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!



      


















elementalraven: (Default)

[personal profile] elementalraven 2022-01-16 04:30 pm (UTC)(link)
lord of the rings, eowyn, teaching/training new shieldmaidens
arveldis: Éowyn at Théodred's funeral (Default)

[personal profile] arveldis 2022-01-17 12:46 am (UTC)(link)
“Parry”—Éowyn hit the girl’s blade so that it glanced aside—“block”—a firmer strike that made the girl stumble back, her blade pinned—“lunge”—Éowyn’s blade slipped through the girl’s guard and tapped her shoulder in one smooth motion.

Panting, her shoulders sagging, the girl, Wilfled, wiped her brow with her arm and asked, “Why must we train, when the men can fight and defend us?”

Éowyn looked out at the women training around them, steel meeting steel in a ringing dance of strikes and parries, and she smiled grimly as she said, “Because we are shieldmaidens, daughters of warriors, and we will not cower and hide in our homes when we, too, can defend our people; we will choose our dooms, and we will do deeds of glory, even if there be none left to tell of them.”
theseatheseatheopensea: The sculpture Archangel Gabriel, by Ivan Mestrovic. (Archangel Gabriel.)

[personal profile] theseatheseatheopensea 2022-01-17 01:12 am (UTC)(link)
Yesss Éowyn! <3 What a badass!
elementalraven: (Default)

[personal profile] elementalraven 2022-01-17 10:09 am (UTC)(link)
This is great! An army of shieldmaidans is the dream
primeideal: Multicolored sideways eight (infinity sign) (Default)

[personal profile] primeideal 2022-01-17 09:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Love it!
be_themoon: I want a better world. By me. (Default)

[personal profile] be_themoon 2022-01-17 09:47 pm (UTC)(link)
oh, eowyn. she's so great, thank you for this.

[personal profile] buttonloops 2022-01-18 11:12 pm (UTC)(link)
yes yes yes yes!! SHIELDMAIDENS. i love them.

The glory of the sword is not who it may kill, but who it may save

[personal profile] word_devourer 2022-01-17 06:30 am (UTC)(link)
Away from the field, she was perhaps more gentle than was wise, some trace of her time in Ithilien, yet when she bore the sword and the shield, every word she spoke became heavy and cold as iron, her eyes distant, as though seeing things that had long since happened.

She spoke of training, technique and mastery, of the necessity of the weapons they carried, but never their glories.

They found her strange, this woman who had grown and lived as one of them, yet had so long lived apart, but in her cold, hard lessons, there was a dedication, a pressure to prepare them for whatever they might face, that drew them back, day after day, to learn from her whatever she could teach.

Re: The glory of the sword is not who it may kill, but who it may save

(Anonymous) 2022-01-17 06:31 am (UTC)(link)
This is beautiful.
elementalraven: (Default)

Re: The glory of the sword is not who it may kill, but who it may save

[personal profile] elementalraven 2022-01-17 10:10 am (UTC)(link)
Ooohh this is amazing! I love how you describe Eowyn, the the contrast between who she is with and without the sword.

"She spoke of training, technique and mastery, of the necessity of the weapons they carried, but never their glories." - this is perfect
theseatheseatheopensea: Lyrics from the song Stolen property, by The Triffids, handwritten by David McComb. (Default)

Re: The glory of the sword is not who it may kill, but who it may save

[personal profile] theseatheseatheopensea 2022-01-17 02:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Beautiful and poignant! <3
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)

Shieldmaidens of Meduseld (Arda; Éomer, Éowyn)

[personal profile] kalira 2022-01-18 09:32 am (UTC)(link)
They respect him, Éomer thinks, the shieldmaidens of his hall, as they should serve their king - but they love his sister. He watches from the outskirts as Éowyn passes among them with a smile, a light touch correcting a stance, firmer hands showing a better grip, and every one of the women listens avidly to the words of their visiting princess.

Éowyn meets his gaze warmly, then her smile turns almost impish and she beckons to him, hefting her sword and moving into the clear space left for sparring - Éomer laughs and draws his own sword to answer his sister's summons as the shieldmaidens murmur and watch closely.
elementalraven: (Default)

Re: Shieldmaidens of Meduseld (Arda; Éomer, Éowyn)

[personal profile] elementalraven 2022-01-18 10:43 am (UTC)(link)
Ahh yes, Eomer being a good brother, Eowyn being badass, friendly yet competitive sparring, what more can you want?
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: Shieldmaidens of Meduseld (Arda; Éomer, Éowyn)

[personal profile] kalira 2022-01-18 07:14 pm (UTC)(link)
^.^
theseatheseatheopensea: Annabelle Hurst from Department S holding a book. (Annabelle.)

Re: Shieldmaidens of Meduseld (Arda; Éomer, Éowyn)

[personal profile] theseatheseatheopensea 2022-01-18 12:06 pm (UTC)(link)
<3
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: Shieldmaidens of Meduseld (Arda; Éomer, Éowyn)

[personal profile] kalira 2022-01-18 07:15 pm (UTC)(link)