KakaIru Fest!

The art posts for kakairu_fest are up! In fact the whole fest is posted is it's entirety, and there is one more week of voting. (You can also just read without voting if the competition feel is not your fandom space.) Some seriously good stuff here.

Entry Master Post <- click! Read! Look!

Art Posts:

Remember, you'll have nooooo idea which is mine. In fact, it isn't already obvious just from the previews. That's what I like about art - the anonymity.

<-- Post one: "Lost"

Post two: "Good Sport"

Recs:

I enjoyed the hell out of a lot of the stories that got posted, above and beyond my expectations. Honestly, the whole thing is worth checking out if you are a fan of Kakashi or Iruka. That said, my four very favorite stories were:

Bringing Up Kakashi, which is freaking fantastic Asimov-style AU with robots and artifical intelligence.

Sealed. Really liked this story's canon feel. The event that sets off the story has that special kind of bizarrely-real feeling. Kakashi is found at the foot of the Hokage monument, apparently having fallen, but no one knows if he was pushed or jumped -- ninja can't just fall, can they? I loved the details of the house Iruka spends most of the story working on. You pretty quickly figure out the secret of the house, but the details of the world-building and the characters' emotions keep you interested and invested while you're getting there. And 'there' is someplace you really want to be.

Rhythm of the Heart. Strictly Ballroom AU. Really well executed. Loved the descriptions of the dancing and Iruka's experiences being thrown into it. I wish I could create a world this real just from wikipedia research.

Excuses Solve.... Fantastic canon story in which Iruka is working on a civilian graduate degree and doing research on Shinobi survival rates vs. academy time. Loved all the behind the scenes details -- where the data is kept, who's in charge of processing those ubiquitous mission reports, and the implications of truly awful handwriting. Also how Iruka has to do statistics without computers!