Bonus Round 3: FSTs

[referees]

Bonus Round 3: FSTs

This round is CLOSED. Late fills can be posted, but they won't receive points.


We're halfway through all the bonus rounds now. If you're like us, every love song on the radio seems to apply to your OTP. In this round we'd like you to serenade us with some of your top picks!

This round ends at 7PM on July 11 EDT. Countdown Timer.

RULES

• Submit prompts in the form of a short playlist (3-6 songs) and a ship from any of our nominated fandoms. Submit only the track listing and a link to where they can be listened to; the idea is for others to interpret what you present. You may also link to lyrics if you would like.
• 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., Riko & Momoi & Alex). Non-platonic relationships use "/" (e.g., Riko/Momoi/Alex). Please don't say "Any pairing," either.
• Create content based on the playlists of others! Fill prompts by leaving a responding comment to the prompt with your newly-created work.
• Fills may be in any form you choose (except for another FST of course) as long as they are inspired by/fit the mood of the soundtrack they are filling for.
• Remember to follow the general bonus round rules, outlined here.
• You cannot fill your teammates' prompts or your own prompts.

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. 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: Post written/text fills directly to the round with clear tags. Please link to art/visual fills. You can include a small safe-for-work preview if you'd like. To place an image in your comment, use this code: <img src="LINK TO 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: Post written/text fills directly to the round with clear tags. Please link to art/visual fills. You can include a small safe-for-work preview if you'd like. 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

Part 3/3

[elucidatedlucy]

That made them take pause. Teshima couldn't raise their eyes as they said, "You've had this since the week we met." Since before their first mission.

"Oh? Yeah." It stopped, at that glib response. It wasn't enough for them, and they held their silence, digging their knuckles into the earth, imagining it was its face instead, until Manami finally got the hint. "I guess I've been forgetting to give it to you for a while now."

"Everyone says ... they used to say you were an unlucky omen, even with all your talent. Like bad luck thirteen. I knew that when I got paired up with you."

"People said that? Wooow." It smiled wide and bright, miserable to look at. "Just because my partners can never keep up with me? That's a little mean."

They wouldn't have been surprised if Manami itself had been a part of spreading those rumors in the first place. "Because they all either end up dead or discharged, from mystery administration interference." Teshima should have realized sooner. Months ago. "But no one's died with you in two years. There was just been a string of people, in and out, before us."

"Well ... I suppose the higher-ups just caught on." It held its smile just as wide, but it was shaking, now. Sharp, wide eyes, and they couldn't look at it. "Though ... casualties aren't just about death." It started counting off on its fingers. "Lead negotiator, Miki Kanzaki, only has one kidney. Assistant captain of the academy, Yukinari Kuroda, is missing part of his leg up to the knee. Current company representative Miyahara, has had an arm amputated."

It went on, rattling off names that Teshima knew by heart, listing injuries, damages, trauma, until they jolted off the ground, until their hands landed hard on its shoulders. It fell back against its motorcycle, precariously keeping their balance, even as the machine fell, uncomfortably loud in the night.

"I don't care." They couldn't even yell, throat too burned from liquor and bile. "What's the point of throwing off a dozen names of people who managed to make a place for themselves somewhere else?"

"Because they were on the same team as me." Manami's voice was a breeze. "Volunteers who joined because they believed so much in exploration. Because space was the perfect place to make their name. Because," and it said it like it was the worst joke in the world, "She was worried about me." It never cried in front of them - but every line in its face looked carved, uncannily perfect. "But all that's classified information. I'm pretty sure they say something about that in the form we all signed back when we join the suicide crew!" It rolled its eyes. "As Arakita used to like to call it. But most of them weren't actually on it for that reason ... the first few, I thought, maybe they were like me!" It turned its head down, snickering near silent. "They weren't."

Teshima knew what they had gotten into back then, but they still remembered - the way Manami had played them off, the way it had let them almost walk straight into a swamp, the fact that they only made it off that first planet uninjured was because of luck and guts and - the fact that Manami had made a mistake, itself.

"But I was." They were grinning, to spite themself, disbelieving and angry.

"It was kind of tempting," and it raised its head. "I wanted to see how it ended." It looked them straight in the eye. "So I figured my first gift should probably be the last one."

"And if I refuse it?"

It patted their hands, mocking. "Giving and accepting don't have to be the same thing." And pushed them back, daintily. "No worries. I had to learn that the hard way, too."

