots swimming in his vision. The room seemed to spin before his eyes. The guards, he thought frantically, fetch my guards—but he couldn’t say it, because his tongue was too thick and heavy in his mouth. The cup slid from his useless fingers to smash upon the floor.

“Yes,” murmured Quenami, “it is.”

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, I don't feel like celebrating my unbirthday today

[smallhobbit]

I don't feel like celebrating my unbirthday today.
Maybe tomorrow, or maybe next week
Or any day really, which doesn't seem quite so bleak
For the sun is not shining and the skies are so gray.
No, I don't feel like celebrating my unbirthday today.

[paxilam]

any, any, browsing in a bookshop

Food for the Heart and Mind (Catherine/Henry Tilney, Northanger Abbey)

[woodmr]

“Is there anything in particular you would like?”

“Oh, to look at all will be wonderful!”

It was perhaps not the usual place for a newly married couple to spend an afternoon, but for all their inelegance the Tilneys were hardly common readers.

[paxilam]

any, any, heading to a place and finding it closed

[paxilam]

any, any, a big bowl

[(Anonymous)]

any, any, corporate identity theft

Holding the Bag (Linda Dale and Gary Preston aka The Flame, Fox Features comics)

[woodmr]

“Someone’s ruining my good name, building these shoddy houses that fall apart at the first wind and claiming my firm’s responsible,” Mr. McClinney explained to the private detective, barely able to stay calm enough to finish.

“I admit growing up abroad means I’m often behind the times,” Gary said to Linda after their new client left, but she shook her head with as much puzzlement.

“It’s the first I’ve ever heard of companies playing at Halloween too.”

[(Anonymous)]

any, any, divine identity theft

[primeideal]

(Divine Cities)

"And so then," Mulaghesh rages--the thing that had once been Mulaghesh, anyway; Shara finds it useful to address this entity as her old friend--"these ghosts tell me that if Voortya's dead, and I'm here, they're going to address me as Voortya and follow me into battle and try to shore up their damned afterlife while they're at it! Now tell me, what am I supposed to do about that?"

Shara had more questions than answers, but she decided her favored earthly approach could hardly hurt the situation when gods were involved. "Cup of tea?"

[(Anonymous)]

Any, any, you're a fighter, not a lover

[(Anonymous)]

Rogue One/Solo, Jyn Erso & Enfys Nest, after Saw abandons her, Jyn becomes a Cloud Rider

[ravenlilyrose]

Doctor Who, any, crossing timestreams

Dr Who, Twelve

[sallymn]

"Who was that, Doctor?"

He stared at Bill for a long minute, thinking how to explain: how of all the people, human and nonhuman in all the worlds and all the times who'd set foot in this big (but bigger on the inside, yes) box of his, who'd been there when he needed someone and sometimes when he hadn't wanted them, who'd made the lonely life of a travelling however-many (who even knew any more?) years old Time Lord bearable, whose names and faces he sometimes mixed up but never forgot... this one was special, was going to be special, if in several of his past lives which were also yet to be.

And how just seeing, waving at, getting a small, stiff, and even at this age so very very British smile from little toddler Alistair Gordon was also so very, very, timelessly special.

[ravenlilyrose]

Doctor Who, any, unconventional solution

[ravenlilyrose]

Doctor Who, any, the simplest solution

Eleven and Amy, "...is sometimes violence."

[silveradept]

The Doctor stared, mouth agape, as Amy stalked back toward the TARDIS, knuckles still red from the punch she'd thrown to defuse the situation.

"You were taking too long figuring out he wasn't going to do it," she said by way of explanation.

"No, no, no, that's not, that's not, that's not my style," the Doctor said quietly to Amy's retreating form, having a small "I'm supposed to be clever and strange and talk my way out of this."

[ravenlilyrose]

Doctor Who, Rose Tyler, unionizing aliens