rthstewart | 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

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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Star Wars, Luke & Leia (& Han), burdens too heavy for ones so young

After they bug out of Yavin IV and join the Rebel Fleet, Chewbacca wonders if maybe, just maybe, Han, Luke, or Leia would actually talk about their respective horrific ordeals, as a Wookiee would, as any emotionally healthy and adjusted being should. Though he'd pretty much given up on Han over the years, he'd hoped that maybe the other two would exert a good influence and own up to the nightmares they're all having and the screams and crying he overhears when he takes over the Falcon's third watch. But after two hundred and thirty three Kashyyyk years, he's learned that Humans, and especially young Humans, and by the Trees, these three are so young, are terrible at confronting their past trauma, always, always deluded into thinking that, so long as they don't stop, they will never drown.

Edited 2022-01-20 18:37 (UTC)

I love this, Chewie is really the perfect narrator for it!

"always deluded into thinking that, so long as they don't stop, they will never drown" - I thought this was especially powerful"

I love this so much!

Oh, that last line! That is absolutely the way the trio would look at life, no matter how Chewie tries to tell them otherwise.

oh, fucking ouch. DAMN, ruth. I'm always glad to see you coming back home to Star Wars but also this one hurt.

Oh, this is beautiful.

Oh, this is lovely. Chewie's perspective on the OT trio is so interesting and insightful.

So lovely, and so heartbreaking!

Something about traveling with these kids makes Han feel very old, and he’s not even that much older.

Sure, the princess is pampered and the farmboy can be painfully naïve, but they’ve each lost their homes in a pretty horrifying way, so it’s not like they’re strangers to hardship, and they face it with the same dauntless idealism. That’s the thing, though, they’re too young to have lost what they have, but they don’t ever give up, not for long, they just fight to make the star sector a better place, and they shouldn’t have had to make the choices that they have.

thank you! it's been fun to dip my feet back into the star wars fandom, it's been a few years but i still love these stories a lot

Star Wars is one I always come back to as well. It was one of my first fandoms (if you call a kindergartener swinging around imaginary lightsabers and making up bedtime stories about Jedi for her younger brother a fandom) and will always be close to my heart. And you beautifully captured some of my favorite things about it here.

Awesome! Han seeing the twins' similarities in their idealism and determination is great, as is the reminder that Han isn't all that much older than they are despite feeling a lot older.

thank you! i think the Official Timeline puts him at about eight years older, and they're all just sad kids at the end of the day.

They are children still – nineteen years old and the leaders of a rebellion. Nineteen years old and seen too much death. Nineteen years old and no family left but each other and whomever they find.

Han remembers his own young childhood and the exploits of the Republic’s hero on the news. He wasn’t so young he didn’t remember. He had almost had a heart attack when Luke told him who Vader was. Han couldn’t help the twinge of betrayal that made itself known in his heart. Anakin had been a hero! General Skywalker had been his hero. But, he supposes when he looks up some of the old videos to show the twins of their father and his birthdate is displayed on the screen for just a second before he clicks away, he was young too. Nineteen years old and a General of the Republic Army, kark he was on frontlines when he was nineteen.

They tell him who their mother was and Han vividly remembers her too, he remembers hoping to see her, just once, to know that she cared about Corellia too. And he pulls up her speech to the senate during the Siege of Naboo, he has never seen this one – it occurred before he was born but- and it hits him. The Queen of Naboo is a position most often held by children. His hand shakes as he types out her name, just to click away quickly, the date burned into his mind. She was fourteen. No wonder the twins chased trouble and responsibility and helped everyone they came across. Their parents had both been so young when they started themselves.

Chewie had stuck around Han since he had met him – the kid was so young to be punting himself into danger. He is there when Han comes into the mess hall with shaking hands, listens to the kid’s blabbering about heroes and the twins, about too young burdens and he pats him on the back. He tells Han that he is just like them, escaping circumstances they had no control over or being controlled by those circumstances. Too young to help but determined to nonetheless.

Chewie tells Han it is a valuable trait, but one that requires support. Chewie doesn’t say it but he is that support for the three of them, him and R2. The droid knew more than he let on and for some reason was fiercely protective of the twins. The kids could be their helping selves because their elders were there to help them.

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022

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By the Trees, they never learn -- Star Wars OT

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