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!



      


















topaz_eyes: (blue cat's eye)

[personal profile] topaz_eyes 2022-01-15 10:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Any, any, the skin around every city looks the same
presumenothing: (Default)

The Murderbot Diaries; Murderbot, ART

[personal profile] presumenothing 2022-01-17 04:20 am (UTC)(link)

Human-inhabited areas do tend to rather resemble each other after a while, ART commented while I was downloading the city's transport gridmap, because it was not at all above complaining about boring scenery even when it was my visual feed it was riding on.

At least that gave me something to include in my subvocalisation routine aside from the usual archived dialogue: Pretty sure you think that about everything that isn't also a hyperintelligent overequipped ship.

Hardly – what would be the point of scientific research otherwise? came the immediately affronted reply, and right, of course that would be ART's main objection here.

topaz_eyes: (black cherry)

Re: The Murderbot Diaries; Murderbot, ART

[personal profile] topaz_eyes 2022-01-18 05:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Heee! Love the banter!
presumenothing: (hxz)

Re: The Murderbot Diaries; Murderbot, ART

[personal profile] presumenothing 2022-01-19 12:49 am (UTC)(link)

Thanks, I love writing it too! Gives me somewhere to offload my excess snark, lol.

ernest: (Wall)

Pathologic, Artemy Burakh

[personal profile] ernest 2022-01-17 04:58 am (UTC)(link)
Artemy’s father’s house has shingles. It shouldn’t, it is a respectable building of wood and stone, but the pattern of blistering skin is unmistakable, and worse, it seems to be spreading across the rooftops like… well, like a rash. Not for the first time he thinks, Oh Dad, what have you done?
topaz_eyes: (kutner-house)

Re: Pathologic, Artemy Burakh

[personal profile] topaz_eyes 2022-01-18 05:43 pm (UTC)(link)
This is brilliant, I love the word-play with "shingles" here, as roof covering/spreading and the skin rash.
ernest: (Default)

Re: Pathologic, Artemy Burakh

[personal profile] ernest 2022-01-19 01:49 am (UTC)(link)
thank you! that play on words is actually from the game itself, and it's such a disturbing image when it first happens, it's great!
little_lady_d: (Default)

Re: Pathologic, Artemy Burakh

[personal profile] little_lady_d 2022-01-21 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
such a chilling image, such a perfect moment to artemy and stop and stare and wonder what the hell is going on. (wondering what his father did, to infect his family home like this, and the infection is literal. but also metaphorical.)
ernest: (Default)

Re: Pathologic, Artemy Burakh

[personal profile] ernest 2022-01-22 04:25 am (UTC)(link)
thank you! the infection sure is metaphorical as well as literal, and it's going to be such an awful journey to find out and come to terms with what his father has done.
laughingpineapple: (DE the kind of animal I want to be)

Disco Elysium, Harry/Kim

[personal profile] laughingpineapple 2022-01-19 04:10 pm (UTC)(link)
(IN 22 YEARS, THE FIRST SHOT WILL BE FIRED. NOT A SHOT FROM A GUN -- AN ATOMIC DEVICE THAT WILL LEVEL ALL OF ME. ALL OF ME.)

Their little corner of Sur-la-Clef has everything a couple of confirmed bachelors in their mid-sixties could ask for: a little park with boules and chessboard tables, a pharmacy, a nice boulangerie, a racing track whose presence had been Kim’s only request when, three years ago, a dead-eyed Harry had urged them to pack up and move out, anywhere, NOW.
And so they go through the motions, in this place that could be anywhere, because no city in Elysium will ever have Revachol’s soul again, so anywhere goes when it comes to exile, really. They can only carry it within themselves, that burning, melancholic ideal of history’s defeat, and when the evenings are cool and cloudless and they look to the south-east, toward Mundi’s porch collapse now vivid on the horizon, to the swelling numbness of the pale and to the dissolving concept of Insulinde’s atomic wasteland far beyond it, Harry is still shaken by a shiver, as alive as he’s ever been.
Edited 2022-01-19 16:29 (UTC)
siver: (Default)

Re: Disco Elysium, Harry/Kim

[personal profile] siver 2022-01-19 07:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Aaaaaa. Beautiful but agh. Revachol ;_; Carry her within themselves...
stonekey: 4thewords character with black and gray skin, a glitching scarf, and three yellow eyes. The background is an aurora borealis (Default)

Re: Disco Elysium, Harry/Kim

[personal profile] stonekey 2022-01-19 08:42 pm (UTC)(link)
a racing track whose presence had been Kim’s only request when, three years ago, a dead-eyed Harry had urged them to pack up and move out, anywhere, NOW.
This!!! I love this!!!!!! Kim only asking for the close race track and Harry having a breaking point where he just CAN'T anymore.

