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rthstewart ([personal profile] rthstewart) wrote2021-01-30 02:31 pm

Three Sentence Ficathon 2021

We have now opened a new post, for new prompts! Please leave all new prompts there. You may continue to fill existing prompts here. If you didn't get a prompt filled here, feel free to post it on the new post!





Welcome to the Three Sentence Ficathon!
2 Feb. 2021 See important edit below regarding where to find unfilled prompts.


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 a bit by mid-February.
  • 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.


How long will it go?

The 3SF closes to new prompts on February 28, 2021. The entry stays open permanently and people post fills all year long.

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. 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 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 in subject lines 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 [personal profile] 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.
Conuly does this just because they are an awesome person but should you want to write them fic in thanks, you can find a birthday wish list here.

Here is the 3SF 2021 Friending Meme to show of your new DW account.

Here, have some icons and banners and let me know if you've created your own!

 






text box you can try to cut and paste

















autumnia: Afternoon Tea at the St. Regis (Afternoon Tea)

Re: Agent Carter, Peggy & Jack, Time After Time

[personal profile] autumnia 2021-02-02 09:14 pm (UTC)(link)
This makes me wish the show came back! LOL, I do feel sorry for Jack just a wee bit here.
conuly: (Default)

[personal profile] conuly 2021-02-02 09:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I would like to see that for Eloise!
conuly: (Default)

[personal profile] conuly 2021-02-02 09:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Is this "Trails of Cold Steel", subcategory "Trails in the Sky"?
paxilam: (Default)

[personal profile] paxilam 2021-02-02 09:19 pm (UTC)(link)
ww1984, diana/barbara, barbara is preparing something for valentine's day
conuly: (Default)

[personal profile] conuly 2021-02-02 09:20 pm (UTC)(link)
That's World of Warcraft, right?

(Anonymous) 2021-02-02 09:20 pm (UTC)(link)
any, any, Paleovirology

(Anonymous) 2021-02-02 09:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Harry Potter, Draco in the muggle world, LGBTQ+

(Between the time period the books are set, the generally backwards attitude of the Wizarding World, and the seriously backwards attitudes of JKR, I assume Draco would have little to no knowledge of anything other than that super straight life, and what he does know would be wrong. He doesn't have to be LGBTQ+ for this, just learning.)
smallhobbit: (Default)

[personal profile] smallhobbit 2021-02-02 09:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you very much.
silveradept: A kodama with a trombone. The trombone is playing music, even though it is held in a rest position (Default)

The Only Plan That Matters

[personal profile] silveradept 2021-02-02 09:30 pm (UTC)(link)
It takes all of Hobbes' will not to bite the next person that asks if Calvin has any plans for what to do with his life. There's always been a plan, genius in its simplicity if you ask him: Get the hell out of this podunk town as fast as legally possible. Everything after that is negotiable.
Edited 2021-02-02 21:31 (UTC)
wingedflight: (Default)

in which i choose to misinterpret for the sake of a good pun

[personal profile] wingedflight 2021-02-02 09:37 pm (UTC)(link)
As Aang grows old, he begins to travel on his own more often: usually vanishing without warning for days or weeks at a time before showing up for breakfast as if he'd never been gone at all. Katara long ago stopped calling him on it; she knows how he still yearns for the freedom of their youth, and she knows that however far he travels, he won't be gone forever.

See, that's the thing about Boomer Aang: he always comes back.
wingedflight: (Default)

[personal profile] wingedflight 2021-02-02 09:40 pm (UTC)(link)
WW84, Steve, AU in which he isn't possessing some other person's body when he shows up
wingedflight: (Default)

[personal profile] wingedflight 2021-02-02 09:45 pm (UTC)(link)
"You know that I will enjoy tomorrow no matter what you do," says Diana pointedly after the third time she watches Barbara carry the phone all the way into the bathroom in one afternoon. "It will be enough to celebrate Valentine's Day with you."

The bathroom door cracks open so Barbara can lock eyes with her before she very deliberately says into the phone receiver, "Why not add on a second bouquet, while you're at it?"
laughingpineapple: (Tariq)

Re: Final Fantasy VI, Terra and everyone else

[personal profile] laughingpineapple 2021-02-02 09:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Yesssss it is true and this is so sweet! All that life on the airship, watched with so much love!
silveradept: A kodama with a trombone. The trombone is playing music, even though it is held in a rest position (Default)

Re: His Greatest Game?

