SASO Referees (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
referees) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sportsanime2015-06-13 07:58 pm
referees) wrote in sportsanime2015-06-13 07:58 pm
Entry tags:
Bonus Round 2: AUs
Bonus Round 2: AUs
SASO 2015 is over, but this round is perpetually open to new fills (no new prompts).
This round is made for exploration of all those "what-if?" scenarios, like "what if my favorite sports anime was actually a spaghetti western?" or "what if everything was the same except everyone was actually a car?"
This round ends at 7PM on June 27 EDT. Countdown Timer.
RULES
- Submit prompts by commenting to this post with an alternate universe idea, along with a ship from one of our nominated fandoms.
- An AU could be a canon divergence, e.g. "what if [team] didn't win the Inter High in season 1, but [other team] did instead?", or a completely different setting altogether, e.g.s pop idol AU, coffee shop AU, superheroes AU, etc.
- Fill prompts by leaving a responding comment to the 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)
Format your comment in one of the following ways:
| If PROMPTING: | If FILLING: | If FILLING as a TEAM GRANDSTAND participant: |
PROMPT: TEAM [YOUR SHIP]
|
FILL: TEAM [YOUR SHIP], [RATING]
|
FILL: TEAM GRANDSTAND, [RATING]
|
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!
(2.2) fill - swag - tags: minor violence, mention of death, minor suicide ideation, trans characters
While your moirail Teshima may say that these charts are mostly unnecessary and that your gut is by far the most important part of relationships, you still find them very comforting! It also may be possible that Teshima is, as Naruko often says, a bit "full of shit," considering his own inexplicable timeline relationships mess. You yourself aren't fond of such crude language, but you do have to admit that for how blunt a statement it is, it is kind of true. But that's okay! He still listens to you when you explain these matters.
Aoyagi has one of the more straight-forward webs, you've noticed, but things are still a little bit strange - considering she has two threads with Hakone, it's only natural, but you've observed that business with Doubashi is really wild! After a particular current split that you still haven't determined the true cause of, it seems they flipped from a light pitch to an edge towards flushed in a nearby time-steam?
Teshima seemed more preoccupied with the whole thing about strange stable time-split, but honestly, there are so many important things here, like how that changes that variation of Izumida's relationship with both of them. You don't have any clear analysis on Izumida's relationship with Tadokoro in any timeline either, so that adds more to your workload here, and Aoyagi is more than reticent about all these matters! Not to mention the issue of just what Teshima's doing in any given time-line. You do get really worried sometimes, he doesn't always tell you very much, and he always seems worried about a dozen different things, and -
> Current Teshima: Let's get back to business and out of shipping hell
You hate time travel.
Doubashi has been bouncing you around like a basketball for fifteen loops of five minutes and you can't get it through to vaguely-past Teshima that he needs to stop doing what he's doing so that you can manage to get out of her grasp.
If it wasn't for that person, you're reasonably sure your #1 kismesis would be past Teshima. It's just like them to ruin things like this between you and yourself.
"Hey!" you say, immediately cracking your jaw into the ground again. "Hey!" you say again, in the foolish belief that the same thing will not happen again. It does.
Surely this won't happen if you try it again.
> Future Teshima: Please save us from yourself
Thankfully, future Teshima has the skills to not be in the present, due to having already entered the future. Future Teshima proceeds to overwrite present Teshima with his own existence.
You walk up to Doubashi, who is relatively unruffled by the disappearance of present-past Teshima, and more irritated by you brushing past her to pick up what is now your hat.
"Hello," you say, having learned the lesson of the fallen. "Hi. Yeah. So." Unfortunately, it seems there is much you still have not learned, as you have no idea what to say.
She frowns at you heavily enough to double the weight of gravity - the fire escape under both your feet collapses. While you scramble up from the wreckage, Doubashi continues to glare down at you. You feel it might not be particularly simple to threaten someone who is easily triple your size (and growing by the moment) into telling you the location of anything.
> The New And Improved Present Teshima: Inform her you are seeking out her peer for the sake of murder
You do a stat check.
