rthstewart | Three Sentence Ficathon 2022 Part 2

Entry tags:

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022 Part 2

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.

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!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, I'm sure the happy ending orphanage farm was never going to change, regardless of how popular the Darkling or Nikolai were (or how unpopular Mal might have been). There's no amount of fix it enough for that, really.

ha, by the time edgar meets up with any of them he's fully embraced the persona of poor tom, and by the nature of his disguise he invites more projections than an IMAX theater, so of course laertes assumes he must have lost his entire family to tragedy and decides to adopt him as an honorary brother, claudius is instantly reminded of hamlet and afraid that laertes will get hurt, and no one knows his real name until edmund shows up to ruin things (and make out with hamlet)

also,

little_lady_d is my partner in crime for all of these hamlet and lear headcanons; she is very dear to me and very good at drawing out tiny little details to make everything sadder and more loving, depending on our mood

They're both excellent at learning from Gen, and taking his lessons to heart. I always liked their small moments of friendship in the books, and how Eddis clearly knew Attolia very well, even better than Gen did in some respects.

It is one of my very favorite images! He is very, very good at lying without actually lying, yes - makes him both hard to trust and hard to hate. For me, anyhow!

"Remember when I threw you into this street corner? I'm still sorry I had to do that" Loki remarked, as they passed said street corner on their walk through Manhattan.

"Thanks dear. I had back-pain for several days" Tony remarked sourly but then couldn't help but grin, when they passed by a bakery. "If I remember it correctly you received quite the beating from me here."

"You forget the most important memory connected to this place: this is the very same bakery where I brought these awful donuts." Loki lightly laughed, when he remembered Tony's face since had picked some of the fancy flavors that were trending at this point.

"I try to forget this ever happened. That was probably the worst you've done to me."

thanks!

any, any, hair braiding

"You're the one who wanted to trek through Winter," I said, maybe a little mulishly, "of course it's freezing. Come here," I added, beckoning, palming the little spell I'd had Bob help me whip up before this trip in the other hand, "I'm not going to break our bargain by letting you freeze."

"You must be joking," Marcone said, "if I had to choose freezing might be a more comfortable way to go. I have seen the kind of damage-"

"I'm not going to use fire," I told him, a little offended; yes, I can channel fire easily - and destructively - but honestly, "just come here."

Marcone huffed a little, even as he picked his way back towards me, and I tried not to see the prowling steps of a tiger in his graceful movements. Marcone allowed himself to settle back almost in my lap, and I wrapped my arms around him - needs must - and muttered to the little egg-shaped stone, which glimmered and began to radiate the heat and warmth of the summer sun, gathered and concentrated; I grinned, a little - okay maybe a lot - smugly, as Marcone sighed a little and began to relax, shivers easing.

k'Relik pulled the thread slowly, careful not to catch their longnails in the sturdy linen fabric. Several more stitches and then they were done. The sound of shuffling feet along the metal floor alerted them that they were no longer alone.

"Is that for Bob?"

Sheila always called the babe in her birth pouch ("it's a womb, k'Rel.") Bob, even though all of the crew were pretty sure that Bob was going to be a girl. "Family tradition," she claimed. "Every babe is Bob until they tell us otherwise." Sheila looked at the soft, stuffed figure cradled gently in k'Relik's palm then back at her crew mate. k'Relik placed the slightly lopsided toy into her outstretched hand.

The ridged plates on k'Relik's neck flattened as they watched Sheila turn the toy this way and that. Her bright smile assured them that they had done well. "Bob's gonna love this," Sheila said happily. "Thanks." She leaned over and brushed her lips against k'Relik's scaled cheek before she tucked the toy in the cargo pocket of her overalls and sauntered away.

k'Relik gathered their things and headed towards their quarters. Once inside, they sat on the bunk then grabbed the worn out stuffed figure on their own bed. A few loose seams had k'Relik fishing in their sewing kit for needle and thread once more. "A few small repairs, friend," they crooned at their stuffed companion. "I must stay in practice for Bob."

