Bonus Round 1: Memory

[referees]

Let's start our summer by looking at the past—things that happened in canon, or maybe in an AU, or maybe just as wishful thinking...


This round is CLOSED as of 7PM on June 9 EDT. Late fills may be posted, but they will not receive points.

Please read this whole post before commenting to ensure that your team gets the most points possible. (There are changes from last year!)

RULES

• Submit prompts by commenting to this post! You prompt should consist of one scenario beginning with the phrase "Remember when", along with any ship/ot3/etc. from our list of nominated fandoms.
  • Your prompts can take the form of recalling canon facts/events ("Remember when Nozomi and Eli got parfaits after school?"), non-canon events ("Remember when Megumi and Jin met at the Tadokoro Family Reunion?"), or somewhere in-between ("Remember when Bokuto and Kenma first met?"). Headcanons and AUs are welcome!
  • Your prompt MUST include some kind of relationship. (This is not the sports anime gen olympics.) Platonic relationships are indicated by an "&" between the names (e.g., Rei & Nagisa). Non-platonic relationships use "/" (e.g., Rei/Nagisa). Please don't say "Any pairing," either!
• Post fills by leaving a responding comment to a prompt with your newly-created work.
• 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; otherwise write "no tags" or "none") NSFW FILLS: Please cross-link these fills and use clear tags in your comment. Written/text fills should be hosted at AO3 ONLY. 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) 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. 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

Fill: Team Grandstand, T

[elucidatedlucy]

Tags: Major character death referenced - technically. ok so, I know what the prompt is, but i'm not funny and it was difficult for me to find a way to write it in a way that i felt i could manage, so i ended up on /this/. i did try for. vengeful. to manami. talent show, sort of. i'm so sorry i filled this prompt like this, but Anyway - inadvertantly inspired by what little i know about the Macross series
Word count: 2600 words

Gold and red flickered into life around the suit, flashing with the wearied sickness of warning.

"Yeah, yeah," Teshima muttered. Running through the buttons, he couldn't make it stop. "I get it, we're critical, I know." Running a suit on his own wasn't any easier lost in rubble.

"We're not critical," echoing metal in his teeth. Inescapable, as though he'd ever have chosen otherwise. "Damage has exceeded only fifty percent. We can aim for more if you like!"

"Close enough," he muttered. "If you're awake now, mind telling me our coordinates?"

"Your coordinates are currently -" Static wailed through the tears in his ears. "Oh. It looks like that's broken too! We're lost."

"No need to be so cheerful about it."

"That's what I'm here for," they said, in endless programmed singsong. He wasn't sure who was so masochistic as to have done that.

Hanging wires entrapped themselves around his hands, loose frames banged into his arms, but Teshima forced himself into a concept of leisure. All he needed was light enough to see. With that, he could think, and with that, he could get out of this. Always.

"Excuse me." Always the intervention to make him sink. "We're losing power." They always knew how to turn his bones to little more than paper mache. "One of the auxiliary lines appears to have been damaged by the explosion!"

He had to be used to this. "How long have we got."

"90 minutes till storage is depleted."

Teshima forced one leg over the other. "No need to act so cold about it!" A clatter in his head and he caught chattering teeth. Hot air made frozen skin stretch and tear, he could have sworn, if he had the courage to look beneath the suit. "We'll get power a different way."

"Like what?" Petulant gentle sing-song. "I'll be happy to follow whatever order you have to save yourself."

"I'll be getting both of us out of here. No need to worry."

"Unit 006-13's system intelligence is backed up along three separate drives. Regardless of the physical unit's status, currently catalogued data remains for both research and future use."

When Manami was little more than those lines of rules and requirements, they always fell back to the same easy bored tone. Elevator speak, muzac in words.

"Glad to know what you're pre-programmed to tell me. What do you think about dying." Saying it to them, about them, rather than himself - it made the weight crashing into his chest a little less overwhelming.

They didn't often answer this. But -

"I don't mind." More like them. Still too easy. Yet, as they went on, it was matter-of-a-fact. Manami sounded like they were throwing a secret in the air, just to see it crack along the ground. "I don't know what to expect. It'll be interesting."

It was easier to fight back when they did.

"Is it really? What, let me guess, gimme eighty seconds. You actually believe all that garbage about AIs and robots who think it'll just be more to see when you crash?" It was just - he felt sick, sicker still, thinking about never opening his eyes again. "The only you that got this far and you're willing to just throw that away in a stupid instance of curiosity about what you haven't experienced?"

"Yes," they answered - too snappy.

"Right," Teshima said. "You know I believe that." He banged a fist against the hatch. "Do the cameras still work, or do I need to put my head out a window to get a look around here?"