Stats
Punctuality: 5/10
Self-preservation: 2/10
Pride: 10/10
Spite: 8/10
Unfortunately, your pride prevents you from doing this. She looms closer, now fifteen times your size.
> Currently erased Old Present Teshima: Save the day
From above, you faintly hear a familiar, "Hey!"
All things figured, you have about forty seconds - you take your time, sweating in her shadow as her head bumps against a ghost, and duck out of the way.
The non-existent fire escape loops back into existence alongside past Teshima's foolish time travel shenanigans, and the entire thing falls as it had before - this time, onto the problem of current events. Doubashi doesn't fall underneath it. Rather, the metal rips around her and lands like a necklace. After considering it for a moment, she pinches her brow.
"I don't have time for this."
Joy. Your high pride stat has saved you from a potentially more heroic ending to events. You brush yourself off and realize you still have no idea what you're trying to do.
> Teshima: Just follow Doubashi, just, do something
Your pride continues to prevent you from doing this.
> Teshima: Check the time
You open up your phone.
...
Oh god damn it.
> Teshima: Enter the bar
The seconds tick down as you run out of the alley way, and to the one still-standing building on the street. During most of the infinite night you live in, it amounts to empty ruins. But maybe what you've been looking for isn't a place, but a time...
Lights flash on in the windows.
Bulbs burst into life around the doorframe.
Music slinks through every crack and you walk up the stairs with your gun in hand. As is protocol. It's your ticket and you have someone to meet.
You stroll up the stairs, mist playing with your vision as the building shimmers around you. The patrons might be real, or they may be there for the mere illusion of business - Hakone doesn't particularly care, as long as every bar they have is known as a popular hub of business and villainy.
There doesn't seem to be anyone left to stop you on the way up. You find the room you're looking for through a trail of blood and friendly smilies glittering on the wall. Terrible.
> Teshima: What was the time, again?
"It's a good night to be four in the morning, don't you think?"
They steal your line. You're not sure what you expected.
"I'm mostly thinking about how out of style that dress is," you answer, spinning the gun on your finger. It's definitely unsafe. You're quite sure they appreciate the thought.
Manami covers their mouth with a slight gasp. "Surely you understand what it takes to be fashionably late, Teshima-san. ... or maybe not, looking at you."
"I would have gotten here sooner if you were any better at giving directions."
You spin your gun overhead, catch it in the next moment. You've practiced. You've done this a dozen times over, and a dozen more, and a dozen's dozen more of dead selves who tried and failed. It's a chance to take because one day, it'll succeed. They lean back against the counter as you train the sights on them, no more response than the bemused tilt of their head. Your teeth grind together. It would be so nice if this worked - target right over their wretched heart, coat the counter in royal blue, see if they'd actually be surprised at the hole through their chest.
Teshima: Shoot
The gun fits in your hand like it had never been meant to be held by anyone else. Your hand never shakes when you do this. The only time. Just another thing about the two of you. In every moment leading up to this, you're running through a thousand lines to spit out, puns and wordplay to make their face curl in disgust as they bleed out. Whenever you get here, your mind's blank - or maybe that's a sign because - today, as almost every time you'll do this - the gun clicks empty.
The two of you hold the silence before you let your arm drop. The only person more disappointed than you is Manami. They gesture to the empty bar behind them, voice like static in your ears.
"If you're famished, you should have a drink."
Most of what stands behind them seems to be a mixture of bubbling acids, smoking hell-water, and what is probably just rubbing alcohol poured into pretty bottles. Since tonight didn't work out, given good decisions, you'd leave and try again some other time, rather than continuing to fool around here.
"Sure," you say. "Where's the bartender."
They smile at you.
> Teshima: Climb behind the counter and pour you and your kismesis a glass of fresh fire
"It's so hard to get anyone up here," Manami says with an over-acted sigh. "I always have to do everything myself."
When you manage to stand up on the other side of the counter after smashing your face into the ground, you say, "Most people don't like being around someone who thinks the universe revolves around them."