[personal profile] silveradept 2021-02-02 09:46 pm (UTC)(link)
I see it as each of the challenges requiring someone with the correct skills to be able to pass, so they need to know how not to panic under stress, how to solve logic problems, to be able to put themselves in vulnerable positions if it will help others, and to be curious about something for curiosity's sake.

Someone who knows the philosopher's stone is at the end of the challenges is unlikely to meet the last criterion, and usually, no single person could manage all the rest of them themselves. So long as a group of curious children didn't try to solve them together, things would be very well protected.

Fill: The Untamed/MDZS, Lan Xichen, Jin Guangyao (cw: character death)

[personal profile] runespoor 2021-02-02 09:50 pm (UTC)(link)
"Er-ge," Jin Guangyao smiles, and makes to bow.

Lan Xichen stops him, as he always did, gently touching the bird-like wrists of his sworn brother - a scene many times repeated, yet something strikes Lan Xichen as strange - cutting through the hazy familiarity of the dream. The shape of Jin Guangyao's smile, maybe, or the unnatural angle of his neck, or the blood streaking down his brow.

(Anonymous) 2021-02-02 09:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Any, any, I'd give you anything but you want pain

(Anonymous) 2021-02-02 10:03 pm (UTC)(link)
The Giver, Jonas' parents, guilt and nightmares

(Anonymous) 2021-02-02 10:04 pm (UTC)(link)
The Giver, Fiona, growing old
conuly: (Default)

[personal profile] conuly 2021-02-02 10:11 pm (UTC)(link)
I put this under "Wizard of Oz". If that's not right, let me know.
silveradept: A kodama with a trombone. The trombone is playing music, even though it is held in a rest position (Default)

In Other Lands, Elliot and Luke

[personal profile] silveradept 2021-02-02 10:16 pm (UTC)(link)
"Not to put too fine a point on it, Elliot, but you've been wrong about the unicorn, the mermaids, Serene's long-term interest in you, whether you can run a four minute mile, Trollish declensions, Bright-Eyes' patience, what lengths both my and Serene's families will go to, and what kinds of things can actually survive here," Luke said, displaying a surprisingly good memory for someone who thought of Trigon as a worthwhile pastime.

"That's because I keep expecting this world to behave as a deconstruction of a Tolkeinesque Western European fantasy land, and there's just enough playing it straight to annoy me," Elliot retorted. At Luke's blank look, Elliot threw up his hands and stomped off to about Commander Woodsinger.

(Anonymous) 2021-02-02 10:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Any, any, regretting not saying something
metogator: (Default)

[personal profile] metogator 2021-02-02 10:34 pm (UTC)(link)
STUNNING, I love it, can we get a whole Willy Wonka x-over now?

Fill: The Untamed/MDZS, Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian (or WWX/JC, i needed subtext & self-indulgence)

[personal profile] runespoor 2021-02-02 10:36 pm (UTC)(link)
All of Jiang Cheng's hurts bear Wei Wuxian's name. Wei Wuxian owns the sobs of a child who had his puppies taken away, and the bone-deep ache of a teen found lacking next the brightness of his genius shixiong, and the ghastly emptiness where his core used to be, and a decade and a half of a hole full with the tears Jiang Cheng can’t shed; from willingly throwing himself between Wei Wuxian and his mother's raised whip, to willingly throwing himself between the Wens and Wei Wuxian, to trying to stand between Wei Wuxian and the malicious clamor of jealous sects - and failing (all of Jiang Cheng’s hurts come from Wei Wuxian, but Jiang Cheng’s failures are only his own).

When Wei Wuxian returns - when Wei Wuxian cuts ties between them again and sets himself free - Jiang Cheng’s heart throbs like a beloved bruise.
schoolsasaint: (Default)

[personal profile] schoolsasaint 2021-02-02 10:36 pm (UTC)(link)
The Old Guard, Nile&TOG, tongue-twisters in other languages
metogator: (Default)

Re: Just Don't Say a Word

[personal profile] metogator 2021-02-02 10:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Your fills are always one of my most favorite parts of the 3SF - this is so gorgeous, so bittersweet and poetic and beautiful!