The cake was a mouthwatering masterpiece from the castle kitchen. It looked too perfect to eat it, the lemon smell was intense and didn't made it easy to resist the sweet treat.

The two girls looked at the lemon cake and from one to each other. "No one loves lemon cake like I do" stated Sansa, while she reached for the plate. "I just had an exhausting training session and you've just sat on your butt knitting or whatever it is that you do." With a swift movement she grabbed the plate.

That went on for a while until Arya rolled with her eyes and muttered "Fine. We can share." when she saw that Sansa's face get red with anger. "But only if I get the bigger part of it. Remember I had the more exhausting afternoon" Arya added with a grin. Sansa was about to complain but she didn't wanted to wait any longer to taste the cake in front of them.

It was even more delicious than the Stark sisters had imaged. "Next time I'll get the bigger part. No discussion, Arya."

(a slightly different gertrude from the one i've been writing, one whose husband was not an abusive dick)

Gertrude is a queen of Denmark, meaning she is Denmark, meaning she has never been herself alone. Every moment of her life is preserved on screen or in print, but by now she is used to a mediated existence, and she says the correct words to keep the critics at bay with a practiced smile she doesn’t even need to think about anymore, and even enjoys her role, most of the time.

Still it’s hard, watching the royal funeral rebroadcast, and she winces to see how she would have stumbled without her son there to guide her away from a dead king’s coffin, until Claudius finally says, “I think it’s time to turn that off,” and she knows he’s right.

Beautiful. She deserves a dragon.

If she loved Agamemnon less, she could simply leave him – not that there’s anything simple about it, it’s still a daunting thought. But to live knowing that somewhere out there a man is still living whom she still loves, and trying to reconcile that with a small grave is a future that doesn’t bear thinking about, so her mind and hand are steady.

She loves him, so it has to hurt; that is what tragedy demands – in the end, it’s not vengeance, but balance.

It is the smaller things that make life worth living, Aravis Tisroc thinks, sitting at a conference table in a city neither of the desert nor the mountains, bored out of her mind by droning Tarkaans and fractious Lords; small things like watching the golden King across from her, catching his eye just to make him blush; small things like dear, loyal Ishamiel beside her, and the way his fingers brush hers as if by the most chance accident as he passes her a note.

Small things like said note, with its contents quickening her heartbeat, so that she can hardly keep her voice steady through the final formalities, so that she takes the chance of grabbing Ishamiel’s hand under the cover of voluminous robes as they flee the room, her step light as a girl’s, as a dancer’s.

“What’s gotten you two looking like the cat among the pigeons, as it were?” Cor murmurs, from just behind them, for of course he’d noticed, and of course he’d followed; Aravis merely passes him the note, saying, “Khalid is on his way,” and waits for the long, slow smile to spread across his face before she adds, “and most eager for his bed, he says, so we mustn’t disappoint him.”

His face remains blank - Ishamiel has always made himself difficult to read, much more so than the flamboyant Tarkaans who populate her court - but Aravis knows him too well now for dissembling, knows the barest twitch of his mouth, the slightest widening of his eyes, and knows her proposal has shocked him, even as she reminds him, “Is her steward not meant to aid the Tisroc in all she might require?”

“I could not possibly dream-” he begins, though she can’t help cutting in, the murmured, “Oh, couldn’t you?” escaping her before she can think better of it, though she likes the effect it has on him, the flash of his eyes, the pause before he resumes, in a rush, “-you know very well I have, O Tisroc, but that does not mean I am suitable to father your heir.”

She approaches as close as she dares before she speaks again, and though he closes his eyes against her, he does not tremble at her touch, nor her words as she whispers, “Call me by my name, if we are to do this thing,” waits for his response, Aravis falling like a prayer from his mouth.

For sure nobody else had a steward like Ishamiel before! So reliable, so good, so perfect. What a dreamboat.

Khalid has more raw sex appeal, but they're both pretty damn hot. They are brothers, after all - I imagine they look very much alike.