For all of how rude it was - it made it easier to hold his smile. Acting like a forward captain, a pilot in control, sure of everything that was coming, and when the video feed clicked on, he didn't let it crumble. No matter how many lifeforms were resting. No matter how far the suit had fallen into the colony, no matter the fact that a signal couldn't even send out a warning beacon at this point.

"There you go," Manami said. Finality laced in everything, and he wondered if they'd planned not to show him - as though he'd have given up from the start and never bothered to ask. "You have about eighty minutes, if you can maintain relative quiet for that long. In the meantime, we'll make a portable satellite to jettison with information and store anything else you might like to get back to Earth."

He'd never seen this many up close before. It took time to remember speech.

"They all hate singing. Don't they."

"Yes," Manami chirped, quick and - that always meant they were annoyed. "As you're all taught in basic training! Singers are handpicked and trained from around the world to disorient and, in some cases, even damage the neural plate of enemies."

His eyes were drying out.

"Hey." Teshima uselessly flicked a screen. "Have you seen many people singing."

"I have many broadcasts in my databanks."

He glanced up, around, shaky grin wide and sarcastic. "Come on, you know what I mean."

"People do not typically sing from mechs. They are held in otherwise undisclosed colonies or larger warships, and -"

"So give me one of your less typical cases."

"The previous pilot sang in-suit. They were formally trained as a singer, but preferred front lines. And proved themself for it." Manami fell into an uncustomary silence. "It's been a long time. But you might know of them."

"Yeah," he whispered. "Unfortunately."

The same unreachable titans of the past, and their coffins.

"For this unit, however, that was the only one. They were the only previous pilot, after all."

Air stuck to his throat like the closest thing left to dew, unfamiliar when he opened his mouth. "Does it matter who sings."

"You're welcome to sing if it makes you feel better, Teshima-san."

"That's not what I asked," he spat - and collected himself. He didn't want to be that way. "If you turn on the broadcast. Does it matter who does the singing."

"There is some particular training." The quiet processing in their silence, he waited. They knew well enough to be frank. "Singers undergo specialized conditions to familiarize themselves with the different consistency between Earth's atmosphere and that within constructed habitats." Listing off every required response, it hardly sounded like them, till Manami said, "Usually."

"Sounds good." He pulled at the buttons along his collar, rubbing his throat. It had been a while. Too long.

"No other questions?"

It would never be so simple. If it had been, maybe he wouldn't have needed to be here. "Was it difficult?"

A click.

A mockery of tapes flipping over, as though there was anything that made them up but code and static.

"No clue," Manami said. "They're dead now, aren't they?"

Words to make him fall back, or just honest - Teshima took a fiery breath to regret. "Fine. Did it work well enough?"

"Usually."

He swiped through commands and options, on screen and in mind, but he couldn't hold any other plan in his head. It was foolish. Risky enough for death, if he wasn't already about to knock. But there was nothing he'd ever wanted to do more.

In the last moments he gave himself, he made a worse decision. "So, you go by Manami because of them?"

"Manami is a common given and family name in Japanese society."

"Manami Sangaku," he pronounced, point for point. "Famous idol-turned-pilot. Died young, but not before completing fifty successful missions." He'd gone long enough, smart enough, to avoid bringing it up. But here was a ghost, and he couldn't help but acknowledge that much. "They must have made an impression."

"You're saying I'm nothing more than the imprint of a human."

He couldn't swallow anymore, not even in the rising dread he felt. "It makes sense." Every piece of information he'd shoved aside in single-minded drive to be here. "Administration wouldn't just wipe the AI of a suit this famous, but they can't very well let you out for every impressionable pilot who might wander your way." All the good reason they'd been shut away in dust for fifty years. All the terrible reason he could shove a foot in the door.

"I see." Short.

"Come on, Manami." Worse himself, standing here, on the steps to his own grave. He'd never be so remembered. It was stupid to want. "Don't you think it's a bit weird?"

"Believe what you want." The volume could have made his bones crack, inner ear out. It didn't. Fans whirred, not their typical fake tapes and sound board. They were quiet as they said, "But I'm not the shadow of someone else's death."

If it was anyone else, Teshima might have given an awkward apology - here, though. He grit his teeth. Nodded resolutely.

Cameras could pick up a lot of things.

For something that amounted to a voice in a suit, they tended to pick up on more than he liked. Maybe here. Just what he needed.

"It's difficult to issue commands while your mouth is full of words otherwise." Manami rattled off facts he knew by heart, never acknowledging - there was already too much. "That is why commanders tend to keep their singers far from the relative eye of battle. I'd recommend at least three more hands to deal with that, but I don't think you could grow that many in so short a time." But there was a fondness in - "I realize you humans are fond of that ability, but it's good not to rely on it too much."

"That's fine," Teshima said. "I'll let you handle that."

Nothing responded.

"Oh. Right." He laughed, wishing for more than just screens and placid voice to read. "Activate autopilot."

