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!























elementalraven: (Default)

[personal profile] elementalraven 2022-01-31 07:05 pm (UTC)(link)
any, any, what could have been
helsinkibaby: (Default)

Fame, Doris/Bruno

[personal profile] helsinkibaby 2022-02-02 06:14 pm (UTC)(link)
When Bruno imagines, he dreams of songs and melodies, counterpoints and harmonies and arpeggios, not the past or the future or what the present could be if things had worked out differently.

But during Alumnus Week, looking across the room at Doris as she cuddles her six week old daughter to her chest, he can’t help but think back of a night just after his father had died, a night spent riding the Staten Island ferry with Doris pressed against his side, a night where he’d wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and kiss her, only stopped by the knowledge that neither of them were in the right headspace for that.

But for that knowledge, the baby she’s holding could be his and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t wish she was - and when Doris lifts her head, when her eyes meet his, soft and far away, he knows her well enough to know that she’s thinking the same thing.
elementalraven: (Default)

Re: Fame, Doris/Bruno

[personal profile] elementalraven 2022-02-02 07:18 pm (UTC)(link)
oh this is lovely
ladyjax: (Default)

Re: Fame, Doris/Bruno

[personal profile] ladyjax 2022-02-04 07:25 pm (UTC)(link)
This brings back a lot of memories and, ooof, this hurts because I can see it.

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl

[personal profile] notapaladin 2022-04-27 05:01 am (UTC)(link)

There is a world, Acatl thinks sometimes, where he bowed to his parents’ will. Where he gave up his dreams of the priesthood for the life of a warrior, trading in his knives for a sword and his feathered headdress for a carved wooden helm. Where he married some faceless woman and fathered a dozen children. Where he brought honor to his family and his clan, and if he regretted his path in life when old injuries pained him or spent his nights dreaming of what he’d left behind, well, that was simply the price he paid for being a dutiful son. It might have been a good world. He might have been happy.

But that’s not the world he lives in. In this world, he ascends the steps of his temple every day. In this world, he bows low over the corpses of the dead, ushering their souls gently to Mictlan. In this world, though he is scarred and battered and bloodstained, it comes from fiercer foes than the Chalcans or Tlaxcallans. In this world, he has taken no wife and fathered no children, but he has no need to. His priests are loyal to him, and Teomitl—Teomitl is radiant as the dawn. In this world, he has no need of glory, for his god’s power burns through his veins.

He doesn’t want another world, another life. He sweats under the weight of his regalia, curses his Revered Speaker’s name, and is stymied at every turn by imperial politics, but in this world—in this world, the one with Teomitl’s warm smile and Ichtaca’s steady gaze and the Wind of Knives’ unwavering sense of justice—

In this world, he’s content.