Referring to their moving as "exile": OW.

and when the evenings are cool and cloudless and they look to the south-east, toward Mundi’s porch collapse now vivid on the horizon, to the swelling numbness of the pale and to the dissolving concept of Insulinde’s atomic wasteland far beyond it, Harry is still shaken by a shiver, as alive as he’s ever been.
BEAUTIFUL, haunting, lovely.

You stack so much into such a small space and I love it. Also, this is almost exactly what I've wanted for them post-canon ever since I played the game, and here it is, succinct and lovely. <3
Edited (grammar edit) 2022-01-19 20:43 (UTC)
topaz_eyes: (blue cat's eye)

Re: Disco Elysium, Harry/Kim

[personal profile] topaz_eyes 2022-01-20 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)
This is so beautifully wistful.
peaked: KAZZA. (pic#15387217)

six of crows, inej/kaz

[personal profile] peaked 2022-01-20 08:12 am (UTC)(link)
"Maybe it could be better," Inej says one day, her hand barely brushing against his; he still shivers at the hint of a touch, his bare fingers flexing in the desire to seek out the warmth of her palm. "Ketterdam… Maybe it could be something kinder."

"Ketterdam chews innocence and spits it out," he rasps, his hand aching for her gentle touch once more. "It destroys hope," he continues, refusing to so much as glance at her and see what he stomps on dimmer and break in her eyes, "and it gives nothing back."
topaz_eyes: (moonstar)

Re: six of crows, inej/kaz

[personal profile] topaz_eyes 2022-01-20 10:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh this is heartbreaking...
peaked: YENNEFER. (pic#15365890)

[personal profile] peaked 2022-01-21 02:44 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you! ♥
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)

And Taxes (The Hands of the Emperor)

[personal profile] edenfalling 2022-02-09 02:49 am (UTC)(link)
Every city is fundamentally the same upon approach: wilderness and pastures give way to grain fields and tended forests, which give way to market gardens and little blots of houses, which give way to walls and narrow streets and buildings reaching skyward for lack of space to sprawl. People need food and fuel, and transportation is expensive; these concentric rings are the inevitable collision of those truths, with only occasional exceptions for fishing fleets or long-distance water-based grain trade.

Cliopher rides into Astandalas the Golden in the back of a vegetable wagon magically sped along the imperial highway from a hundred miles away, and doubts the evidence of his own eyes when he sees the sharp delineation between the city of roses and the gorgeous, wasteful, parks outside its walls. The power to shape an entire region to serve aesthetic whims rather than human needs is earthshaking, and the mindset that would make that trade is beyond his comprehension.

Of course the Empire fell. No society can balance on such a narrow edge forever; one day, the debt comes due.
topaz_eyes: (red clouds woman)

Re: And Taxes (The Hands of the Emperor)

[personal profile] topaz_eyes 2022-02-12 10:59 pm (UTC)(link)
I love this, how the stark differences in the city seem to be a revelation for Cliopher.
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)

Re: And Taxes (The Hands of the Emperor)

[personal profile] edenfalling 2022-02-13 08:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! :)
alexseanchai: Katsuki Yuuri wearing a blue jacket and his glasses and holding a poodle, in front of the asexual pride flag with a rainbow heart inset. (Default)

Re: And Taxes (The Hands of the Emperor)

[personal profile] alexseanchai 2022-02-12 11:25 pm (UTC)(link)
subtle point about RL is subtle
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)

Re: And Taxes (The Hands of the Emperor)

[personal profile] edenfalling 2022-02-13 08:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Would you believe I wasn't even consciously thinking about that? But yeah, we live in a high equilibrium society, and if that equilibrium gets pushed too far and breaks... :(