2023 Three Sentence Ficathon - Post #1

[3sfmod]

Welcome to the 2023 Three Sentence Ficathon!
As of 16 Jan 2023 this post is NOW CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS! PLEASE POST YOUR NEW PROMPTS HERE, IN POST 2! Do continue to fill prompts here but please put all new prompts in Post 2.



This post will remain open for new prompts until we hit 4000 comments, at which point we'll open a new one to avoid captcha as long as possible. New fills and comments on fills will always be welcome.


How to Prompt

Prompts should be one prompt per comment, formatted in this way: fandom, character(s), prompt word/sentence

Example: Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi, I don't like sand

Prompts may also be open ended, unspecific, or anthropomorphic, such as:

any, any, I don't like sand
or
Earth geography, sand, I don't like humans very much, either

Prompts for relationships are welcome; a / is used for romantic/sexual relationships and an & for platonic. A prompt that uses both means the relationship can be written as either romantic or platonic, such as:

Star Wars, Anakin/&Obi-Wan, I don't like sand

Prompts may be repeated if they are unfilled; there is no obligation to read through every prompt to make sure yours isn't a repeat. This year's 3SF will stay open for new prompts through Sunday, February 12th.

How to Fill

Respond to your chosen prompt with a short fic of three sentences containing the fandom & characters requested!

Prompts can be filled more than once, as many times as someone has a new idea for them.

Notes & Rules

No, fills do not need to be exactly three sentences! It's more of a guideline. Please abuse grammar and punctuation as much as desired.

3SF is a Choose Not to Warn space. Spoiler and content warnings are not required, though writers are free to add them if they please. If you see something you don't like, just scroll until you do!

A Dreamwidth account is not needed to participate. Anonymous prompts/fills are welcome, or you can use Open ID.

Cross-posting is encouraged; there is a 3SF Collection on AO3 if you'd like to post fills there as well.

Note that the comm is searchable! Tick the 'include comments' button when searching to easily find prompts for your chosen fandom/characters.

And most importantly, have fun! If you have questions, check the Sticky Info post and if they're not answered there, head to the Contact the Mods post.

Comments

[chronologicalimplosion]

Any, Any, What do you MEAN you have a tattoo?

Our Flag Means Death, Ed/Stede, just a suggestion

[desertscribe]

Ed had imagined quite a few possible responses Stede might give to the suggestion of Ed being the one to give Stede his first tattoo, including but not limited to, "Oh, darling, I'd love that," and, "Certainly, but I think I need to ravish you first," and, "Yes, but not until we've picked the absolutely perfect design and the perfect place to put it, which might take weeks of careful exploration of every inch of my skin, preferably with your mouth," but as was was so often the case, Stede's actual response didn't match any of the several dozen on Ed's mental list, instead being a distracted but very final sounding, "I'm sorry, dear, but you can't," without even looking up from the book he was reading, which brought Ed up short more quickly than a slap in the face would have.

"Forget I said anything, was a stupid idea anyway," Ed muttered, drawing away, and somehow that was enough to catch Stede's full attention.

"Oh, Ed, I only meant that I already have a first tattoo," Stede said, catching Ed by the hand and twining their fingers together, "but I would be honored if you'd give me my second."

Re: Our Flag Means Death, Ed/Stede, just a suggestion

[chronologicalimplosion]

YESSSSSSSS I'm going absolutely feral. Particularly fond of how much you crammed into that first sentence, all delightful options.

Re: Our Flag Means Death, Ed/Stede, just a suggestion

[kingstoken]

Awe, very sweet!

FF7, Barret & Marlene

[raisedbymoogles]

"Papa, I'm eighteen," Marlene groaned. "I can have a tattoo if I want one! You've got like twelve!"

"Baby, you've been eighteen for a week, give me some time to adjust." Barret collapsed in his armchair, overcome with Excess of Emotion. Yes, his girl was eighteen now, and no, he had nothing against tattoos, but hell, it seemed like only yesterday Marlene was four years old, playing behind the counter of Tifa's bar. Why did time have to fly so fast?

"...okay, lemme see," he asked, and Marlene proudly pulled her sleeve up to show off the new ink on her shoulder: a small, delicately rendered Phoenix, rising out of a nest of the day-lilies Aerith had once grown.

