Bonus Round 4: Quotes

[sportsfest_mods]

A wise man once said there is no Sportsfest without Quotes round! For the last BR we'll take inspiration from others' words.

This bonus round will be open until Friday, August 16th at 11:59 PT. (Countdown)

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This round is now closed!

However, it is perpetually open to new fills!

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Rules

• Submit prompts by commenting a quote of your choice.
  There is no hard rules regarding the quote's length but please don't put the entire work in a single prompt.
  
  The source may be a book, a speech, song lyrics, a movie line, popular tweets, memes, etc.
  
  It CAN NOT be taken from a private conversation.
  Quotes from other Sportsfest participants or yourself are NOT allowed either as the intentions can be easily misunderstood or create an exclusionary environment through private jokes.
  
  Unlike last year's Quotes round, prompting images is NOT allowed.
  
  Please give credit to the author of the quote whenever possible.
  
  
  Example:
  • "My name, my real name, that is not the point.
    The name I chose is the Doctor."
    ― Matt Smith in Doctor Who
    
  • "I've come back to the land I'd lost"
    ― Joywave, Tongues
    
  • "Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful."
    ― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
• Prompts can be in any language as long as you provide an English translation!
  
• Fill prompts by creating fanworks inspired by the quote.
  
• You cannot fill your teammate's prompts or your own!
  
• You must use the prompt/fill headers below, and you cannot leave any line blank nor delete lines!

Format

Required Work Minimums:

• 400 words (prose)
  
• 400px by 400px (art)
  • Traditional art is also allowed with a good quality photo/scan
• 14 lines (poetry)
  
• Playlists - 5 song minimum with artists. Link to either a video playlist, or each song separately. Be sure to warn for content in the music videos, and you may find linking to lyrics helpful. You may also write an explanation of why you chose each song.
  
• Moodboards - 9 photo min, source all photos, and no fanart allowed (unless it's your own)
  
• If you’d like to use a different medium, please contact the mods if you have any questions about minimum requirements.

There is no max work cap.

Format your comment in one of the following ways:

If Prompting

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Please use the following subject line for prompt:

Prompt: [Your Team]


• Replace [Your Team] with the name of the team you belong to (Grandstand included!). Nicknames or Official Names are both acceptable

Copy/Paste the following into the body of your comment. Delete all instructional text in parentheses.

<strong>Ship/Character:</strong> (You must include at least one specific ship/character.) <strong>Fandom:</strong> (Do not write “Any”) <strong>Major Tags:</strong> <strong>Additional Tags:</strong> <strong>Do Not Wants:</strong> <strong>Prompt:</strong>

NSFW prompts
All explicitly NSFW prompts must be posted in sf_afterhours in the corresponding Bonus Round post. You can find the After Hours BR4 post here.

If Filling

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Please use the following subject line for your fill:

FILL: [Your Team], [Rating]


• Replace [Your Team] with the name of the team you belong to (Grandstand included!). Nicknames and Official Names are both acceptable
  
  
• Replace [Rating] with the rating of your fill (G-E).

Copy/Paste the following into the body of your comment. Delete all instructional text in parentheses.

<strong>Title:</strong> <strong>Ship/Character:</strong> <strong>Additional Characters:</strong> <strong>Fandom:</strong> <strong>Major Tags:</strong> <strong>Other Tags:</strong> <strong>Word Count:</strong> <strong>Remix Permission:</strong> <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dL2xqWSMDtUI-SUUkWzBuLiK_VqmcLtGd15T0jT6vG8/edit?usp=sharing">See Permissions Sheet</a> (Place any author/artist's notes BEFORE the asterisks.) *** (Place your fill here. You can use HTML after the asterisks.)

NSFW Fills
NSFW Fills must be posted in sf_afterhours. If you are filling an NSFW prompt, you may reply to it normally. If you're filling a SFW prompt with an NSFW fill, post your fill as a reply to the "Fills for SFW Prompts" comment, then cross-link it here.

Learn more about posting in After Hours here, and you can find the after hours post for BR4 here.

Scoring

These numbers apply to your team as a whole, not each individual member!

Prompts

• Prompts 1-10: 5 points
  
• Prompts 10+: No points !

Fills

• Fills 1-10: 15 points each
  
• Fills 11-20: 5 points each
  
• Fills 21+: 2 points each

Additional Information

• If you're having trouble finding prompts/fills, Icie's bonus round database is a great tool!
  
• The Bonus Round Guidelines further explain how bonus rounds function along with examples.
  
• We also have an official Ao3 Collection for you to post your fills to!
  
• If you see any prompts/fills improperly tagged, in the wrong community, or otherwise in need of mod attention, please use our mod contact form to let us know! In fact, this form can be used to report many things, anonymously or not!

If you have any further question or concerns, please contact us!