The same whirr. "This goes against regulations." Tickertape back and forth again gently echoing in the chamber. "Without due admission from superior or other administrator, an investigation will be launched for a potential court marshal. Any tech or vehicle otherwise will be confiscated and -"

"Can you not do it?" he interrupted, loud as he could - reminding him just how raw his throat felt. Whether it was trust or respect or fear that fueled him, he kept running his mouth like it was guaranteed to work out. "Or are you scared? All those rules that might get you warehoused again?"

The screen ahead turned azure blue, adorned with a single symbol.

:)

Metal shrieked into life. The smile flickered away, to rusted scorpions already shaking themselves free. It was impossible not to notice - just how little time he had left.

"So," drove him further from his own body. "What would you like to sing?"

He stared down at his hands. He couldn't remember how long he'd been piloting. How long ago he'd compromised and lied just for the chance of his own mech. How long it had been sitting in silent storage without a care in the world. Because of - being blind to the bodies he had personally dug up, in all of his own sick desperation to get close to an unattainable dream.

And in its broken way, he had it in his hands, rather than as another self-indulgent dream.

It didn't feel as good as it had in his head.

"I could recommend you something! I have songs in dozens of languages, with the original singer and without, several covers, tempo changes, plenty of wonderful fun options. Would you like something from Hirai Ken? I believe you tried to download one of his albums onto here at one point. Or should we -"

"Shut up." Pressed to his face, he could smell how burnt his gloves were, soot grinding into his skin. "I'm trying to think."

"Don't take too long," hummed around in return.

Teshima held his hands over his mouth. Too many things to process. Too many songs he'd always dreamed of singing. And them. His lips stuck like velcro, faint iron mixing on the air.

"You keep saying you've got something for me."

"Hm?"

He took a breath. Regret already pouring alongside, he tried to pitch his voice from rough crackle. "Something you call love, but confess." Lights flickered back to a gentler yellow. It responded, if not the way he'd seen in broadcasts. But he could skip and skim - it was just about the right range, the right volume, the right distance. Even if he could never have been handpicked, with a suit and such disquieting closeness, even he could make a mark. "And you keep lying where you oughta be truthing," came out with a better force, and the edge of a grin.

"That's not how the song goes," they hummed back.

But it was starting.

"And you keep losing when you oughta not bet!" Seventy minutes. How far they could get - he wouldn't think about it, shells warping on screen like Fabergé eggs made of iron weave. Manami was better at piloting than him. "You keep samin' when you oughta be changing, now what's right is right-"

And they finally started playing the song, moments late and enough to make him want to slam hands through the dash.

"But you ain't been right yet!"

Years of sickness and failure and he shouldn't have been here, and he wasn't right, but neither were they. And it made him smile, stupid and wide and genuine, too wide to see through burning eyes anymore.

"Don't stop just yet," Manami hummed back, useless against anything, only in his own ears. "If you're having so much fun."

He grabbed a useless microphone, taped above with a starry old packet drawn about it, the same thing he'd feigned jamming along through months of training and waiting.

"You keep playing where you shouldn't be playing!" There wasn't room to point or move, but he did the best he could, flashing screens and buttons the best stagelights he could ask for. He could feel them all lighting up his cheeks, flashing along skin in endless electric energy. "And you keep thinking that you'll never get burned!"

A quiet laugh in his ears, and it made him spit out, "Hah!" Covering his mouth in the next moment, over someone who was there and not there at all.

"I just found me a brand new box of matches, and what he knows?! You haven't had a chance to learn!" How far or how many they'd handled, where he'd even end up, he didn't care for once.

For one goddamn shining moment, Teshima felt like he'd won - and deserved the victory.

"These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do!"

"Flying," Manami said, and he should have ignored them.

But - "One of these days I'm just gonna fly right over you."

Teshima dropped the mike.

Or his body.

Or his mind, maybe, as his vision cut out into nothing.

It was alright. Just a nap. But he could almost hear -

"That was pretty cool." But not really. "Teshima-san."

---

The videos were everywhere.

It was a miracle he wasn't in jail - more of one that Manami hadn't been completely decommissioned. What was going to come, though, he couldn't say.

Other than more fanmail. The hospital had actively removed every care basket and letter for warehouse storage until he was discharged and out of their hair.

"Did you need to broadcast the entire thing?" Teshima would be able to hear his hammy rendition of a song he could hardly sing even if Manami hadn't been playing it in his ears any time he brought up a line as a joke.

"You asked me to," they said. The video had been worse. Cheerful jokes about Space's Got Talent wouldn't stop haunting him. "And it'd be a waste if I hadn't, don't you think?"

But he couldn't get enough of it. Maybe he was the worse one here. Behind an arm slung over his face, he was still grinning.

He didn't say anything. There weren't any cameras for them to observe through. But -

Manami said, "I figured as much."

Short - petulant - a little annoyed. And distantly, terribly fond.