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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

















(Anonymous) 2021-02-01 04:13 am (UTC)(link)
Any, any, grieving for the living
acequeenking: (Demeter)

[Hades] Blizzard

[personal profile] acequeenking 2021-02-01 04:31 am (UTC)(link)
Demeter knows her daughter is alive; it is not so easy to kill a god and no mortal below nor god above has the stomach left for it, and besides: she would know, would feel it were they to severe her foolish heart from her frail lungs.

But absence, if not as permanent as death, is equally silent.

Demeter gazes her eye upon a flower and watches it ice-over with her sadness, and moves on, looking again for a daughter who does not answer, in a blizzard that does not cease.
last_haven: (Default)

Re: [Hades] Blizzard

[personal profile] last_haven 2021-02-01 06:09 am (UTC)(link)
Ack, poor Demeter. Those years must have been such hell and you've captured it so well here. Well done!
vialethe: (Ophelia)

Re: [Hades] Blizzard

[personal profile] vialethe 2021-02-01 08:25 am (UTC)(link)
That's such a good interpretation for the prompt! I love the hint that Demeter is at least a little bit angry with Persephone, as well as Hades.
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: [Hades] Blizzard

[personal profile] kalira 2021-02-02 02:20 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, this is beautifully layered and quietly fierce. 🖤
sheenianni: (Default)

Wren (Girls of Paper and Fire, book 2 spoilers) (Sentence abuse here we come)

[personal profile] sheenianni 2021-02-01 09:36 pm (UTC)(link)
She's been trained for this from birth, and so she pushes the feelings into some abandoned corner of her soul (Bo, Hiro, Eolah, Zelle, Aoki's family, mother) - she goes on and does what's necessary, because they're the weak side, the losing side, and Wren doesn't need her father to tell her they how much they cannot afford to lose the war.

Lei is different, though, and Wren admires that about her - Lei's inner strength, her bravery, her genuine kindness, her incredible pure heart no matter what new cruelty and tragedy the world tosses at them.

- "You're just as bad as them", Lei screams at her - and Wren sees the tears, the haunted horror in her lover's eyes, and then she finally shatters; she grieves for losing Lei's love, she trembles as the doubts she suppressed plague her mind, she cries because nothing she does will ever give Lei back her peace again.
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)

Losing a Brother or Gaining a Family? (Naruto; Hashirama/Mito, Madara/Tobirama)

[personal profile] kalira 2021-02-02 02:25 am (UTC)(link)
"Are you quite finished, anata?" Mito asked, only to be answered by another flood of sobs.

"My precious otouto!" Hashirama wailed, and Mito pinched the bridge of her nose - her ears rang a little as Hashirama grew ever louder in his excessive emoting. "I've lost him! My otouto!"

"Is getting married," Mito said pointedly, clasping her husband's shoulder, "I suspect the only way you shall lose him is if you continue to act as if he is dying, rather than quite reasonably only departing to live with his husband."
tellshannon815: (nate heywood)

Legends of Tomorrow, Zari/Nate

[personal profile] tellshannon815 2021-02-03 01:34 am (UTC)(link)
Grieving for the original Zari, his Zari, feels somehow wrong to Nate when there's a version of Zari on board the ship with them, even if the Cat Chat influencer Zari created in the new timeline isn't the Zari he had grown to fall in love with. Plus the Zari he loved isn't technically dead, merely returned to the totem in order to save Behrad from dying again. She still exists, but he can never see her again, and in another way, grieving her feels right.
ernest: (lemony snicket)

Fill: Pathologic

[personal profile] ernest 2021-02-07 10:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Grace, ear pressed to the ground, hears the dead weep for the living: oh, their foolish bodies of flesh and sinews, holding onto things that are gone for good. She can do nothing for those who remain, but she can bring flowers to the buried and assure them that they’ve done all they could, and are allowed to rest now.

She can never be sure if they hear or understand her, but their songs grow more graceful in time, and that has to be enough.
Edited (added fandom to title) 2021-02-07 22:29 (UTC)
little_lady_d: (Default)

Re: Fill: Pathologic

[personal profile] little_lady_d 2021-02-18 06:43 pm (UTC)(link)
grace! ah, she's so good, i love reading about her and how she cares for the dead, and how the dead mourn the living and she soothes them like you would any mourner, by reassuring them they did all the could and it's time to let go. i also love the sing-song poetry of 'oh, their foolish bodies of flesh and sinews, holding onto things that are gone for good,' and the dead's songs growing more graceful, filled with grace.
ernest: (lemony snicket)

Re: Fill: Pathologic

[personal profile] ernest 2021-02-18 10:58 pm (UTC)(link)
thank you! i love grace and how full she is with love and care, even if her priorities are different from most.
silveradept: A kodama with a trombone. The trombone is playing music, even though it is held in a rest position (Default)

Dragonriders of Pern, Piemur and Menolly

[personal profile] silveradept 2021-02-09 07:44 pm (UTC)(link)
"Now I know why he wants to have the party while he's still alive to enjoy it," Piemur said, sitting down next to Menolly.

"And why is that?" she asked, still putting some touches on the song they would sing to mark the passing of their Master, knowing that day would arrive soon.

"It's not nearly as fun to tell stories about someone when they're not around to be embarrassed by them or contest their truth," Piemur said, demonstrating to at least one other Harper that wisdom had finally arrived to the one who seemed immune to it.
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)

Last Rites (The Magnus Archives)

[personal profile] edenfalling 2021-02-13 03:34 am (UTC)(link)
"No hard feelings, I trust," Annabelle says as she aims the pistol at Mikaele's chest -- smart girl, not to bank on a head shot -- and nudges the camera behind her with one foot.

Mikaele shrugs. "I knew this day would come and I have made my peace -- perhaps, instead, I should offer my condolences to you; I will be dead and beyond caring, but you will still be caught in the nightmare the Powers have made of this world, dancing to the Spider's strings, and I know better than to think she will be kind."