rthstewart: (Default)
rthstewart ([personal profile] rthstewart) wrote2022-01-20 09:54 pm

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022 Part 2

UPDATE 14 FEBRUARY 2022 -- 3SF 2022 IS NOW CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS!  Do continue to fill prompts already posted but the 3SF 2022 is now closed.  We'll be back next year in a new comm (If I can get my act together).  Thank you again!

THIS IS THE NEW POST FOR PART 2 OF THE 3 SENTENCE FICATHON -- ALL NEW PROMPTS SHOULD BE POSTED HERE
You may continue to fill prompts (but not leave new ones) at the original Post 1 here but please post new prompts here, not there.  And if you're asking, hey is just me, or did this get enormous really fast? Why yes, yes it did.  Last year, it took us ten days before I opened a new post.  This year, it took us about 5.5 days to get there.  So, by all means, go back and fill in Post 1 and post new prompts here!

Also woops, in an indication of how busy I've been with other things, I neglected to post that for a third year in a row the awesome [personal profile] conuly  started a master list of unclaimed prompts and has been updating it as time permits.  Obviously a huge task! Thank you!







 
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!























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)

[personal profile] alexseanchai 2022-01-24 05:59 am (UTC)(link)
any, any, message to your younger self
adaeze: (Default)

[personal profile] adaeze 2022-01-24 04:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Rth to young Rth: don't get drawn into fanfic! You'll get sucked into the whirlpool, you'll end up hosting ficathons and your inbox will explode!

(message never sent as there are too many fics in her inbox to read first).
cofax7: climbing on an abbey wall  (Default)

SG-1, Jack O'Neill

[personal profile] cofax7 2022-01-30 03:44 am (UTC)(link)
It wasn't a question any of his team would ever have asked--they knew too much; like Reynolds and Hammond and Ferretti, some secrets couldn't be hidden from the men and women he'd shed blood with.

But he heard it one night when he ducked into the canteen for a cup of the sludge-like coffee, some sort of internet quiz shared by the younger airmen: "What would you tell yourself if you could send a message back to yourself at 18?"

Jack didn't drop the coffee, didn't even miss a step; he knew that telling an eighteen-year-old, "Always secure your firearms!" would mean nothing, if followed by two decades of service, both clean and dirty, and the jittery need to have a weapon to hand at all times.

No message would have been enough, and absent being able to go to that specific day and remove the gun from his nightstand, there was no changing the past.

Jack is forever grateful that the possible use of the Stargate for time travel is unmanageable and unpredictable; otherwise the temptation would be too great to resist. As it is, he wakes in the small hours of the morning a few times every year, and spends an hour calculating how to strongarm Carter into making it happen.

He never mentions this to anyone.
silveradept: A kodama with a trombone. The trombone is playing music, even though it is held in a rest position (Default)

Miraculous Ladybug, Alix and Bunnyx, Spoilers

[personal profile] silveradept 2022-02-19 05:48 am (UTC)(link)
"Spoilers, mini-me," Bunnyx said, a look of annoyance on her face at the constant barrage of questioning from her younger self.

"Well, what can you tell me?" Alix said.

"You're going to hate this role long before you get good at it, and you're going to get good at it long before you actually start to enjoy it, but this is definitely the coolest thing that will happen to us in our life."
quillsshadow: Iridescent shilouette of a quill pen in an inkwell (Default)

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, Kim Dokja ((Spoiler))

[personal profile] quillsshadow 2022-03-16 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm sorry, Kim Dokja wants to say feels like he should want to say to his fifteen-year-old self standing lonely in the subway car. This is necessary, feels more honest, closer to the truth the ugly horrible truth that none of his companions must ever hear, I hate you and everything you caused.

The right words for the situation do come, and they come from the fifteen-year-old with the empty eyes: [Please destroy the Most Ancient Dream.]
sallymn: (books and reading 19)

The Untamed, Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian (mild horror and much more than 3 sentences, sorry)

[personal profile] sallymn 2022-07-06 01:47 am (UTC)(link)

"I'm sorry."

To be honest, Wen Qing was not sorry in the least, but there was no point in saying so. Wei Wuxian might have worn her down on transplanting his golden core into young Sect Leader Jiang; he might have badgered and argued and yes, hounded her into agreeing to it just a few days ago, but that was before she had gone to the mountain, all dressed in black, face hidden, needles hidden, resolve unwilling but firm. If the boy wanted to sacrifice himself... it was his choice, and he thought the other young one, the debt he talked about, the future he needed to protect, was worth it.

The other Wen Qing she had met there had thought otherwise.

The other Wen Qing had also been all black, not dressed that way but rather a flickering, burnt black husk in rags scorched by a pyre. It had stood in her way on that bleak path, stared at her with ragged, hollow, darkly glowing embers in the hollows where its eyes should have been, lifted one sere and crumbling hand in warning and spoken from blackened lips in a voice crackling like flames. That Wen Qing had come back from the dead, years from now, and that Wen Qing had told her what would happen from this moment on.

To her...

To her little brother...

To her family...

To all those innocents...

To this brave, beautiful, idiot boy.

And Wen Qing was not going to have any of it.

"The transfer did not succeed, Wei Wuxian, that is all there is to say. Your Sect Leader will have to live with it, as you will," She watched his face fall, his silver eyes fill with tears and despair, his lips tremble... but she wasn't going to weaken. She had too much to do to save her brother and family, at least some of the innocents, and him.

"I'll give you what you need to reach another sect safely," she said finally. "Qinghe Nie," which still stood, "Gusu Lan," where the young Lan who her future self was so certain would help him, "or Meishan Yu," who were their family. "Wherever you choose to go. I can do that much for you."

"But -"

"I'm sorry," and maybe she was, a little, for him. He deserved so much better than the future had promised, and Wen Qing may not have lived that future but she had seen the desolation in the ashes of her future self's lifeless gaze and heard the love and despair in the dry, thready voice, and she knew that she would try to change it for them all.

Which meant no core transfer. No sacrifice of this boy for another. And, if there was anything she could do at whatever cost, no more of this war.

"You should leave as soon as possible."

He wanted to argue, she could see that... but slowly, unwillingly, achingly, he fell silent, slumped in his seat, sighed and nodded. Believed her story.

And it wasn't really a lie, after all. The transfer had not worked because it had not been tried, and now... never would.

Wen Qing turned to the door, to give the orders for transport, supplies, everything they would need while concocting yet another story to cover it up, to keep herself and her little brother safe from any suspicion.

After all, she now also had an uncle to silently destroy, two cousins to dispose of, a war to somehow end, and maybe - just maybe - a dead and dreadful future to avert.

Edited 2022-07-06 01:49 (UTC)
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: The Untamed, Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian (mild horror and much more than 3 sentences, sorry)

[personal profile] alexseanchai 2022-07-06 03:40 am (UTC)(link)
*glee*
sallymn: (domesticity 4)

Re: The Untamed, Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian (mild horror and much more than 3 sentences, sorry)

[personal profile] sallymn 2022-07-06 05:49 am (UTC)(link)
:)