Teshima dropped to the ground, still regretting every mistake they'd made that night, but this was a chance to cling to. "Sorry, but I've already got plans." The forms were already half-ripped. But if Manami had them all this time, they weren't processed, and they never would be, now. "I was trying to find the time to break it to you tonight." They held every piece in their fists as they tore it into smaller and smaller strips, not a single whisper of complaint from their supposed rival, until Teshima dragged themself back up and threw the mess into the air as confetti. "I'm going AWOL!"

Paper clung to their skin, to its hair, settling and blowing away. Almost nothing was left to judge them, at this single spot. Nothing but the stars in the sky and - Manami wasn't smiling anymore.

That was all they needed. "I can't leave with anyone else." There was no one else they would ever willingly endanger like this - no one else who had everything to lose.

"I'm not turning back, Teshima." It was always polite, even when it looked at them as the most unforgivable person in the world.

But they knew it would say that. "I'm not asking you to do anything you aren't already doing."

"I need this." A tone laced with finality, it turned to pick up its motorcycle.

They grabbed its wrist, wrenching it back up, until its face contorted in not pain, but disgust. "Need something else then!" It would have been easier if pain could ever convince Manami of anything, a thousand times over, easier to keep themself alive, easier to keep it from getting them both killed.

It hung as though it wanted its arm to rip out of the socket, rather than have to accept and step forward. "You're telling me I need to throw away everything."

"No," and for a moment, they tried to pull it to stand straight, only ending up with an elbow in the ribs for their attempt. Teshima had to cough out the words. "I'm telling you that you shouldn't throw away your life."

"This is my life!" That made it step upright, slapping a hand over theirs at its own wrist. "If you've got enough of a reason that you don't need this anymore, then leave. But I don't know why you tried if you're just going to destroy your entire reputation. A year of work! And everything that led up to that happening at all! You could die a hero. You could retire a legend." It was yelling in their face, looking without seeing them or anything around it. "You almost have it! Everything ... no one would turn away from options like that. You're throwing away everything that would give it meaning!"

"But no one should have to suffer for it." Teshima wanted, for so long, to make their name synonymous with the stars. "I shouldn't have to." But no matter how many missions they completed, none of them had ever been enough. "It's bullshit that anyone should die for this anymore. Even you."

Manami was quiet, at that. "It would be a waste. ...To not go to the end of the line."

"I don't think so." They believed in people, and miracles, but a miracle didn't necessarily give them the object of their desires. It was a miracle that they met Aoyagi, even after almost quitting the program, even though they couldn't save their placement. "It's not a waste to leave if it means surviving." It was a miracle that they met the instructors they did, even if they never succeeded in the right way. "It's not a waste if I leave like this, because of everyone I met here." And it was a miracle that there was any place for someone as mediocre as them to take - even if it was on the suicide squad. "And you."

They wanted to believe there was some line where people caught between that line of miracles and failure could survive - just as much as the point where hard work could trump nature - where cannon fodder could become real people.

It dropped its hand, and Teshima could see the inflamed marks where Manami had dug its nails into their arm. "That survival isn't guaranteed." It fell into what seemed the most like itself - a dead, calculated voice. It felt, sometimes, like if it could be this way all the time, that they would never have been able to keep up. But it was made of as many cracks in talent and ability as they lacked. "No matter what. People are going to die. The program was made for the sake of testing these things, and if one of us doesn't go out there, someone else will."

Someone else would take it from both of them and - Teshima had agreed, once upon a time, with the unspoken phrase between them - they would have died to make sure that wouldn't happen.

"But if we just stopped straight up. If the two heroes threw up their hands, do you think the foundation could continue their funding for it?" Teshima had talked it over with Kinjou too many times at this point - about the fragility of it, fought to stay on when it might not have been needed, made so many choices that they should have always regretted in the first place - and there were so many opportunities. As many as there were stars. If they stayed alive - and the thought of forcing Manami to survive too made that want burn all the more in their chest.

"Where do you expect to go?" Anyone else would have thought it was a different person entirely, from how it stared at them. "No matter what we do, we both know how this ends. We've always known. The ride is fun, but if you run like this, you'll die anyway. We couldn't stay in this country if we did. We signed away the right to our lives, for this!" It pulled at their arm as though it intended to rip it off. "No one can save you, now."

