rthstewart: (Default)
rthstewart ([personal profile] rthstewart) wrote2022-01-15 12:00 pm

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022

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.






 
Welcome to the Three Sentence Ficathon!

Here's a Friending meme!

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 at bit after about 2 weeks and especially once we open a new post because this one is approaching 4,500 comments.
  • 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.

Here's my attempt at a text box that might go horribly awry.






How long will it go?

The 3SF closes to new prompts on February 13, 2022. The entry stays open permanently and people post fills all year long.  (There were a bunch of new posts to the 2021 3SF this week!)

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 (and much more). 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, protect yourself, 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 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.

 

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



      


















wearing_tearing: black and white icon of a person holding a wolf mask to their face. (Default)

[personal profile] wearing_tearing 2022-01-16 07:31 pm (UTC)(link)
any, any, haunted house
last_haven: (writer)

Mad Max Fury Road, Cheedo

[personal profile] last_haven 2022-01-17 03:27 am (UTC)(link)
There is always sound in the Citadel, not that Cheedo had known that when they were still trapped in the Vault. There are sounds of hammering, hissing water in the hydroponic gardens, and the singing, screaming, laughing voices of humans.

Cheedo will take the cacophony outside the Vault any day of the week; better that than the violent whispers and echoes of broken women still ringing inside. How lucky she was, she knew now, to have avoided that fate.

Re: Mad Max Fury Road, Cheedo

(Anonymous) 2022-01-17 03:29 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, excellent.
wearing_tearing: black and white icon of a person holding a wolf mask to their face. (Default)

Re: Mad Max Fury Road, Cheedo

[personal profile] wearing_tearing 2022-01-17 10:22 am (UTC)(link)
This is really striking, I love it!
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)

Into a Ghost's Arms (Kagen no Tsuki; Tomoki, Adam/Mizuki)

[personal profile] kalira 2022-01-19 03:20 am (UTC)(link)
"Mizuki!" Tomoki called out, hopping off his bike and nearly stumbling as he rushed to follow his girlfriend, who showed no sign of hearing him. "Mizuki, wait!"

Mizuki slipped inside the boarded up old house and Tomoki hesitated, cringing, then followed her, feeling . . . stifled by the empty old place; he froze as it grew darker and he realised . . . the lights were turning themselves down as Mizuki got further away, and Tomoki's voice died in his throat.

"Adam!" Mizuki said happily, her voice softer and warmer than he'd heard it since her birthday party, when her best friend had shown her the pictures of. . . Shaking his head, Tomoki rushed after her, hoping it would be less creepy there.

It wasn't; the gas lights - surely they shouldn't work, not in this place? - had come up in warm golden tones, and Mizuki was wrapped in the arms of a strange man . . . and Tomoki could just see the light across the room through him.
wearing_tearing: black and white icon of a person holding a wolf mask to their face. (Default)

Re: Into a Ghost's Arms (Kagen no Tsuki; Tomoki, Adam/Mizuki)

[personal profile] wearing_tearing 2022-01-19 12:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Oooohhh, spooky! :D
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: Into a Ghost's Arms (Kagen no Tsuki; Tomoki, Adam/Mizuki)

[personal profile] kalira 2022-01-19 02:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks! I apparently couldn't resist going the incredibly obvious route of using a canon where there's a canon ghost-love-story. X'D
mad_madam_m: Mad Madam Mim as a dragon (Default)

Gargoyles, Alex, Elisa, Broadway, Lexington, Haunted

[personal profile] mad_madam_m 2022-01-21 04:36 am (UTC)(link)
"Do you think it's really haunted?" Alex asked, staring up at the old house with wide eyes.

"Could be," Broadway said. "It's really old. I bet a lot of people have lived there."

"And died there," Lexington added.

"Guys, knock it off." Elisa put a hand on Alex's head. "You're scaring him."

"I'm not scared," Alex protested, but he hid behind Elisa's legs anyway. Just in case.
severina: by me (writing: little guy with pen)

Supernatural, Dean/Castiel

[personal profile] severina 2022-02-13 11:14 pm (UTC)(link)
It's a run of the mill job with a standard haunting, but that doesn't stop Castiel from hovering near Dean as the salt circle is drawn and the iron is wielded and the spectre slashes against the invisible barrier. When he almost impedes Dean's swing for the third time, Dean rails at him.

But it's hard to take a step back when all you want to do is protect the man you love.
sallymn: (coffee 3)

The Sentinel, Jim Ellison

[personal profile] sallymn 2022-03-20 11:15 pm (UTC)(link)

Jim could feel the ghosts the minute he walked into the place, and he could see them the minute he entered what must have been the most over-pink-wallpapered, over-chintz-decorated, over-floral-carpeted room he'd ever seen in his life: dialling down the senses to near-zero didn't help one bit from the sheer visual pain the mass and muddle of sugary color and pattern caused his inner Sentinel, and he could still see, and sense, the ghosts.

The were three of them - little old ladies, like the Ghosts of Bad Family Reunions Past, Present and Please Christ Not the Future - all dressed in fuzzy, muzzy shades of pink, sitting primly on... well, on nothing, probably long-gone armchairs. One seemed to be knitting something that even a Sentinel couldn't see, the others had their hands folded neatly in their laps, and all three watched him with beady colourless (at least not more pink, he thought) eyes.

He winced; all that pink did not go with the red-brown stains on the over-floralled carpet, or the crimson-spattered kitchen knives neatly arranged on the (embroidered?) tableclothed table, or the massive, bloody gashes on all three ghostly bosoms....

pattrose: Tarlan. (Default)

Re: The Sentinel, Jim Ellison

[personal profile] pattrose 2022-03-23 02:41 pm (UTC)(link)
That was interesting. I enjoyed it. I still love the Sentinel.
sallymn: (love 9)

Re: The Sentinel, Jim Ellison

[personal profile] sallymn 2022-03-24 01:16 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks! I do too :)
mab_browne: Auckland beach, pohutukawa and a view of Rangitoto from a painting by Jennifer Cruden (Default)

Re: The Sentinel, Jim Ellison

[personal profile] mab_browne 2022-03-25 05:34 am (UTC)(link)
Sort of Arsenic and Old Lace vibes except that the little old ladies are the victims? And of course Jim can see them.
sallymn: (sentinel 8)

Re: The Sentinel, Jim Ellison

[personal profile] sallymn 2022-03-26 04:50 am (UTC)(link)
Sort of, I guess :) The little old murder victims were just an odd idea, but I rather think I like it enough to put in my bunny pile...