Bonus Round 7: Recs

[referees]

You've created so much during this event, so here's a round to celebrate each other's achievements!

This round is CLOSED as of 7PM on August 24 EDT. Late fills may be posted, but they will not receive points.

RULES

• Recommend at least three fanworks from main or bonus rounds. Your recommendations don’t have to be connected in any way, and you do not need permission to recommend a work.
• Don't rec your own work. You can recommend things created by your own team, but please spread the love to other teams too.
• Each recommendation must include at least two sentences explaining why that fanwork is awesome. Please use the format specified below.
• You may recommend as many works as you like, as long as they are posted separately in groups of at least three.
• There will be no prompts for this round. Simply post each fill/recommendation list as a comment in response to this post.
• 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.

Format your comment in the following way:

If FILLING (all teams):

FILL: TEAM [YOUR SHIP] Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team you belong to Write it exactly as it appears on the team roster (without brackets) or your team will not receive points Copy and paste the following form into a comment and fill it out. Delete things in brackets, and leave the HTML alone. <b>Title:</b> <b>URL:</b> <b>Creator(s):</b> <b>Rating:</b> <b>Major Tags:</b> <b>Why is this work awesome?:</b> -- <b>Title:</b> <b>URL:</b> <b>Creator(s):</b> <b>Rating:</b> <b>Major Tags:</b> <b>Why is this work awesome?:</b> -- <b>Title:</b> <b>URL:</b> <b>Creator(s):</b> <b>Rating:</b> <b>Major Tags:</b> <b>Why is this work awesome?:</b> [you can copy-and-paste this format to include more recs in your comment if you'd like.]

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 fills as you want!

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

[elucidatedlucy]

I love Ballroom e Youkoso. Desperately so. So here are a few recs. There weren't a ton of fills for it, but I'm dearly fond of all there were (babster had several in particular and I would happily pose toward /all/ of them, but I held myself to reccing my favorite of the bunch in particular).

Title: Chinatsu/Mako (if this love's been done then what's your rush)
URL: http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/15224.html?thread=6999160&posted=1#cmt7140472
Creator(s): luckycricket33
Rating: T
Major tags: Plant horror
Why is this work awesome?: So, uh. When I first saw this, I saw it on twitter, and didn't know it was Ballroom. I thought it was from something Sarah had read/watched otherwise, because she knows a lot of series! A very wide pool to dip one's toes into, and I nearly asked, "What series are they from?" Because seeing this picture alone made me want to read whatever it is.

Then I logged onto Dreamwidth and saw the new notification in my inbox and flipped my lid.

Chinatsu and Mako don't interact much, but they interact in the kind of way that Chinatsu desperately needs - respect and gentleness and honesty mixed into one. Mako is everything she wishes she could be, and everything she hates, and yet - the girl is in a terrible position herself. It's a quiet and agonizing scene that the two of them share in the series, so I was particularly interested in seeing the two of them more. And this piece is so beautiful and so far out of anything I'd even considered or imagined. Utilizing the imagery of roses and thorns, harkening to much of my favorite allegory, it is a simple but desperately beautiful illustration. The lineless fauna wrapping itself around Chinatsu, as she wraps herself closer to Mako, and Mako's calm smile and atmosphere - everything about it is like my favorite kind of ANYTHING, I love this piece so much I immediately had to remix it for the remix round, and I still can't stop thinking about it.


Title: Chinatsu/Akira (we can never go back again)
URL: http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/15224.html?thread=7136376#cmt7136376
Creator(s): winterstuck
Rating: G
Major Tags: None
Why is this work awesome?: Chinatsu and Akira have a dynamic history - one deeply fraught and intense, regardless of the fallout that is still going on. Ballroom shines its brightest when focusing on its girls, and chances to explore that more are all I could hope for. Within that, getting a fill for my YKA prompt I made for the two of them was a wonderful surprise. A mix of pencil sketch with the starry background, the tone provided by posture & expression & distance, and the separation of Akira from Chinatsu, down to how bright white light shines upon her as she walks away from the mirror. It's a beautiful illustration that I've returned to multiple times since first seeing it.

Having Akira stand there, not even facing the divide that Chinatsu determinedly walks away from, is one of the most striking aspects of the piece (that matched with Chinatsu's expression, the detail in her growing hair), as well as the individual boxes of their expressions being another expression of the rift shown as the literal and metaphorical wall. I love how messy and difficult their relationship is, but this is an eloquent and gentle expression of what befell the two of them. It's a gift to a fandom as small as Ballroom's, particularly so for one of my favorite relationships in the manga.

Title: Chinatsu/Akira (twelve dancing princesses)
URL: https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/16113.html?thread=7388657#cmt7388657
Creator(s): babster
Rating: PG
Major Tags: None
Why is this work awesome?: One of my favorite things in fiction is "Love tinged by hate" (thank Princess Tutu for that), and Akira & Chinatsu's relationship is prime material for that. So this piece, ethereal and vivid, is an absolute delight. Starting it, I felt unsure about how it would go - Mako and Chinatsu both disappearing, and Akira's nervous awareness of the matter. The introduction of their relationship given this circumstance, the world they live in, and how it both parallels and differs from the manga itself was very well set-up. There's something I love about how the past and present are intertwined here, particularly with what these moments lead to.

Enchantment, and "breaking as much as an enchanted heart could." Love, and being unable to escape the intensity of that love keeping you here, and how that becomes twisted by its own right. The things that draw people out of these magical worlds and into something more real, something that no sweet liquor could ever hold down, inescapable, and Akira who is so willing to do anything for that one word.

The timelessness provided is perhaps the aspect that sticks most, and the reality of the situation is what leaves me returning to it, and wondering about what remains outside that box of broken shards held together by magic, never allowed to fall apart. I really love it. I love Akira being allowed to be the Viewpoint. I love Akira given the spotlight. And I loved this.