What Does Prompt Mean?
Fandom CultureA story seed offered to writers — a scenario, a phrase, an AU premise, a kink, an image. Prompts power exchanges, memes, fests, and a huge share of fic that gets written at all.
Prompt in Practice
The prompt is fandom's idea-circulation system: fans who don't write supply scenarios to fans who do, and entire infrastructures exist to broker the exchange — kink memes, prompt fests, askbox requests, bingo cards, October challenge calendars. A prompt can be a single word, a Person A/B scenario, or a paragraph of detailed specifications, and 'filling' a prompt means writing it. The culture around prompts encodes fandom's collaborative ethos: ideas are offered freely, multiple fills of the same prompt are celebrated rather than seen as competition, and some of fandom's most famous works began as anonymous meme fills.
Example usage
"Send me prompts — three-word maximum — and I'll write a drabble for each one tonight."
Related Terms
Kink Meme
An anonymous prompt-and-fill community — historically a LiveJournal or Dreamwidth comment thread — where users request fic (often but not exclusively adult) and others write fills anonymously. A foundational fandom institution of the 2000s and 2010s.
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Fill
A work created in response to a prompt — the prompt asks, the fill answers. Standard vocabulary on kink memes, prompt fests, and request communities.
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Person A / Person B
Placeholder names used in shippy writing prompts so any fan can apply the scenario to their own pairing. 'Person A walks in on Person B singing' works for every ship in existence.
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Exchange
A fandom event where participants are assigned each other's requests and create works as gifts, usually anonymously until a reveal date. Sign up, receive an assignment, give a fic, get a fic.
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Fandom Bingo
A low-pressure challenge format where participants receive a card of trope or prompt squares and create a work for each square they want to fill, aiming for lines or a blackout. Hurt/comfort bingo and trope bingo are classic examples.
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More Fandom Culture Terms
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