Bonus Round 3: Gift Tags

[referees]

Feeling generous? In this round, you get to give creative gifts as prompts.

This round is CLOSED as of 7PM on July 7 EDT. Late fills may be posted, but they will not receive points.

RULES

• Submit prompts as a gift tag in the format below. You can specify the size and a characteristic of the gift, who the sender is, who the recipient is, and a one or two sentence note from the sender to the recipient. Descriptions of the package and the included note don’t have to be explicit, see below.
• Package: medium sized cube, rattles
  From: Kageyama Tobio
  To: Hinata Shouyou
  Note: These will help you get better.
• Envelope: manila, 12''x17'', very thick and heavy
  From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
  To: Kinjou Shingo
  Note: Enclosed - Play without regrets!
• Your prompt MUST include a relationship. Platonic relationships are indicated by an "&" between the names (e.g., Riko & Momoi). Non-platonic relationships use "/" (e.g., Riko/Momoi). Please don't say "Any pairing," either.
• Fill prompts by leaving a responding comment to the prompt with your newly-created work. Fillers can get creative with how to interpret the prompt: your fill can be about the character receiving the gift, one or both characters using the gift, what prompted the sender to send the gift—the physical gift itself can even be excluded from your fill. What’s important is that the gift tag is clearly the inspiration for your fill.
• Remember to follow the general bonus round rules, outlined here.

FORMAT

Bonus round shenanigans all happen in the comments below. Brand-new works only, please.

Required Work Minimums:

• 400 words (prose)
• 400px by 400px (art)
• 14 lines (poetry)

There is no max work cap.

Format your comment in one of the following ways:

If PROMPTING:	If FILLING:	If FILLING as a TEAM GRANDSTAND participant:
PROMPT: TEAM [YOUR SHIP] Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team you belong to, including Grandstand or Sports Teams Write it exactly as it appears on the team roster or your team will not receive points Place the prompt's relationship in the first bolded line of the comment. Including the canon isn't required, but it's nice. Below that, place applicable major content tags (when applicable; otherwise write "no tags" or "none") Visual example	FILL: TEAM [YOUR SHIP], [RATING] Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team you belong to Write it exactly as it appears on the team roster or your team will not receive points Replace RATING with the rating of your fill (G - E) Place applicable major content tags and word count before your fill (when applicable) NSFW FILLS: Please cross-link these fills and use clear tags in your comment. Written/text fills should be hosted at AO3 ONLY as a new, unchaptered work. Art/visual fills can be hosted anywhere. You may include a small safe-for-work preview of the fill in your comment. To place an image in your comment, use this code: <img src="LINK TO YOUR IMAGE" alt="DESCRIPTION OF YOUR IMAGE"/> Visual example	FILL: TEAM GRANDSTAND, [RATING] Replace RATING with the rating of your fill, G - E, as explained in the rules Place applicable major content tags and word count before the fill, where applicable NSFW FILLS: Please cross-link these fills and use clear tags in your comment. Written/text fills should be hosted at AO3 ONLY as a new, unchaptered work. Art/visual fills can be hosted anywhere. You may include a small safe-for-work preview of your work in your comment. To place an image in your comment, use this code: <img src="LINK TO YOUR IMAGE" /> Visual example

Posts not using this format will be understood to be unofficial discussion posts, regardless of what they contain. They, like all comments in this community, are subject to the code of conduct.

SCORING

These numbers apply to your team as a whole, not each individual teammate. Make as many prompts/fills as you want!

For prompts: 5 points each (maximum of 50 prompt points per team per round)

For fills:

First 3 fills by any member of your team: 20 points each
Fills 4-10: 10 points each
Fills 11-20: 5 points each
Fills 21+: 2 points each

All scored content must be created new for this round.

Etc.

If you're hunting through the prompts looking for what to fill, a good trick is to view top-level comments only.

Have a question? Check The FAQ first. If you still need help, feel free to contact the mods. Happy fanworking!

Comments

Prompt: Team Aldini Takumi/Yukihira Souma

[nyatsuuuu]

Yamazaki Sousuke/Kirishima Natsuya, FREE
No Tags

Envelope: manila, 8"x11", stamped: Private & confidential
From: Yamazaki Sousuke
To: Kirishima Natsuya
Note: Please sign on the dotted line

Re: Prompt: Team Aldini Takumi/Yukihira Souma

[alder_knight]

o_o

FILL: TEAM TENNIS NO OUJI-SAMA, G

[clearlykero]

no tags
[568 words]

It’s a cold day in autumn, the rain can’t decide if it wants to drizzle or come down properly, and every so often the wind blows droplets of water into his face. Sousuke is on the balcony of his apartment, a cigarette slowly smoking itself away between his fingers. There is an air of finality about him today that weighs on his shoulders like a physical thing.

It’s harder than he’d expected to dissolve a civil union. There are papers to read, to sign; lawyers to talk to, people to avoid. So many people to avoid. Sousuke doesn’t want to talk to anyone, not even Rin. There is no energy left in him to answer the questions that will inevitably come. Sometimes he sits on the sofa in his quiet (too quiet) apartment, and he wonders if this is worth it.

(A glimpse of brown hair next to grey, the too-familiar feeling like a stone in his gut, jealous, bitter, angry—)

It is. It has to be.

The papers are lying on the kitchen table on top of the yellow manila envelope the lawyers gave him. They’re just thin sheets of pulp; they shouldn’t mean anything.

But the little things are always what mean the most. The tube of toothpaste that lasts longer than he’s used to, the shower drain cover that doesn’t have random strands of brown hair tangled in it. The empty space on his left.

The rain is heavy, now. There are things he doesn’t mean on those papers, in unforgiving black on stark white.

(Why do you want to file for dissolution, they asked him, and he couldn’t answer. He doesn’t want to. But that’s no grounds for anything, and so he said, textbook, unreasonable behaviour.)

Sousuke tries to think about when things were good, because anything else would send him into a spiral of self-pity that he doesn’t need. He wants Natsuya to be happy. When it was good— oh, it was good. But they argued more than they didn’t, slept in different rooms more than the same, and then there was Rin, and then there was Nao, and then, and then, and then.

A message from Makoto is still unopened on his phone. There is no subject, and the content preview reads: Haru and Rin are back! You and Natsuya should...

“Should what,” Sousuke says out loud. The wind swallows it up like he hadn’t said anything at all.

His cigarette has burned to the filter, and there is ash at his feet. He puts it in the pot with the wilted sunflower, goes back in to stand at the table. The white noise of rain presses into his ears, accented by the sound of someone leaning on their car horn. He can’t think. Doesn’t want to think.

(“Are things alright?” Hesitantly, after a night of beer, romantic comedies (Rin’s), and Mission Impossible (Sousuke’s). Sousuke can’t find the words to explain how it should be alright but isn’t in the slightest.

“They’re fine,” he says instead. Rin doesn’t seem convinced, but that’s all he can give.)

He finds a pen from somewhere, writes a curt note on the back of a receipt, slips it in the envelope with the papers and the acknowledgement form.

Tomorrow, he’ll go to the post office.

But today, he makes two portions of pork cutlets and curry, and he eats it quietly at the kitchen table, alone.