Benthan Bingo

How To Play

Complete three prompt squares in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line, and you win the challenge! There are eight possible combinations. 

What is a complete prompt?

✦ A complete prompt is either 500 or more words or at least one drawing, gif set, video, etc. of whatever your chosen media is. 

✦ The content can be Gen or Slash and feature other characters, but our favorite spy duo, Benji and Ethan, must be the main characters in order to fulfill a prompt on this Bingo Card. 

✦ And of course, the prompt must be featured in the story.

Are there any other rules?

✦ No AI is allowed in this challenge. Otherwise it's not a challenge, you know? (Anyone caught using AI will be outed and blocked.)

✦ Your entry must be newly created for this bingo card, not retroactively tagged or added on to a pre-existing fic or multi-chapter fic already in progress.

✦ Let’s keep it easy to count. Only one prompt per post please! 

✧ You can write a multi-chapter story, and each chapter can have a different prompt, but you can’t combine multiple prompts within one chapter. You can split one prompt into multiple chapters though.

✦ Please use the NUMBER of the prompt somewhere in your post/writing/media so it’s easy to keep track. 

How do I win?

✦ You can post as you go, but in order to officially win, you have to tag this blog in a post with links to ALL THREE complete prompts declaring BINGO! Make sure to use the hashtag #BenthanBingo2026

✦ If you don’t have a Tumblr, you can send an ask with your AO3 handle and a list of your three completed works. 

✦ A winner will get bragging rights, a sense of accomplishment, and a digital Benthan Bingo Winner Badge for those who complete Bingo.

✦ The winners will be tagged (or called out if you don’t have a Tumblr) in post with the corresponding badges! 

✦ It’s going to be the honor system, y’all. Winners and badges will be posted a week after the deadline and you can take, use, display as you wish. 

How do I interpret these prompts?

✦ There is one prompt per square, and each prompt is one line of dialogue that any character can say; it does not matter who. It can be over heard by the characters; it does not have to be said directly by them. The line just needs to be IN the story/art somewhere. 

✦ You can interpret the prompt any way you want to.

What the heck is a Wild Card?

✦ “Wild Card” means you can choose any prompt from the bingo card or the wild card list that you want to fill in that square. Each row has one wild card, except one row which has three, so you can be guaranteed to have at least one prompt of your choosing. You must choose a prompt from the card or the wild card list to use in your wild card space! 

When do I post?

✦ You can post whenever you have completed each prompt! Feel free to tag this blog and use the hashtag #BenthanBingo2026

Is there a deadline?

✦ It can be helpful to have a date to work towards, but you can complete at your own pace, too! If you complete the challenge by the deadline, you will get a digital badge and a shout out on this blog.

✦ Completion Deadline to earn a badge is Sunday, June 28th 2026 at 11:59pm in whatever time zone you are in. That gives us about 8 weeks to get BINGO! You can still work on the bingo card at your own pace. 

✦ Mods will do our best to reblog works before the deadline, but after the deadline we cannot promise to reblog everything. (But we'll try!)

Hey, you didn’t reblog my stuff!

✦ Ah, our bad! It’s a total mistake if mods don’t reblog your work within 3 days of posting. Make sure you tag this blog and use the tag #BenthanBingo2026

✦ If we still miss it, just send us a message! We’re happy to support your work. 

Questions? 

Prompt: The World for @benthanbingo

Ethan saves the world again and again. He sacrifices, and would give his life for the world. But Ethan would forsake the world and everyone in it for Benji, would turn his focus from the greater good towards the one, if it meant that one would live.

And Benji, realizing this, finally understanding how Ethan feels about him, forsakes himself to save the world, does not give reason for Ethan’s gaze to stray.

The world saves Benji, granting knowledge and friendship when he needs it, giving him back to Ethan.

I. The Magician - Ethan

First of all, I want to put @rebeccasteventaylor's this post here because it was what inspired me in the first place.

Ethan Hunt, at his core, is a magician. The Magician is such a perfect match both speaking of the character and the meaning of the card.

From the sleight of hand artist that he is:

To the strategy he uses: misdirection, improvisation, unpredictability, plus (sometimes a bit overly) dramatic acting

And speaking of the meaning of the card: willpower, resourcefulness, skill, manifestation; isn't that literally Mr. Living Manifestation of Destiny himself

When designing this card I tried to keep some of the key elements from tarot, such as the infinity symbol on top, one hand pointing up and the other down. I quite enjoy putting all the sleight-of-hand trick things in it.

0. The Fool - Benji

I was kind of hesitant to do Benji as The Fool because I was worried that it could be easily linked to him being a comic relief, and he is far beyond that. But then again I don't think there's anything that could fit him better:

From the number 0 of infinite potential:

To the meaning of new adventures, the beginning of a new journey - passing the field exam and venturing into the new life of a field agent:

And yes, comic relief or not, I love him being silly

Speaking of the design, there are fewer things I can keep from the original elements of tarot, as I was going for a more jester-esque interpretation. I kept the staff; sadly the dog has to go. Instead of the white rose which doesn't have much association, I did a MASK. I don't think I need to explain the reason behind this.