Comments

FILL: Team Nishiura Birbs, T

[onceakoala]

Title: before a battle
Ship/Character: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutaro
Additional Characters: none
Fandom: Haikyuu!!
Major Tags: None
Other Tags: war, discussion of violence, medieval au?, idk i was vague about the setting
Word Count: 844
Remix Permission: See Permissions Sheet sure!

i haven't written much angst, but...i tried.

***


Akaashi looked up at the stars, and as the small campfire crackled cheerfully in front of them, and an owl called from deep in the dark forest around them, Bokuto thought nothing had ever looked more beautiful.

Akaashi sighed.

“Hey, Bo,” he muttered without looking away from the sky, his voice so soft it was almost a whisper.

“Akaashi?” Bokuto squirmed a little bit, brows dropping into a slight frown. He wasn’t used to this tone, he didn’t know what it meant, and it made him nervous.

“What would you do, if we didn’t have to fight tomorrow? If we could just... be somewhere else. What would you be doing?” Akaashi finally turned to look into Bokuto’s eyes, and Bokuto’s heart leapt.

He thought he would do anything if it meant Akaashi would keep looking at him.

“Um. You mean if—if Shiratorizawa didn’t exist?”

“No, I mean if we didn’t have to fight. If you could do anything you wanted,” Akaashi said, his head tilting at an angle as he studied his commander.

Bokuto immediately pictured himself, back before he had an army to command, out training on the grounds of the Royal Estate. He’d been good at fighting from very early, and pretty much always had a weapon of some sort on his hand, and Akaashi had always been at his side. He tried to picture a world that wasn’t on the brink of war, that didn’t need armies training for battle from childhood. It was a struggle.

Silence settled over them as Bokuto tried to imagine a life separate from the fighting. He thought for several minutes, and was still thinking about it when Akaashi interupted the quiet.

“I like flowers,” he said, definitively. Bokuto blinked a few times, trying to remember what they’d been talking about.

“...Flowers?”

“Yeah,” Akaashi says with a soft smile, looking at the trees. “I think the world could use more flowers. I’d like to grow them. All kinds of colors and varieties.”

Bokuto found he could picture it easily—Akaashi with dirt smeared on his clothes, watering and pruning and growing things in a brightly lit shop, with flowers covering every surface in every conceivable color. It was...peaceful.

“So do it!” Bokuto said, standing up, facing his best friend. “After the fighting is over, you can start a shop! You’d be so great at it.” Bokuto grinned, wide and effortless.

Akaashi turned away, his expression falling. “That… would be nice,” he said, without conviction. Bokuto hesitated, frustration building. They were talking about a fun dream, a beautiful goal worth fighting for! Why was it making Akaashi sad?

“Akaaaaashi,” Bokuto said, leaning into his line of vision. “Why don’t you?”

Darkness flickered over his face, just for a moment. “I can’t, Bokuto, you know that.”

“What do you mean? Of course you can,” Bokuto said. “We’re not slaves, we can leave if we want to.”

“You’re the Commander, Bo, you can’t just take off. Hundreds of people would die tomorrow without an experienced soldier to lead them! Maybe thousands! Could you live with yourself if that happened?” Akaashi was shouting at this point, and Bokuto stumbled back a few steps, shocked.

“I—” His throat closed up, and he felt like the shadows were pressing in on him from all sides. Akaashi was angry, and he wanted to leave. And Bokuto couldn’t, Akaashi was right, Bokuto couldn’t just abandon everyone. Not his friends, or the people relying on him. Not today, and not tomorrow, and then the day after there would be a new battle, a new reason, and maybe he’d never—

Bokuto was their leader.

But... Akaashi wasn’t.

“I’m sorry, Bo, I’m just frustrated, and worried about tomorrow,” Akaashi was saying, his hand on Bokuto’s arm. “I didn’t mean to get so upset, none of this is your fault. I know you’d never give up on—”

“You could,” Bokuto says, maybe quieter than Akaashi has ever heard him speak. “You don’t have to fight, if you don’t want to. I would understand.”

Akaashi socked him in the shoulder. “Asshole. I’m not leaving you.”

“But—”

“Shut up, I told you, I’m—scared. I’m not abandoning you to go garden for the rest of the my life because I’m afraid to fight tomorrow, don’t be an idiot.”

Bokuto frowned. “I’m not an idiot. And wanting to leave isn’t stupid. It’s not stupid at all!”

“I didn’t mean—I know. I’m sorry, that was an awful thing to say. I’m still not leaving, and nothing you say can convince me, so don’t bother trying.” Akaashi pressed his shoulder into Bokuto’s side, leaning his weight against him. Bokuto felt just a tiny bit lighter, and the shadows seemed a little less opressive, with Akaashi at his side.

“We just have to win. If we win, then they won’t need us anymore, and we can go grow flowers and not have to fight anymore.”

“Yeah,” Akaashi said with a sigh, resting his head on Bokuto’s shoulder. “Yeah, you’re right. We’ll just have to win.”