"Right?" They twirl their boa around a finger as you slam glasses on the counter, breaking open a variety of liquids that begin to eat through the wood. The two of you move down a few seats and ignore the fire. "It's like if someone's death means the end of everything, all of a sudden, no one has any time for a small game with them."
The bottle burns your palm as flames leap into the glass, blue and yellow hissing at each other. "Lucky we've got such a good thing going."
You slide the metal claw you have for a hand over theirs and pat it in mocking support, leaving lovely blue streaks of blood over their skin. They stab a knife through your wrist and take a glass.
"Did you have a nice time getting here?"
"I had a bit of a run-in with a friend of yours." You cough, smoke curling out of your mouth and into your eyes from the first sip of fire. It does distract you from the electric sparks beginning to catch along your suit jacket. You'll have to get the arm repaired, again. Or you could just take a working arm from some other continuity's Teshima. "I think she might of killed some version of me."
"Oh! Basshi-kun was patrolling tonight." Manami takes a cheery sip of their own drink, not a hint of response on their face as smoke pours out their ears. "She always says it's too annoying being on shift with me. The night just goes on forever, and ever!"
"Whose fault is that," you spit out as your eyes begin to boil in your skull.
"I wonder," they say.
There's not much point to a question you both know the answer to.
You think it's a little unfair that the fault has to be shared between you.
> Teshima: Take care of that problem, then
Manami is dressed out, on their own ground, more than prepared for anything you could do.
There are a dozen ways for this to end and you don't like it. You already know after that blank. This moment, right here, isn't the one you've been looking for.
"There are a lot of universes out there," Manami says, swirling their glass. "Even if this one ends, there'll always be another ..." Their eyes close.
Because there's only one way the curtains will fall on this show. You know yourself too well - past, present, future. One day, you'll find that perfect moment, where the two of you are dressed for a showdown - one-sided and decided from the start. You don't particularly enjoy that fact. But your pride prevents you from not shooting them - just as much as your spite holds you back from doing so right now.
Not going through to the end, not doing what needs to be done. Neither of you are the kinds of people to back down. When you've got a universe in your hands, it's hard not to be aware of that. But there are other things - other mysteries.
"So, what. You'll be around as the source of another universe to torment me?" You throw back the entire glass at once. Your esophagus melts alongside it down into your stomach, to kick around there with the same stabbing fear and confusion and curiosity. If everything in this universe will fall out of your hands, even if some other you has it, would you still have all the bad? All the good?
"You think you'd be so special as to be the one to end every universe?" Manami snickers. "Probably not." You pretend not to hear them murmur, "I hope not."
You slam the empty glass into the counter - it breaks in your hand, managing to cut through your palm. "No worries, Manami." You're not sure what you're doing, most of the time. Maybe the point of this is simply always finding new mistakes to make and jumping all in. If it's you, then it's easy to mess up and fail, over and over again. If it's you, maybe those mistakes could lead to even a bit of similar good. You tell them, "Even if you aren't the sum of a universe, I'll never let you off the hook."
You're too kind.
They know it.
A genuine smile is blocked by their hat as they lean down and rip the knife out of your arm. "Get out of my bar."
> Manami: Give a nice parting gift
"What the hell is this," he says.
"It's a gift, since you didn't cause my bar much property damage." You spin the brim of your hat around. "You don't recognize it? How sad! It only takes a couple of years for you to forget something that was so close to you ..."
Teshima taps a foot - huffs out a laugh - slams his hat against his robotic hand. "You had my arm stuffed."
"I thought you might want it back," you say. It's hard to talk when you're grinning so wide. "Taxidermy is apparently a popular way of saving what's important to you."
He goes on staring for a moment longer before picking it up. "Yeah. Thanks." He bounces it against his shoulder. "I appreciate the hand. Maybe I'll pay you back one day. I've always been looking for a good head to put on my mantle."
"Always dream big, Teshima-san." You wave as bouncers grab him and drag him out and down the stairs.
It'd be nice, you think.
Better than being this, anyway.