Re: FF7, Barret & Marlene

[dawen]

aww, this is cute!

Re: FF7, Barret & Marlene

[wintersday]

This went from ‘awwww, cute’ to unexpected kick in the heart in .5 seconds. Beautifully done.

Re: FF7, Barret & Marlene

[raisedbymoogles]

i do my best <3

Naruto Founders, Hashirama & Tobirama

[dawen]

Tobirama laid out his supplies with brisk efficiency - ink and needles and charcoal-smeared paper to transfer guiding lines to his skin, a little bowl to mix the ink and another to clean the needles as needed - as Hashirama fluttered around him anxiously.

"Be quiet and let me work," Tobirama chided, transferring his seal to his left forearm with his paper, "I've had much worse injuries than gently stabbing myself a few thousand times, and besides, it's hardly the first time."

"Hardly the first - wait - since when - Tobirama, what are your other tattooes?" Hashirama shrieked.

Re: Naruto Founders, Hashirama & Tobirama

[kalira]

Excellent! Poor shocked Hashi; I wonder when Tobi started. . . But very practical, very Tobi. XP

Re: Naruto Founders, Hashirama & Tobirama

[dawen]

haha, yeah! Tobi's got all sorts of seal tattooes crawling around under his clothes, so he must have started a while ago. Hashirama's gonna be mortified the next time, when Tobi takes his needles to his face. XD

Unknown (Boys Over Flowers; Yi Jung/Woo Bin)

[kalira]

"What do you-" Yi Jung reeled himself back without actually moving, rapidly composing his expression in that way he had that made Woo Bin want to punch his father. "You what? When did you. . ?"

"I didn't think you would particularly care." Woo Bin said, which might have been foolish - ah, the way Yi Jung's face closed off, leaving nothing but poise and distance in his pretty eyes . . . damn and doubled. "Can I show you?" he asked, holding back from reaching for Yi Jung - not just yet, no matter how much he wanted to; not until Yi Jung began to let some of those shielding layers go once more.

[Miraculous Ladybug] archival ink

[alexseanchai]

"Excuse you, I have five tattoos," Marinette says with exaggerated primness, whipping off her blazer to show them off: on one shoulder, a yin-yang in red resin and uninked instead of white and black, and on the other, two mandarin orange halves and a baguette with an orange-sized globe, on which the Black and Adriatic Seas are weirdly tiny next to the proportionately sized Mediterranean and Aegean. She tugs her collar down to show off the third tattoo, the A&W Root Beer logo but in wintergreen and plum blossom pink, framed by buttercups and bluebells, with the W reversed and a heart replacing the ampersand; she has to strip down a little to uncover the fourth one (Marinette explains, rolling down one thigh-high and flipping up her skirt), on which the hiragana guiding pronunciation make clear the 知己 written in black over the polka-dot red tiki torch is not hanzi reading zhījǐ but kanji reading chiki, though the idea of a friend who knows you that deeply comes across in either language, and why are there hiragana for ta, te, and to but not ti or tu, anyway?

"These must all have meant something to me before," Marinette muses, examining the black kitten on her forearm (his bitty claws out to disembowel a ball of yarn as green as his eyes) that prompted this conversation, and across the room, the tall blond cute guy whose attention she's been trying to get for six weeks turns away.

Re: [Miraculous Ladybug] archival ink

[chronologicalimplosion]

God, I need to watch this show. This is evocative, even knowing nothing about the character. Love the specificity/amnesia combo! A mystery!

Doctor Who, Third Doctor & Jo Grant

[ceruleantactician]

“You just didn't seem like the tattoo type,” Jo explained, quickly regretting ever bringing it up.

“I’m not, Jo—it’s a gift from the Time Lords; a little reminder of my exile,” the Doctor explained bitterly.

“Well… I think it looks neat,” Jo said before she could think better of it, and the Doctor looked away, but not quick enough that Jo didn’t catch a small, surprised smile.

[Some context: The actor who plays the Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee had a tattoo that’s visible in a couple of episodes, including almost immediately after his regeneration. Expanded universe material explains this as being a Time Lord “convict tattoo.”]

Re: Doctor Who, Third Doctor & Jo Grant

[chronologicalimplosion]

Aww, this is so sweet! Reclamation!!

Re: Doctor Who, Third Doctor & Jo Grant

[ceruleantactician]

Jo is always one to try to look on the bright side. Thank you!