No matter how much the only people on their side had begged them not to. However, the voices of a world combined into inescapable deceit and crushing expectations. It was so much louder than a handful of loved ones, no matter how insistent and sincere they were.

Earth was so much louder than space. Maybe that was why floating through it, with only one other voice of - complaint, intent, competition, self-interest - left such an impression.

"No one else ever could have saved us." Teshima spat out the words and pulled away - and pulled it along, until it fell forward elbow first, slamming into their chest. Just as quickly, it pulled back into a fist, just for the bottom of their jaw. They didn't fall and it went again, this time hard enough at their cheek to knock them to the side, hard enough to knock them off their feet, hard enough to make it trip along with them.

Manami skidded farther away over the rocks, maybe from its own momentum, but it was overhead before they were able to tell more than the different between earth and sky. It slammed its hands over their shoulders, upside down where it hovered. "Then why did you bother!?" It never cursed - it never stopped its polite intonations, but in a single phrase, when it actually screamed as more than manic glee, it could sound as though there were a thousand angry insults, just for them.

They had been wondering, for a long time - why they bothered.

"Because you did." That wasn't quite right - but it made it freeze - even if it ground its teeth audibly, crushing their shoulders, it gave Teshima enough time to breathe. "I should say, because I met you, I wanted to survive out of spite." They knew so many people they loved, who saved them in so many ways, and those weren't any less - but this was something they'd never imagined could have happened. "I'd never wanted to survive for myself before then. Only for the sake of other people."

It drew away. "That's pathetic." But Manami didn't say it didn't count.

When the sun was about to rise, the sky took a purple tinge that was probably one of their favorite colors in the world. Teshima didn't sit up as they asked, "You asked me something once, when we were on a mission. ...I tried to answer, but you just fucking ran off, as you do."

When they paused to give a wry laugh, it interrupted.

"I remember." It threw a pebble at their head. "All this trouble ... back then ... here too, if you want to answer. Was it worth it?"

Back then - they hadn't been sure. Listening to Manami ramble incoherently about pain being what made it all worth it, because it made it feel alive, they had been mortified at first. Yet given moments, given how every step they took was laced with the fear of death, when every wrong move a reminder of their own weakness, there was something. It made the want to survive burn brighter, even when they were on the verge of breaking from injury and weariness. As long as they could feel anything at all, as they ran from encroaching danger, chasing after the only other person present in millions of kilometers, they were alive, as terrible a way to live as it was.

In that way, they could understand Manami.

And in many others, as many as they would play off as nothing but their own inferiority.

"Yeah. It's worth it." They weren't going into space again, but the thought was only a little sad. They did like the ones on Earth, better. And in other ways, it felt better to be a shooting star - choosing where they landed, rather than having one sole place until they burned into nothingness. "No matter how long it takes for it to go down in flames."

They could hear it kick around dirt as it stood and walked back to its bike. "I might change my mind tomorrow. Or the week after that."

"I wouldn't expect anything else out of you." Teshima brushed the dirt off their jacket, wincing at their bruises as they stood. "That's a lot better than ... never changing your mind again."

Its helmet spun around in its hands, sparkling with the first rays of dawn. "So, you're just throwing away everything you have here, too?" With a smirk, it said, "I just have to make sure your hypocrisy won't hold us back."

"Don't worry, I've had this handled for quite a while now." They shoved their hands into their pockets, just to flair one out the moment after, making Manami roll their eyes. "Aoyagi's not our best Communications officer for no reason, you know!"

"You would be able to pull together some contrived plan like that," it muttered, distaste clear in its slouching glare.

"Don't worry. I'm sure I'll be able to find some harrowing adventure that a horror like you would enjoy to make up for it!"

They raised an eyebrow as they attempted to grin, though it came out more as a grimace with how their face was beginning to swell. Manami gave a thin weary smile in return, asking, "Where do you plan to go, then?"

"South? I was thinking south." Though they walked with a jovial limp, over to it, they stopped as the wind picked up. It blew away the last pieces of torn up contract, getting dust in both their eyes, but - quietly, they said, "We might just make it." Teshima looked back up to the sky. The stars dimmed, as dawn light began to spread. But they weren't disappearing - they were still there. Always there, even when they had to hide away. "You know, if you bothered to try, after all," they made sure to add, loud and arrogant.

It shoved its helmet over their head, backwards to cover up their smirk. "Just get on."