SASO 2017 Icebreaker: Truth or Dare!

[referees]

How about a friendly warm-up before the real games begin? Join us for a sports anime-themed game of truth or dare! If you’ve only ever played truth or dare in a room full of sleep-deprived people at a sleepover or a party, you might be wondering, “How is that gonna work?” Read below to find out.

RULES:

1. referees will make two top-level comments to this post: one will contain the word TRUTH, and the other will contain the word DARE.
2. If you would like to receive questions, reply to the TRUTH comment with your name. If you’d like to receive dares, reply to the DARE comment with your name. You can (and totally should!) reply to both comments.
3. Your fellow anime fans will then reply to your comment with your name with either a question if it’s in the TRUTH thread, or a dare if it’s in the DARE thread. While this is happening, you’ll do the same!
4. We encourage everyone participating to leave questions and dares for at least three (3) other distinct participants.
5. All questions and dares must adhere to the SASO code of conduct, must be appropriate for all ages, and are not allowed to require that a participant reveals personal information.
6. Dares should be able to be completed in no more than 24 hours.
7. You are not obligated to answer every question or do every dare. We do hope you’ll complete all the ones you feel comfortable doing!

Having trouble coming up with questions and dares? Here are some examples to get you started:

Question examples:

• How well do you think you and your favorite sports anime character would get along?
• If you could challenge a sports anime character at something, who would you challenge and what would the challenge be?
• You are now a character in the universe of your favorite sports anime. What kind of role do you play/what kind of character are you?
• Which sports anime character do you rarely talk about but you secretly love? Why?
• If you could cast characters in a sports anime you like into a different series (non-sports anime included), how would you cast them? Why?

Dare examples:

• Write a haiku/limerick about a sports anime character you love
• Draw a quick doodle of a sports anime character with your non-dominant hand and see if others can guess who it is
• Take a stab at singing your favorite sports anime opening/ending
• Take a screencap of your favorite out-of-context moment in a sports anime and post it without context
• If you own any sports anime merchandise, take a picture of your collection. If you don’t, take a picture of the most sports anime thing in your house

Have fun! (This round ends on May 11.)

Comments

Re: ☀ T R U T H

[horchata]

It was Hinata who suggested it first. 'We should know who made us, Kageyama-kun.'

It wasn't much to settle into. Because they were so thoughtfully made, their senses weren't overwhelmed in the small shop where they appeared. They curled their toes in their socks, ran fingertips along the many plastic-covered tops of the thin, bright books, and put a thousand real sensations to the feelings they'd only ever known of because they were born into them. In ink they never startled at the raw boldness of the world, and so in flesh they were the same.

In one small moment, Kageyama placed his hand on Hinata's shoulder and felt warmth. 'We're alive.'

Hinata breathed in deep and met Kageyama's hand with his own, met Kageyama's eyes with his own, too. 'Yes.' They spoke with sound.

They left the shop.

Because they had always known the world, leaving the shop was not so hard. Because they had always walked or run together, they continued. The money written into their pockets and gym bags was the same money here, so they bought food, and tasted things made of wheat and meat and rice instead of food carved gentle into paper with the strokes of a pen.

They stopped at a bench and knelt on it to touch the drooping leaves of a tree (or, Hinata knelt and reached, and Kageyama stood, but both ran fingers over green glossy blades and smiled at the feel).

And beyond the bench, a park, a small expanse of grass flat enough for what they wanted next, which was to run and stretch and jump and feel and spike and toss and scream in air that would vibrate with the sound, with feet that were jarred from heavy falls, with a ball that blew in wind gusts slightly east, with eyes and ears and lungs that worked in dimming sunlight, in humid air. And when they were both tired, when both had gone beyond tired in bodies with real, red blood, that was when Hinata thought they should know.

'Does it matter?' Kageyama asked. He'd asked the clouds, but when Hinata stayed silent, he turned his neck and met Hinata's eyes, so much more human now than stylized crow, who nodded to him.

'Everything else is an accident, but we were made.' Hinata's breath evened out and above the tiny park, the people smoking on their balconies in the sunset emerged, a tribe of orange-red fireflies before the street lamps burned. 'Someone made sure we existed.' He turned on his side to Kageyama and fidgeted and made wrinkles in the fabric of his shirt. 'I want to see if we can find out why.'

And because their phones had always worked before, when Kageyama took his out of his bag, it picked up service here. And in the grass, they typed in the things they knew: the name of their team, their own names, their matches. They found themselves.

They read about how loved they are, how loved everyone is. There's more than static ink -- television and stage, restaurants and radio interviews, shirts and shoes and painted figures. It's not so frightening, seeing these, although it was a wonder.

A few more links. They were made in 2012, began a small dream, a few pages and different than the people they were now. Both marveled to imagine Hinata timid in any way, Kageyama brash and straightforward to recruit. But that's what drafts are for, to shape what things should come.

And oddly, or perhaps not so, the most they find on who created them's the vaguest wisp; a name, of course: Furudate Haruichi; a birthday, a gender, a love of food and drink, and though no address was written, instead, they read a place: Miyagi Prefecture.

The link they followed drew their pause.

They read on.

On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a subsequent major tsunami hit Miyagi Prefecture, causing major damage to the area. The tsunami was estimated to be approximately 10 meters high in Miyagi Prefecture. The death toll rose and rose. The devastation was horrific, unspeakable: nuclear accidents; tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced; collapsed buildings and families and spirits.

And then, less than one year later: a tall, tall wall, a little giant, a boy with a dream he could fly.

Kageyama felt again warm skin on his own -- this time, warm skin that trembled, that clenched.

'Kageyama, I'm so glad.'

He turned to see Hinata crying. It's a smaller thing in flesh and air -- tears are so clear and fall so quickly, but Kageyama's own heart ached the same it always had to see them. Even with Hinata's smile, it ached.

'Idiot,' he said, and let his fingers hover uncertainly over Hinata's head until he felt like doing something. 'Why are you glad?'

'Because of why we're here, why we were made.' Hinata scrubbed at his eyes and with his fingers still a little wet with salt and water, reached for Kageyama's hand to make his choice to hold it tight. 'We were made for Miyagi, for Japan.'

Kageyama stared at Hinata, who burned in the last bits of sunlight, who burned from within with a great light he glowed in.

'We were made with love, Kageyama.' He grinned and it was bright and alive. 'We were made to be hope.'