rthstewart: (3sf banner icon)
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

















[personal profile] embraidery 2021-01-31 05:38 am (UTC)(link)
Addams Family (movie), Wednesday, first year of college
kalira: cartoon representation of Kalira (pale skin, long brown hair, fangy smile, with thumb and two fingers raised), wearing a black tank top and cardigan (cartoon Kalira)

College First (Addams Family, Wednesday)

[personal profile] kalira 2021-01-31 08:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Wednesday looked out at the shimmering full moon and sighed; it would be a perfect night to dance, to run wild, to weave a spell of enslavement that would bring any who beheld her to their knees. . . She turned away and settled at the desk in her small dorm, opening her anthropology notes and uncapping her blood-red highlighter.

Her parents' rule wasn't unreasonable, really; there would be plenty of time for that later, as her mother said, after all - and Wednesday intended to not just match, but better Great Aunt Calpernia's incredible feat.

Re: College First (Addams Family, Wednesday)

[personal profile] embraidery 2021-02-01 02:15 pm (UTC)(link)
I love this! the blood-red highlighter, of *course...*
kalira: cartoon representation of Kalira (pale skin, long brown hair, fangy smile, with thumb and two fingers raised), wearing a black tank top and cardigan, on a galaxy in ace flag stripes/colours (Default)

Re: College First (Addams Family, Wednesday)

[personal profile] kalira 2021-02-01 03:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! But of course, nothing else would do~
last_haven: (writer)

[personal profile] last_haven 2021-01-31 08:43 pm (UTC)(link)
No one campus blinks twice at the Addams Girl at first--what's one more goth on in a university of over ten thousand students? And yet, even the grad students holed up in the library, living off energy drinks and cocaine, have to admit there's just something a little off about Wednesday Addams. One of the TAs in the chem lab claims they caught her drinking arsenic out of a test tube, while the geometry professor said she handed in a paper full of non Euclidean equations that made his head hurt unless he looked at it from the corner of his eye.

Still, the fencing instructor weeps tears of joy after each tournament she sweeps through and no one's heard a word from the bigot who kept trying to preach anti-abortion bullshit in the quad after she waltzed up to him last April, so as far as every other student cares Wednesday Addams is a school treasure and honestly if it turns out she's a vampire or something, at least she makes for an interesting cryptid.
last_haven: (Default)

[personal profile] last_haven 2021-02-01 05:35 am (UTC)(link)
Adult!Wednesday the college cryptid is the best and I hope more people decide to write more with her.

[personal profile] embraidery 2021-02-01 02:17 pm (UTC)(link)
ahhhh perfect. arsenic and *non-euclidian math* and fencing!! thank you! :D
last_haven: (Default)

[personal profile] last_haven 2021-02-01 04:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Now I want a whole series of Adult!Wednesday's misadventures, but I really specifically want her to take up fencing because Gomez would be so proud.
silveradept: A kodama with a trombone. The trombone is playing music, even though it is held in a rest position (Default)

[personal profile] silveradept 2021-02-01 08:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Delightful. Especially keeping her sword skills sharp.
last_haven: (Default)

[personal profile] last_haven 2021-02-01 08:25 pm (UTC)(link)
She's living out the dream I had back in college when I realized I could have taken a fencing class if only it hadn't clashed with my schedule graduating year. Also, she has to stay sharp for when she goes home.