LOL, I love Ishamiel's bafflement with where Corin's drunk meandering could possibly be going. I'm not so sure about his conclusion, though - Ishamiel supported Aravis's claim, and Corin boxed a bear, need we say more? The lack of madness is very debatable here.

“I could have you executed for that,” she says, narrowing her eyes at the man across from her, who seems, as ever, to be taking it in his stride, even as she continues, “I should have you executed for that.”

“You might,” he says, shocking her by leaving his seat, not to loom over her as she’d expect from him, but dropping instead to his knees with the grace of a warrior, “but then who, O Tisroc, would relieve that tension I spoke of, which is so clearly evident in your mood, and-” here he dares touch her, one hand resting above her knee, the weight and heat and intent in it making her head swim, “-dare I say, your body as well.”

“Be that as it may,” she says, grasping for some vestiges of authority and, she suspects, failing, “offering to tend to my oasis, as you put it, is hardly a respectful way to go about seduction,” but she does not remove his hands, and the low rumble of his laughter against her skin is her reward.

“You knew what he was,” Aravis says, trying to block that selfsame knowledge from her mind, “and you did nothing.”

Khalid watches her with heavy-lidded eyes, dark and unfathomable in the dim lamplight, low as his voice, and says, “I knew he was cruel - who better to know that than a younger brother, I ask - and I knew he was rapacious, and a fool, a man without the wit to know who and what to fear, and would bring about his own downfall before I could have the pleasure.”

“And while I will not apologize for that, for letting that fire forge you,” he continues, sliding one hand into the dark tumble of her hair, bringing their foreheads to rest together, “I will say that this I know now as well - he did not appreciate the wealth he possessed,” and though he does not say to her, I am not my brother, she hears it nonetheless, spoken in every piece of fealty his hands pay out to her in love.

The days are getting longer: a prince kills his brother to take his crown, his wife, and his ambition, so things are looking up for him.

He gets one glorious summer, marred only by the stifling madness of his nephew-son, which seeps into more and more aspects of the castle, and he realizes too late that he should have been paying attention.

The days are getting shorter: everyone’s life is forfeit and it is clear that there is no way out, so when at last he is handed a chalice and the swipe of a sword, he shrugs and, following his queen, succumbs to the darkness.

“Look at this one,” Post 173768 cries, poking her indolent sister, “they’re making AUs of AUs now, it’s absolutely ridiculous!”

“They’ve always done that, and I don’t care,” Post 172142 (the elder by five whole days) says, rolling over on her couch, burying her head amongst the pillows, “leave me alone, I’m stuffed already.”

“This one is about you, though,” Post-the-younger says, and that’s interesting enough to elicit an, “Oooh, really?” and one open eye, at least.

Phillip is very clever, I knew there was a reason I liked him!

Yesssss, Eleanor my love! She certainly showed them, and absolutely got her money's worth there.

Thank you very much. I'm glad you liked it.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 68 of 187

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022 Part 2

no subject

no subject

Re: Your Slaps Don’t Stick (Queen's Thief, Eddis & Attolia(/Gen))

Re: All the Stars We Steal (S&B, Darklina)

MCU - Loki and Tony Stark - A different kind of waking through the city

Re: Naruto Founders; Hashirama

no subject

Summer in Winter (Dresden Files (books); Harry, Marcone)

Original - Stitch Diplomacy - k'Relik and Sheila

no subject

no subject

Re: Shireen gets a dragon (asoiaf)

no subject

By the Rubies in Your Voice (Narnia T&K!Verse, Aravis/Ishamiel/Cor/Khalid)

Sang Our Newborn Love to Sleep (Narnia T&K!Verse, Aravis/Ishamiel)

Re: Aravis/Ishamiel

Re: Aravis/Ishamiel

Re: corin's liver was probably healed at some point in his youth by lucy's cordial

Put Down the Knife (Narnia T&K!Verse, Aravis/Khalid)

Let Me Try Once More (Narnia T&K!Verse, Aravis/Khalid)

Hamlet, Claudius, major character death

You Have Suffered Enough (3SF Meta, Ruth's Journal)

no subject

no subject

no subject