Re: Doctor Who, Third Doctor & Jo Grant

[lyssie]

This is such a great character moment - capturing all sorts of emotions/layers, from Jo's straightforward compassion and curiosity to his darker feelings (to his surprise that her words do make him feel better, despite everything), along with also her gaucherie (I think that's the word) where she's trying to make it better, and managing to do so from her sheer honesty.

Re: Doctor Who, Third Doctor & Jo Grant

[ceruleantactician]

That's one thing I really love about Jo- her kindness and honesty and how she uses that to push through and make a difficult situation better. Thank you so much for this kind comment!

Flight to You

[ruanchunxian]

“Is that a tattoo?” Gu Nanting asked, reaching out to hold Cheng Xiao in place as he ran a finger over the airplane on the side of her torso.

Cheng Xiao shrugged. “I got it after I got my pilot’s license. It was a little silly bit of rebellion against my mother, to be honest, knowing she'd hate the tattoo probably almost as much as she hated me being a pilot.” She paused, and added, “You didn’t notice it last night?”

“I was a little distracted last night, in case you didn’t notice.”

To this reply, Cheng Xiao only laughed in delight.

Our Flag Means Death, Ed/Stede, Stede's secret tattoo isn't so secret anymore

[desertscribe]

The prompt/idea wouldn't leave me alone, so here are two more fills which in theory can each stand alone but can also be read as parts two and three following my previous fill to this prompt.


"I had to pick somewhere I could reach but no one would ever see, not even tailors, and it was meant to be a compass star, but I bungled it and had to turn it into a flower instead, and even then not a very good one, but in my defense I was eleven," Stede prattled, barely pausing for breath as he shed breeches and drawers to expose the tattoo whose existence Ed had disputed on the grounds that, if Stede had one, then Ed would have already seen it, given how often they had been getting naked with each other lately. "In hindsight, it's pathetic," he concluded with a sigh, gesturing to the little blotch of ink high on his inner thigh, blurred and faded with age, which Ed had indeed seen before but mistook for a birthmark, "but I so desperately wanted to feel at least a little piratical, and a hidden tattoo was all I could get away with back then."

"Don't call it pathetic," Ed said, bending to kiss the tattoo before continuing, "not when you did it all by yourself, in such a sensitive location," kiss, "at age eleven; no, I'd call that pretty badass."


***


"Hey, Izzy," Edward said as he hurried over, his face wearing that look of anticipatory delight which Izzy had started feel wary of years ago and then learned to distrust even more in the time since Stede Bonnet had bumbled his way into their lives, "how old were you when you got your first tattoo?"

Bonnet, who Edward had dragged with him, looked vaguely uneasy, like he'd rather not have whatever this conversation was, so Izzy felt willing to actually answer the question instead of telling them both to fuck off with their distractions and let him get back to work, and after digging back through the decades to remember, said, "Twenty three, maybe twenty four."

Edward nodded, and Izzy didn't know what mental math he was doing but could see the exact moment Edward reached his answer, because the man's smile bloomed into a full grin, and he cackled, dragging Izzy into a hug with his right arm while doing the same to Bonnet with his left and shouting, "Ha, that means Stede's tattoo is years older than any ink either of us have," and the only response Izzy could give to that was, of course, "What the fuck?"

Re: Our Flag Means Death, Ed/Stede, Stede's secret tattoo isn't so secret anymore

[chronologicalimplosion]

There's more?!?! I'm so glad this is what came out of my offhanded prompt, especially considering I had OFMD in mind posting it.

The idea that Ed had already seen it and thought it was a birthmark is *chef's kiss* and I love that Izzy walked right into the nonsense thinking he was winning!

Tiger & Bunny, Ryan/Karina, A Hidden Tattoo

[mad_madam_m]

Ryan sputtered on his drink. "You!? You have a tattoo?"

Karina crossed her arms with a soft hmph. "What? It's not that big of a deal. I got one with my friends when we all turned eighteen."

Ryan raised an eyebrow. "Where is it? I've never seen it, and no offense, Princess, but your hero suit doesn't leave a lot to the imagination."

She flashed him a smile that Ryan would've called coy if it were any other person, and sipped her boba tea. "Clearly it still hides a few things, then, doesn't it?"